Theatrum Belli

The French military has been fighting in Afghanistan for ten years, same as us. However, they aren't getting a lot of support from the folks back home. So, at this link, you can send a message of support to French soldiers in the field this Christmas, who are just as lonely as ours.

David Mamet on Greed

I disagree with several details of Mr. Mamet's conservative epiphany, but he does score many incisive points. Like this one:

"The Left's current sentiment for the confiscation of benefits legally earned, but to them offensive, is Greed.

To wish to abrogate a legal contract between employer and employee because a nonparticipant feels someone got too much money is greed. It is not greed for money, but covetousness born of envy--the desire for that which legally belongs to another. That those in favor of this may not want the actual money for their own use is beside the point--they want the enjoyment of the power to strip the money from another. They may not use the confiscated funds to buy a car or a meal, but the billionaire who earns another million dollars cannot earn it either--he, like the offended Liberal, is enjoying the warm glow of its possession. A rampant and untrammeled glee, an unchecked ambition for gain is, in the individual, called miserliness; in the society which strips him of it, it is called Socialism.
-- David Mamet, The Secret Knowledge, 2011

Happy Thanksgiving

I'm traveling, just ducked downstairs to the motel lobby to fire off a closing Thanksgiving greeting to you. What I am thankful for? I'm thankful for all the mid-life family challenges I face. I hit bottom pretty early in life, and it's been one long rebound ever since. I have grown up more than I ever suspected was possibly in the past decade and a half, so much so that I blush at the thought of my earlier protracted immaturity. In fact, I feel that I didn't grow up, so much as I converted to adulthood, with all the zeal of a convert. I feel my shortcomings in my present responsibilities quite keenly. But I'm grateful that I have been preserved, safeguarded, and brought to this present time to grapple with them at all. (Sorry to be enigmatic, but this is a pseudonymous blog, after all!) I'm also glad for my remaining family (I'm the youngest child of youngest children), and the chance to be with them. Hope everyone has had a wonderful holiday.

It frightens me
The awful truth
Of how sweet life can be
-- Bob Dylan, "Up To Me"

Occupy Wall Street protesters being cleared out of parks.

Where do they go from here? Back to university. They'll get tenure, write the history books, and portray themselves as heroes to mush-headed students of a future generation. Just like the radicals of '68 did. No one remembers how they stole credit for the civil rights movement, nor all the bombs they set, nor the soldiers they spat on, nor the criminals that they made into folk heroes, nor the riots they instigated & then successfully blamed on the police. Rather, they sit in pampered academic security, giving their blessings to their young proteges. And so shall it be with this lot.

Brooklyn museum exhibit features depiction of ants running wild over crucifix

Well, aren't we just too edgy to handle without oven mitts. Supposed to be a statement about AIDS or some similar sort of values inversion, to put mainstream society in the wrong, I gather. But if the intent is to shock, then the artists stand revealed as wimps. They no more want to be murdered, or go into hiding, or fend off homicidal attacks in their own homes, or be ostracized as racist by their own kind, than anyone else does. But that's what would happen--what has happened--if they made sport with images of The Prophet of the One True Faith.

Porn star Sasha reads to LA school children

Every saint has a past, every sinner has a future. OTOH, you can only have one reputation at a time.

"I am an actor. I am an artist. I am a daughter. I am a sister. I am a partner. I have a past that some people may not agree with, but it does not define who I am.

Scores of angry parents, even nowadays, even in La-La Land, would beg to differ.