"We can walk away from this enemy, but they will not walk away from us,"

That's General Abizaid talking at Harvard. The fact that I still feel the need to make that argument is suggestive either of my paranoia or my accurate sense of the coming betrayal. I dearly hope it's not the latter.

Pelosi says, "Kitchen Girl, Make Me a Dacquiri..."

More She Who Does Not Blink coverage, courtesy of Protein Wisdom.

The Dumping of Bush

Or, "All Breath Returns to the Father..."

Sniff around on some of the righty blogs, and scan the comments, and you'll see the continuing fed-up-ness with W, who, having won the second term that his father was denied, seems bent on having the second term his father would have had, which is to say, a term of rubbery befuddlement and betrayal of those that elected him (here and here are good examples).

All of which means, that if a candidate can be found who promises to fight them on the beaches, in the mountains, wherever the last dregs of them are to be found, who wants to expand the military and train it in Advanced Jihadi Scalp-Taking, then that candidate will be difficult to defeat in '08.

And if he/she delivers, we might even get somewhere. But it will be no thanks to the socialists among us, who are busily making the world safe for fascism.

And The Pelosi-Watch Begins...

A handful of my fellow wingnuts have already laid into She Who Does Not Blink, for beginning her presumptive-Speaker election with a does of Orwellian Obfuscation not seen since "the meaning of 'is'":

"The point is this isn’t a war to win, it’s a situation to solve. And you define ‘winning’ any way you want, but you must solve this problem."

See now, all this time we thought we were fighting a war. We thought that what with the soldiers and the bombs and the death and killing and the hurting that some kind of armed conflict was going on. But that's because we're a bunch of crazy wingnuts who believe anything we're told by a guy who says he likes Jesus. These smart, post-modern, nuanced folks clearly know better: it's just a "situation." There is no "victory" or "defeat," merely a set of phenomena for which a presumably creative "solution" will be sought.

And we can define "winning" any way we want! Isn't that great? No need to worry about whether handing Iraq over to Iran will have any consequences several years down the road, why, we can just blame Bush for that! Now, back to squeezing more money out of the public fisc and doling it out, like the spoils of war, on our favorite designated victims groups!

What makes it all truly, deeply, glamorously suck is the fact that our President seems to have lost all backbone. Sure, I suppose finally accepting Rummy's resignation was in order, but did he have to dig back into his father's bullpen? Does he really believe that, at this point in the political cycle, that the wisest thing to do is to emulate the first Republican since Herbert Hoover NOT to get re-elected? That we need Jimmy Expletive Carter's National Security Adviser to guide us to mending fences with the Ayatollah?

So, by all means, let's roll out, pretend there's zero difference between the Soviet Union and Iran, and welcome those soldiers returning from that strange situation (Psst! Don't mention the war)!

So it Goes...

A right jolly spanking administered to my party. And deserved, too. Too much spending, too much pork, too little of the things we voted for two years ago delivered, et cetera, et cetera.

The loss is personally disappointing to me, because I had hoped to help turn my home state of Maryland into an actual two-party state, and instead find myself facing the the twin prospects of Cardin the Faceless growing barnacles in the Senate for the next thirty years and Pretty Boy O'Malley in the Governor's Mansion (pending absentee ballots, but that be a forlorn hope at best). Back to the People's State of Baltimorea it is then.

As for the Dems in Congress, congratulations on campaigns well run. Now...What...Are....You....Going...To...DO?

The Rub of Journalism

Instapundit linked to this Examiner Op-Ed, but he didn't post the crux of the argument:

Every year, scores of fledgling journalists pour out of liberal arts programs. Though many will need to pick through mountains of statistics in search of the truth, few have been taught the skills to do it.

They quickly become victims of advocacy groups pushing skewed statistics. Through ignorance, they may also start manufacturing their own flawed numbers. Since number-crunching beats (such as business and finance) are generally viewed as a tedious waystation en route to more interesting beats, few are enthusiastic about developing these skills. And their editors may not be in any position to help them.

The problem is compounded by the fact that journalists who do know how to read a balance sheet, run a regression, or analyze economic data, can generally get a job that pays a lot more than journalism.

If we can accept this as true for statistics, is it fair to say that the same is probably true with regard to scientific theory, history, economics, and cultural criticism?

If we can, exactly what is it that makes these people think they're so important?

The Current State of Missile Defense

Austin Bay writes in TCS DAily that we have the a missile defense system, even if thin and still emerging. This is good because a) North Korea and Iran won't really be able to threaten us, and b) they won't be able to threaten our allies, either.

I perceive a few downsides, however:

1. The system isn't flawless. This means that political pressure from the anti-ABM crowd could still dismantle or delay it past the point of usefulness.

2. Even if a robust system is developed, the result could be a strengthening rather than a weakening of the desire to hunt terrorists abroad, a false safety, if you will.

3. It does nothing to defend against a "suitcase-nuke" scenario, which, while it might not be as plausible as it once seemed, is by no means beyond the bounds of plausibility. Having an effective missile defense will, paradoxically, increase rather than decrease the need to stay on top of international terrorists, to hunt them down and damage the states that protect them, even as it potentially saps the will to do so.

Doubtless dKos has the answers to all of these.

"C'mon, Satan. Relax, Guy."

I can't have been the only one who wondered when the South Park Saddam and the real-life Saddam were going to meet.

I wonder if the movie is available in the rest of Iraq.

UPDATE: Hand-wringing here. Me, I have a hard time drumming up sympathy for the old bum, and think that after the song-and-dance he puts on at his trial, loudly claiming to still be the President and denying the validity of all around him, this is a thoroughly appropriate comeuppance.

The Devil has Been Found!

And he wants Plastic Surgery!

I knew it.

Meanwhile, in the Center Ring...

...Saddam's trials continues in the same spirit as before, and the continuing irrelevance of his antics are becoming clearer as nail after nail goes in:

The prosecution accused Saddam of ordering the Anfal campaign, and charged all the defendants with war crimes and crimes against humanity for their involvement in the Anfal campaign aimed at clearing the Kurdish along the border with Iran.

Saddam claimed that the special tribunal was illegal and refused to state his identity, only identifying himself as "the president of the republic and commander-in-chief of the armed forces."

Ken Frost, who maintains the blog, is of the opinion that "It would have been far better to conduct a Nuremberg style trial, where all crimes would have been placed before the court in one trial." And he's got a point, but that's not the way the Iraqis want it done, and I think I can understand their reasons.

Nuremberg was done for the pleasure of the conquering allies of a blasted land; Saddam's trial is being done by his own people. They apparently want every crime noted, every butchery denounced. I can't say I blame them.

Doom is Imminent. Film at Eleven.

Iraqpundit on the coninuing STORY of a nation Gone to the Dogs:

The result, according to ABC news, is “encouraging.” The network reported that in the last two weeks, there has been a significant decline in violent attacks. The Iraqi ministry of defense says that violent attacks were down 30 percent, the U.S. military says the violence was down 22 percent, and both agree the numbers are preliminary.

This comes from ABC news and the WaPo, those bastions of neocon flackery. Bet they've all got Halliburton stock.

"In the past three weeks," he writes, "the U.S. military has killed about 25 death squad leaders, and captured more than 200," according to the officer leading the sweep.

But, by all means, lets continue shouting from the rooftops that Iraq is sliding towards civil war, already in a civil war, experiencing a low-level civil war, almost nearly half-way to a declaration of the possibility of a civil war, or whatever mush-meter you please. We've got Bush to bring down, after all.

Shut Up, Hipsters. Please, Just Shut Up.

Yeah, I lied. Deal with it.

I am roused from my torpor by a variety of things, but the immediate catalyst was this typically incisive Lileks rant, especially the following:

In other words, one review talks about how the Establishment was paying people to skewer itself in the 50s, and it’s followed by another review that praises an incomprehensible 1969 “satire” for bringing hipness to the squares.

Hmm. Well. Suggestion:

It’s quite possible the squares had been hip to this long before, inasmuch as they did not believe housewives really clicked their heels when they saw what Tide could do. It’s possible the squares didn’t spend a lot of time worrying about Madison Avenue and its lies, man, its Santy-Claus lies, because it wasn’t exactly a thunderous revelation. It’s possible the squares were hip before the hipsters invented the squares.

And that, boys and girls, is the real conspiracy: the conspiracy of Hip. I happened to get my latest issue of Spin in the mail today (don't ask. long story), and the first actual article, once you made it past the bizarrely air-brushed-looking cover pic of Johnny Knoxville (hurting yourself for entertainment is AWESOME if you look good doing it), and the pages of ads for the Gap (which thunders "Long Live Individuality"), Helio Cell Phones (Yes, I called it a Cell Phone. It fits in your pocket, and you can make calls with it. It thus fits all the characteristics of a Cell Phone. I don't care if you can perform brain surgery and Play 3-D Omega Snood on it at the same time. IT'S A @%&*$##$* CELL PHONE. THANK YOU), Best Buy, Le Tigre (The shirt, I'm guessing, not the band), the Toyota Yaris (Oooh, you can play MP3's in your car! I've never done THAT before!), the MTV Video Music Awards, Meltin' Pot (presumably a jean company), some Beatle-boot manufacturer called Ben Sherman, Jeep, and Union Bay, is called "the Rebirth of Uncool". It's about a new generation of soft-rockers who want to love Hall and Oates and the Eagles proudly.

Nope. Not kidding.

This is the same magazine, purporting to be the voice of the underground, or at least to know where it could be found. This is the mag that seems to suggest by its very existence that Rolling Stone is a tool of the Establishment. And they're trying to sell us Soft-Rock. Why? Do they like Soft-Rock? Do they really think that Soft-Rock is an idea whose time has come, again?

Or are they just keeping the Music Industry Double Helix going, whilst they pretend to damn the system they cash in on? Is it just me, or is this pretense the very means by which they cash in?

Somehow, I get the feeling that if these hipster doofuses (doofii?) really really wanted to change the culture, they'd do so by, oh, I don't know, changing the culture. Instead of whining about the schlockiness of our films, theater, music, etc., they'd make better films, better theater, better music. Better not in the sense that it knew what the problem was and piled anxiety upon denuncation upon glibness underlining that fact, but better in the sense that it was timeless, moving, a reflection of something good within the creator that touched something good in everyone that encountered it. But that's hard. It requires years of painstakingly learning your craft, learning your market, paying the dues to the world of business without killing your spark while managing not to become contemptuous of your fellow man enough to express something he'll understand. And bitching's not only easier, it's profitable. Denounce the Man loud enough and the Man beats a path to your door to shower you with riches.

Well, guess what. All you empty-headed truth-talkers, you poser swine, you regurgitating aliterate dingleberrys on Stephen Colbert's backside, YOU ARE THE MAN. Aaron MacGruder is the Running Dog of Madison Avenue. Public Enemy was a Lackey of the Oppressor. Hunter Thompson was the World's Greatest Capitalist (straight Horatio Alger, man).

And I don't just mean the ones we all know about. I mean the "underground" which means nothing more than "Pop Culture Farm Club" as far as I'm concerned. I mean the tools who labor to make their "indie" "scene" "real". I mean anyone who's ever subscribed to Maximum Rock n'Roll. I mean Ian MacKaye, examplar of the Free Market.

You are all aristocrats, because you are all rebels. Or, if you don't really want to shake the world, you're useful idiots for those that do. Take your pick. I don't care.

Just shut up.

I Have Been Away...

...because I have been busy, doing nothing. As anyone who's ever seriously done nothing can attest, it can keep you very busy indeed.

But within a few days, I'll be doing some more posting. There are a few things left to say, and a few things new to say as well. Bear with me.

The Essayist #15: The Real Da Vinci Hoax

Last night Family Guy had a minor minor sub-plot involving DVC, as sure a sign as any that we've hit the coveted point of over-exposure and will beging jumping sharks. What was interesting was how tame the gag was; Lois raves to some un-seen girlfriend over how much she loved it, Stewie grabs it, spends the night reading it, and falls asleep into his porridge. That's it. Gag at the people who denounce the book and then get sucked into it? Probably. But hardly a commentary. We leave that to South Park.

An entire industry has arisen in the wake of DVC by devout Christians into refuting its historical claims: that Constantine "invented" the divinity of Christ at Nicaea, that the Bible as we know it is a purged text, a fiction imposed by Constantine, and, most incredible of all, that Christ was husband to Mary Magdalene and fathered children with her, and that his descendents include the Merovingian kings of France. To this I will add no further input, except to point out that secular historians place the authorship of most of the so-called "alternative" or Gnostic Gospels as no earlier than the 2nd century, AD, and the authorship of the canonical Gospels in the latter half of the 1st century. Beyond that, the debate seems pointless.

But this is not the "Real" Da Vinci Hoax to which my title alludes. The historical claims of Brown's book are, as I said, as old as the 2nd Century, and they have had recurrences in the past, as with the Cathars in the Middle Ages. It's an enemy the Church has to deal with from time to time, in its struggle with the identity of Christ that has been with it since the beginning. Somehow, the Church finds a way to put it down.

No, the real hoax being perpetrated on the public is that Dan Brown is a good author, and that the Da Vinci Code is a good book. I cannot find an explanation for how otherwise intelligent people would not only accept this premise, but willingly transmit it to others, raving about the wonders of it. Admittedly, I came in biased, and perhaps hyper-critical, but even I was at least prepared for Brown to give me a ripping good yarn, a page-turner, if a theologically pulpy one. He did no such thing.

I could find not one element of good writing in this book. The dialogue is hackneyed, the characters one-dimensional, and the plot entirely predictable. Even the Twist at the end surprised me not at all; I had predicted it approximately halfway through the book. The main character, Robert Langdon, a professor of symbology at Harvard, serves no purpose other than to be a mouthpiece for the Brown's views of Christianity (and they are his, for he writes a sad little statement of "Fact" for a prologue, contending that the Priory of Sion exists, and thus, all the other claims of the novel are to be taken as true). Hardly a chapter goes by without Langdon, in answering a question from stock-ingenue Sophie Neveu in multi-paragraph form, until Brown stops even the pretense of dialogue and removes the quotations, lecturing directly to the reader with all the smugness of a bored adjunct professor. Nor is it ever explained how a symbology professor knows so much about the supposedly secret Priory of Sion without himself being a member. The whole novel seems to believe that the Deep, Dark, Secret Truth is something all educated people are aware of (Sire Leigh Teabing, Langdon's tag-team partner in babble, states this rather baldly) which rather undercuts the drama.

Minor characters are no better. Perhaps the most ludicrous idea in the Da Vinci Code is that there is any such thing as a devout Catholic in Paris. Brown proceeds from the notion that in France Christianity is more than a religion, it's a birthright, and as the stand-in for this notion gives us as the stubborn police captain Bezu Fache, a figure out of Beau Geste, who inexplicably says English idioms like "do something right for a change" to fellow Frenchmen.

Adding to this catalog of Don'ts for Novel Writing is the fact that Brown seems not to have done his homework. When one writes a novel about uncovering great secrets of history, it behooves one to get ones historical details accurate. Brown seems not to have bothered with simple fact-checking. For example, he describes Godefroi de Bouillon, the supposed founder of the Priory of Sion, as a "French king." He was no such thing. Godefroi the Bouillon was a count, and a leader of the First Crusade, and by all accounts a pious man. He is counted among the Kings of Jerusalem, but he did not himself bear that title, because he disdained to wear a crown of gold where Christ had worn a crown of thorns. Instead, he made do with the style of Defender of the Holy Sepulchre. To call him a French king is entirely misleading.

Another howler occurs when Brown/Langdon has the Knights Templar established by knights of the Second Crusade, after recieving their permission from Baldwin II of Jerusalem. That would have been a neat trick, inasmuch as Baldwin II(r. 1118-1131) had been dead for fifteen years when the Second Crusade (1147-1149)happened. Both military orders (Templars and Hospitallers) did come about during Baldwin's reign, true, but it had nothing to do with the Second Crusade. If Brown had taken a momentary glance at a few history books, he would know this, but as he seems to believe that the history he writes is possessed of more "truthiness" than contemporary records, he gets basic, verifiable facts wrong. All of which leads one to take all other ideas with a grain of salt.

But the final insult is the way the entire story becomes much ado about nothing at the end. I won't bore you with the details, but suffice to say that the rug gets pulled from under the readers, and the promised Holy Grail towards which the novel has been aiming evaporates into the morning mist. Such is de rigeur in Grail lore from time immemorial, of course; despite their suffering and holiness, the seekers rarely get their hands on the Grail at the end. But when it happens in Parzival it's a commentary on the sinfulness of man, and when it happens in Monty Python, it's a parody. Brown's post-modern transformation of the Grail from a world-shattering secret cache of information to an esoteric exercise in neo-paganism ("The quest for the Holy Grail is the quest to kneel before the bones of Mary Magdalene. A journey to pray at the feet of the outcast one.") is nauseatingly hollow, and a literary cop-out unseen since the days of Henry Miller.

To sum up: dull characterizations, bad dialogue, stupid factual errors, and a lame climax. And he's sold millions of copies worldwide, raided Hollywood, and been name-dropped on trendy shows.

All because we just can't accept a celibate Savior.

A Moment of Silence

It behooves us, now that the news of the death of Zarqawi has hit the lenght and breadth of the blogosphere, that we point out, in all fairness, the downside of his passing:

No more of his brilliant, witty missives to Iowahawk.

You know what they say about not appreciating someone till he's gone? Too true, too true...


UPDATE: I was wrong. I hoped I would be.

President Bush's Victories Receiving Little Attention.

So Sayeth the DC Examiner.

In other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead.

So it begins...

I finished the Da Vinci Code. I will write more, but to sum up: completely unimpressive book. Don't understand why its a best-seller. Well, actually I do, but that understanding brings me no peace.

History Rendered to Limerick

Apropos of nothing:

I am the Fool on the Hill,
I face the wrong way by my Will,
And though you may chide,
With wisdom so snide,
Soon you'll Envy my Folly, and Hill.

Whiny Anarchist Deplores Voting...

He may be generally right as to why one man's vote might not make a difference (as if I'd be expected to believe that, among 100 million voters, mine would be the deciding factor), but he seems to be missing the point of he exercise. I tell him so in the comments section.

More Glowering Neocon Chickenhawkery...Booga Booga!

In additions to the points copied and pasted by Instapundit, I found the following in Amir Taheri's article in Commentary:

Between 1991 and 2003, the countrys farm sector experienced unprecedented decline, in the end leaving almost the entire nation dependent on rations distributed by the United Nations under Oil-for-Food. In the past two years, by contrast, Iraqi agriculture has undergone an equally unprecedented revival. Iraq now exports foodstuffs to neighboring countries, something that has not happened since the 1950s. Much of the upturn is due to smallholders who, shaking off the collectivist system imposed by the Baathists, have retaken control of land that was confiscated decades ago by the state.

Yet another blow to the corpse of planned economies. Latin America should take notice (they won't).

As Senator Hagel puts it, You cannot in my opinion just impose a democratic form of government on a country with no history and no culture and no tradition of democracy.

I would tend to agree. But is Iraq such a place? In point of fact, before the 1958 pro-Soviet military coup detat that established a leftist dictatorship, Iraq did have its modest but nevertheless significant share of democratic history, culture, and tradition. The country came into being through a popular referendum held in 1921. A constitutional monarchy modeled on the United Kingdom, it had a bicameral parliament, several political parties (including the Baath and the Communists), and periodic elections that led to changes of policy and government. At the time, Iraq also enjoyed the freest press in the Arab world, plus the widest space for debate and dissent in the Muslim Middle East.

Butbutbut...they're not supposed to be able to do democracy in them thar benighted foreign places! It's nothing more than a Western logophallotechnocentric tyranny!

But what about all those deaths? 23,000 and counting. What about the way the insurgency keeps killing people, no matter how many times they're declared defeated?

These democratic achievements are especially impressive when set side by side with the declared aims of the enemies of the new Iraq, who have put up a determined fight against it. Since the countrys liberation, the jihadists and residual Baathists have killed an estimated 23,000 Iraqis, mostly civilians, in scores of random attacks and suicide operations. Indirectly, they have caused the death of thousands more, by sabotaging water and electricity services and by provoking sectarian revenge attacks.

But they have failed to translate their talent for mayhem and murder into political success. Their campaign has not succeeded in appreciably slowing down, let alone stopping, the countrys democratization. Indeed, at each step along the way, the jihadists and Baathists have seen their self-declared objectives thwarted.

He goes into detail, describing all the objectives the terrorist have tried to achieve, and how they haven't achieved a one of them. Read the whole thing, as they say.

Plus, he gives us the most detailed account of the future of Iraq that I've heard from anybody, including any of our political leaders:

The current mandate of the U.S.-led coalition runs out at the end of this year, and it is unlikely that Washington and its allies will want to maintain their military presence at current levels. In the past few months, more than half of the 103 bases used by the coalition have been transferred to the new Iraqi army. The best guess is that the number of U.S. and coalition troops could be cut from 140,000 to 25,000 or 30,000 by the end of 2007.

One might wonder why, if the military mission has been so successful, the U.S. still needs to maintain a military presence in Iraq for at least another two years. There are three reasons for this.

One is keeping the Iranians and Turks honest. Two is guaruntee-ing that what we build won't fall apart. Three is making sure the Iraqi Army and police continue to perform to high standards. The question is, will we have the will to do it? The political inertia makes it difficult, even for a small force to remain. The "who wants to be the last man to die for a mistake" trope will rise gurgling from the grave. The forest will be ignored for the trees. Everything Taheri describes will be risked so that the Left can indulge its Woodstock fantasies:

The stakes, in short, could not be higher. This is all the more reason to celebrate, to build on, and to consolidate what has already been accomplished. Instead of railing against the Bush administration, Americas elites would do better, and incidentally display greater self-respect, to direct their wrath where it properly belongs: at those violent and unrestrained enemies of democracy in Iraq who are, in truth, the enemies of democracy in America as well, and of everything America has ever stood for.

So if, reading all of this, you're desperate for an ad hominem to squirt at me like an octopus' cloud, let me put the straw together (and THAT'S what you call mixing your metaphors): I, civilian out of harm's way, hereby support and desire our professional soldiery to continue their dangerous task. I desire that those who have died not be used as a cudgel to defeat the living. I earnestly pray that they may be allowed to achieve the victory towards which they have so honorably labored. You may now feel free to call me Chickenhawk, Wingnut, 101st Fighting Keyboarder, White Feather, Yellow-Belly, what have you.

But I promise this: if they come home defeated, it's not me that they'll be angry at.

I Am So Smart! S-M-R-T!

Glenn Reynolds quotes Gary Becker on the problem of "capitalism" in South America:

In essence, crony capitalism often creates private monopolies that hurt consumers compared to their welfare under competition. The excesses of cronyism have provided ammunition to parties of the left that are openly hostile to capitalism and neo-liberal policies. Yet when these parties come to power they usually do not reduce the importance of political influence but shift power to groups that support them. A distinguishing characteristic of Chile since the reforms of the early 1980's is the growth in competitive capitalism at the expense of crony capitalism. This shift more than anything else explains the economic rise of Chile during the past 25 years that has made Chile the most economically successful of all Latin American nations.

"Crony capitalism" is more or less what I had in mind writing about Mexicoil and cash crops yesterday. It amounts to a gentle kind of fascism, and runs counter to what every free-market-loving liberal and libertarian desires.

Yesterday I was lecturing my Modern History class about the Great Depression, and how the worst thing you can do when the stock market is tanking is panic. He who keep his head while everyone else loses theirs is likely to come out on top. Unfortunately, Latin America has been in one state of politico-economic panic or another for the last 200 years.

But wait, there's more! Donald Sensing has more of the costs leading to a declining birth rate. I'm less convinced that his assertions are as powerful as economic ones. There are plenty of us who don't really care what the feminists and eco-freaks think about our young'uns. But in the cultural centers on the coasts, the image of mass overpopulation and the toil and drudgery of Motherhood surely influences behavior.

We run from the wrong fears, and into the wrong solutions.


UPDATE: Mark Steyn has more, especially as relating to Hugo Chavez. You know, Mister President-for-Life.

America is Not the Problem

Paul Driessen hits the usual points in talking about how screwed up Mexico is, and in doing so, he posts a factoid that should be shouted from the heavens:

Low-skill wages today are less than 15 percent of what Mexican workers can earn in the US, and half of its 106 million people still live in poverty.

Fifteen Percent. Fifteen Percent. The same lousy, ten-hour, fruit-pickin' job that pays 4 dollars an hour in California pays 60 cents in Baja. And we are lost as to how this may be. We look at the poverty to our border and don't even wonder about it, because it's always been there. Since the Conquistadors showed up, Mexico has been a land of horrifying, endemic, turn-J.P.-Morgan-into-a-Communist poverty.

But the Communistas can't seem to improve the place. And neither can the capitalists, it seems. Mexico is trying both at the same time, and neither is working. The oil industry is owned by the Mexican Government, who sells it to the developed world, and especially the United States, and uses the profits to...pay more government workers? Improve oil production? Meanwhile, whole areas of Mexico are without electricity.

And if all that were privatised overnight? If the government oil industry became Mexicoil, Inc? The same would occur. Cash-crops cannot save economies that don't empower people to make use of it. When there is nothing that will allow people to transferr the assets they have into liquid, they may not advance except by the benefice of the government, which depends upon either political connections or revolt.

Property Rights. Rule of Law. Universal Suffrage and Education. It's all we've ever needed.

How the Nanny State Destroys the Urge to Procreate

Glenn Reynolds sums it up justly:

Today's middle-class kids are always under the adult eye. It's not clear that the kids are better off for all this supervision -- and they're certainly fatter, perhaps because they get around less outside -- but the burden on parents is much, much higher. And it's exacted in a million tiny yet irritating other ways. Some are worthwhile -- car seats, for example, are probably a net gain in safety -- but even there the cost is high: I heard a radio host in Knoxville making fun of SUVs and minivans: When he was a kid, he boasted, his parents took their five children cross-country in an Impala sedan. Nowadays, you'd never make it without being cited for neglect. And you can't get five kids in a sedan if they all have to have car seats, which these days they seem to require until they're 18.

When I was a kid, I was frequently left alone at home from the age of nine forward, and no harm ever came to me. Or I ran all over the neighborhood, which is to say the street we lived on, without ever destroying the universe. Permission had to be asked, but was easily granted, to go around the corner to the library, or down the road a mile or two past the elementary school to the shopping center to buy sodas or squirt guns. And we did this often; my younger brother, younger sister, and myself, and we never violated these norms, because we if one of us did, one of us would tell, and that meant Getting In Trouble. Y'see, my parents managed to discipline us without the state finding out about it, so we learned that limits existed. Call me crazy, but I think such discipline a lot more handy for surviving unemployment (which I had to do), dropping out of college (my brother), or debt (all three of us).

Responsibility without authority is pointlessness. If we hold parents accountable for everything that happens to their kids, but restrain them from punishing misbehavior, then the message we send is "Don't have kids." And that isn't the message we want to be sending, if we want our nation to have a future (Yes, I said "nation". GASP! I'm JUST LIKE HITLER!)

"Oh, It's All Right. We Commissioned a Group Portrait..."*

I'm one of those people with a wonderful capacity to stay far, far away from A-List cultural trends. I still haven't seen Titanic (Not all of it, anyway). I still can't name any of the winners of Survivor. I've never contemplated opening a Harry Potter book. But I think I may have to break that tradition.

I may just have to read The Da Vinci Code.

I'm not making this decision hoping to be impressed. Quite frankly, if Dan Brown has penned a novel half as good as Foucault's Pendulum (by Umberto Eco, author of The Name of the Rose), which covers much the same material, albeit with an emphasis on the Knights Templar, I'll eat my favorite hat. But if I can happily ignore Leo's Opus and the Dysentery Game and The Adventures of Wizard-Boy, it's because, whatever their merits, they have but pop-importance; ephemerality is guarunteed to strike at least two of them dead before the century is half-over.

The New Gnosticism, on the other hand, cannot be so dismissed. Whatever truth The Da Vinci Code may or may not have, it cannot be denied impact. People (mostly women, in my notice, but that's the target audience, isn't it?) have been raving about it and recommending it for years. It's now a big Hollywood movie, replete with publicity junkets and protests and defenses and threatened boycotts and rebuttal books and the slapping and the hurting and the partridge in a pear tree. It behooves me to take a gander.

So off I go to the branch library (you didn't really think I'd PAY for it, did you?)
.




*History of the World, Part 1 reference.

The Consequences of Inaction

I find the reactions to the President's speech last night most instructive. It now appears that nothing short of "DEPORT THEM. ALL OF THEM." will satisfy the Republican "base". This I fail to understand. Mass deportation of the millions of illegals is not feasible in any sense of the word: in terms of the manpower and infrastructure, in terms of political will, in terms of likely humanitarian consequences.

We should all deplore the lassitude and inertia that has brought us to the present circumstance. But inaction, like action, has consequences. We must accept these consequences before we can effectively chart a new course.

I found the principles of the President's position both reasonable and just (indeed, it all sounds remarkably similar to what I myself proposed). The question remains of how these principles translate to action. You may call a "guest-worker/earned citizenship" program whatever you like, but absent strict enforcement of the existing border, it will become precisely the amnesty that the President says it is not. This is unacceptable, and it is the fear of this which, I suspect, drives the hostility of conservatives.

Because we have one of three options. The first is to set forth a plan that will simplify immigration and secure the border, and then follow through on it. The second is to annex Mexico. The third is to do nothing and hope it all will go away.

Option three is the worst, and conspicuously, the one we are likely to engage in. But a third-party candidate who was solidly behind the first, this man I might give serious consideration too.

When in Washington, Do as The Romans Do...

The frightening idea of this post on the SanAntonio Express-News (HT: Austin Bay) is NOT that a good man with experience overhauling intel agencies could possibly be denied his post because of partisan politics. That's a great big So-What-Else-Is-New. No, the scary bit is the following line (italics my own):

But the same sloppy thinking, mindless stereotypes and casual acceptance of second-class citizenship that once marked American race relations all now reign unchallenged whenever the military class appears to be getting a little uppity. Fact is, there is a gap — already miles-wide and growing every day — between the American people and their highly professional military.

Let us admit that I am paranoid. Let us admit that I often look for evidence for my Pet Theory that America is Ancient Rome with computers. But surely it can't be just me who blanches when faced with the possibility of open hostility between the "military class" (a very unpleasant term) and the political leadership.

And oh, sure, for the nonce the mystique of the serving professional, the guardian of the Constitution who is its servant, not its master continues to have a powerful hold on the military, as does the fact that service is honored in modern culture, not military glory. But if this "gap" continues to grow, if the military begins to believe itself superior to the civilian leadership not just in ability, but morally, too, then this bodes not well for the civilian leadership. And that bodes not well for us. Just because I do not wish to see America become the next France doesn't mean I care to see it become the next Brazil, either.

The Many Futures of Fuel

Peak Oil has been greatly on my mind of late. I suspect, as many commentators have predicted, that when oil begins to be used up, we will throw a great many stop-gap fuels, aimed at stretching supply, into the mix. I also think we're going to have to make a serious move towards nuclear energy to replace coal, and some efforts to make buildings more energy efficient. For some details, please consult this transcript (.pdf) of a 2005 Energy Conference led by the chap who's going to become my Congressman as of next month (Roscoe Bartlett, R-MD).

At this point, what we need to be doing is experimenting as much as is possible with alternatives, on as wide a basis as possible. Thus, some of the speakers at this conferences, whatever the validity of the plans they personally favor, have entirely the wrong overall viewpoint. Absent a major scientific breakthrough on the order of cold-fusion, there is no "magic bullet." We are going to have to apply a variety of fuel sources, each appropriate to a need. Popular Mechanics uses the idiom of a family owning "an electric or plug-in hybrid for short trips, an E85/electric hybrid sedan, SUV or minivan to squire the whole team, and a diesel pickup fueled by B30 or B50 to haul most anything else."

In other words, now is precisely the time to avoid calls for planning and rationing and "leadership" as Mr. John Howe makes in the transcript (he also is of the opinion that men who have fathered one child ought to undergo immediate vasectomies. But Buckley, Jr. is the "crypto-fascist." Heigh-ho). Such would be a disaster, because "leadership" usually means that one course of action will be followed.

In times of crisis, it is always tempting to give in to the temptation of authority. Often, if the crisis is of short duration and limited in scope, the temptation is justified. But a move from fossil fuels to X is not a crisis, it's an economic transition. It's wheels and shifts are not plannable by any single mind, nor are they effectively managed by politicians, consultants, or bureaucrats. Each of these has a different goal and is paid in a different coin than someone who merely wants to make a machine that works.

In short, we need more than one solution, and more than one group contributing: politicians will need to underline the problems and free up the regulatory entanglements, scientists will need to apply the brainpower, and capitalists will need to supply the capital and prepare the markets. I am not such a fool as to predict how my grandson will commute, nor how he will cook his food, nor how he will heat his home. But I know that he will be better off if he has options.


UPDATE: In the same Popular Mechanics article, a Mr. David E. Cole of the Center for Auto Research, predicted that:

"If gasoline prices get too high and we look to other fuels--like hydrogen--you can expect that oil-producing nations will reduce our fuel costs. They want to continue to pump oil out, pump dollars in, and they could see the hydrogen economy as a threat."

I have doubts as to the extent to which this will be possible, if it's true that the Mid-East is operating at or near 100% capacity. But today's USA Today declares that Oil has dropped below $74 a barrel as gasoline demand has remained flat and refinery output slightly increased. So who knows?

Why I Will Never Vote for John McCain, Part...

Now, if George Bush said this:

I would rather have a clean government than one where quote First Amendment rights are being respected, that has become corrupt.

...you can bet that the TV Stations would be broadcasting it from sea to shining sea, 24 hours a day, joyfully burbling about the President's incipient fascism. But John McCain, the "Maverick", well the press just loves him, even as he speaks out against the he plus ultra of American political culture, the very foundation of our Republic, the Goose that Lays the damn Golden Eggs. I mean, I know it would be the first time a Maverick killed a Goose, but really...

I can't believe I voted for this stormtrooper in the 2000 primaries. Fortunately, I don't think he has a shot of winning the GOP nomination.

Hell is Repetition...

...for how else could rehearsing a stage production over and over and over again, from Saturday to Wednesday, be call Hell Week?

I have a few essay's brewing, and eventually I'll get that dagnabbed music list finished. But for the nonce, I am indisposed.

Here, go read Mark Steyn. Mayhaps we can start a betting pool as to the final date for the rise of the European Caliphate.

Best Summation of the "Gas Crisis" Ever...

It hasn't really been a month, has it? Holy Lorf.

Why is it "Sick as a Dog"? Are Dogs Particularly Sick?

I don't know what cold/flu I've contracted, but it's a doozy. Aches and pains. I'm knocking off early and heading to the doctor's.

Tell Me...

...that this doesn't read like something from the Onion. Have I been April fooled?

The Essayist #14: Mexican Wars

My ancestors came to this country at varied times and for varied reasons, and all of them belonged to groups that, at some time or other, were regarded as dangers to the Republic. The Germans were suspected of disloyalty during both World Wars. And the Irish were the Mexicans of the 19th Century, a horde of uneducated, malnourished, uncultured swine, spreading Popery and syphillis, and depressing the wages in the major Northeast cities (New York, Philadelphia, Boston, etc.) down past the level to which even black workers had become accustomed.

I get all that. I do. Yet this still does not make me favor the goals of those who marched in Los Angeles this past week.

Generally, I'm a pro-immigration, pro-assimilation, pro-melting pot kind of chap. Every successful immigrant group in America has added to, not detracted from, our culture and economy, long-term. I want everyone who wants to come here and join our reindeer games to be permitted to do so, regardless of color, creed, or language, provided they agree to the following, non-negotiable Rules of the House:

1. Learn to speak English well enough to communicate with most people who live here, at least when in public.

2. Put your prime loyalty to This Our Republic, above any other foreign commitments (sending money to your grandmother in the Old Sod is jolly fine, sending money to organizations that demonize and seek to damage the U.S. is not)

3. There is no 3. You may now pay taxes and vote like the rest of us.

The Mexican Immigration problem is in nature different from any of the other ones we have previously dealt with (in truth, each one is as different as the countries from which they stream here). The difference lies not in the culture of Mexico, nor in a particular defect of Mexican immigrants, but in the past.

The border with Mexico has always been porous. For 19th Century Outlaws, Mexico was Safe at Home, Olly-Olly-Oxen-Free. Banditry and paramilitary troublemaking along the border is nothing new: Pancho Villa's raid into Texas prompted President Wilson to send the U.S. Army deep into Mexico after him (they came up empty). The border is desert for Washington's sake, desert and a river whose banks will shift if it rains hard enough (as they did in 1941, moving 5 miles to the north and creating a case that went all the way to the Supreme Court, which was obliged to rule in favor of Mexico because the Treaty of Guadalupe-Hidalgo established the river as the border).

Then there's the fact that the U.S.-Mexican border is the result of the last international war on the North American Continent. In 1848 one-third of Mexico became the southwest United States, as provided for in the aforementioned Treaty of Guadelupe-Hidalgo which ended the war. Mexicans who thus claim that they are standing on their "homeland" make a statement that many are inclined to credit, especially given the ambiguity with which the U.S.-Mexican War has been viewed by Americans, from the 1840's forward. Republicans like Lincoln and Grant regarded it as a "war of conquest" pushed by proto-Confederates to create land for more slave states, but this did not prompt them to return the lands to Mexico. The problem has been with us ever since.

None of this, however, means that we can any longer afford to tolerate the situation; to call a problem old is not to accept its continuance. In the first place, while the Mexican War may not have been the most morally shining moment in our history, neither is it the Malevolent Rape of Innocent Mexico that our history books seem to suggest. The Mexican Government is at least as responsible as the U.S. Government for the War's Outbreak: their stubborn refusal to accept the Texas Republic and their short-sighted attempts to dispute the border gave the U.S. the cause that it needed: regardless of the oft-repeated "Manifest Destiny", it is hard to see how a war could have come about, even under President Polk, had not Mexico believed they could regain what they had lost, and attempted to do so.

Moreover, in victory the United States government was generous: the Mexican Cession was given not as conquered to conqueror but in return for $15 million (equal to what Jefferson paid for Louisiana), plus another $3.25 million of debt to Mexican citizens living north of the new border that the U.S. agreed to assume responsibility for. These same Mexicans were guarunteed citizenship and full property rights. No indemnities were paid, no massacres committed. This is hardly history's cruelest conquest.

Second, the United States is under no obligation to accept any immigrants from anywhere; our past notwithstanding, we are the third most populous nation on earth (a distant third, granted, behind China and India, but double the size of the next one on the list); we have no shortage of people, nor any real need for more. A government's first obligation is to its citizens, not to those who may become citizens, if they feel like it.

While I don't know how I feel about a "guest-worker" program, philosophically, there isn't too much daylight between myself and George Will. I likewise believe that an intelligent immigration reform package should include the following:

Secure the Border. Fences, walls, the whole nine yards. This is a security as well as an economic issue. Along with those huddled masses are drug lords and foreign thugs. They need to be kept out as well (an overhaul of security at all entry points would be welcome as well).

Make Legal Immigration Easier. A points system like that of Australia would give immigrants legal status (and thus, a means of identification and monitoring), a simpler means of reaching the end goal, and thus, encouragement to get there.

Zero Tolerance for Reconquistadors. Anyone proclaiming that the Southwest be returned to Mexico or that whites be expelled from any part of the Americas should be arrested for fomenting insurrection, if a citizen, and deported with a permanent 'no entry' mark next to their name if not. The history between the U.S. and Mexico makes such statements a "Clear and Present Danger" as far as I'm concerned. Anyone standing in Los Angeles who seems to think he's in Mexico should be returned to Mexico, that he may discover the difference.

Assimilate, Assimilate, Assimilate. There was no bi-lingual education for the Germans, the Italians, the Swedes, the Poles, or anyone else. I don't see what makes Latinos so special that they can't follow the same path. But more than language, it's time to instill in immigrants a love of the country they're joining, as a republic of free men and women from around the world, not as a cash cow. America is more than the New York Stock Exchange, more than Wal-Mart, more than Hollywood. We must remember this, and we must so teach our new brothers and sisters.

If we can do this, we'll have the means for turning all these Mexicans into Mexican-Americans, and eventually just plain the latter. Enough of guilt, enough of malaise, enough of flagellation for the degree to which America is not Eden. It never will be, and if we can forgive ourselves for that, we can discover again a people worth keeping.

The Left's Alternative?

Regular readers will know that I routinely lament the lack of a clear, spelled-out alternative to the Bush Strategy for defeating Islamic Terrorism. A left-wing poster on Protein Wisdom may just have admitted to one. After some of the typical back-and-forth, I attempt to elucidate. Check it out.


UPDATE: Apparently, there really is a plan. I don't have the time to read it just now, but you might.

Cherchez les Fusils

The interesting thing to about this post by Omar at Iraq the Model is not the point that he makes, which is that the UIA is trying to spin American military action against the militias which are spinning the country toward civil war, as itself causing civil war. Such is allzu menslich in this Age of Political Projectionism.

What's worth pointing out is that the Iraqi troops our military has trained is still fighting side-by-side with them, still willing to put the smack down where the central authority dictates. That's proof, if proof is needed, that there is an awareness of Iraq-as-Iraq in that country still, and not merely Iraq-as-ethnic-divisions that our famously unbiased media keep feeding us.

So enough with the talk of tossing in towels. Enough of you "To Hell With Them" Hawks, with your "Jacksonianism" providing the perfume of machismo to cover the stench of your ennui. Ennui be damned. We have good men fighting and dying over there, and blood spilled round the world over whose vision of the future will prevail. Now is the time to remember that, in war, the side that wins is the side that taps out last. Look to the guns. We still have them.

Take My Creation...Please!

An interesting report on Benedict XVI's firm assertion of what we've all suspected from time to time: That God has a sense of humor, and it's mostly directed at us (Hat tip: The Anchoress. More from her later).

We Won, and We Are NOT Happy About It...

I've mentioned one or two times about the way I like to link Punk Rock and Christianity: they both keep getting declared dead, and they both keep staying around to get declared dead some more. I'm now adding a third movement to that list: Feminism.

What is this, the fourth time feminism has been declared dead? I remember hearing that Three's Company killed it in the late 70's (something having to do with the blonde one and the fact that she was none-too-bright), and that Ally McBeal killed it two decades later, unless it died because the movement leaders protected Bill Clinton against his various semen-receptors.

And now it's dead because...it achieved everything it ever wanted? Except it didn't, if you Read The Whole Thing. Unless it did. At any rate, there's still something or other to be upset about.

Which means feminism isn't dead.

Down the Rabbit-Hole

I really, seriously did not intend to disappear for three weeks. I actually hoped to finish my music list and then let things slide until about June. There are several reasons:
1) I'm moving out of my appartment to my fiancee's mother's house, and am unsure whether my computer will be able to follow me.
2) I'd like to spend the spring on sabbatical, as it were, tasting and reflecting and playing guitar, rather than trying to make sense of the world that the sons of Adam have made.

I didn't even get that far, because:
1) The school Shakespeare club production of "Twelfth Night" became the Hoover Black Hole of time-sucks.
2) On Monday, February 27th, I was rear-ended by a dope in a Ford Ranger who was gabbing on a cell phone instead of watching the traffic. My poor little black Focus (aka "The Mule") has been totaled, and I've had insurance crapola to fret about, along with the aggravation of buying a new vehicle when I had just paid off the old one.
3) End of 3rd Quarter. Grades and crabby parents.
4) Trying to find a new job after the school year ends. Would you believe that applying to public schools is actually a bureaucratic nightmare? Huh.

So what's happening now?
I have no idea. We shall see, we shall see...Day by day.

The Essayist #13: On the Perils of Collective Englightenment

Catholic Light has a fairly typical broadside 'gainst the failure of the Left to stand up for its beloved Free Speech, but with a bonus; he actually points out what the purpose of free speech is:

At its noblest, this was a recognition that no human institution could long survive without honest criticism, protected from reprisals such as arrest or confiscation of property.

Seen in this light, freedom of speech is not a grace for all forms of expression, but a guaruntee that he or she who speaks for the purpose of pointing out folly or proposing a new cours of action will not be attacked. Argument, the process of persuasion and counter-persuasion, is not only permitted, but expected of all who would take part in public affairs.

One could call this the great inheritance of the Englightenment. But one would have to be careful. The Left no longer believes in one of the main tenets of the Englightenment, that the Englightenment was universally applicable. Structuralism has made the Enlightenment nothing more than the ersatz tribal religion of the Modern West, no more inherently valid than Sharia. If conflict is to be avoided, follows the logic, respect for all belief systems must be practiced.

It used to be that conservatives favored doing nothing as much as possible. "If ten logs are rolling at you," remarked Calvin Coolidge, "nine of them will fall into a ditch before they get you." Now it is the socialist who favors sitting tight and waiting for all this Islamic bither-bother to just pass over. Apologize for your insensitivity, and everything will be all right.

One wonders how the 18th-century philosophes would have reacted to such. Some, like Voltaire, would be eminently predictable. But what about others? Would Rousseau have so strenuously defended free speech against the offended masses of more, *ahem* "natural" people (as everyone not European was supposed to be)? Or would he be on the side that says that the Islamic rage must be understood in light of the West's own record of enslavement?

More Catholic Light:

Cowardice is only part of the explanation for the Left's silence. They also believe that the Darker Peoples are less than fully human, and can't be fully blamed for any of their actions. This crude racialism permeates and corrupts their moral sense on most social issues. Foremost, and most shamefully, many Leftists sympathize with the Islamofacists' goal of destroying the West.

The two groups don't agree with each other on every issue -- the Western Left practically regards gay sex as a sacrament, and Islamofacists wouldn't mind stoning gays to death. The latter group's views on "the status of women" are notoriously retrograde. In their fundamental view of Western civilization, though, their critiques are roughly the same: it is dangerously corrupt, exercises a malign influence in the world, and its power should be thwarted at every opportunity.

I wonder how well-thought-out this all is. I wonder if the kind of perverse incentives created when non-muslims are expected to show the same respect for Mohammed that Muslims are, has been considered. I don't think it has. Enlightenment seems to have become like Salvation in the minds of its heirs: something done for us a long time ago, to which we owe neither effort nor thought. Where does the mind belong in such a world?

Greatest Songs #4:

De La Soul -- "Millie Pulled a Pistol On Santa" (1991, from De La Soul is Dead)

As I've earlier indicated, I'm not the biggest fan of rap, or hip-hop, or whatever term might be considered more "street" at this micro-juncture of time. There's too much splash and not enough true creativity; too much chest-pounding and not enough soul. I am fully aware that such can easily be charged against my favorite forms of music. This may be just a preference on my part; nevertheless, I think the criticisms valid, and certainly un-controversial, as they are shared by many.

That said, there are a few acts out there I do like, because they make the effort to step above the banal brutality and blingery of most and try to actually say something or tell a real story. You'd think a genre of music in which lyricism was considered the point would put a premium on thought, but alas, such is usually not the case. For the few for whom it is, I have great respect. A Tribe Called Quest is one such group. Public Enemy, much as I roll eyes at their politics, is another. De La Soul may be my favorite.

De La Soul Is Dead was the group's second album, and their answer to the more HARRDDDDcore acts that dissed the first. They gleefully attack the pretenses of their detractors both directly and subtly (check out "Johnny's Dead," the most hilarious send-up of strap'd ghetto boyz in tha hood and their presumed demises yet recorded, so completely off-center that the group itself can't get through it with a straight face), and demonstrate a capacity to move beyond Standard Rap Lyrics to bespeak something of real tragedy.

"Millie" tells the story of a social-worker named Dylan, who is beloved of the troubled kids he helps (the narrator included, who makes himself a character in the drama), and is sufficiently devoted to the community to serve as a mall Santa during the Christmas season. He's also an abusive parent who molests his daughter Millie. Hilarity ensues.

One of the treats of this song is the piano sample that carries the melody; it's hard to categorize by genre, as it jumps along, sounding as much like band music as anything else. The beat, by contrast, is softer, but not neutered, and is powerfully evident in the chorus sections. The effect of this is a mixture of brightness and repressed evil, a back-and-forth that mirrors the story.

In the end, Millie morphs from sweet victim to spirit of vengeance; one section of the song has Millie asking the narrator if he could find her a weapon. He asks what for, she tells him, and he refuses to believe her. This is the most affecting aspect of the story; as the narrator, without saying so, assumes his share of guilt for all those who see and do nothing. No matter, Millie gets her pistol, and heads for the mall, and confronts her father/victimizer with same before a crowd of suddenly terrified children. He begs for mercy, she guns him down, and "with the quickness it was over." Full stop.

Does anyone now require me to explain why I never thought much of Eminem?


#5

Why Bush Can't Win

The American alternative to Dubai World Ports.

I gotta say, I still think it would be the preferable alternative. Politically, anyway.

Death to a Contradiction

Rich Lowry on the end of Big-Government Conservatism:

When the GOP begins its post-Bush departure — roughly after the midterm elections in November, when the 2008 presidential nomination race begins — "big-government conservatism" will probably end up on the ash heap. The party will have to relearn what it used to know: A strong government is a limited government.

The interesting idea there is "post-Bush". Are we prepared for such a landscape? What will the GOP take from Bush? What will the other party learn from him? What will either of them fight for, or against, in his absence?

I ask these questions because I hope that 2009 will be a vastly different landscape. And I'm sure it will be. But I fear it won't be different enough.

Danes Craving Boons From Their Lords...

The summation of this Mark Steyn piece is the usual on-the-money assault on our cowardly media elite:

It's easy to be tough about nothing. The press corps that noisily champions "the public's right to know" about a minor hunting accident simultaneously assures the public that they've no need to see these Danish cartoons that have caused riots, arson and death around the world. On CNN, out of "sensitivity" to Islam, they show the cartoons but with the Prophet's face pixilated so that he looks as if Cheney's ventilated him with birdshot and it turned puffy and gangrenous. C'mon, guys, these are interesting times.

But one may miss the truly disturbing passage:

Surrounded by cabinet ministers and a phalanx of imams, Velbjorn Selbekk, the editor of an obscure Christian publication called Magazinet, issued an abject public apology for reprinting the Danish Muhammed cartoons. He had initially stood firm in the face of Muslim death threats and the usual lack of support from Europe's political class, but in the end Mr. Selbekk was prevailed upon to recant and the head of Norway's Islamic Council, Mohammed Hamdan, graciously accepted the apology and assured the prostrate editor that he was now under his personal protection.

Europe, allow me to introduce you to Feudalism. I believe you've met.

I Can't WAIT for Next Year's Oscars!

IowaHawk has the goods on Hollywood's attempt to right the ship in 2006.

It's satire, naturally, but it begs the question: How long before we the Great Unsatisfied stop depending on these self-indulgent, mal-educated swine to provide us with cinema?

For God's Sake, Get Out of Iraq Now

Before the natives wipe all our soldiers in their rage against us.

A Friendly truce to the "War Against Boys"

Cathy Young doesn't have any answers to the issue of male underachievement in school and college, but she thoughtfully applies the brakes to some of the screechier rhetoric, and that in itself is welcome. Me, I think the anti-intellectual, thuggish culture that has been sold to boys is Prime Suspect until someone convinces me otherwise.

Here's an old post from the Notion underlying this theme that I wrote of in "Mean Girls, Boo Hoo."

Play the Marseailles

And so it becomes a question of who can out-shout the other. It a war with embassy burnings and public protests on one side, and cartoon contests (Warning: Some Images Not Work Safe) on the other, who wins? One wants to bet on the side that does the physical damage, but I don't know.

I keep thinking of the scene in Casablanca, when Paul Henreid instructs the band to play the Marseailles to counter the jovial Jerries then blaring their way through "Die Wacht am Rhein". The crowd all goes for it, even though only a minority are French. At first the Germans try to drown the crowd out, but eventually they toss in the towel and glower.

'Course, they proceed to shut the cafe down and do some other evil things, so its clear that protest has its limits. But I begin to wonder if saying the unsayable is going to become a habit.

Incidentally...

I'm belatedley taking part in the great Cartoon Blogburst of '06, because it all seems like the same old, same old, to me. Christian fundies shriek, they're called names and made fun of (as they should be, but I have a different definition of "fundie" than some). Islamic fundies shriek, and the lettered class falls over themselves to whip themselves for "insensitivity". We've all seen this movie: they can only get mad at white people, but I'm the racist for being a fan of my own culture and for wishing everyone to be held to the same standard. So what's for dinner?

Yet it's useful to point out just how low they enemy is prepared to sink, how baldly they're prepared to state their ambitions. Et voila...

But don't let it trouble you. Just keep chanting that it's all Bush's fault.

Wow.

I followed this link from this Vodkapundit post because I was inspired by the latter. After all, wouldn't it be better if we could fight this with words more than bullets, and if we could actually agree on the enemy?

But then I watched as the speed with which Kossaks managed to say "Ah! the Saudi Government's behind it, and that means it's all a scam to blind us from Chimpy McSmirkaburtonCo's Lies and the Lying Liars who Lie Those Lies!" and proceed from there.

Yeah, I don't think Stephen should hold his breath waiting for the Left to stop fighting yesterday's war.

Greatest Songs #5

Beck - "Beautiful Way" (1999, from Midnite Vultures)

It's fitting that I start the top five with a departure from form, both from the tone of most of the songs on this list and the artist known as Beck. Midnite Vultures was Beck's first mess-with-my-palette album, a sea change before Sea Change. He basically took away all the blues-country, white-trash elements that had marked his earlier work in favor of a pure R&B booty-beat partaaaay. It's self-consciously an album to get laid to, and I'm not entirely sure if it really works as such (tunes like "Debra" for example, are a little too goofy. Humor has a limited place in the realm of Eros). But "Beautiful Way" is a step outside the groove, a morning-after seperation song that ought to have been the last track, but wasn't (that honor goes to the aforementioned "Debra").

We start with a deep, soft melody, a gentle kiss with piano and bass, and a bare minimum of the sound-effects collage that graces most Beck tunes. Then comes Beck's voice, plain and unaffected:

Searchlights on the skyline
Just lookin' for a friend
Who's gonna love my baby
When she's gone around the bend?

Ah, the Departure Song, a well-worn groove in the annals of Pop Consciousness; how typical of the Love Album to pay homage to Love's Afterbirth. Yet paying attention to the lyrics provides some interesting variations. Note the fact that Becks isn't wondering who's going to love him. This could be a sign that he's got a line waiting for him back at his crazy sawinging bachelor pad, but I don't think so. He's actually wondering who's going to love her: How she's going to fare. Again, we could chalk this up to male arrogance, but I don't find anything constructive in that. For once, the guy's watching her leave without bemoaning his own fate.

The refrain
:

Ooooooooooooooh,
Such a beautiful way to break my heart
Ooooooooooooooh,
Such a beautiful way to break your heart
(Bum bum bum) There's someone calling my name
(Bum bum bum) She's gonna miss that train (Bum bum bum)

As silly as this reads, when you hear it, you can't help being caught up in the rising emotion, or singing along with the "Bum bum bum's". And the viewpoint is mature, knowing, appreciative. He feels the loss of her, aches for more time, but doesn't want her to miss her train. Our hearts are broken, and damn, it's beautiful. C.S. Lewis would approve.


#6

Quote for the Day

"Nature and capitalism abhor a vacuum." -Evan Coyne Maloney.

Now that's a connection I like.

I Think I See The Confusion...

Atrios seems to think that M.A.D. will solve all our problems with Iran:

I don't want Iran to have nukes. I don't think that's a good thing for the world. I certainly didn't want Pakistan or India to have nukes. But is a nuclear Iran really a threat to us? Certainly an Iran-with-nukes could blow the hell out of a city or two, but an Iran that did such a thing would pretty much cease to exist. It isn't mutually assured destruction, it's you fuck with us a little bit and YOU NO LONGER LIVE BITCHES!

The problem, you see, is what exactly "fuck with us a little bit" means. The Iranians have been "fucking with us" more than a little bit since 1979, and they seem to still be nicely radiation-free. Iran has been exporting and funding terror for a long time, and has yet to pay any serious consequence for it. There has been hope, since 9/11, that the mullarchy would collapse of its own unpopularity, but so far it's been more like 1905 than 1917 over there. And now they're going nuclear.

Atrios may sound bellicose now (do you notice how he sounds like one of those stereotype SAC generals from the sixties, babbling about "acceptable losses"?), but you can bet he'd be against doing anything against Iran once they've made their first mushroom cloud. Hell, the Bush Administration will oppose action at that point. And that's why the mullahs want them. Nations don't go nuclear to blow anything up; they go nuclear to join the exclusive club of countries that may not be attacked or invaded.

Nuclear Iran means an Iran that will be a worldwide troublemaker for a long time to come. Nuclear Iran means the Iranian people will suffer under the weight of tyranny for a long time to come. Nuclear Iran means a Cold War with Terror with the extra wild card of terrorists who will suddenly have access to nuclear weapons. Is Atrios proposing that we blame Iran if a dirty-bomb is strapped to the Lincoln Memorial? Is Atrios proposing that we launch nuclear weapons against Iran if a dirty-bomb goes off in Times Square? And if he is, could we have him on record on that? Wouldn't want any confusion on the order of the Clinton Administration's determination of what "regime change" means...

By the way, I know that he wrote that this isn't "mutually assured destruction," and in a sense, he's quite right. But the argument that the enemy won't launch because he faces obliteration is the same.

Jonah to Kanye: Nigg@, Please...

Here's a perfect bromide 'gainst the tedious claims of victimhood by those who have every reason to expect to be rewarded, not punished, for their actions:

Clearly borrowing from the same press release, publications across the country proclaim that the "outspoken rapper defends his brash attitude inside the magazine."

Ah, yes. It's about time. After all, it's so rare to find a rapper with a brash attitude. Normally they're shy, retiring types overflowing with modesty and humility. I was particularly enamored with the "aw, shucks" Andy Griffith personalities of Niggaz Wit Attitude and the late Tupac Shakur.

My personal opinion of Kanye West is hard to describe, because I don't have one. I know he's been billed in some quarters as the savior of rap, I guess because he uses his real, actual name instead of a street handle (course, I might be wrong even on that). But that makes me at best indifferent, because I'm at best indifferent to rap music, and always have been.

This isn't racism. I'm a big fan of black music: jazz, blues, R&B (real R&B, not the singing-over-beats that gets passed of as R&B today). But rap is about as simple a form of music as you can get: musically speaking, the real artists are the producers, who try to stuff as much ephemera as they can onto a track without stifling the beat.

I'm not one who says it takes no talent to do that. As post-modern noise collage, it's interesting. But the people who do that, are by and large not the people who rake in the fame and adulation (this is me separating rap, or hip-hop, from techno, electro, and any other producer's medium that doesn't have people stone-cold rhyming over the top of it): it's the guys who talk HARD who get famous. And I never understood what they were famous for.

Look, I get that 90% of pop music stardom is image. I'm fully comfortable with denouncing the majority of rock music as garbage, too. But it doesn't take much to note that for all the emphasis rapper's place on words, they almost never say anything.

My brother and I came up with a term for it: S.R.L. or Standard Rap Lyrics. Most songs start with a declaration of combativeness, proceeding from the rappers awesomeness and a boast about his mike skills, move on to declare that this king of the Mike is backed up by an equally cool crew, then touch on the rappers skill at procuring female companionship and his favorite mind-altering substances. All of which is repeated around some basic catchphrase.

A second variety involves what I call R.T.B. or Rapping the Blues. This involves a lament about something or other, and usually follow a formula similar to something Robert Johnson would have understood. This is slightly preferable, but still inhabiting a well-worn groove.

My point is, a musical form that lionizes lyricism should be demanding about the lyrics that lionizes. Lacking that, it becomes but a new form of bling-enhanced shucking and jiving.

"Government is too big and controls too much money."

So said the newly-elected House Majority Leader. I hope he means it. Of course, then he goes and says this:

We need clearer ethical standards and greater transparency about their campaign contributions--if we're going to continue to allow such contributions at all--and we need to reform the laws governing so-called 527 organizations.

So bad lobbying happens because there's too much money and power that the federal government wields, but bad campaign finance happens because the federal government doesn't wield enough power? How does that work?

John Kerry's Homer Moment

"Statistics can be used to prove anything. 40% of all people know that."

Al-Qaeda Starts to Lose

If journalists knew anything about...anything, they might be able to put certain trends together to see how well our counterinsurgency is faring. A few things they might notice, such as the inability of the insurgents from stopping the Iraqi Government from continuing to build its military. Or a change of leadership among Al-Qaeda. Or that the numerous reports of "red-on-red" infighting is a result of a determined campaign, and not merely a cascade of confused bloodletting.

For all of these tidbits, look here. I find the Anbar tribes' campaign especially interesting, as it leads me to believe that the Iraqis have found their Los Pepes after all.

Mean Girls, Boo Hoo

Lemme just say, as an educator and as a male, that this is a bunch of bunk. School biased in favor of girls? Boys need to be encouraged more? Maybe, maybe. But maybe the boys simply need to get off their dead arses and perform. It's high school, for Faber's sake. And public high school at that. How hard can it be?

Look, I've long been of the opinion that some of the things they do to boost girls' self-esteem would be counter-productive. Self-esteem boosting usually is. In fact, if I had to pick one thing that schools shouldn't bother about, that would be it. Encourage kids, yes. Encourage groups to get all excited about their groupiness, no. Because the end result of shaping boys' esteem isn't going to be improved scores, but excused pathologies. "You don't understand, I'm a guy. I ain't got time for none of that note-taking, book-reading stuff! I'm a rebel! I go where the wind takes me!" Have we really gone, over the course of a century, from "Women cannot think nor write," to its gender opposite?

Anyone who thinks that teenage girls have an easier time sitting still and paying attention than teenage boys has never ever taught teenage girls. Teenage girls never shut up, whine when disciplined, and act as though the world revolves around the particular ephemera they find fascinating. They only perform if they come from families that expect it from them. The same is true for boys.

Maybe it's me, but I've rather enjoyed not belonging to a Designated Victim Group. It meant I had no one to excuse my failures, and conversely, no one to put an asterisk next to my successes, such as they are. That's the creed that millions of men across the country live by: my life, my choices, my results. I really don't care to be turned into another sniveling worm under the lash of the Designated Oppressor.

Because in the end, boys, there's really nothing less manly than whimpering "the girls made me feel bad about myself." Should young gentlemen get outlets for their restless energy. Yes. Should we bring back Dodgeball? Yes. Should we dispense with all the gender-specific ego-encouraging? Yes, yes, YES.

The only way to have sanity in education is to insist on standards and keep to them, and stop making excuses for those who aren't interested. If boys don't wanna learn, indeed resist learning, maybe we should check what signals they're getting about learning from the outside culture.

I begin to wonder if reading books hasn't become a "girl thing" among boys, as it's become a "white thing" in the inner city. Do guys talk about literature and the arts with other guys? 'Course not, only gay guys do that, right? What do men talk about? Sports, music, cars, "guy stuff." Don't get me wrong, I'm a fan of guy stuff. But you shouldn't be thought odd because you can discourse cleverly on Neo-expressionist paintings or tell a Shakespearean from a Petrarchan sonnet (and conversely, all the guys who can do that need to stop acting as though being downwind of an understanding of the nickel defense will rob them of their souls). But that notion of male intellect is enforced by just about everything you see in popular culture. Think that message doesn't get through to boys, while schools are saying "You go!" to to the girls?

It's really very simple. When the culture values and promotes intelligent manliness, we'll have some. Until then, enjoy the perfumed air of college graduations.

On Blackness of Pots and Kettles

The strangest thing about this piece is not that it's purported humor failed to make me laugh even once, despite the obvious imagination used in passing down of "sentences" of "Loathsome People." People get their giggles from the oddest places, as some of the newer shows on Adult Swim indicate.

No the strangest thing is the accusation it levels against Michelle Malkin (who linked it at her own site, without commentary):

Her accusations of blind hatred and vitriol mimic soul sister Ann Coulter’s classic tactic of psychological projection: whatever Malkin is, she sees in her opponents.

Now absorb that, and absorb the rest of the list: does it strike you as being short of hatred, vitriol, cheap shots, prejudice, and superficiality? Count the parade of grostequeries issued as comments on the appearances of the targets. Is this truly meant to demonstrate the superior intellect that its tone assumes?

The answer, of course, is no. This is intended as nothing more than a bit of the old Two Minutes Hate, a reveling in contempt, a release of frustrations. There's plenty of that going round the blogosphere, and plenty of it is right-leaning. I am reminded of P.J. O'Rourke's mid-90's Enemies List, except that O'Rourke's seemed much more tongue-in-cheek, aware of the thorough naughtiness it was engaging in. A typical excerpt:

• Anyone who's last name is Cockburn.


• Anyone who has inherited so much money and so little sense that her last name might become Cockburn.


• Cockburn wanna-be Christopher Hitchens (Christ, who's checking the green cards around here?)

I know I'm hardly a neutral observer, and it's possible I'm not reading in the right places, but this level of vitriol really seems to be all the Left has. I'm not seeing a lot of "we should do this, instead." A few places, sure, but not the majority. The majority seem stuck in a bitter, I-despair-for-the-country malaise, so furious that the right exists and has influence that they don't know how to begin moving past them. And no, the Democrats Lobby Reform package doesn't cut it. It's so perfectly topical as to reflect strategery more than conviction, and of doubtful effectiveness anyway. But if they want to continue to be the Little Dutch Boys of the legal dyke betwixt politics and money, that's their headache. It's just not the kind of innovation that's going to put them in power again.

Santa Anna's Ghost Returns

Good news for those who worry about troubles on the U.S.-Mexico border leading to militarization of that border: it's already happening. Except the troops aren't ours.

It is fascinating that a man who has staked his presidency on American security is so willing to be blind regarding our own border. It would be one thing if Mexican authorities were crossing to capture criminals. We've done that, and I don't see that it would be bad to set up an agreement or three allotting those rights. But that isn't what's happening. They're crossing our border to aid and abett criminal activity. That's unacceptable, and if it continues, there will be an international incident. It's only a question of how soon, and how bloody, it will be.

The Last Mask Slips

Joel Stein finally lets the cat out of the bag regarding "Supporting the Troops."

I do sympathize with people who joined up to protect our country, especially after 9/11, and were tricked into fighting in Iraq. I get mad when I'm tricked into clicking on a pop-up ad, so I can only imagine how they feel.

But when you volunteer for the U.S. military, you pretty much know you're not going to be fending off invasions from Mexico and Canada. So you're willingly signing up to be a fighting tool of American imperialism, for better or worse.

Now he's not as extreme as he appears. He doesn't think they should get spat on and called babykillers. He supports giving them "hospitals, pensions, mental health and a safe, immediate return." But the logic of the all-volunteer military has finally caught up with the left. The I-word has come out. It'll be interesting to see what happens when this notion percolates with the Dem Underground and the Kossacks for a while. I mean, we all remember Ted Rall's sympathetic portrayal of the Pro-footballer who died in Afghanistan.

Greatest Songs #6:

Nirvana -- "All Apologies" (1993, from Unplugged in New York)

Two years ago, in its full-issue necrophilia for the decade anniversary of Kurt kissing his shotgun, Spin managed one moment that was an actual testament to Nirvana's music, rather than their pop culture status and image. In an alt-history timeline of what might have happened had Cobain been too stoned to pull the trigger, the author has Nirvana reform for November 2001's Concert for New York. The opening song to their set, is, of course, "All Apologies."

When all is said and done, it's that song and the obvious one that Nirvana is going to be remembered for, and it's the one that, if they're honest, the fans will admit to being superior. If, as Matt once told me, "Smells Like Teen Spirit" is our generation's "Hard Day's Night," the song that captured a moment forever in crystal, then "All Apologies" is our "Comfortably Numb," the song that everyone sings to without knowing why.

I used the version of the song from Unplugged instead of In Utero for two reasons: 1) I don't have In Utero, and 2) this allows me to get in a last slap at all the self-important swine who screamed about Nirvana "selling out". Yeah, Kurt may have thought that Nevermind sounded like a Motely Crue record, but let's not forget that Kurt's perspective was, shall we say, a touch off at times. And if if Nevermind had been Nirvana's last album, maybe the argument would have some shred of merit (though I doubt it). But it wasn't. In Utero was, and it was by collective critical opinion the harsher, less commercial work. I don't know what you call that, but it's not selling out.

Unplugged, on the other hand, the live album everyone ran out and bought because it was released but a month or so after the Awful News, features the band sitting in front of a fawning, uncritical audience, playing the blues. You know, the blues? The oldest musical form in America? The ur-genre from which all others (except country, its kissin' cousin) are descended? The genre that was old before it started? Is there a more obvious way to cement your stature as Serious Musicians than to play blues progressions with a warbly voice?

I thought not. So where were the hipsters complaining about Unplugged?

Don't get me wrong, I don't want them to start. The album's brilliant, start to finish, and sweet and haunting and beautiful and deranged. It's a short history of popular music, where the Meat Puppets and David Bowie and Leadbelly share the same space, and done so well that we hardly notice the juxtaposition. Played the right way, "All Apologies" sounds like Robert Johnson, because "All Apologies" is Robert Johnson.

They never sold out. They just sold. There's a difference.






#7

And Another Traditional Pension Plan goes Kaput...

...this time it's IBM, who figures they can save $500 million a year by giving 401(k)'s to all their employees. Pretty soon, the only place in America that will have defined benefit pension plans is the U.S. Government. Too bad it isn't called that.

Get Up, Get, Get, Get Down, CFR is a Joke in Your Town...

Brian Anderson on Campaign Finance Reform, the Fairness Doctrine, and the Online Freedom of Speech Act. It's a mostly partisan affair, blaming Democrats and the Left for attempting to use regulation to silence New Media. But he makes one salient point:

In deciding two campaign-finance reform cases in the months ahead, the Roberts Court, one hopes, will show greater enthusiasm for First Amendment protection of political speech than did its predecessor, which should have shot down McCain-Feingold. If neither Congress nor the Supreme Court repeals this unconstitutional, un-American travesty, we can expect election regulations, in the grim words of Justice Antonin Scalia’s McConnell dissent, "to grow more voluminous, more detailed, and more complex in the years to come—and always, always, with the objective of reducing the excessive amount of speech." Thus will our most effective real protection against "the actuality and appearance of corruption"—the First Amendment itself—be nullified.

The boldface is my own. CFR stems from the desire to prevent plutocracy. In a mono-media world, that's a real threat. But the solution to monied interests buying public space was never restricting access, but increasing access. In a world where a web site can hold as much sway as a 30-second spot, which is the more cost-effective? The internet itself will eventually nullify the mesmeric power of TV to shape the terms of debate. Daily Kos and Instapundit are all the Campaign Finance Reform we'll ever need.

And that's the reason I will never vote for John McCain. I'll give my vote to the Libertarians before I assent to that Praetorian sitting in the Oval Office. I don't care if Hillary gets the job instead: she's McCain in heels and lipstick as far as I'm concerned. Perfect prima donnas of the political class, the pair of them.

Hysterical Blonde Joke

Yeah, we've all heard 'em, but this one really is the best.

The Following was Recently Overheard in the Senate:

Senator A: Would you rule against abortion?

Nominee: I don't think it's appropriate to answer those questions, as I might have to rule on them soon, and would prefer to approach the case freshly.

Senator A: When you were a lawyer, you argued against abortion.

Nominee: A lawyer's job is different from a judge's. I would do the job differently.

Senator A: I don't understand why you won't give me a straight answer.

Machine that Goes Ping: Ping!

Senator B: Would you rule against right-to-death statutes?

Nominee: Precedent has affirmed it. However, I would approach each case distinctly. There are many areas yet to be ironed out.

Senator B: I find your answers troubling, and so should the American people.

Machine that Goes Ping: Ping!

Senator C: I would just like to say blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blobbity bloobity bloo, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah-blah-blah, blah blah blah blah-blah blah-blah blah blah I'm gonna be on television, I'm gonna be on television, blah blah blah blah-blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah-blah-blah, don't you think?

Nominee: Well...

Senator C: It's important to keep in mind that blah blah blah, blah bloobity bloobity bloo-blah, blah blobbity blobbity blobbity blah, blah blah, blah blah, blah blah blah-blah blah, blah blah blah-blah-blah. So you understand our concern with these conflicting answers you're giving.

Machine that goes Ping: Ping!

Senator A: I want to subpoena something.

Chairman: Forget it.

Senator A: You suck.

Chairman: Your mom.

Machine that goes Ping: Ping!

Blah blah Washington blah blah sex blah blah gadgetry

P.J. delivers a gentle smack-down upon Wonkette's novel. Typical bon mots:

I won't spoil the plot. There isn't one

and

Cox has wit and sense. Occasionally she uses them.

I don't know what it is about Wankette that makes me want to so render her nom de plum, but I suspect it has to do with the fact that she herself represents what her novel appears to be about. Her blog is fun for a day or two until you realize that she doesn't have anything to say. It's all schoolgirl giggling and taking joy in the word "tits". Nothing wrong with that in small doses, but absent anything of greater substance it becomes as interesting as bathroom stall graffiti; if one didn't know otherwise, one would swear it was scripted. I can't be the only one who made the "how appropriate" eye-roll when I discovered that her last name was Cox.

I mean, really, what shocking about there being sex, betrayal, and the banally vicious rythmns of the Circle of Access in Washington? Is this really making the scales drop from anyone's eyes? What is this, the Fifties?

Steyn to Europe: You're DOOMED.

The default mode of our elites is that anything that happens--from terrorism to tsunamis--can be understood only as deriving from the perniciousness of Western civilization. As Jean-Francois Revel wrote, "Clearly, a civilization that feels guilty for everything it is and does will lack the energy and conviction to defend itself."

Like anything else, survival is ultimately a choice. The body may will it, short-term, but it is the mind that must plan for it, long-term. Civilizations often die because they've succeeded for so long that they no longer think it requires work to do so.

Read the whole thing, as they say, but I'm suddenly applying this line of thinking to the much ballyhooed dearth of men in higher education. The so-called "War Against Boys" may be a factor, and the feminization of university culture as well, but ultimately, isn't it because boys are choosing not to succeed? And that we're letting them?

I'm a high school teacher: the curriculum is not that difficult. So what is it that's convinced large numbers of young men that education isn't worth it? Call me a crank, but I think it's the way that men have managed to convince themselves that ignorance is spiritual purity and decadence is manliness. I'm open to other suggestions as well.


UPDATE: Belmont Club has more, here and here, both of which aim towards the idea that the West has become a house divided against itself. It's citizenry still cling, if half-heartedly, to the old values, it's military, for the most part, stands firm, but its intellectual and political elite want nothing to do with mere survival. What Belmont Club doesn't say is what the Left wants: transcendence, of the idea of nation, of market, even of self, to attain a higher and better world. Yes, even at their most cynical and bigoted, that is what they want. They also are aware that violence oftimes begets violence. In fact, they are aware of it to such an acute degree that often that is all about violence that they know.

It should make anyone stand up and pay attention that the Military devotes such resources to "Information Operations." As Wretchard writes, we want the guys with guns to do their work and go. But if the elite fears the military, and the populace cherishes it, and this trend continues...well, I hear the Romans loved their freedom, too.