Editorial Sketch of the Week: A proper one-liner escapes me

As if grabbing is ankles for the King of Saudi Arabia and the Emperor of Japan wasn’t bad enough. . .

© Scott Stantis, The Chicago Tribune

Sunday’s Quote: On the welfare state

c/o Frostburg State University

While Alexis de Tocqueville is best known for his two-volume work, Democracy in America, it is perhaps a more obscure effort that he composed around the time of Democracy’s initial release that speaks volumes about one of the key social issues plaguing the nation for which the French philosopher once wrote so glowingly.

Feel free to read this one lengthy sentence over and over again. Every word is as perfect as it is relevant to this day.

========================================

“But I am deeply convinced that any permanent, regular, administrative system whose aim will be to provide for the needs of the poor, will breed more miseries than it can cure, will deprave the population that it wants to help and comfort, will in time reduce the rich to being no more than the tenant-farmers of the poor, will dry up the sources of savings, will stop the accumulation of capital, will retard the development of trade, will benumb human industry and activity, and will culminate by bringing about a violent revolution in the State, when the number of those who receive alms will have become as large as those who give it, and the indigent, no longer being able to take from the impoverished rich the means of providing for his needs, will find it easier to plunder them of all their property at one stroke than to ask for their help.”
~ Alexis de Tocqueville, “Memoir on Pauperism: Does Public Charity Produce an Idle and Dependent Class of Society?” (1835)

Editorial Sketch of the Week: The downside of prophecy

© Drew Sheneman, The Star-Ledger (Newark, NJ)

A word from Churchill

I began reading “Citizens of London” by Lynne Olson recently. Thus far the story about the Americans — centering primarily on Edward R. Murrow, Averell Harriman and John Gilbert Winant — who stood with Churchill’s Britain during “it’s darkest, finest hour” has proven a good read. Hence I found the pic below both notable, and personally applicable, as well.

Iconic Shot: Wellington College

© Richard Peat

Located on a 400 acre estate in southeast England, not far from Windsor Castle, is Wellington College, a selective co-educational public school in the same G-20 vein as Eton College, Phillips Academy and Harvard-Westlake.

The school is also a national monument to Field Marshal Arthur Wellesley (1769-1852), the Duke of Wellington. A Christian and Tory Conservative, the Irish-born commander of the Seventh Coalition defeated Napoléon Bonaparte at the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. The triumph ended the Napoleonic Wars and ushered the era of Pax Britannica during which the British Empire enjoyed uncontested European hegemony while the continent itself enjoyed near-constant peace for 100 years.

Sunday’s Quote: Judging from where we came

c/o Metro UK

Note: I’m a Europhile and an unapologetic WASP, both of which are akin to my heritage and identity. So the following is of great personal interest to me.

A graduate of the prestigious Eton College (a world renowned English public school) and the similarly esteemed Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, Dr. Kwasi Kwarteng is a Member of Parliament (MP) representing the Spelthorne constituency for the Conservative Party in the British House of Commons. He is also the child of parents who were subjects of the British Empire, first in their native Ghana and later as immigrants to England. Accordingly Kwarteng’s new book, Ghosts of Empire, offers a distinct perspective about the oft-aspersed British Empire that one may not expect.

As an alternative to the predictable, almost requisite condemnation of the largest empire the world has ever known, Kwarteng instead assesses the kingdom somewhat more magnanimously by weighing both the Empire’s progressive influence with its impulsive callousness. The truth, as one review explained, is that the Empire “was the product, not of a grand idea, but of often chaotic individual improvisation,” the result of unconventional governors and attachés who nevertheless operated the royal enterprise with an unparalleled level of success that was more than one-sided.

Kwarteng’s perspective, once the historical norm, is now disparaged by those who view the Empire as a collection of oppressive White Europeans that merely exploited people from other parts of the world who were, in essence, their exact opposite. Not so unexpectedly, this has also become a gradually prevalent interpretation of our own United States.

To be sure, the very concept of our domestic exceptionalism first referenced in Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America some 175 years ago is being supplanted by post-nationalist intellectuals among the left who, at their core, are abhorred — whether they admit it or not — by the very principles that developed America into a social and economic model coveted by billions. As it turns out, we elected a philosophical spawn of these left-wing ideologues to lead our nation just a few years ago, the consequences of which have been questionable at best.

A piece in The Wall Street Journal tied it all together a couple of days ago.

========================================

“In his recent State of the Union speech, President Obama said: ‘Anyone who tells you that America is in decline or that our influence has waned doesn’t know what they’re talking about.’ It was hardly a Churchillian rejoinder, but then it was a very demotic speech, and he is wrong. By almost any criteria, the American influence in the world has indeed waned since the Eisenhower administration, but it still has a good head start on the British Empire, which was antidemocratic, protectionist, slow to innovate and largely ruled over by the sportsmen of its only two great universities. America, by contrast, is — when it is true to itself — a proselytizing democracy, free-market and innovational, which has more than a dozen of the world’s top 20 universities.

“Where the British Empire does indeed hold a message for modern America is in the area of self-belief. Many of the British Empire’s worst legacies stemmed from a collapse in confidence among the British elite in the values and principles that had made Britain the largest empire in the history of mankind. Anyone who thinks that just such a spasm of self-doubt among America’s elite isn’t a problem in modern America doesn’t know what he is talking about.”
~ from “Now That The Sun Has Set” by Andrew Roberts, from his review of Kwarteng’s Ghosts of Empire in The Wall Street Journal; February 10, 2012

Sunday’s Quote: The impact of fiscal negligence

c/o U.S. History

Our colossal $15 trillion debt, currently 101.1% of the U.S. Gross Domestic Product, is tops in the world by far. But CNBC revealed last September that the percentage of American debt-to-income ranks an almost respectable 20th worldwide among other mass-borrowing countries. Australia (138.9% of GDP), Spain (179.4%), Portugal (223.6%), Hong Kong/PRC (250.4%) and Denmark (310.4%) are just five nations that struggle all the more. Yet none surpass the dubious distinction held by Ireland, whose total obligations weigh at a bewildering 1,382% of its GDP.

How such financial calamities occur in sophisticated nations is beyond comprehension, although a failure among elected officials to abide by the standards that established their homeland appears to be the proverbial key that swings the door wide open for unsustainable liabilities that later become domestic nightmares.

Everyday citizens are just as capable of spending in gross excess. Although materialism and greed are unfortunate byproducts of free enterprise, such unscrupulousness is not exclusive to those who benefit so greatly from our economic structure. Moreover, alternative models commonly endorsed among the Left (centrism, collectivism, communism, socialism, etc.) are no better. In fact such ideologies are proven far more stifling to cultures that yearn for opportunity and self-determination.

Hence the social order is left with a question: will we temper ourselves, and thus demand our elected officials to do the same; or will we surrender what remains of our ever-diminishing autonomy and hope that, by some miracle, an unabated government will cease to function according to blank check policies and right the ship by all benevolent means?

Monetary issues concerning both government and the electorate are timeless. Verily we now have a President – a confessed redistributionist in the mold of the above-mentioned philosophies – who evidently views our established system as a mark for ultimate dismantling, the exploitation of which is only used as a platform to endorse something entirely different. To that end, one of the Founders offered the following:

----------------------------------------

“The establishment of the new plan of government, in its present form, is a question that involves such immense consequences, to the present times and to posterity, that it calls for the deepest attention of the best and wisest friends of their country and mankind. If it be found right, after mature deliberation, adopt it; if wrong, amend it at all events: for to say that a bad government must be established for fear of anarchy, is really saying that we should kill ourselves for fear of dying!”
~ Richard Henry Lee, in a letter to the Governor of Virginia, Edmund Randolph; October 16, 1787

R.H. Lee (1732-1794) was a signer of the Articles of Confederation and the author of the Lee Resolution, by which the Second Continental Congress declared the Colonies to be independent of the British Empire. He likewise served a one-year term as the President of the Continental Congress and later acted as President pro tempore of the U.S. Senate. Yet he is perhaps better known in modern times as the great-uncle of General Robert Edward Lee.

On This Day in History

c/o Library of Congress

AD 37 – Nero, fifth Emperor of the Roman Empire, was born in present-day Anzio, Italy. Known for a reign filled with excessiveness and despotism, Nero is also noted for seemingly countless executions, including those of his mother, his stepbrother, and many of the early Christians against whom he placed blame for the Great Fire of Rome. With assassination all but imminent, Nero committed suicide in AD 68, bringing the 54-year rule of Julio-Claudian dynasty to an end.

1791 – Authored and introduced to the 1st United States Congress by James Madison as the limitations on our government in regard to personal liberties, the first 10 Amendments to the United States Constitution (better known as the Bill of Rights, pictured) became law when ratified by the Virginia General Assembly, providing the three-fourths needed by the States to make it official.

1939 – Gone with the Wind premiered at Loew’s Grand Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia. The film earned 10 Academy Awards (a record that stood for 20 years) and is ranked sixth in the American Film Institute’s list of the Top 100 Best American Films of All Time. It was selected for preservation by the National Film Registry in 1989.

1966 – Walt Disney died in Burbank, California 10 days after his 65th birthday.

1973 – Facing pressure from members of the Gay Liberation Front and psychiatrist/gay rights activist Ronald Bayer, among others, the Board of Trustees of the American Psychiatric Association voted 13-0 to remove homosexuality from its Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders.

The APA, for the record, has been criticized (more than once) for employing an inferior diagnostic process in lieu of a more unempirical structure that elevates the opinions of the prominent few. Author and psychiatrist Dr. William Glasser has referred to the DSM as “phony diagnostic categories,” arguing that “it was developed to help psychiatrists . . . make money.”

2001 – The Leaning Tower of Pisa was reopened to the public after 11 years and $27,000,000 to fortify it, without fixing its famous slant (3.97 degrees, or 3.9 meters). Engineers expect the nearly 700-year-old freestanding bell tower to remain stable for another 200 years.

2005 – The parliament of Latvia (northeast Europe) amended its national constitution with Article 110, formally eliminating same-sex couples from being entitled to marry and adopt.

Information initially obtained from Wikipedia; confirmed and revised (when necessary) through various sources.

From disheartened to righteously fortified

About two years ago, not long after his infamous bow to Emperor Akihito, a Japanese reporter asked President Obama if the U.S. was right for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki in August 1945.

That's an interesting (read: loaded) question. Let’s review.

In an attack that was intended to intimidate the U.S. Pacific Fleet from interfering with military actions the Empire was planning against Europe, and ultimately the United States, Japanese aircraft carriers launched over 350 fighters, bombers and torpedo planes on the morning of December 7, 1941 in an assault on the Hawaiian island of Oahu that was nothing short of devastating.

In all, the Japanese smashed, wrecked and demolished three cruisers, three destroyers and 188 aircraft. All eight battleships docked at Pearl Harbor were also damaged, half of which were sunk. Six of the eight, however, were raised (when necessary), repaired and returned to service during the War.  Yet the greatest cost was paid in blood, as 1,282 Americans were wounded and 2,402 of our finest were killed.

Instead of ducking the aggressor, we knuckled up. FDR informed the Allied powers that America was officially all-in. The Stars and Stripes jumped into the fire, kicked more than our share of Axis ass (at no small cost by any measure) and led the drive to bring this worldwide struggle to an end nearly four brutal years later, sending Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy and Imperial Japan to the guillotine.

I don’t exactly recall how Obama responded to the reporter. I’m sure our President – who’s developed a reputation for apologizing on behalf of the nation he represents – offered an answer that was both nice and diplomatic. But for those who feel such questions and apologies have become redundant, it seems the American response to the events that occurred 70 years ago today require no justification at all.


Picture credit: The battleship U.S.S. West Virginia is engulfed in flames after the surprise Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor 70 years ago today; c/o The National Archives via AFP/Getty Images and USA Today

Sunday's Quote: From one Founder to another

c/o Encyclopedia Virginia

The Founders are referenced with increasing regularity on this blog because time has proven them more honorable, stalwart and wise than the majority of those who lead us today. Thus, if some socialist-friendly liberal ever attempts to lecture you about what the Founders meant, perhaps throwing this back at him/her will be of some assistance.

----------------------------------------

“The selfishness and corruption of Europe I have no doubt about, and therefore wish most sincerely that our free Republics may not suffer themselves to be changed and wrongly wrought upon by the corrupt maxims of policy that pervade European Councils--where artful and refined plausibility is forever called in to aid the most pernicious designs. It would seem as if there were a general jealosy [sic] beyond the water, of the powerful effects to be derived from Republican virtue here, and so we hear a constant cry from thence, echoed & reechoed here by all Expectants from the Treasury of the United States--That Congress must have more power--That we cannot be secure & happy until Congress command implicitly both purse & sword.

“So that our confederation must be perpetually changing to answer sinister views in the greater part, until every fence is thrown down that was designed to protect & cover the rights of Mankind. It is a melancholy consideration that many wise & good men have, some how [sic] or other, fallen in with these ruinous opinions. I think Sir that the first maxim of a man who loves liberty should be, never to grant to Rulers an atom of power that is not most clearly & indispensably necessary for the safety and well being [sic] of Society. To say that these Rulers are revocable, and holding their places during pleasure may not be supposed to design evil for self-aggrandizement, is affirming what I cannot easily admit. Look to history and see how often the liberties of mankind have been oppressed & ruined by the same delusive hopes & fallacious reasoning. The fact is, that power poisons the mind of its possessor and aids him to remove the shackles that restrain itself.”
– Richard Henry Lee, from a letter to Samuel Adams; March 14, 1785

Perhaps better known as Robert E. Lee’s great uncle, R.H. Lee was both a signer of the Articles of Confederation and the author of the Lee Resolution, by which the Second Continental Congress declared the Colonies to be independent of the British Empire. In fact the initial drive towards independence was led by an alliance known as the “Adams-Lee Junto.”

The contrast is noteworthy

Photo by Chris Jackson/Getty Images

Camilla, Duchess of Cornwall and Charles, Prince of Wales pose with the natives after they are given a traditional Maasi greeting during a November 9 visit to the Arusha region of Tanzania in southeast Africa. The Prince and Duchess were at the end of their four-day tour after an earlier stay in South Africa to promote social and environmental issues.

On This Day in History

c/o MacArthur Memorial, via AltDaily

1803 – The U.S. Senate ratified the Louisiana Purchase, acquiring 828,000 square miles originally claimed by France for less than three cents per acre (equivalent to 42 cents per acre today).

Ultimately 15 States would be carved from the area. Also of note, Napoleon Bonaparte said of the exchange, "This accession of territory affirms forever the power of the United States, and I have given England a maritime rival who sooner or later will humble her pride."

1818 – The Convention of 1818 was signed between the United States and the United Kingdom. Most importantly, Article II of the agreement established the 49th parallel as the border between the U.S. and Canada. It hasn't moved an inch after 193 years, and unlike our neighbors to the south, Canadians have no problem respecting our mutual border whatsoever.

1944 – General Douglas MacArthur (pictured) fulfilled his "I shall return" promise when the Battle of Leyte commenced in the Philippines. The Allies reclaimed the islands from the Japanese by New Year's Eve, and World War II would be decided nine months later. The good guys won.

1946 – Lewis Grizzard, a distinguished writer and humorist known for his commentary and Southern demeanor, was born in Fort Benning, Georgia. He was inflicted with a congenital heart defect from birth and died from complications of his fourth heart-valve surgery in 1994. "I Haven't Understood Anything Since 1962 and Other Nekkid Truths" is one of my all-time favorites.

1950 – Tom Petty, one of our finest singer-songwriters, was born in Gainesville, Florida. His music, both solo and collaborative, has sold a combined 60 million units worldwide since he debuted (with the Heartbreakers) in 1976.

1967 – A brief motion picture of an unidentified subject purported to be "Bigfoot" was filmed by two men in the Six Rivers National Forest in the northwestern-most corner of California. Known as the Patterson-Gimlin film, its veracity still remains open to debate.

1973 – Designed by acclaimed Danish architect Jørn Utzon, the Sydney Opera House opened to the public for the first time at Bennelong Point in New South Wales, Sydney, Australia. Declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2007, the SOH remains one of the most distinctive buildings and one of the most famous performing arts centers in the world.

1977 – Just three days after the release of their fifth album, Street Survivors, a plane carrying Lynyrd Skynyrd crashed in Gillsburg, Mississippi, killing lead singer Ronnie Van Zant, guitarist Steve Gaines and backup singer Cassie Gaines, along with three other non-members of the band.

Skynyrd reformed 10 years later for a reunion tour with lead singer Ronnie Van Zant's younger brother as the new frontman, a position Johnny holds to this day. Although lead/rhythm guitarist Gary Rossington is the only founding member who remains with Skynyrd, thousands still show up to see the Kings of Southern Rock every time they play. To date, the band has sold nearly 30 million units in the U.S. alone.

Information initially obtained from Wikipedia; confirmed and revised (when necessary) through various sources.

Sunday's Quote: The day everything changed

Photo by Carmen Taylor/Associated Press

"Mohammed is God's apostle.  Those who follow him are ruthless to the unbelievers but merciful to one another."

– Quran 48:29 (Surat Al-Fath, a.k.a. The Victory)

I was the operations manager for a trucking company in south Memphis on this particular day in history ten years ago.  Upon returning to my office from a drop yard on Elvis Presley Blvd., an ominous sounding voice on the radio abruptly interrupted a commercial and said "We now go to Howard Stern live."

Stern was broadcast on an hour delay in most of his syndicated markets, so I knew something substantial must have occurred for the recorded airing of the shock jock's program to be suddenly preempted.  The catastrophic terrorist attacks that would change the world forever were revealed to me from that moment on.

The numbers are astonishing.  Subsequent to the 17,727 acts of terrorism executed globally in the name of Islam since 9/11, the Associated Press reported last week that 35,117 convictions have ensued from the arrest of 119,044 terror suspects worldwide since that fateful day in which 2,977 innocent lives in New York City, Washington, D.C. and Stonycreek Township, Pennsylvania were snuffed out by the concerted and misguided acts of aggression that, to this day, remain somewhat difficult to fully process.

The Global War on Terror – a label President Obama discontinued some two years ago in favor of the more inauspicious Overseas Contingency Operation – got its unceremonious start when 19 men hijacked three passenger jets to implement the will of Allah.  Operation Enduring Freedom, the official campaign that commenced in Afghanistan, was launched a little over three weeks later on October 7.  Since then, nearly 6,000 of our military's finest have been killed and over 40,000 more have been injured, often severely, while endeavoring to rid our planet of these fanatical vermin – all of which has come at a fiscal cost in the trillions of dollars.

But the hits just keep on coming.  The Taliban, just today, claimed responsibility for a truck bombing in the Wardak province of eastern Afghanistan that killed two civilians and wounded nearly 80 American soldiers.  Such exploits have become so common, and we have become so desensitized, that you could be learning about this most recent attack for the first time from this very post.

Although former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee referred to the events of 9/11 as "my generation's version of Pearl Harbor" on his Fox News program yesterday, one could surmise that the fervent adversary facing the world today, and the resulting 10-year confrontation that has no end in sight, is exceedingly worse than an enemy that was defeated less than four years after their initial attack on American soil.

Our Founders did not ascribe the First Amendment to the Bill of Rights to enable those with less honorable intentions the capacity to determine how "We the People" respond to calamity.  Yet hypersensitive nonsense from television pundits (Huckabee excluded), politicians and the press at large often dictate how we react to a hostile foe, to the point that charges of hate speech could be levied for merely speaking with candor about the commonality of events once unthinkable.

Consequently those who embrace ideologies that are acknowledged nation destroyers – communism and socialism, just to name a couple – are equally influenced, and thus, driven by erroneous interpretations about our establishing documents, which, in no small twist, now encourages those who might otherwise be faithful allies to instead view our nation as a target for conquest and our Founders as subjects for derision.

To be sure, adherents and sympathizers alike who view Islam as a vehicle to put Americans in their place, as it were, only causes the vitriol about tolerance – for the sake of their traditionally peculiar sensitivities – becomes more intolerable by the day.  In addition, the so-called "peace loving" Muslims, who supposedly comprise the majority, seem quite content to allow the rest of the world to clean up the tragic mess left by their more militant counterparts.

Be not fooled.  They're laughing at us.

William Gladstone (d. 1898), the only four-time Prime Minister of Great Britain and a prominent classical liberal, is somewhat famously noted for referring to the Quran as an "accursed book," once even going so far as to hoist it amid a session of Parliament and proclaim "So long as there is this book, there will be no peace in the world."

Dutch politician Geert Wilders, a self-proclaimed right-wing liberal, made a number of similar statements in 2007 that were not received nearly as well.  Accused of criminally insulting religious and ethnic groups and inciting hatred and discrimination, Wilders was finally acquitted of all charges just three months ago.

As mentioned before, all painstaking efforts will go for naught if civilized nations insist upon circumnavigating both the initial source and the resulting philosophy of what produces the abundance of likeminded extremists who have been a relentless thorn in the side of peaceable societies for well over a millennia.  Verily we will chase our tails ad infinitum until the international community and its leaders become bold enough to confess, finally and collectively, that stomaching those who refuse peace and assimilation is a formula for continued upheaval and ultimate conquest.

The Pentagon has been repaired, a memorial has been built to the victims of the plane that crashed in southern Pennsylvania, and Ground Zero is beginning to rediscover its identity.  But it's been no easy task.  Ten years later, it still feels like yesterday.

Here is noted English commentator (and atheist) Pat Condell to further the perspective.

On This Day in History

 c/o Den of Décor

1189 – European Crusaders launched the Siege of Acre against Saladin's Ayyubid dynasty in present day northern Israel, by which the Christians achieved a conclusive triumph amid the Third Crusade nearly two years later.

Ultimately Richard the Lionheart and his army, which included the Knights Templar, made considerable headway throughout the region, and Saladin himself failed to defeat Richard in any military engagement.

1609 – English maritime explorer Henry Hudson, for lack of a better way of describing it, discovered the Delaware Bay.  Initially selected by the Dutch East India Company to find an easterly passage to Asia, Hudson was unable to complete the predetermined route due to excessive ice blockage.

Hudson redirected while he and his crew were near Norway's North Cape and pointed his ship west to find another passage, this time through North America.  Hudson landed in the Bay some three months later.

1845 – The first issue of Scientific American is published.  After 166 years, the magazine can boast of a circulation that approaches three-quarters of a million.

1862 – Outnumbered by 12,000 troops, Confederate General Robert E. Lee and his Army of Northern Virginia engaged U.S. Army Maj. General John Pope and his Army of Virginia at the Second Battle of Bull Run/Second Manassas.  The South earned a decisive victory two days later.

1898 – Though Coca-Cola gets all the press for being a uniquely Southern beverage, a pharmacist named Caleb Bradham developed the recipe for what would become known as Pepsi-Cola at a drug store in New Bern, North Carolina.  PepsiCo was incorporated four years later, which, at present, generates net revenues that exceed $40 billion annually.

1957 – Senator Strom Thurmond (D-SC) began a filibuster to prevent the Senate from voting on Civil Rights Act of 1957.  He stopped speaking 24 hours and 18 minutes later, which remains longest filibuster ever conducted by a single Senator.

1965 – The lovely and vivacious Shania Twain was born in Windsor, Ontario, Canada.

1981 – The Centers for Disease Control revealed a high rate of incidence among gay men for both pneumocystis and Kaposi's sarcoma.  The resulting immune disorder was soon identified as AIDS for the first time.

Most information obtained via Wikipedia; revised (when necessary) and confirmed through various sources.

Just Thinking Out Loud (Again): On the international tip

c/o The Guardian

So, the Chinese got their hands on a Russian hand-me-down and converted it into an aircraft carrier.  I also hear they've developed a new missile that's been called a "carrier killer."  (Taiwan recently developed one of its own, which is aimed squarely at China.)

All of that is nice, but know this – the United States has more boats and high-speed explosive projectiles than our potential aggressors on the other side of the Pacific will ever be able to handle.  Indeed America and the Allies took communist Russia down and we'll take them down, too.  So be nice China, or you'll never see another dime of that $1 trillion we owe you.

© Joel Goodman, via Mother Jones

It's good to see the looting that's occurred during the London riots has been perpetrated by individuals of every race and background.  This isn't multiculturalism at its finest by any means, but at least the masses can come together for something.

And yes, I'm kidding.  More or less.

Sunday's Quote: The not-so-changing face of terrorism

c/o The Telegraph

Rejoice, oh ye fervent disciples of the Left.  Now you can stop disregarding the thousands of post-9/11 terrorist assaults executed globally in the name of Islam – while referring to the otherwise diminutive number of "Christian terrorists" (for the sake of tolerance) who infamously shelled abortion clinics – and re-focus your crosshairs directly upon the first guerrilla strike by a non-Muslim since Timothy McVeigh blasted the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City 16 years ago.

As you have heard by now, a 32-year-old Norwegian named Anders Behring Breivik carried out a dual shooting/bomb attack in Oslo, Norway last Friday, killing 77 people and injuring 96 more.  Aligned with a group known as Nordisk, a 22,000-member forum that emphasizes political terrorism (similar to the Weather Underground), Breivik is said to have been driven by a desperate animosity for "cultural Marxists."  He is also believed to desire a "crusade" against the spread of Islam, according to the Swedish magazine Expo.

Difficult to grasp as it may be for some, Breivik is not the only one fraught with such anxieties; by no means.  I don't like Marxism in any form.  Most people don't.  I am likewise opposed to the spread of Islam, or any other dogma so fierce and/or peculiarly sensitive in scale, as the unquestionable chasm among other social and religious philosophies make Muslims in large numbers enormously incompatible with most societies on the planet.  Anyone who contests such a position simply isn't paying attention.

The difference is that Breivik now epitomizes that poor soul – we all know the type – who neglected to understand the full gravity of his extremist measures even after he opened fire on a Labour Party youth camp two days ago.  Fatefully the actions of this young Norwegian will, in due course, enliven the consortium of cultural amalgamation to which he is so vehemently opposed.

Because of his exploits, Breivik is now a lasting poster child whose memory will be invoked at will by multicultural partisans whenever immigration concerns arise, thus granting Breivik's unwelcome masses an easier transition into his part of the world than he ever dreamed possible.

Perhaps overlooked amid the slew of still-developing news stories are the numerous reports that mention Breivik's blonde hair and blue eyes – an apparent overture to the fact that a non-Arab committed these vicious acts of aggression.  It is certainly notable, of course, considering that none of the terrorists with whom the world has become so familiar over the past decade look nothing like a typical Scandinavian.

Still one can't help but to anticipate that Breivik's particular brand of ethnicity will, at some point, be used by Muslim sympathizers to somehow deflect from the tragic commonality of events all too familiar.  Because in the end, the bloodshed caused by a handful of self-identifying Right Wingers will always pale in comparison to the most historically menacing of all aggressors.

--------------------------------------------------

"When you clash with the unbelieving Infidels in battle (fighting Jihad in Allah's Cause), smite their necks until you overpower them, killing and wounding many of them.  At length, when you have thoroughly subdued them, bind them firmly, making (them) captives.  Thereafter either generosity or ransom (them based upon what benefits Islam) until the war lays down its burdens.  Thus are you commanded by Allah to continue carrying out Jihad against the unbelieving infidels until they submit to Islam."
– Qur'an: 47:4

Happy 4th

With battles having broken out some 15 months earlier, the Second Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia on this day, 235 years ago, formally announcing the thirteen American colonies' intention to separate from the British Empire, thus becoming a soverign and autonomous nation.

This is the flag of the Culpeper Minutemen, a militia group formed in northern Virginia at the outset of the Revolution in 1775.  Remembered for their trademark phrases "Liberty or Death" & "Don't Tread on Me" – terms that remain pertinent to this day – these indomitable patriots fought with distinction as they helped turn the tide amid the early days of the War.  In remembrance of men like these, I fly this flag in their honor.

Sunday's Quote: Her sweet, brave smile

A year ago, almost to the day, I posted a Sunday's Quote about Phoebe Prince, a 15-year-old who immigrated with her family to Massachusetts in the autumn of 2009.  Hit with a relentless barrage of bullying almost as soon as she arrived, the young Irish lass felt she could tolerate the abuse no longer and committed suicide in January 2010 just a few months after she reached American soil.

Nine students from South Hadley High School were charged with numerous felonies.  Six of them recently struck deals by which they were allowed to plead guilty to lesser imputations.  Although the majority ended up with what amounts to a slap on the wrist, the national attention this story received will hopefully serve as a reminder about the reasonless nature in which we sometimes treat others.

One might argue that justice has not been served.  Understandably some may feel that these smug little heathens all but got away with murder.  It would be difficult to disagree considering that most of Phoebe's aggressors will serve no time inside a prison cell.  Yet whatever the consolation, the memory of Phoebe Prince -- an innocent teenage girl from Ireland who hoped to somehow fit into her new and unfamiliar surroundings -- will remind us that terrible and irreversible things can happen when people refuse to intervene.

"Nothing is to be preferred before justice."
– Socrates (470 BC-399 BC, Greek philosopher)

"God employs several translators; some pieces are translated by age, some by sickness, some by war, some by justice."
– John Donne (1572-1631, English poet, satirist, lawyer, and priest)

"Justice is the truth in action."
– Joseph Joubert (1754-1824, French essayist)

On This Day in History: A fascinating day

One of my least favorite pictures. Ever.

1527 – In an event generally considered to mark the end of the Roman Renaissance, Rome is sacked by Spanish and German troops aligned with the Holy Roman Empire amid the War of the League of Cognac (1526-1530).  Nearly 150 Swiss Guards died fighting the forces of Emperor Charles V in order to allow Pope Clement VII to escape.  To commemorate the bravery of the Swiss Guards, new recruits are sworn in every year on May 6.

1861 – Arkansas secedes from the Union on the same day Richmond, Virginia is declared the new capital of the Confederate States of America.

1863 – Outnumbered by nearly 73,000 soldiers, General Robert E. Lee and Lt. General Thomas "Stonewall" Jackson lead the South to victory over the Army of the Potomac in the final day of the Battle of Chancellorsville in northern Virginia.

1889 – The Eiffel Tower is officially opened to the public at the Universal Exposition in Paris.

1937 – The German zeppelin Hindenburg (pictured) catches fire and is destroyed within a minute while attempting to dock at Lakehurst Naval Air Station in Manchester Township, New Jersey.  The 12-story blimp was over 800-ft. in length and filled with seven million cubic feet of pure hydrogen.  Thirty-six people were killed in the incident, and why the airship ignited into flames remains a mystery to this day.

1940 – John Steinbeck is awarded the Pulitzer Prize for The Grapes of Wrath.

1941 – Bob Hope performs the first of his nearly 200 USO shows at March Field Army Air Corps base in Riverside, California.

1954 – Roger Bannister becomes the first person to run a sub-four-minute mile at Iffley Road Track in Oxford, England.

1984 – Having suffered religious persecution throughout the 19th century, Pope John Paul II canonized 103 Korean Martyrs in Seoul, South Korea.

2000 – I was 15 minutes late picking up a girl named Sarah for our first date.  Of the girls who have been in and out of my life, this little golden-haired cutie is the one who sticks out in memory the most.  In the end, I was only successful in turning her affection for me inside out because of what I could not do.

As I once wrote, years ago, about our first evening together...

"I knew that look on her old man's face.  Most fathers go through it at least once or twice.  I imagine it's similar to how an accomplished violinist would feel about handing a Stradivarius over to an unruly ape."

I hope Sarah is doing well, wherever she is.

Initially published 5/6/10 and republished with a few minor revisions; most information obtained via Wikipedia and confirmed through various sources.

On This Day in History

1860 – A Frenchman named Édouard-Léon Scott de Martinville (1817-1879; aka, Leon Scott) used a phonautograph to create what would eventually become recognized as the oldest audible recording of a human voice.

The phonautograph itself, patented by Scott some three years earlier, was intended to transcribe sound into "a visible medium," but the device had no means for playback.  As a result, the transcriptions would not be heard until computer technology essentially created a way in 2008.  The resulting sound was a barely recognizable 10-second recording of the French folk song "Au Clair de la Lune," believed to have been sung by Scott himself.

1865 – Robert E. Lee surrendered the Army of Northern Virginia to Ulysses S. Grant at Appomattox Courthouse, effectively ending the War Between the States.

"Governor, if I had foreseen the use those people designed to make of their victory, there would have been no surrender at Appomattox Courthouse; no sir, not by me.  Had I foreseen these results of subjugation, I would have preferred to die at Appomattox with my brave men, my sword in my right hand."

-- General Robert E. Lee, speaking to former Governor of Texas, Fletcher S. Stockdale, less than one month before Lee's death; as quoted in The Life and Letters of Robert Lewis Dabney

1867 – Passing by a single vote, the U.S. Senate ratified a treaty that allowed for the purchase of Alaska from the Russian Empire.  Bought for $7.2 million, the area that would become the 49th State (92 years later) came at less than two cents per acre.

1980 – Saddam Hussein had philosopher Muhammad Baqir al-Sadr executed after three days of torture, essentially for the endorsement of a political philosophy known as Wilayat Al-Umma ("Governance of the people").  Chants of "Long live Mohammed Baqir Sadr!" were chanted by Shi'a guards just prior to Saddam Hussein's execution on December 30, 2006.

1992 – In one of the great political surprises of the 20th century, John Major's Conservative Party won an unprecedented fourth general election victory in the United Kingdom.

2003 – Baghdad fell to Coalition forces amid the American-led invasion of Iraq.  To bloody hell with Saddam Hussein.

Initially published 4/9/10; information obtained via Wikipedia and confirmed through various sources.