Thursday, December 27. 2007
We re-link Andrew Bacevitch's Wilson Quarterly essay from 2005. A quote: "American foreign policy was never the same after King Ibn Saud of Saudi Arabia met with President Franklin Roosevelt in 1945 and pledged a steady oil supply in return for US protection."
Read the whole fascinating story of American involvement in the Middle East. It's all about geopolitics, and it is deadly serious.
Wednesday, December 26. 2007
 Here's the once-secret story of the CIA and Brit-led coup against Premier Mossadeq. It is not a pretty story, and the Shah had little recommend him other than his affection for the West.
The Report to London is particularly discouraging. Churchill did not have his act together. We see, today, the unintended consequences of that clever scheme. To be fair to all, though, the retrospective view is always smarter.
Two of the most important events in American history involved George Washington at Christmastime. The first, of course, was the crossing of the Delaware and the Battle of Trenton which took place on Dec 26, 1776. That victory proved to an uneasy Continental Congress that Americans could stand up to European troops (in this case, Hessians). The second was Washington's resignation in 1783.
Friday, December 21. 2007
From No Left Turns, a quote: The Journals of the late Arthur Schlesinger have received a good deal of attention, but most of it has concerned Schlesinger’s writing style, personality, or the broad topic of keeping and publishing diaries. The strangely neglected question of Schlesinger’s politics is finally addressed by the New Yorker’s George Packer, writing as one liberal assessing another. “In [Schlesinger’s] long record of speeches, conferences, lunches at the Century, and dinners at Mortimer’s,” observes Packer, “there’s an unmistakable sense that liberal politics belonged to a small group of the rich and famous who all knew one another and knew what was best for the rest of the country, while knowing less and less about the rest of the country. . . . It’s possible, even if you agree with almost every position Schlesinger held, to find the smugness and complacency not just annoying but fatal. His crowd made liberalism a fat target for the New Right; Reagan and his heirs seized the language and claims of populism from liberals who believed that they had had permanent possession [of it] ever since Roosevelt.”
Read the whole brief piece.
Wednesday, December 19. 2007
This came in over the transom (sans photo): 
In 1973 an Italian submarine named Enrique Tazzoli was sold for a paltry $100,000 as scrap metal. The submarine, given to the Italian Navy in 1953 was actually an incredible veteran of World War II service with a heritage that never should have passed so unnoticed into the graveyards of the metal recyclers. The U.S.S. Barb was a pioneer, paving the way for the first submarine launched missiles and flying a battle flag unlike that of any other ship. In addition to the Medal of Honor ribbon at the top of the flag identifying the heroism of its captain, Commander Eugene 'Lucky' Fluckey, the bottom border of the flag bore the image of a Japanese locomotive. The U.S.S. Barb was indeed, the submarine that 'SANK A TRAIN'. July, 1945 (Guam) Fleet Admiral Chester Nimitz looked across the desk at Admiral Lockwood as he finished the personal briefing on U.S. war ships in the vicinity of the northern coastal areas of Hokkaido, Japan. 'Well, Chester, there's only the Barb there, and probably no word until the patrol is finished. You remember Gene Fluckey?' 'Of course. I recommended him for the Medal of Honor,' Admiral Nimitz replied. 'You surely pulled him from command after he received it?' July 18, 1945 (Patience Bay, Off the coast of Karafuto, Japan ) It was after 4 A.M. and Commander Fluckey rubbed his eyes as he peered over the map spread before him. It was the twelfth war patrol of the Barb, the fifth under Commander Fluckey. He should have turned command over to another skipper after four patrols, but had managed to strike a deal with Admiral Lockwood to make one more trip with the men he cared for like a father, should his fourth patrol be successful. Of course, no one suspected when he had struck that deal prior to his fourth and what should have been his final war patrol on the Barb, that Commander Fluckey's success would be so great he would be awarded the Medal of Honor.
Continue reading "The USS Barb sinks a train"
Saturday, December 15. 2007
A reposting from November, 2006 Stone walls are "newer" in New England than the early enclosures, which were made of wood. Split logs, like ol' Abe used to make, but not post-and-rail. They were the criss-cross leany sort which rested the rails on tilted posts. And to keep animals out of the cottage garden, they used paling fences. But in post-glacial New England, where the fields seem to grow stones over the winter, you had to put the loose rocks somewhere, so why not make a wall? It is hard to walk through any woodland south of Maine without stumbling across an 18th century wall, and sometimes you find an old apple tree in the corner, or an old apple-tree trunk. No doubt planted by the farmer for home-made cider, which was the only kind of booze the average Yankee farmer could afford. This hilly, rocky woodland, as can easily be seen by the size and species of the trees in the photo, was pasture until about 40-50 years ago: it is a young beech and oak woodland, typical of acidic lowlands in New England, and well-past the point at which it is appealing to grouse and woodcock. Good for the wild turkeys, though. The booming deer population, alas, vacuum-cleans the undergrowth, making it inhospitable for lots of small critters and birds: either we eat those deer or we return wolves and mountain lions to New England. (I'd vote for all of the above.) These woods are dotted with low-lying vernal - and autumnal - pools, which are excellent for the toads, tree frogs, salamanders, Box Turtles, etc. "Wetlands," as some term them. I call them swamps, and I love them: they are a cradle of life. 
Wednesday, December 12. 2007
 ...people today are genetically more different from people living 5,000 years ago than those humans were different from the Neanderthals who vanished 30,000 years ago, according to anthropologist John Hawks of the University of Wisconsin. (Reuters)
We were puzzled by the report about accelerating evolution in humans. Didn't seem to make sense because one would think that the power of selection would diminish as mankind controls and creates his own environment. But it turns out that one of the authors of the suddenly-famous study is on our blogroll - paleo-anthropologist John Hawks. In a blog entry, Why Human Evolution Accelerated, he begins to explain the theory. It's all about population size. Simple math. A quote: ...the ecological changes documented in human history and the archaeological record create an exceptional situation. Humans faced new selective pressures during the last 40,000 years, related to disease, agricultural diets, sedentism, city life, greater lifespan, and many other ecological changes. This created a need for selection. Larger population sizes allowed the rapid response to selection -- more new adaptive mutations. Together, the the two patterns of historical change have placed humans far from an equilibrium. In that case, we expect that the pace of genetic change due to positive selection should recently have been radically higher than at other times in human evolution.
I think that is counter-intuitive. Image: Neanderthal man
Wednesday, December 5. 2007
 (Lord’s day). Lay long in bed, and then up and to my office, there to dispatch a business in order to the getting something out of the Tangier business, wherein I have an opportunity to get myself paid upon the score of freight. I hope a good sum. At noon home to dinner, and then in the afternoon to church. So home, and by and by comes Mr. Hill and Andrews, and sung together long and with great content. Then to supper and broke up. Pretty discourse, very pleasant and ingenious, and so to my office a little, and then home (after prayers) to bed. This day I hear the Duke of Yorke is come to towne, though expected last night, as I observed, but by what hindrance stopped I can’t tell.
We follow Samuel Pepy's Diary regularly. It is delicious. He would have been a star blogger, like Tom Paine.
34 days out (4736 miles) - Lat 1.40" S Long 29.50 W June 5th We are enjoying the lovely climate of the S.E. Trades. The atmosphere is perfectly fine and the air cool and bracing. The sky is of a most lovely blue and at Sunset the clouds assumed colors which I have never seen but in these latitudes. "Parting day / Dies like the Dolphin, whom each pang imbues / With a new color as it gasps away / The last still loveliest till - 'tis gone - and all is grey."
We educated people better in 1843 in one-room schoolhouses with wood stoves than we do now. Read the (literate) whole thing.
Tuesday, December 4. 2007
This wonderful. It will make you hope you never arrive at your destination, in your car: The History of Ancient Rome. It was not all that long ago, and not much has changed in the world, except on the surface. Prof. Fagan is spellbinding.
Saturday, December 1. 2007
 Just finished reading Marianne Wiggins' The Shadow Catcher, about which the San Francisco Chronicle said:
The Shadow Catcher tells two different stories set in two different times. The first is about famed Western photographer Edward S. Curtis. It's told by his wife, who finally divorced him after bearing his children and suffering his neglect. He preferred the open skies of the outdoors to family life. The second story is told by a writer named Marianne Wiggins, who is writing a novel about Curtis. She's also investigating the man who stole her father's identity, a man who committed suicide years earlier. As the writer digs deeper into both stories, she finds that they intersect. The Shadow Catcher has received mixed reviews with the San Francisco Chronicle saying, "Wiggins' net effect is vertiginously enjoyable, a rambunctious puzzle-box that rewards dives into murky interpretive waters: The more effort you devote to thinking the book through, the greater its rewards."
I am not advising you to read the book. However, it did spark my interest in the famous turn-of-the-century photographer Edward S. Curtis, best known for his photos of the West and especially his Indian portraits. (He also was the photographer for Alice Roosevelt's wedding.) . You can read about Curtis here. One interesting but unsurprising aspect of his excellent Indian photos is that they were taken well after the days of the "wild Indians." These were reservation Indians who he asked to dress up in the old style and to pose for the photos. The photo of the old Crow Warrior, above, was taken in 1908. Samples of his photos at Curtis' Wiki entry above, and more here, whence we borrowed the image.
Monday, November 19. 2007
 A wave of the long, fat, Freudian cigar to Dr. X, who found that Jason Jones at Bookslut is re-reading his Standard Edition (24 books), at the pace of one book per month.
What is most worthwhile about reading Freud, preferably with a guide of some sort, is watching a powerful mind at work, searching for patterns and understanding, having ideas, then rejecting them, revising them, and often just getting stuck. Looking for a path through the wilderness of the soul. Book 1 includes A Project for a Scientific Psychology, a remarkable effort in which he admittedly reached a dead end, and asked for the manuscript to be burned. Jones' reflections on Book 1 here, and Book 2 here. We will try to keep up with these as they come out. Comment from Dr. Bliss: It is a sad fact that Freud's thinking, over time, has become deeply misunderstood, trivialized, misinterpreted, abused, and misused - and his errors magnified. His goal, most simply put, was to create a framework for understanding the irrational in mankind, with the hope that this might help individuals gain mastery over their lives and their destinies.
Reposted from 2005: By Ernie Pyle, January 10, 1944, here.
Saturday, November 17. 2007
 Myron Magnet tours Monticello, and reflects on the mind of Jefferson. A quote:
It’s true that Jefferson had his moments of wanting to withdraw into “intellectual pleasures” that “ride serene and sublime above the concerns of this mortal world,” as he told Maria Cosway: his taste for unworldly abstraction is nowhere clearer than inside Monticello’s empty dome, a stupendous and costly exercise in pure geometry, breathtakingly beautiful with its giant, Michelangelesque baseboard and the light pouring in from its round windows and central oculus, but virtually unusable because its echoes make conversation impossible, it’s unheated, and its access is steep and narrow. Even the sumptuous mahogany double doors built for symmetry opposite the dome’s entrance open only onto a jumble of rafters and attics. But usually Jefferson’s intellectual pleasures fully engage the world: for him, the increase of knowledge is meant to improve man’s condition. When Buffon “affected to consider chemistry but cookery,” for instance, and to equate the laboratory with the kitchen, Jefferson took sharp issue; chemistry, he lectured the count, is “big with future discoveries for the utility and safety of the human race.” Did not people justly esteem “Dr. Franklin’s science because he always endeavored to direct it to something useful in private life”? Were not phosphorous matches, for example, a boon to mankind, and would not interchangeable musket parts, which he saw in France long before the Colt factory used them for mass production in America, change history?
Whole thing at City Journal
Thursday, November 15. 2007
Tuesday, November 13. 2007
From Prof Deneen, Giving a Damn. A quote: Can it be any coincidence that within a decade of the supposed renewal of political philosophy in America - the publication of John Rawls's A Theory of Justice in 1971, perhaps the most intricate theoretical justification of the welfare state ever penned - that the welfare state in America, and increasingly throughout the world, was being dismantled? The American welfare state increases in scale especially during those decades when our thicker communities are being dismantled or abandoned ("The Great Society" - in the singular). As Tocqueville predicted, it would be the ascent of individualism itself that would give rise to the felt need for a "tutelary State" to compensate for what had once been provided - albeit unevenly, informally, unequally - within the thicker webs of familial and local life. The dismantling of the welfare state is seen as a victory by the Right, but they are often uncognizant of the corresponding dismantling of communal forms that their valorization of individualism - especially the individualism of the marketplace - effectively undermines. The Left believes that the battle can be won by getting the correct philosophical articulation of Rawls's thesis, and are fundamentally oblivious to the wholesale dismantling of any real commitment to civic concern that has been a consequence of their wholesale efforts at achieving individual liberation and autonomy. Contemporary liberalism and conservatism (so-called) alike are fundamentally incoherent.
This echoes some of Dr. Bliss' comments a week or so ago on The Problem with Women. Link is above to the whole essay.
The new counter-insurgency aircraft, the A-67 Dragon, is similar to the P-51, observes A Jacksonian, who compares their specs and capabilities. A restored P-51 below: 
Sunday, November 11. 2007
 Another one from the Belmont neighborhood of Nashville. Who wouldn't want to live in this charming little home? Look at that front porch - crammed with potted and hanging plants, and with a big white rocking chair just inviting you to sit down with a good book and a tall glass of sweet tea. And despite its small size, there is great attention to detail in every part of the house, from the windows to the decorative supports for the eaves. Another quote from the Standard Home Plans catalog from 1926:
"To the wife and children home means infinitely more than to the husband whose duties are elsewhere. To him it is a place for recreation and rest, but to them it is their kingdom. The hearts of many wives will go out to The Bristol, not with selfish designs, but with earnest maternal longings for better conditions for the culture and refinement of their children."
Saturday, November 10. 2007
 12th Century Londoners put it away, from breakfast onwards. But what about the dread afternoon hangover in the pre-Tylenol era?
Speaking of which, apparently even social boozing damages the brain. That's a damn shame, because it is difficult for anyone to go through life cold sober 24 hrs/day, 7 days a week. We all need some forms of relief from reality, sometimes. But, on the other hand, "No brain, no pain:" a bit of brain damage might be a good thing. Photo: One of my dutiful wives, bringing me my daily allotment. Photo on continuation page: A fun pub, NSFW.
Continue reading "A gallon per day"
Wednesday, November 7. 2007
I stand in awe of the people out there in the world who can design and make the real things that make the real world work, while the rest of us take it all for granted as we pursue other things. There is an entirely unjustified arrogance, I think, often found in those of us who have more purely abstract work and interests, as if there were something lesser about building things that make trains run. There is surely some insecurity hiding behind that superiority - the insecurity of knowing eternal Shakespeare perhaps, but not having a clue about magnetic detection of invisible flaws in rails - or even about how trains really work. Like me, many of us would be lost and helpless - thrown back into the stone age - if the everyday, underpaid and underappreciated practical geniuses disappeared. The Sperry Rail-flaw detector is my case in point today. You could not run a safe railroad without these funky yellow machines, which you can see around regularly, perched on sidings, if you ride rails. Nowadays, they use ultrasound probes. Photo of an older one below, and details of Dr. Elmer Sperry's remarkable career here. As you can see, his useful company - one of 8 manufacturing businesses he created - is still in business in good old Danbury, CT, once the hat-manufacturing capital of the US (and the home of Charles Ives). Thanks, C., for the inspiration. 
Tuesday, November 6. 2007
Why the long hike from Grand Central Station to the platform for the 42nd St. shuttle to Times Square (the S Train)? Here's the answer.
Saturday, November 3. 2007
Article the Eleventh: The enumeration, in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people. Article the Twelfth: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved by the States respectively, or to the people. I enjoy reviewing quaint, obsolete documents like the Bill of Rights. The online, handy source for the 100 most important documents of the Republic: Click here: Our Documents - Home
Monday, October 29. 2007
Coming up at dawn, battalion executive officer Major Odell M. Conoley first discovered the answer to our question: How many able-bodied Marines does it take to hold a hill against two regiments of motivated, combat-hardened infantrymen who have never known defeat? On a hill where the bodies were piled like cordwood, Mitchell Paige alone sat upright behind his 30-caliber Browning, waiting to see what the dawn would bring. One hill: one Marine.
Guadalcanal. Read the whole thing. h/t, Small Dead Pangolins
Saturday, October 20. 2007
The American Precision Museum in Windsor, VT. Looks like it's well-worth a side-trip. h/t, piece at Synthstuff about the place.
Wednesday, October 17. 2007
 About Benjamin Disraeli, by Gelernter in the Weekly Standard (2005). A quote:
Like nearly all successful politicians, he was a fine actor and first-rate manipulator, accustomed to saying things he didn't necessarily (wholly) believe. Like nearly all brilliant men, he could be hard to read. Like all celebrated wits and superstar parliamentarians, he was a champion improviser, superb at making things up as he went along. For all these reasons, historians tend to forget his passionate sincerity on the topics he cared about most: Britain, the Jews, the Tories, the government of England. No man ever left behind so many pregnant thoughts for his followers, admirers, and professional interpreters to ignore.
Read the whole thing.
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