Dean's World

5 years ago today.

Here's what I wrote back then, the very morning. I've got a memoriam post up at Haibane with some other images and links.

In addition to the American members of the crew, it should also be noted that two other astronauts, one from India and the other from Israel, also perished aboard Columbia. The Indian astronaut was Kalpana Chawla, India's first female in space. Wikipedia notes that kalpana in Sanskrit means "imagination of the mind" and thus also "creation". The Israeli astronaut was Col. Ilan Ramon, a combat pilot in the Israeli Air Force, and the first Israeli astronaut. But not the last, inshallah.

Four American H-bombs fell upon the nation of Spain.

Don't believe me? Check it out.

Male macaque monkeys pay for sex by grooming females, according to a recent study that suggests the primates may treat sex as a commodity.

On this day in 1892 one J.R.R. Tolkien was born in Bloemfontein, Orange Free State (now Free State Province within South Africa).

Today many fans of Tolkien will take a moment to lift a glass and toast, "To the Professor!" While I will not be lifting a literal glass I will count this post as lifting a glass in spirit.

The novel I'm currently working on owes a lot to Professor Tolkien and his long-time friend C.S. Lewis. While I'm sure my final work would not meet with the Professor's approval (he cared little for allegory) the efforts he poured into Middle-earth is something that makes me flush out the peoples and stories of the characters in my world more than I might have otherwise.

The Last Elf may look a lot like Lewis on the page but I'm hoping is bears more than a passing resemblance to Tolkien in spirit.

So, to the Professor! The literary world is still reeling from your works and we're all better for it. Or, at the very least, the Oxford English Dictionary would be lacking a definition for the word 'walrus' without you. And that would be a sin.

Lee Harvey Oswald, a moody disaffected semi-psychotic Marxist, acting alone, shot and killed the President of the United States in 1963.

It's intellectually plausible that he had some supporters we don't know about. But he alone fired the gun. With that one rifle. And it was only a mildly difficult shot for a trained marksman. No "magic bullet" required.

Conspiracy theories mostly fail because they require too many people to act in concert to support the lie. Which only works when there is a profit motive. And there was none here.

There might have been Mob involvement, but I sort of doubt it. It would require too much coordination and too much coverup.

Discuss.

Probably the most exhilirating political speech I ever heard. And though they say most people in America didn't hear it or remark upon it but I remember hearing it and being shocked to my toes.

And every word of it was true.

It was probably what set me on the road to realizing that there was not and never was any excuse for Communism, or the collection of lies that is Marxism.

And by the way, that illustrates the true genesis of the term "neocon." The neocons were a group of liberals who in the 1970s and 1980s realized that communism really was as evil and as dangerous as the conservatives said, and needed to be fought rigorously.

In this thread about Gen. Petraeus resident anti-Islamophobe warrior Ali Eteraz said this:

" i opposed the war but even as i opposed it i was like: we cant do this alone. we went in with freaking poland (have they ever resisted anyone) and freaking spain (who still elect socialists). i mean, come on!"

Well, I for one appreciate learning all I can about Islam, so I don't mistakenly condemn the religion. I'd much rather condemn the fascist terrorists that are perverting it.

I'd appreciate it, if, in return people would READ HISTORY before making moronic claims about an entire group of PEOPLE that they obviously know NOTHING ABOUT.

Hypocrite!!!

For those of you that want to know about Poland and their many victories in war and their countless uprisings and resistance of Communism, Nazism and the like read it here. Better yet, you can read The History of Poland online.

Or you can just rely on the ignorance of others to guide you. But if you do, remember, I'll be waiting and I won't be this nice next time.

Update: Thanks to all of you, in the comments, for your support of Poland and her people. Your recognition of their valor and resistance in history is a soothing balm for the sting of ignorance displayed by others.

I am currently reading Saint Thomas Aquinas: The Dumb Ox by G.K. Chesterton. It's slow going in parts, but it often has fascinating observations. This one suddenly jumped out at me:

The Modern Girl with the lipstick and the cocktail is as much a rebel against the Women's Right's Woman of the '80s, with her stiff stick-up collars and strict teetotalism, as the latter was a rebel against the Early Victorian lady of the languid waltz tunes and the album full of quotations from Byron; or as the last, again, was a rebel against a Puritan mother to whom the waltz was a wild orgy and Byron the Bolshevist of his age.

That line about the "The Modern Girl with the lipstick and the cocktail is as much a rebel against the Women's Right's Woman of the '80s" gave me a start, since I grew up in the 1980s and am very familiar with modern young women's backlash against the strict authoritarian feminism that culminated in that decade--but Chesterton, writing in 1930 or so, was referring to the 1880s. Then I just started chuckling.

The more things change the more they stay the same, eh?

A history of the Roma, another people that Hitler tried (but failed) to destroy.

I notice that Showtime is now running a series they're calling The Tudors. I'm not watching it, but The Queen is. She might even post about it at some point. If she talks me into it I might check it out myself.

I love historical fiction when it's done well--by which I mean, it's well-written and well-acted and well-directed, and works hard not to be historically stupid. Yes, there will always be artistic license--Shakespeare made use of it liberally--but let's at least try to get most things right, eh?

I must say I'm already moderately annoyed with "The Tudors" since from everything I read and hear about it, it is entirely about the early years of King Henry VIII. If that's true, why not call it "Young Henry" or something? Because when I first heard about it I thought, "Oh, it's about the Tudors, so it's going to go from Henry the seventh to Elizabeth the first?" Uh, no. It's about Henry the 8th, and only the early days of his reign.

Mind you, Henry VIII is one of the most fascinating and historically consequential figures in Western history. Furthermore, it's crazy that we mostly remember him as the fat old king who had a lot of wives. Sort of like remembering Elvis Presley as a fat-middled aged guy in a jumpsuit with a pill habit. So there's nothing wrong with a series on young Henry VIII, or that looks at the complete arc of his life. But why not call it that? The Tudor dynasty started with his father, and ended with Elizabeth I long after his death.

Oh well I'm probably just being snarky. After all I'm a big fan of Rome, which turns out to be only about the ascension of Julius Caesar and the days of Augustus. If it were really about Rome it would be about so much more than that.

On the other hand I very much wish someone would do a series like "Rome" and start with Romulus and Remus and end with, say, Justinian. I tend to think of Byzantium as the true heir of Rome myself, although past Justinian I think it becomes hard to think of there still being a Roman Empire. Still, that would be a grand series wouldn't it?

Anyway, "The Tudors" looks like it might be promising. I'm sure Rose will let me know if it's worth it. Either way, to honor it I offer this amusing (if obscure) British Invasion song:

(More of this amusing music here.)

To Texas!

I'd be willing to bet that most people under 30 barely know what item depicted on the right is for. Especially the sharp pointy end. It's known as a churchkey.

Why do I mention it? Well for one thing, I've recently been drinking a lot of tomato juice. When I was growing up, almost all juice--orange juice, tomato juice, grape juice, grapefruit juice--was in cans that required an opener like this. Even beer and soda pop used to commonly come that way.

But now for some reason only tomato juice and a few other things come in such cans. At least, in my part of the country. They still sell good old-fashioned V8 juice that way, for example, and it's cheaper in that primitive can than in an easy-opening plastic bottle.

I noticed what an anachronism this is recently when I decided, "Hey, I drink a lot of tomato juice, and it's way cheaper in those old-fashioned cans." (Which, by the way, it is; almost a dollar a can difference.) So I bought some tomato juice in cheap cans, then realized that I did not currently own a churchkey. Worse, I had to go to five different stores before I could even find one. A frickin' churchkey!

My local convenience store didn't have one. The little grocery mart down the street didn't. The local hardware store on my way home from work didn't have one. Other stores didn't have one. When I finally located one at the supermarket, it cost only a dollar. But even when I found one there, I had to hunt. There were literally dozens of specialized utensils, including wine corkers and lemon juicers and garlic presses and apple corers. Indeed, there were at least a half-dozen different egg slicers (egg slicers?? who the hell needs an egg slicer?!?) and only two churchkeys on the whole wall.

If you're young and still not sure what this thing is for, here's an explanation: the sharp pointy end is used to punch a triangular hole in a can so you can pour the liquid out. If you know what you're doing, you punch two holes: one large to pour the liquid out of, and a smaller one on the other side to equalize the pressure so it pours evenly.

You actually have to explain that to kids these days. 30 or 40 years ago, most convenience beverages came that way. Including most beer and canned soda pop, as it happens. Now they're practically exotic.

Almost like... shoelaces. (Mwahahahaha!)

Please explain to me, in 100 words or less, why a publicly-traded corporation is less of a statist, collectivist enterprise than a trade union or a guild.

Alternative:

Please explain to me why a publicly-traded corporation is more of a natural expression of the free market than a guild or a trade union.

I don't think you can.

An interesting economic analysis I picked up at Instapundit says well, maybe so.

I like the reasoning.

I think that unions were vital and absolutely necessary a hundred years ago, less so 50 years ago, grew almost irrelevant 20 years ago... and I think they have started becoming more important again, and will only get more important again as time goes on.

Not due to idiotic pseudo-Marxist rubbish but just because they really are a useful counterbalance against big corporate power over employees and local communities.

The problem is that unions really need to update their thinking for the 21st century.

Dean has just linked a review about a book that explores a number of things, one of which I wanted to talk a little bit more about: Thomas Jefferson and the Barbary Wars.

I wanted to talk about this because a lot is being made of Congressman Keith Ellison’s use of Jefferson’s copy of the Koran for his swearing into office. However, what isn’t being talked about is why Jefferson had a copy in the first place. To hear Ellison and his handlers tell it Jefferson had one because he was exceptionally open to all religions. As Ellison said to the FreePress (as reported by WND)

…the fact that Jefferson owned the book confirmed that it was "definitely an important historical document in our national history" and he said it "demonstrates that Jefferson was a broad visionary thinker who not only possessed a Quran, but read it."

"It would have been something that contributed to his own thinking," Ellison was quoted as saying.

Additionally:

In an interview with USINFO, Ellison spokesman Rick Jauert went further, saying the choice of Jefferson's Quran was significant because it "dates religious tolerance back to the time of our founding fathers." "Jefferson was ... one of the more profound thinkers of the time, who recognized even then that there was nothing to fear, and in fact there was strength in recognizing religious tolerance," he said.

I find that very interesting because, well, the facts of history simply do not support it. Jefferson had a copy of the Koran not because he was religiously tolerant but rather, as any good strategist would tell you, to know your enemy is to know their culture.

Prior to the Revolutionary War all American ships flew under the banner of the British Empire. As such they were under the protection of an uneasy alliance between England and the pirating states of Algiers, Tunis, and Tripoli. While the Revolutionary War was waging American ships came under the same protection of the French alliance with the same state. However, by 1783, at the end of the war such protections ended and American ships were openly preyed upon. Eventually Congress, against the protests of Jefferson, agreed to pay the Dey of Algiers tribute and over the next 15 years paid up to 1 million dollars a year.

Ted Sampley, the publisher of U.S. Veteran Dispatch, agreed with Ellison, who used the Library of Congress Quran that Jefferson once owned for his ceremonial swearing-in to Congress, that Jefferson used the Quran for his own thinking, but not with the same result.

"There is no doubt Ellison was right about Jefferson believing wisdom could be 'gleaned' from the Muslim Quran," Sampley writes. "At the time Jefferson owned the book, he needed to know everything possible about Muslims because he was about to advocate war against the Islamic 'Barbary' states of Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Tripoli."

In 1786,

…when Jefferson was ambassador to France, and Adams was ambassador to Britain, they met in London with Sidi Haji Abdul Rahman Adja, the ambassador to Britain from the "Dey of Algiers."

Seeking a peace treaty, based on Congress' vote to pay tribute, the two Americans asked Dey's ambassador why Muslims had so much hostility towards America. They later reported to Congress the ambassador told them Islam "was founded on the Laws of their Prophet, that it was written in their Quran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as Prisoners, and that every Musselman (Muslim) who should be slain in Battle was sure to go to Paradise."

Additionally,

Gary DeMar, president of AmericanVision.org, added his endorsement of Sampley's interpretation of history. DeMar cites Joseph Wheelan's book, "Jefferson's War: America's First War on Terror," in noting Jefferson said, "Too long, for the honor of nations, have those Barbarians been [permitted] to trample on the sacred faith of treaties, on the rights and laws of human nature!"

"So what did Jefferson learn from the Quran? …Unless a nation submitted to Islam, whether it was the aggressor or not, that nation was by definition at war with Islam. It's no wonder that Jefferson studied the Quran. He realized that if Americans ever capitulated, the Muslims would be singing 'From the Halls of Montezuma to the Shores of A-mer-i-ca,'" DeMar concluded.

For Ellison and his people to suggest that Jefferson studied to Koran for his own personal edification ignores the context which necessitated him seeking out one in the first place. Jefferson read the Koran not because he felt he could draw enlightenment from it but because the enemies of the United States of America felt they did.

Now, the worthwhileness (is that even a word?) of the WND article ends with the last paragraph I quote. In fact that the article continues on as it does, I feel, undercuts the impact of the preceding portion of historical record. Do I have a problem with Ellison’s supporters cheering “Allahu Akbar!” No, not at all. So what if terrorists shout it as well? I don’t care. So-called Christians incite the name of God to do horrible things. Does that mean to incite God’s name at all, for any reason, aligns you with them? Absolutely not. It is stupid for WND to even bring it up.

I felt I needed to say that because what I wanted to talk about was history and Congressman Ellison’s twisting of it to present to the public a version of Jefferson that simply never existed. That is what should be talked about. Anything more than that simply distracts from the point.

By the way, for the Islam-obsessed: I have frequently seen it asserted that Yasser Arafat's PLO was the "first Islamist terrorist organization."

This is quite false for a couple of reasons, but the biggest reason is that neither Arafat nor his PLO were ever Islamists, and they still aren't Islamists now. "Islamist" is a term meaning "Person or group who wants Islamic religion written into all levels of government." Al Qaeda is an Islamist group. Most Muslims are not Islamists and don't have much trouble separating the idea of religion from government.

Arafat was not an Islamist. Never. Neither is the Fatah party he founded, which is still around today in Palestine.

That doesn't make them good, by the way, but it gets tiresome--to me anyway--to see people making such fundamental errors, so they can lump every bad thing that happens in the Islamic world together and tie it to the religion. Fatah is a secularist, socialist, nationalist movement, not a religious movement.

Yes, Arafat was known to utter "Islamic" sentiments now and then, in pretty much the same way as lots of politicians in America and other countries mouth "Christian" sentiments. But it would be dumb to think that he was ever a theologian or that his organization and movement were based on religion. It was always an afterthought at best.

*Update*: More right here.

What, you thought they just loved the Kalashnikov AK-47 for its superior field performance? You thought Saddam loved the SCUD and his T-72s just for their aesthetics and superior engineering?

I'm often blown away by how many people, even in late 2006, don't get just how deep KGB involvement was throughout the entire Middle East, in so many secularist "revolutionary movements."

*Update 2*: Yasser Arafat was famed for always carrying a sidearm. I'm not philosophically opposed to that, but I've been searching: what make and model of sidearm did he carry? My guess is it was a Makarov. But you tell me. 500 points if you have photographic evidence to back up your answer.

Again, please read this.

Today is Remembrance Day in Canada, which is basically the same as Veteran's Day in the US.

It has become fashionable in recent decades to denigrate the Canadian military, but in truth the Canadians were for a very long time known as some of the fiercest and most dangerous fighters in the West. They were sometimes small in number but in World War I and World War II the Canadians often proved themselves some of the most dangerous and valiant warriors the world had ever known.

Michael Demmons remembers.

I salute the brave and valiant Canadian veterans.

(I will quite seriously kick the ass of any Dean's World commenter who makes so much as a small joke about it by the way.)

Update:

High Flight

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds - and done a hundred things

You have not dreamed of - wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence. Hov'ring there
I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air.

Up, up the long delirious, burning blue,
I've topped the windswept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or even eagle flew -
And, while with silent lifting mind I've trod
The high untresspassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand and touched the face of God.

Pilot Officer Gillespie Magee
Number 412 fighter squadron, Royal Canadian Air Force
Died in the air on 11 December 1941 at the age of 19

I have learned to respect conservatives. For a brief while I considered myself one of them, but eventually I realized I disagreed with them on too many things. But I still recognize that they often have good arguments that should not be simply dismissed. They often raise very good concerns, even Politically Incorrect concerns that should be considered carefully and not just dismissed as "reactionary" or "sexist."

But I can't fail to notice a certain basic fact of life: currently, the American military is the most badass, frightening military machine that has ever existed on Planet Earth. At the moment, if we wanted them to, the American military could destroy any military machine on the planet, and probably do it in weeks if not days.

That's not jingoism, that's fact. But it raises some objections that not all American conservatives are entirely comfortable with. To whit:

America's 21st century forces cut through Iraq's military like a hot knife through butter. They did it not just in months, but WEEKS. They destroyed the Taliban in Afghanistan in WEEKS, not YEARS.

Yet here's the thing: the conservative Center for Military Readiness, which is located not far from my house, and is run mostly by women, has been telling me for more than twenty years that the Pentagon's policy of integrating women into the American military is degrading our fighting forces.

I don't say that they raise no valid objections. But I must say: for over 20 years they've been claiming that women in the American military are degrading our fighting performance. And in the last 20 years, America has become the predominant fighting force on the planet. We let THE GIRLS be a part of our fight, and since then we have become the most fearsome and effective fighting force that the world has ever seen.

I'm not saying we need to admit women into the dogfaces who make up the front-line infantry. Nor even that we need them in the SEALS or the Special Forces. But are you telling me they can't make effective pilots, effective snipers, effective bombers, effective line officers, effective noncoms?

I've been listening to conservatives tell me that GIRLS are degrading our fighting forces' effectiveness for most of my life, and in those same years I've watched America become the most fearsome and effective fighting force the world has ever seen.

Give it up you conservatives. Integrating them has NOT weakened our military forces at all. If it did, then how did America become the most fearsome military machine in world history? Luck?

And by the way: women generally make better snipers than men do. They're often scary-good shots. My wife can give excellent testimony to that. So did my grandma, who was an incredible shot with a rifle.

Yes yes, the boys are bigger and have better upper-arm strength and can maybe run a little faster and do more pushups. But the whole idea that the presence of women in our armed forces has degraded our armed forces? You're nuts.

Yes women add complications and difficulties, but other than that, what? The American military of today is the scariest, most lethal fighting force in the history of the world. And you think that GIRLS are screwing it up? What do you base that on besides theoretical concerns?

As is well-known, I am not a major sports fan. 11.5 months go past on Dean's World and we rarely comment upon sports. But when the Fall Classic comes around I am generally interested enough to comment. Plus, intellectually I love baseball as the most interesting of all North American sports. I honestly believe it is the only athletic game that approaches the complexity of Chess. American baseball is a highly mathematical sport, and I love that about it.

Plus I grew up in Chicago, trying to love both the Cubbies and the Sox and getting used to both of them losing. I idled away more than one of my teen years in the 1980s in Wrigley Park and Comiskey Park. The Cubbies always had the better ballpark but the Sox had more fun.

I meet the occasional White Sox or Cubs fan who hates the other team, but the ones with the long memories remember: Bill Veeck (pronounced "Veck" was a Chicago icon who once owned both teams, and who changed the nature of the sport. He planted the ivy that still graces Wrigley Field, and at Comiskey park he was the one who introduced the organ player and things like seat night and the 7th-inning shower on a hot summer afternoon.

But I am reminded now that, even though I don't watch much football, of another Chicago icon: George Halas. He was a great player, but an even greater coach and owner: we don't care how cold, wet, slippery, and awful it is. We don't care how miserable the players or the fans are--we play God damn it.

There would never be a snowed-out, rained-out, or otherwise uncomfortable game for the Chicago Bears. The game would be played even in the middle of a blizzard or hurricane.

For all the brutality that I might complain about in American football, I must say this:

A Chicago football game against the Packers or the Lions or the Browns in the old days might well go with a final score of 2-3 after four quarters in the mud and sleet and sweat. Real old-school fans would call that a great game.

Which it damn well would be an amazing game.

Rained out? What's that?

I made a foolish bet with Dean, and this post is my forfeit. Which is fine. I really do think that History will vindicate President Bush. After all, Gaius Julius Caesar is considered a hero...

American democracy is manifestly failing. The incentive structure which used to provide for good—or at least adequate—leadership is now providing for its opposite. At the best of times congress is as frozen as ANWAR. At worst they eye taxpayers like wolves to uninspected beef. Congress has been halted by partisan disputes; Intercine, insipid, incapable, inflicting incalculable damage upon America’s ability to operate.

In many was the judicial system was even worse. Judges interpreted not the public law, but rather concepts of justice. Their own concepts of justice. Judges have looked to foreign law and non-constitutional ideas to impose a supposed morality upon the American people. Congress sat by. The Presidency was complacent.

Bush was different. He used his own keen ideas of right and wrong to force decisions. His electoral mandate gave him the moral imprimatur to become—in his own words—the decider. He has used his own brand of moral clarity to define our age. Rather than letting problems and issues be debated in a constrained congress, he took it upon himself to bring security to American families. His issuance of secret decrees creating secret courts and secret laws created a whole new paradigm for American governance.

Bush’s decisions systematically reduced the legislative and judicial branches into irrelevance. They became the vestigial organs of public discourse. It would not be for Bush to transform the Republic, but he left the tools in place. When those tools were used, he was remembered as the American Sulla to another’s Caesar. History remembers Caesar, and Sulla, with fondness—it will recall Bush the same way...

Among my all-time favorite movies is The Princess Bride. It is, I think, one of the most perfect movies ever made. I honestly think it ranks right up there with Casablanca. It is simply flawless from start to finish. I would change not one moment, not one second of it. Besides, it contains what is probably one of the best lines ever said in a movie:

"You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means."

If you haven't seen it, you don't know what I'm talking about. If you have, I defy you to disagree with me.

But I'll give you an interesting bit of trivia I'll bet you didn't know: the Dread Pirate Roberts was a real guy, and while he is not well-remembered in the popular imagination he is considered by historians to have been the most dangerous pirate to have ever sailed the Caribbean. If this were 1716 and not 2006 everyone would know who he was.

No fooling. Check it out.

You wake up one morning, a bit bleary-eyed. Horrible things are happening all around you. Much of it shocks you. But in a world full of darkness and pain, you suddenly realize that you are the biggest, tallest, strongest person present.

You are not omnipotent. You are, in fact, far from perfect. You have many things that you are embarassed about. But you suddenly realize that you are the biggest guy in the room--a room full of thugs and thieves and murderers. Worst of all, you realize that you don't want to be King, but you do want to make things better.

You didn't ask for this. But the world thrust it upon you.

"Why me," you plaintively whine?

"Because you!" Fate thunders in response.

"Sh*t!" you say.

Here's an interesting bit of cultural trivia that I'm betting most Americans don't know.

Here in America, it used to be that we referred to our fighting men as either "doughboys" or as "Johnny." The term "doughboy" was probably most popular during World War I, which ended in 1918, but seems to go back to the late 1840s (reference). The term "Johnny" seems to go back to America's Great Civil War, fought in the 1860s (reference).

For whatever reason, both "Johnny" and "Doughboy" fell out of favor by the middle of the 20th Century. The oldest term for America's fighting men, "Yankee," is not quite so widespread, at least among Americans, since while it goes to our earliest days as a country (reference), to American fighting men and women it brings up the unpleasant years of our Great Civil War of the 1860s, because the rebels called the (eventually winning) forces "yankees." The phrase "yankee go home" was offensive to 20th-century American troops not just because it was insulting, but because many American troops just didn't want to be called that. Good or bad, it is so. It reminds them of bad blood they just don't want to bring up again, even though it's nearly 150 years in the past.

(Which is why most of you Aussies and Brits ought to be a bit careful about calling us Americans "yanks" too casually. Even though most of us are well over it all by now, a few of us still aren't. Even though we mostly love you guys anyway.)

So the preferred term in America (and abroad) seems to have become "G.I. Joe," which has its origin in popular toy soldiers and comic books (reference). Today, you can go almost anywhere in the world and, no matter what language they speak, they probably know who "GI Joe" is. While you might mean to be either insulting or complimentary, most in America's armed forces will respond to it. Yes, not just members of our Army's General Infantry, but also the Marines, Air Force, even Navy or Coast Guard will not be offended to be called "GI Joe" if they're abroad. Mostly they know that good or bad, it represents them. Most of them even kind of like it, in my experience anyway--yes, even the female service members, who also don't tend to mind being called "GI Jane." So long as you're not sneering at them, anyway (and if you are sneering they might just kick your ass).

Assuming you agree with all of the above, here's an interesting cultural observation:

It was with a bit of a shock that a few years ago I realized that the Brits had their own term for their fighting men and women:

"Tommy." Or "Tommy Atkins."

I don't know if the Aussies or the Canadians still do this, but "Tommy" seems to be the preferred nickname of British fighting men around the world. Or at least it was up to 30 or 40 years ago, anyway. I don't know about today, but I've seen it a lot in my readings.

In 1969, The Who released one of my top 100 favorite albums: Tommy. Although thematically it is a little naive, and very much a product of its time, it deals with the idea of war and its horrors. I no longer agree with its main themes, but I do think it is musically beautiful. Yet it was only fairly recently that I realized that its title is intentionally ironic: "Tommy," at least at the time, was almost as emblematic in the British mind as representing her fighting men as "GI Joe" is to Americans today.

I'm not sure if "Tommy" is still so emblematic to the Brits today, but I know it was at one time. This was probably best-expressed in a classic Rudyard Kipling poem, which deals with how British soldiers were treated in the late 19th century--often cheered on, but more often forgotten when they were no longer convenient. I reprint it below for your pleasure.

Please note the reference to the red-coats here, you Americans. Also note that to this day the lower-class Brits tend to skip the "H" in their words, so 'eroes means heroes, 'e means he, be'ind means behind, 'alls means halls, and so on. They sometimes also like to skip their d's and f's, so an' means and o' means of and so on. Also, a publican is a pubmaster, i.e. a bartender:

I have to say, I don't know who "Mr. Atkins" is above, although I'm certain he was someone important. I'd love to know. He doesn't seem to have been a Prime Minister, but I'm not sure otherwise. I do note that there seems to be no Wikipedia entry about this, shamefully, although I'll happily work with anyone who wants to help me in creating one.

Every time I hear about British fighting men and women doing themselves proud, I do say out loud, "Go Tommy go!"

I wish more people would.

I mean, that whole nasty business in the 1770s is behind us now, yes?

(Do you Aussies or Canadians or anyone else have a similar afectionate name you use for your brave military men and women? I'd like to hear about it if so.)

It appears that a growing number of commentators, along with unnamed people in the White House and CIA, are taking this stuff about August 22, 2006 supposedly being the date that the entire Middle East plunges into the war far more seriously than I'd imagined. Gary Metz has a lengthy roundup, and I admit that I found much of it sobering.

I can't help but note, however, that all of these people are going to look like idiots if nothing like what they're describing happens. And I say that as a hawk who's openly advocated moving militarily to take out Khamenei and his mullahs.

1) Dive into Ad*Access

2) Find an Ad from a previous era.

3) Observe how different today is from yesterday

4) Sit back and read commenter’s remarks about their personal favorites.

Will I be doing this soon? You bet!

Speaking of World War II era cartoons, here's one Disney put out that's pretty good:

What's fascinating to me is to contemplate what a different universe must have been in, to have a media that actually supported the country when it went to war, and openly opposed the country's enemies. We'll never have that again I suppose.

What I also note about the cartoon is that while it draws broad, simple lines, and has a strangely comedic part in the middle that's out of place with the rest of the film, it is basically correct on everything it presents as factual. And yes, Education for Death was a real book, published in 1941 by an American who spent some years in the German education system and then fled shortly after the war broke out.

It continues to astound me how many people assume Hitler was a popular, beloved leader. No, he was an unelected thug and a fascist monster who oppressed his own people. Indeed, that's the other remarkable thing about this cartoon: other than making fun of Germany's leaders and the bullying sycophants who were members of the regime, it portrays a surprisingly sympathetic portrait, doesn't it?

Yet there was no flinching from what had to be done, either.

This is "not safe for work" because the President used the "s" word. But here it is:

To be blunt, that's exactly right ain't it?

I mean, here's the thing: if the Palestinians and their supporters would just put down their arms, and join hands and sing "We Shall Overcome," and demand nothing besides democratic representation and individual freedom, and some redress of past grievances, the entire "Middle East Crisis" would be resolved in a few years. Damn it.

The funny thing is, as scary as the news is at the moment, I honestly think we're closer to that today than ever. I mean, seriously: "Stop doing this sh*t, and we'll find a way to work it out." I know the Israelis want this. They want it desperately. Blowing sh*t up isn't the way to get there. I mean, say the Israelis are wrong about X Y or Z, the way to get there is not to blow rockets at them.