Octopodial Chrome

It’s the Twelfth Day of Christmas! Today we mark the revelation of Jesus Christ to be God the Son, as indicated by both the visit of the Magi and His baptism in the Jordan. In Mexico children get gifts today.

Of note, today is one traditional day to end the Christmas season—by which I mean: I hope you don’t take down your decorations until at least today. I personally keep ’em up and celebrate until Candlemas (the Feast of the Presentation, on the second of February) though.

Forgetting Christmas on the 26th of December is Right Out.

I’d be interested to know what my Greek friends think of Napoleon Linardato’s take on the Greek economic situation. It certainly seems very unhealthy for one in four workers to be State employees.

This is abso-frickin-lutely insane: a woman in Texas was convicted of a felony for spanking her daughter. She didn’t use a belt. She wasn’t (apparently, from anything I’ve read on the case) beating the girl; she just spanked her. Judge Jose Longoria told her, you don’t spank children today, and sentenced her to five years of probation. As it’s a felony, she’ll never be permitted to vote or own a firearm again.

It’s conceivable of course that she really did overstep the bounds, but I doubt it: from the facts as reported in multiple sources, I suspect this whole thing was really a ploy for her ex’s mother to get the kids. Well, the grandmother has them now, and the mother’s life is ruined.

I wonder if the judge has kids, and if so exactly how rotten they are.

No, Judge Longoria, one does spank a child today, if he or she needs it.

Jeffrey Goldberg marks this Fathers’ Day with a story about Thomas Woude, a man who died saving his son. I’ve no doubt that my own father would have done the same for us—fortunately, it has never come to that.

Well, today marks a centuury since International Business Machines was founded. I know we employees like to complain a lot, but it really is an amazing company—and has paid my wages for over a decade. Here’s to another hundred!

A star in the constellation Scorpio has been named after Saint Afanasy of Kovrov, who was persecuted under the Soviet union. I think naming objects after great heroes—whether of the Church, of the State or of the Academy—is a splendid idea.

In today’s edition of The World is Doomed, we review a case wherein cops who claim children under ten years are only allowed in their parents’ yard.

Now, this is on the face of it absurd. Almost exactly four years ago I mentioned a story about children losing the right to roam which featured a great-grandfather who would walk six miles to go fishing. There’s nothing at all wrong with that! In fact, given the very large number of Americans who are morbidly obese, maybe more six-year-olds should be playing outside their parents’ lawns.

Regardless, if parents wish to allow their kids to run free (and of course assume responsibility for any misbehaviour those kids get up to), that’s the parents’ right. Neither the State nor its agents have any business intruding a nose where it’s not wanted.

There are no more known American veterans of the Great War: Frank Buckles, sometime corporal in the United States Army, has passed away. My dad has told us how when he was a boy World War One veterans were grandparents; I have in my possession a picture of my great-grandfather (an artillery officer in that conflict) with my grandfather, dad & me when I was roughly a year old. And now there are none left at all.

Makes one wonder how long until the last WWII vet passes away—and that was practically yesterday!

A retired Ghurka fought 40 robbers on a train, armed with nothing but his kukhri. He killed three, wounded eight and drove off the rest.

I learnt this much from my study of the Western Front: Ghurkas rock.

Apparently European Union school calendar omits Christian holidays but retains Sikh, Mohammedan and Jewish ones . On what rational basis are Christian holidays struck but non-Christian ones preserved in Europe?

Absolutely disgusting and abhorrent: a London museum removed the cigar from Winston Churchill’s mouth. What sort of perverse historian thinks this is appropriate?

I think the text of the President’s speech tonight (not up at the White House yet, hence the news link) was excellent. It struck exactly the right notes and was eminently presidential; it was fitting for both the head of government and the head of state.

Colonel William Bower passed away today. He had flown Fickle Finger of Fate in Doolittle’s Raid and was the last surviving pilot therefrom (only five from the crews are now left). Not enough folks remember the raid today: less than six months after Pearl Harbor, USS Hornet and the Army Air Forces took the war home to the enemy, striking ten targets in Tokyo, two in Yokohama and one each in Kobe, Nagoya, Osaka and Yokosuka.

Unable to land their bombers on the carriers, the crew knew it was a one-way mission; their goal was to land in a friendly base in China, but due to the friction of war they were unable to do so, instead bailing out in Japanese-controlled territory and helped by friendly Chinese to safety. The Japanese murdered approximately 250,000 civilians in retaliation for that assistance.

Although the raid wasn’t materially significant, it served a valuable psychological purpose, putting the Japanese on notice that they were not invulnerable. Less than two months later we won the Battle of Midway and Japanese had lost the war: the next three years were spent explaining the fact in precise detail.

Col. Bower was an honest-to-goodness hero. May his memory be eternal!

Byron York notes that officialdom and the commentariat that called for caution after the Ft. Hood murder spree leapt to unwarranted conclusion regarding the recent Arizona shootings. The same folks who couldn’t find it within themselves to blame radical Islamism for the actions of a radical Islamist have no problem blaming the Right for the actions of someone who is apparently about as far from the right wing as is possible to be.

What’s particularly annoying to me are the folks who keep calling, now, for civility in politics, despite two inconvenient facts: first, that this murder appears to have nothing to do with politics; second, that (to my knowledge) not one of them complained when it was the Left openly advocating violence and assassination. What’s sauce for the goose is apparently not sauce for the gander.

Regarding the topic of strident language directed at one’s opponents, I can’t see how it will be avoided. It seems like a basic part of human nature, for good or for ill.

I went pheasant hunting the last few days in Kansas with Bill B—— and Rick ——. It was ab-so-lutely amazing: there were more birds out there than I’d ever seen. Even my seasoned party-members commented that it was as good as any hunting they’d ever had. In one particular spot, we flushed so many birds that it sounded like a firing line at an English hunt: one shot thundered out after another, with birds flying in every direction.

We all did pretty well. On Thursday we each shot two birds, making it halfway to the limit. Friday wasn’t too great; one of us bagged three but the other two got none. Today I managed to pick up the only bird of the day, which made me pretty happy. Since my friend had already hunted this year and was under an absolute directive from his wife to return with no pheasants, we split the bag two ways and I now have two birds in my freezer, one in my fridge and two hanging on my balcony.

I’ve been thinking a lot about hanging game recently. Darina Allen’s cookbook Forgotten Skills of Cooking praises hung game extremely highly---so highly that I figure it’s worth a shot. Supposedly the aging process really brings out the flavours of the animals, taking them from not-much-more-than-chicken to something altogether different. Hank Shaw and others seem to agree. So I didn’t skin or draw my birds from Thursday at all, but simply put them on top of the cooler and tried not to get them too wet. They stayed in the truck overnight in the freezing Kansas weather, which I’m pretty sure didn’t hurt them, and now they’re on my balcony. If my research is right, they should be ready to eat in a week or two. We’ll see if it’s astounding or if I just ruined 40% of my first hunt in two years.

Hunting really is great fun. It’s hard work: one walks probably something like two or three miles for every bird, and while some walks are across grass-like winter wheat, others are across rough and irregular corn and wheat stubble, and still others are in prairie grasses over one’s head. It’s expensive work: last time I totted up the numbers it worked out to something like $20 an ounce. But it’s also rewarding work. There’s something about being in the great outdoors. There’s something about walking the farmer’s fields which produce the food we all eat. There’s something about seeing one’s food in its natural habitat. There’s something about actually having to work for one’s supper, not just buy it on a plate, where the animal actually has a fighting chance (literally, in the case of pheasants: the roosters have nasty spurs on their ankles). There’s something about seeing all the old farmsteads, abandoned now that farmers live in small towns and drive to work like the rest of us.

I would never have gotten to see a herd of mule deer prancing in the grass if I’d stayed at home. I’d never have seen Greg W——’s old barn, hand-built and likely older than my parents, unused now but still straight out of an old picture. I’d never have seen the fresh deer leg or the old deer jawbone, remnants of four-legged hunters who work that land every day. I’d never have seen a herd of cows feeding in a corn circle, every head turned to watch us approach a tailwater pit. I’d never have gotten to spend time with Greg & Dave M——, two of the nicest, finest fellows I know.

$20 an ounce is cheap.

The state of Colorado has made $2.2 million from medical mariajuana sales taxes, and the city of Denver has made the same amount.

What’s interesting to me is how much money that implies the average Coloradan or Denverite spends on marijuana. Crazy stuff!

Generals Scales and van Riper have an article in the Washington Post asking a provocative question: why are our soldiers still in fair fights? They make some interesting points about how the infantry bears the brunt of the fighting (although only 4% of the military, they suffer 81% of the combat deaths), and they appear to have some interesting ideas about how we could use our technical superiority to tilt the balance in our favour.

I think that some of this was part of the transformation the Secretary Rumsfeld wanted to achieve, although Lt. General van Riper has been critical of those efforts and their results. Some may remember his public criticism of Millennium Challenge 02…

Over in England two drunken thugs picked a fight with the wrong victims: a Victoria-Cross-winning SAS soldier, a George-Cross-winning British Army captain and a George-Cross-winning Royal Marine. For their next trick, they’re going to punch a lion.

The United States is rare—perhaps unique—in that we have two military holidays: Memorial Day, for those slain in our nation’s service; and Veterans Day, for all those who have served. It’s appropriate to remember the many sacrifices that soldiers, sailors, marines and airmen have made, are making and will continue to make; not just the large sacrifices of life and limb but all the small ones too. As just one example, in the civilian world it’s expected that a father will see his children born; in the military world it’s not at all unusual that he will be deployed. In the civilian world it’s normal to be in constant telephone and computer contact with loved ones; in the military world it’s common to have none of that. There are a thousand things big and small about military life that are just different from civilian life, and we should honour veterans for making those sacrifices. We should take a moment to remember all those deployed in harm’s way, or safely home in port making less than minimum wage (on an hourly basis), or studying hard while their friends are enjoying their youth, or just putting up with the minor indignities of military life.

This morning I was thinking of how I used to call up various members of my family and wish them a happy Veterans Day, and how now one has to call up the entire family, when I was struck by a thought. If we’re going to recognise veterans for the many small and large sacrifices we make, then shouldn’t we also be recognising those other veterans today: the wives, the husbands, the sons and the daughters? The ones who didn’t have a husband to hold their hands; who didn’t have a dad at the ball game; who had to drive half-a-dozen kids around town; who ate dinner on Valentine’s Day alone but not unloved; the ones who had to up and move every two or four years to a new school, a new neighbourhood, a new home and a new job; the ones who always knew that they had to take second place, because America took the first. We had a choice—as one popular article making the rounds today notes, a veteran is someone who at some point chose to hand Uncle Sam a blank cheque—but in many cases our families didn’t have a choice. So let’s take a moment and remember them too.

Happy Veterans Day, Mom!

Lou Dolinar writes eloquently about the real Gulf of Mexico disaster: the complete betrayal of trust by public institutions such as the media and academia, which resorted to hyped scaremongering rather than sober judgement. What’s particularly sad is that the vast majority of it was most likely sincere.

My brother John married his wife Genevieve a week ago today (sorry for the delay in writing). The wedding itself was held at the glorious Assumption of the Theotokos Cathedral in Denver. Standing there as part of the wedding party it struck me how very appropriate the wedding service is. It’s not the civil law handoff of a woman from father to husband, with accompanying oaths and promises as in the Western service; rather, it’s a sacrament which unites a man and a woman into a married couple. The service is full of prayers, readings and hymns which are chock full of good advice for any couple, newly-wed or not.

The weekend itself was lots of fun, if not at all restful: Friday night all of John’s and all of Gen’s friends got together to throw them a party; then Saturday night was the rehearsal dinner; then on Sunday was the wedding and the reception; then on Monday we had a barbecue for Memorial Day. It was a blast. It’s almost a shame that there are only two more weddings left in our family.

I wish them both the very best.

Ten years ago today I graduated from Austin College. At the time I considered it a black and sad day. While some of my friends were ready to get out into the real world, I wished that school could last forever. College had been the most fun I’d ever had: I made excellent friends I still have today and had learnt a lot from some world-class teachers. I was surrounded by the greatest concentration of folks my age I’d ever experience in life. How could adult life compare to that?

But you know what? The real world has treated me pretty well. I’ve taken part in mediæval recreation in the Arizona desert and the Missouri countryside; I’ve travelled to England, Germany and India; I bought a home; I mastered all-grain brewing; I’ve learnt how to bake bread, make soap, sew a doublet, knit a sweater, make jam and hunt pheasants; I’ve built my own computer from parts; I’ve learnt numerous new programming languages and technologies; I was commissioned a naval officer. I could only dream of a lot of that when I was 21; some of that wasn’t even on my radar then. It hasn’t been all fun and games—the fact that I graduated with a Computer Science degree in 2000 should say all that needs to be said about that—but on balance my life has been swell.

The young man I was a decade ago wasn’t able to imagine all the good things that lay in store for him; and now I’m looking forward to all the good things that the next decade will bring that I haven’t dreamt of yet.

I just read a fascinating Brian Reynolds Meyers, author of The Cleanest Race: How North Koreans See Themselves and Why It Matters. Very, very interesting stuff. I’d vaguely known that they were racist and nationalist, but had no idea of the extent of the problem. Worth a read.

I saw this at National Review Online:

To All My Liberal Friends

Please accept with no obligation, implied or explicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low-stress, non-addictive, gender-neutral celebration of the winter solstice holiday, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasion and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all. I also wish you a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2010, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great. Not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country nor the only America in the Western Hemisphere. Also, this wish is made without regard to the race, creed, color, age, physical ability, religious faith or sexual preference of the wishee.

To All My Conservative Friends

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year!

I like:-)