Remembering

Peter, a fellow Ole working in youth ministry in Petrozavodsk, Russia, has a great post on the Russian celebration of Victory Day, roughly equivalent to our Memorial Day. His piece led me to reflect on what led me on the path to becoming a Soldier, a path very far removed from everything I had expected or imagined for myself. I suppose now's as good a moment as any to share the story.

There are all sorts of reasons I enlisted, of course. Such a major life choice doesn't spring from a single motivating factor. When the standard script of military smalltalk gets to "so what brought you into the Army?", I usually mention how the linguistic training I could get in the Army more specifically matched my aspirations than anything available in graduate school. But of course, having almost zero contact with the military sphere, I wouldn't have even learned about what training was available if I hadn't been looking into it. So why, during my senior year of college, with a defiantly impractical Classics degree within my reach, was I considering military service? The moment that first opened the door for me to consider military service was, in fact, lost to me for some time. I had completely forgotten about it. I spent my first year in the Army not exactly remembering what had led me to consider enlistment in the first place.

Then, sometime last year, I remembered. It was the fall of my senior year, while I was circumnavigating this beautiful and tragic world of ours, that I found myself at the battlefield of Al-Alamein on Egypt's Mediterranean coast. I'd been to war memorials before, and never really managed to internalize much of what I saw. This time, it was different. The North African campaign wasn't even a particularly brutal sideshow of WWII. It's celebrated as much as it is precisely because it featured the (comparatively) easy morality of soldiers fighting soldiers in a desert landscape devoid of "collateral damage". That said, when we visited the German mausoleum and the Commonwealth cemeteries, I was overwhelmed. The German monument includes a dedication to the truly unknown soldiers, those whose remains left no clue to their nationality. It is a tribute to the universality of patriotism, and of sacrifice. But it was in the Commonwealth cemetery, with its rows upon rows of simple headstones, where I was convicted. Each stone there bears a name, a rank, a date, and a relationship. I was saddened -- though not shocked -- to see the numerous stones marked "brother" and "son", over men who died at 18, 19, 20. What took my breath away, left me weeping quietly in the desert, were the stones marked "father". Too many young men with young families of their own lay dead on that desert plain. Too many young women, young mothers, received that terrible news. Too many children grew up with a medal and a photograph on the mantle in the place of a father. Yet England knew well that the price her young men paid -- not to mention their widows and children -- was the fair price of freedom in this dark world. It was on that desert plain, wandering between the gravestones, that I was convicted by the sacrifice of all those young fathers. They had so much more to lose than I, so many more depending on them, and they gave it all. Somewhere deep inside I asked myself if I could risk the same.

I left Alamein and promptly forgot all about duty and honor and sacrifice, for a time. I was still in college, after all. The example of the soldiers buried there had opened a door, however, one that never entirely closed again. And here I am.

Something New Every Day

Today, while reading an entertaining piece by St. Olaf professor Gordon Marino on the author David Mamet's fondness for Brazilian jiu-jitsu, I was surprised to find the word transmogrify slipped into a piece of otherwise stolid prose. I, of course, immediately connected this word to Calvin and Hobbes and pegged it for a sly tribute. Not so, according the the Online Etymological Dictionary, for transmogrify dates back to 1656. Go figure.

Reflections on Vengeance

For all those who extol the virtues of traditional, peaceful, aboriginal cultures, unsullied by the violence and greed of technological civilization, Jared Diamond has some reflections on vengeance in the Papuan highlands.

It's been said that the root of conservatism is the heartfelt belief that civilization is both precious and fragile. The Burkean war of all against all is not, after all, so very far removed from our daily lives. It lurks just below the surface, in each dark animal impulse we resist out of respect for morality and law. But those ideals make for a dangerously thin wall, and there are those who continue to dig at its foundations.

Further Reading: Theodore Dalrymple has said much more, and much better, on this topic.

Guess They're All Just Hajji to Him

I'm used to gently correcting fellow soldiers on this point, but it seems even Barack Obama hasn't gotten the news that Iraq and Afghanistan are very different places. Via ABC News (HT: PowerLine and Hot Air), Obama said in a recent speech in Missouri:

Obama posited — incorrectly — that Arabic translators deployed in Iraq are needed in Afghanistan — forgetting, momentarily, that Afghans don’t speak Arabic.

“We only have a certain number of them and if they are all in Iraq, then its harder for us to use them in Afghanistan.”

His campaign put out a nice response to ABC, of the usual "if you consider that I was actually referring to this and not that, you'll see I was right all along" line. Sorry, not buying it. I'm willing to grant that he probably did know -- if he stopped to think about it -- that they don't speak Arabic in Afghanistan, but simply misspoke. That doesn't absolve the issue for me, as mentally conflating two very. different. places. shows a significant lack of depth of understanding either one.

I Want One

Microsoft's former chief of technology has commissioned the construction (for a cool million dollars) of Charles Babbage's Difference Engine No. 2, what would have been, had it been built in its time, the world's first computer, capable of computing polynomial calculations of over 30 digits. In analog. 8,000 moving parts, which when cranked by hand spool out calculations on paper tape. It's a work of art, it really is, and if any of my readers make it out to Silicon Valley in the next year it's on display, I think it'd be worth seeing.

Preterition

In follow-up to my piece on Hillary's gripe with OPEC and in reference to Necessary Roughness, I was going to throw in my own two cents on the subject of peak oil. But after reading numerous websites declaring that civilization will collapse as a result of, well, commodity speculation, I just lost interest. I mean, don't get me wrong, I've long held that while I don't expect to see civilization collapse in my lifetime, I wouldn't be all that surprised. So I'm sympathetic to the homesteader's mindset of living self-sufficiently, just in case. But there's a big difference in mindset between living a simple country lifestyle and filling your basement with astronaut food. And of all the things I can imagine bringing down civilization, a shock in the petroleum market isn't one of them. So there, Peak Oilers, I think you're wrong, but I just don't care enough to bother explaining why in any detail. More vacuum-packed survival rations for you, I guess.

Bad News from the Sudan

Granted, that's one of the world's more unnecessary headlines. But, no matter how evil and oppressive the Khartoum regime in the Sudan is, rebels on the outskirts of the capital is not good news. As bad as the current government is, I don't want to see Sudan go the way of the Congo.

Windfall Profits Tax

In reference to my previous post on Hillary's gripe with OPEC, I've also got a few excerpts from Jonah Goldberg over at National Review Online, on the proposal to tax the "windfall profits" of oil companies:

Imagine this. You've built the better mousetrap... You take your invention and, with your last few pennies, manage to bring it to market. It’s a smash hit. It starts flying off shelves. You earn back the investment in raw materials and maybe something close to compensation for your time. Now you’re ready for the big payoff. There’s just one thing left to do: make an appointment with the regional Reasonable Profits Board to find out how much of your windfall is reasonable for you to keep... members of the Reasonable Profits Board will determine how much of your already-taxed profits cross the “rational threshold.”

“Windfall,” of course, is just another word for “undeserved,” which is why windfall profits are defined as the profits earned by someone other than you.

If you tell oil companies that they won’t be able to keep their profits past a certain point, you know what they’ll do? They’ll make money right up until that point and then they’ll stop. Unlike the guy building the better mousetrap, oil companies aren’t in it for the glory, they’re in it for the money.

Meanwhile, less investment in exploration and efficiency will cause pump prices to rise (less supply = higher prices) and, as in the 1980s, cause us to rely on more foreign oil. But, by all means, let’s do it, because Big Oil is bad and someone — or everyone — has to pay for it.

Hillary vs. OPEC

So Hillary Clinton has decided to direct America's oil-price frustrations at OPEC. It's a reasonable political move, I suppose, since the cartel does perform a great deal of supply-side manipulation of the oil market. It's also a natural progression when you've burnt out on blaming oil companies and their "obscene profits" (which are only obscene in gross; as a percentage of oil companies' massive revenues, they are in fact quite small). I just wonder, what exactly does she intend to do about it? Scold them? Get us into a devastating trade war? She proposes to bring them to court under US anti-trust law, as well as filing a WTO complaint. So yeah, somewhere between options A and B. And, when you get right down to it, I don't blame OPEC. It's their oil, and they can do what they please with it, as far as I'm concerned. When we've pumped our last drop of American oil, and our children are huddled in the cold because we can't afford to heat our homes and OPEC is still refusing to increase production, well, then we'll start to have a moral case against them. Until then, while we still sit on millions of barrels of oil we'd prefer not to pump for aesthetic reasons, the grandstanding rings a bit hollow. They won the geologic lottery, and good for them. They're not even a particularly effective cartel, anyway, as members are constantly producing above OPEC limits, and they only control one portion of a globally-traded commodity.

All in all, I'm getting tired of all the hand-wringing about energy prices. The high price of oil is reflecting how much we need it, and how many other people (read: China, India) want it. Got it. The fact that it is likely to stay this high means that huge amounts of money are now being invested freely in all sorts of alternative energy technologies. Coal-to-oil conversion is competitive with petroleum at around $35 a barrel; last I checked, we're looking at nearly four times that price today. Meanwhile, as the shock of $125 oil filters through the energy industry, all sorts of energy sources will become profitable. Lets all just have a little bit of faith in American ingenuity, and everything's going to be okay.

Paleofuturist Education

Paleo-Future has a great piece for all my home/un-schooling readers, quoting the San Antonio Light of July 8, 1937:

A Columbia university educator, addressing students at the University of California at Los Angeles, predicted that "by the year 2000, we won't send children to school until they are 10 years old." He said that "while they are young, we will keep them busy building healthy bodies in the fresh air". Evidently, he doesn't know the mammas. They want to get their children into school as early as possible. One of the reasons for the development of the kindergarten is to hasten the time when even devoted mothers can get a little freedom from the demands of their children. But the year 2000 is a long way in the future.

The "mammas" have prevailed in public education, even beyond the year 2000, with government daycare school starting earlier and earlier with 4-year-old kindergarten and Head Start and the like. Telling how well the writer predicted that, actually. Wish the piece gave the name of the Columbia educator, because the whole "building healthy bodies in the fresh air" sounds like a great educational philosophy to me.

Rocket Scientists Lean Republican

Michael G. Franc has a great piece on National Review Online using analysis of primary-season campaign contributions data to shatter the still widely-held notion that the GOP is the party of big business while the Democrats represent working-class America:

Through May 1, the Democratic presidential field has suctioned up a cool $5.7 million from the more than 4,000 donors who list their occupation as “CEO.” The Republicans’ take was only $2.3 million. Chief financial officers, general counsels, directors, and chief information officers also break the Democrats’ way by more than two-to-one margins. The Democrats’ advantage among “presidents” is a less dramatic but still significant $7.2 million to $6.1 million. And this isn’t new: In 2004 all but one of these categories of top corporate officers broke just as dramatically for the Democrats.

Not surprisingly, universities offer Democrats a hotbed of support. Professors favor Democrats over Republicans by a nine-to-one margin ($3.7 million to $430,000). The “objective” media — reporters, journalists, publishers and editors — also breaks heavily for the Democrats. But no listed occupation gives the Democrats a greater edge than the unemployed. These presumably idle folks have dropped over $14.6 million into the laps of the Democrats. Their idle Republican neighbors, in contrast, have unburdened themselves of a mere $9,775. Go figure.

Republican presidential aspirants hold a nearly three-to-one edge among janitors, custodians, cleaners, sanitation workers, factory workers, truckers, bus drivers, barbers, security guards, and secretaries. While Democrats command the financial loyalty of architects, Republicans successfully woo contributions from the skilled craftsmen who turn their blueprints into reality — specifically, contractors, hardhats, plumbers, stonemasons, electricians, carpenters mechanics, and roofers. This trend extends to the saloons, where the Democrats carry the bartenders and the Republicans the waitresses.

So the Democrats have become the party of liberal guilt and the unemployed? It's worth noting this is not polling data or election results, both of which quite frankly reflect large numbers of the uninformed and easily-influenced. Rather, this analysis is based on the self-selected sample of the those politically-engaged enough to be donating to campaigns early in the primaries, and the trends are surprising. Also, Republicans win among rocket scientists. If you can think of a more trustworthy political advocate than rocket scientists... well, it doesn't matter, because you can't.

My Grandfather's Church

I've refrained from commenting until now on this topic, when so many better-informed commenters are writing on it, but I couldn't keep from adding my own thoughts. Those of my readers who aren't confessional Lutherans are probably (blissfully) unaware of the current sturm und drang within the Lutheran Church - Missouri Synod, the church I was raised in and have embraced as an adult. The current round of controversy was set off by the summary cancellation by the Synod -- during Holy Week -- of a popular and theologically-conservative radio show which had at times been critical of the sort of "seeker-sensitive", "purpose-driven", and quite frankly Oprah-fied programs and congregations that are so beloved of the Synod's aggressively modernizing current leadership. The Synodical leadership's responses to the grassroots outcry have only solidified the impression among many that there is a concerted effort among the top leadership to change the face of the LC-MS forever. Indeed, the current president is quite fond of saying, "this is not your grandfather's church."

Why are you so intent on taking my grandfather's church from me, President Kieschnick? I like my grandfather's church, for a host of reasons, but one of which is that it is my grandfather's church. If I didn't like it, after all, there are a great many churches out there that aren't my grandfather's church; namely, every other church in the country. Where will I go, when my grandfather's church has been "improved" into something he wouldn't even recognize?

Eeek

While I was typing just now, a tiny spider just rappelled from the ceiling down to my keyboard, crawled under the keys and disappeared into the depths of my laptop. I hope he finds it inhospitable and leaves before he manages to short-circuit anything.

Eco-imperialism

In response to this Wondermark comic, the Elephant's Child commented:

I'm actually surprised nobody (in which I mean Al Gore et al) has mentioned the astonishingly low carbon footprint of the underdeveloped world.

Oh, they do mention it, indirectly, when they celebrate the "simple, traditional cultures, living in harmony with nature" that are threatened by globalization, westernization, and every other -ization. They have to romanticize Third-world squalor, because eventually people will realize their pet policies will require them to trap about a billion people in that squalor. It's sickening. On the flip-side, I've seen some heartening Third-world backlash against Western environmentalist nannying. Schadenfreude's probably a sin, but I can't help getting a thrill of pleasure when I think of what an environmental activist feels seeing increasingly confident Third-worlders reject their ideas as "eco-imperialism".

Quiet Revolution

In browsing Lutheran Lucciola's links on simpler living, I came across the Quietrevolution vertical-axis wind turbine. VAWTs have been around for a while, but the Quietrevolution helical design solves several nagging design issues with the concept, while making a great aesthetic improvement over previous VAWT concepts, in my opinion. This turbine is nearly a piece of sculpture, don't you agree? I've seen some designs for home-built VAWTs, but none quite as elegant as this.

Working with the Locals

The other day I got a break from my usual job for a few hours by doing "escort" duty while some local nationals (i.e. Iraqis) did some construction work on our building. It's entertaining working with the LNs. The smalltalk always takes the form of an interview following the same pattern:

• "How many kids do you have?"
• None
• [intrigue] "You're married, though?"
• No, not yet.
• [surprise] "How old are you?"
• Twenty-four.
• [shocked indignation] "Twenty-four and no wife, no kids?" [astonished Arabic muttering]. "But you have a girlfriend, right?"
• ...[sigh]

I guess it goes to show you the value these people place on family. That doesn't even express it right, because it's not just that they value family ties more than modern Westerners generally, but that they truly value themselves less as individuals. A person's whole identity is defined by their family, and a man's worth in particular by the number and stature of his children. European family names began as patronymics (witness the proliferation of Andersons, Christiansens, Nelsons, Olsons, and Thorvaldsons with whom I attended college), but Iraqis proudly go through their adult lives being addressed by reference to their children: Abu (father of) Haydar, Abu Miriam, Umm (mother of) Marwan, Umm Zaynab etc. etc. etc. Apparently there's even an unfortunate nickname for an unrepentant bachelor: Abu Gha'ib, father of the absent. And I thought my family's hinting was bad.

But I digress. Apart from being heckled for my childlessness and bachelorhood, hanging out with the LNs is always rewarding. I experienced the legendary Iraqi hospitality when -- despite being right across from the chow hall -- the four workers insisted on sharing their meager lunch with me: a tiffin of boiled chicken, heated up with a cutting torch; another of lumpy sour something's milk; and of course, the flat local bread. Not particularly good, but not bad, and worth it for the cultural sensitivity points.

Weather Report

So it's getting a bit warmer around here. Right now it's sort of a typical summerlike temperature. It'd be pretty hot for comfort if you had to work outside, but it'd be fine for lounging in a hammock or a day at the beach. Trouble is, right now it's midnight; sun went down five hours ago. This afternoon was moderately hellish, around 115, and the wind feeling like God's own blowdryer off the desert. Can't wait to see what 130 feels like. Today we fell again into one of the classic Iraq conversations: don't even mention that there are people willing to fight over this place, it's amazing just that there's anyone still here at all. You could just start walking, pick a direction, eventually you'd end up someplace better. Except South, I guess, because then you'd end up in Yemen. I don't hear good things.

Depravity

For those out there who are not yet convinced that we live in a fallen, broken world, comes news from Austria of a man who kept his daughter imprisoned in the basement for 24 years and fathered 7 children by her. Read the story, and notice how confusing it is to keep track of who is who. The perpetrator is both father and grandfather to the children. His daughter is both mother and half-sister to her children. Our language lacks the words to speak of such depravity.

Michael Yon on Iraq

Michael Yon has an awesome interview with Kathryn Jean Lopez of National Review. If you read one link of mine, make this the one. As I've said before, nobody else who is free to talk about it is in a better position than Michael Yon to understand the realities of Iraq.

Is anyone out there making "Petraeus '12" bumper stickers yet? Because I'd love to slap one on our HMMWV.

Live-Blogging 10,000BC

While I was up in Baghdad recently I bought a hajivision DVD of Roland Emmerich's prehistoric epic 10,000BC. I didn't so much want to see it as enjoy the experience of tearing apart the anachronism, just a few minutes in, it's as bad as I expected. I do still want to see it, but I don't want to feel like it's a complete waste of my time, so I'll be live-blogging it. Spoiler alert. Like you care, because if you take my preemptive advice, you won't see this movie.

• I can't quite place the imagined location. Everything would speak of Eurasia to me, what with the mountains and mammoth and such, except our heroes just reached a jungle full of giant, flightless birds of prey. This could work, in South America or New Zealand, except that the bad guys ride horses, which are strictly Eurasian in antiquity. Oh, nevermind. This movie is clearly not trying to be taken anywhere nearly that seriously.
  

• Speaking of the bad guys -- tall pale figures with straight hair and aquiline noses who ride horses and terrorize those who don't -- we actually do seem to be looking at a semi-believable imagining of the Indo-European expansion in Eurasia, which many scholars believe was facilitated, if not defined, by the successful (and likely unique) domestication of the horse. In which case, go us. Am I allowed that sentiment?
  

• Forget the issue of location, now they're coming to a desert. This within a few days walking of the jungle and the snow-covered mountains, remember.
  

• Ooh, and our hero just saved a sabre-toothed cat from a trap, after asking it not to eat him, Aesop's fable-style. Oh, and now it's defused a confrontation with a bunch of Zulus, who conveniently have a prophesy about "the one who speaks to the spear-tooth", who will lead them in battle against the horsemen.

• I'm already seeing the whole ideal of this film coming together. We've got the standard celebration of primitive society and over and against the degradations of "civilization". It's the same thing we saw in Apocalypto, except that movie was executed with far more depth and resonance. It only makes sense the man who brought us The Day After Tomorrow would be pretty down on civilization. And there are those out there who -- understanding that "stopping global warming", or even any serious attempt to do so, means locking a billion or so people in dire poverty -- have an urgent need to romanticize "traditional lifestyles", by which they mean "abject squalor" and which they, of course, have no intention of emulating.
  

• Ooooh, all the brown and black people are joining together to rescue their captives from the evil white horsemen. They're marching across a massive desert to get there. Good for them.

• Now we've reached the city of the horsemen, which shows some remarkable architectural achievements for the early stone age. I suppose, when you've domesticated the mammoth to help build your pyramids, things are easier. So are these supposed to be the builders of the Egyptian pyramids? Plausible (minus the lingering location issue) except that Egypt always had a surplus of native labor. Most musings about the pyramids wonder about how they managed to get enough people to build them, but never seem to consider the possibility that they were built precisely because Egypt's leaders needed something to consume the excess labor of a heavily populated land whose climate leaves four months of the year free of agricultural labor.

• So our hero's captive love interest bears scars that mark her as the one prophesied to portend the collapse of the god-king's evil civilization. How perfect.

• This is feeling more and more like a ham-handed, Hollywood-ized Apocalypto, with precious few of that film's strengths. Sad.
  

• Yep, there's the climax, pathetic attempt at meaningful tragedy included. Oh well, there was some nice imagery, it's always pretty cool to see CGI mammoth running amok through a stone-age construction site. I'll pay $1.50 for that any day of the week. Even if it's got that videotaped-in-the-theater look of the lower-grade hajivision.
  

• So, wait a minute, where exactly was the city surrounding the temple complex and pyramid? Or were a few dozen priests and a few hundred slave-drivers all that was necessary to constitute a pyramid-building civilization? I can't be the only person who noticed this. I suppose the temple complex could be a ways out of town, I could see that being convenient for the god-king.
  

• Nevermind, forget about the pathetic attempt at tragedy, because the person we just thought had died just got saved by a mammoth looking really intently in her direction and sorta waving his trunk. It could only have been a better moment if his trunk had lit up like ETs fingertip.
  

• The movie ends with one of the black tribes (from the desert) giving the gift of agriculture (which apparently is nothing more than a handful of seeds) to the hero's tribe (from the snowy mountains) to replace their lost food source because the mammoth aren't migrating any more (for no explicable reason). Does any of my farming and gardening readers not see this working out quite as rosily as the epilogue implies?
  

• Ah, credits. God be praised. So yeah, don't see this movie.

Iranipedia

The Iranian regime is certainly taking their worldwide PR game wherever they can, and now seem to be fighting it out on Wikipedia. Check out Ethnic Minorities of Iran.

The main ethno-linguistic minority groups in Iran are the Azeris, Kurds, Arabs, Baluchis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, and Georgians. [...] While many of these ethnic groups have their own languages, cultures, and often literature, their languages and cultures are essentially regional variations of Persian and are all native to Iran.

This claim is practically Chinese in its audacity, and there are many similarities between both nations' needs to justify their empires. Of the above list, only Kurdish is linguistically related to Persian, while the Azeris and Turkmen are descendants of relatively recent Turkic invaders from very far away, indeed. So who counts as native? This is the problem with promoting an ethnic nationalism that tries to erase ethnic differences by redefining everyone into the majority.

The Horror!

It is truly astounding what people will eat. Horrifying. Revolting. And I'm fully aware that there are probably people who would be equally disturbed by certain American "delicacies". But really. Check out Cracked's "6 Most Terrifying Foods", if you have the stomach and don't mind the profanity.

Best AFN PSA Yet

Today as I was looking (in vain) for a particular AFN PSA about computer network security to link to my previous post, I came across the best one yet. Hercules and the Power of Attorney. It's amazing. Except that the Golden Fleece is from the story of Jason and the Argonauts, not Hercules. But who's to quibble?

Procrastination

I suppose it is a sign of our times that the "Most Requested Forms" sidebar at the IRS homepage is topped not by the ubiquitous 1040, but by the 4868, Application for Automatic Extension of Time To File U.S. Individual Income Tax Return. Of course, I would never be filing such a form myself. Certainly not desperately trying to figure out how to e-file it after finding out I have no access to a non-military-networked printer. Information security being maintained by the "air gap" principle (I prefer to think of it as the "cooties" principle), there's no responsible way to get something from the civilian internet to a military printer. People do it all the time, of course, with thumbdrives and such. But this practice is officially forbidden, and for good reason, as those things get lost or stolen all the time.

Hedgehog! To The Face!

I just couldn't pass up this headline. Awesome.

Basrah Recap

I stopped following the 'mainstream' news out of Basrah once things calmed down over here, so I hadn't realized that the press has been painting the recent skirmishes as a strategic defeat. I was a bit stunned to hear it actually, and happy to see David Frum's excellent rebuttal to the idea that the battle of Basrah was a step back. Here, on the ground, I never would have believed that story could have been sold in the first place. Here, everyone's wishing they could go to Basrah, to consolidate and exploit the success, the success of the Iraqi operation. Everyone's congratulating the Iraqi Security Forces, marveling at their performance, so much better than the somewhat dismal expectations. Jaysh al-Mahdi are wounded, scattered, and thoroughly disenheartened. This was supposed to be JAM's great last stand, and it fizzled in a heartbreakingly undramatic fashion.

And really, what exactly would it have taken for this to be called a victory by those determined to see defeat? The Shatt-al-Arab flowing red with the blood of JAM and their supporters? Any victory decisive enough to be named a victory would have been decried as an atrocity. The biggest stumbling block to understanding this part of Iraq is identifying JAM and its loosely associated militias solely as a religio-political movement, when their day-to-day activities are far more concerned with good old Mammon. Basrah is (and has forever been) a smugglers' den. Will there continue to be well-armed, politically connected gangs operating organized crime rings in the Basrah area for generations? Probably. They've been there for centuries. That doesn't mean there's no road forward; Italy manages, after all.

A Little Perspective

The kind folks at Wired magazine have brought us this helpful threat warning, to help us all put things into a touch of perspective. Of course, I think the vast majority of people are well aware that a car accident is a far more immediate possibility than a terrorist attack. At the same time, I'm happy to keep it that way.

S E V E R E Driving off the road: 254,419 Falling: 146,542 Accidental poisoning: 140,327

H I G H Dying from work: 59,730 Walking down the street: 52,000. Accidentally drowning: 38,302

E L E V A T E D Killed by the flu: 19,415 Dying from a hernia: 16,742

G U A R D E D Accidental firing of a gun: 8,536 Electrocution: 5,171

L O W Being shot by law enforcement: 3,949 Terrorism: 3147 Carbon monoxide in products: 1,554

Moving

There's a bit of a housing crunch on our base right at the moment, so the garrison command has changed the housing policy to help consolidate rooms in some living areas (LAs) that were well below capacity. As the KBR billeting employee put it, "there's a lot of people who thought they were somebody finding out that now they're somebody who's got a roommate". Heh heh. The upshot is that I'm moving a few rows down the LA, so it might be a few days before I can get internet set up over there. We'll just have to see.

Wal-Mart

I really like Wal-Mart. I can't stand the way they lay out the grocery section in Super Wal-Marts, but beyond that, I can generally find whatever I need pretty quickly and cheaply. I appreciate that the "Wal-Mart effect" has lowered retail prices of consumer goods across the economy, saving the average US family around $2,300 annually (.pdf warning), whether they shop there or not. I find it remarkable that despite building their empire on tight supply chains and centralized logistic they have managed to become the nation's #1 retailer of locally-grown produce. At the same time, I can appreciate that some people prefer not to shop there. Everyone has preferences, and it's really not my concern. I do get a bit tired of hearing how Wal-Mart is destroying America, however, particularly in light of significant evidence to the contrary. (HT: Round Unvarnish'd Tale).

What Will We Say?

The Times of South Africa today published an editorial on the upcoming 'election' in neighboring Zimbabwe. It's written for South Africans, and decries their apathy and collusion in prolonging one of the world's more disastrous regimes, but its message is for all of us. What will we say, when our children ask how these horrors were allowed to continue?

Oil!

Hahahaha, this story is just too awesome. 200 billion barrels of oil. Under North Dakota. I can't wait to start seeing the new Dakota sheikhs rolling out in their silver-plated F150's.

PSA-TV

My roommate finally found the correct cord to connect the cable feed to our tiny TV, so we can now enjoy the 11 channels of the Armed Forces Network. It's really not bad, there are two movie channels, sports, news, two 'prime' TV channels, etc. And all the programming is perfectly normal TV, just licensed and cobbled together. So AFN News, for example, will switch between CNN, Fox, MSNBC, and others over the course of the day. I believe this is supposed to be based on the popularity of various shows by timeslot, but I know it gets more political than that. The most interesting part of AFN, however, is not the programming, but the commercials. See, network programming doesn't come with commercials; those are added by the local broadcaster. But AFN, being an agency of the Department of Defense, doesn't need the sponsorship, so the commercial breaks are filled with in-house Public Service Announcements covering just about every aspect of military life. Practice Fire Safety. Call Your Family. Get Tax Help. Respect Local Cultures. Mind Portion Size. Maintain Operational Security. Wear Your Bike Helmet. And my absolute favorite, a PSA about respecting local mores by dressing conservatively which carries the tagline, "because dressing appropriately is always in style".

Amazing

I just came across this inspiring story of a Muslim baptized and confirmed by Pope Benedict XVI at Easter Vigil in St. Peter's. Read his testimony. Amazing. God be praised!

Showdown

Things are certainly getting rather more interesting in the south of Iraq, and as dourly as the BBC can spin it, I see this as a very hopeful time. The Iraqi Security Forces, made up of Iraqi Police and Army (ISF, IP and IA) have launched a massive offensive against elements of the Iranian-backed Jaysh al-Mahdi ('Army of the Mahdi', JAM) Shi'a militia in Basrah and throughout southern Iraq. JAM has responded in force, though without the explicit blessing of its supposed leader, the self-proclaimed 'cleric' Muqtada al-Sadr, who is still in theory holding to the cease-fire he declared six months ago.

Sidenote: At issue here is a bit of a semantic misunderstanding. The Western media insist on referring to JAM as if it were a traditionally organized guerrilla military. And to be fair, JAM refers to itself as such. In the Arab media, however, you'll see far more reference to the "Sadrist movement", which does a better job of conveying exactly how nebulous this organization is. No one really knows exactly what degree of operational control al-Sadr has over the movement that bears his name. It's quite likely that he's continued operations throughout the ceasefire. It's also likely that there are "Sadrist" groups using the name of JAM that have no operational connection whatsoever to Mr. Muqtada. In any case, the point will soon be moot, God willing, when the IP and IA run them out of town.

This is the biggest test the ISF have yet faced, and by all accounts, they're performing remarkably well. As far as I've seen in the media, they've received nothing more than air support and advice from the Brits and Americans, and believe me, we're happy to sit this one out. If they pull this off and come out of this with anything that even approximates a victory, it will be a huge accomplishment for the Iraqi government. The Iraqi people's confidence in the ISF and in Baghdad in general, already growing according to recent polls, will get a massive boost. At the same time, their waning support for JAM and similar militias could hit rock-bottom. We can but hope and pray, as these are dangerous but hopeful times for Iraq.

Suckers!

Hahahahahaha. I found this really amusing (HT Blackfive). I'll have you all know that we've been enjoying several weeks of pleasantly summerlike weather, if a bit chilly at night. Then again, very soon you'll all be able to pity me when we go weeks without the thermometer dropping below 120. It's already starting to get kinda warm:

Tue	Wed	Thu	Fri	Sat
Partly Cloudy Hi 102° Lo 83°	Partly Cloudy Hi 104° Lo 70°	Partly Cloudy Hi 95° Lo 67°	Partly Cloudy Hi 97° Lo 71°	Partly Cloudy Hi 98° Lo 67°

But it's a dry heat, y'know?

Devil's Roux

It would really make me happy in a particular sort of way to find out that Arabic had 200 different words for dust, as the Eskimos of lore supposedly had for snow. Sadly, they really have no more than we do, which is a shame. Because there really is a great diversity in the types of dust to be found around here. In the last week or so, I've become well-acquainted with an especially pernicious type. I'll get back to that. So in my shop, on of my duties is fueling up our generator at the end of every shift. I walk outside our little compound to the fuel point to fetch a jerrycan of diesel and carry it back to the "jenny". I then carefully set the jerrycan as far as I can within the triple-stack of concertina wire that surrounds the jenny and the systems it runs, walk around through the checkpoint to enter the secured area, carefully reach into the C-wire to pull out the jerrycan and proceed to top off the jenny's fuel tank. This is where the dust comes in, because when I'm done, I find it all over my hands and pants. See, when a jerrycan sits outside here, it collects dust in short order, like everything else. The first fine layer of dust then acts as a wick to draw oil out of the cap on the can. This oil then causes the can to accumulate that much more dust, until the whole thing is coated in a layer of a pasty oil-dust mixture, a sort of diabolical roux. And just try carrying a five-gallon can in one hand without it making any contact with your leg as you walk. It don't work.

Easter

He is Risen!

He is Risen, indeed!

Alleluia!

Good Friday

I am he who betrays my Lord for thirty pieces of silver.
I am he who denies that I ever knew Him.
I shout "crucify Him!", demanding His blood. I claim it for myself, and for my children.
I am Pilate, washing my hands of the matter.
I am a soldier, weaving a crown of thorns to mock the King of Kings.
I hold the scourge that tears His flesh.
I pound the nails that pierce His hands, his feet.
I bet and bicker for His garments.
I am a thief dying justly for my crimes, yet through my agony I find strength to hurl contempt on the Innocent suffering beside me.

I am all of these, but by God's grace I am also the other thief. Empowered by the Holy Spirit I pray, "Jesus, remember me."

What Beats a Full House?

Four Aces, Baby!

Care Package

Today was a significant milestone in my Army career: I picked up my first care package while deployed. And what a care package it was! It contained a few of the little items I had asked for, such as a cheap watch and some keychain LEDs. There was also a nice selection of Easter candy (which I would of course never even begin to think of touching before Easter). There were also some cookies of course, which I will share with my coworkers tomorrow. My mother is still committed to using baked goods to buy me friends. Digging through all these things, I also came across a mysterious block wrapped in aluminum foil inside a ziploc bag. I assumed it was brownies, stacked and wrapped together, and left it for last. When I picked it up, however, I immediately knew it was too heavy, too dense to be simple brownies. Wait, could it be? No... I slowly opened the bag and sniffed, yet refused to believe my nose when it corroborated my growing suspicion. No way, there couldn't be any left, could there? Excitement mounting, my hands nearly shaking, I unwrapped the foil to reveal -- joy of joys! -- an entire half-loaf of Christmas fruitcake! For those of you who don't understand our family's love for this singular, maligned confection, I only wish you might have the chance someday to sample our fruitcake, and forget everything you'd even known or been lead to believe about it. That said, I'm now in a bit of a quandary. How exactly do I go about eating it? I'm not sharing, that's for certain. But even so, I have a distinctly finite amount of fruitcake to enjoy. My instinct is to savor it, eating only a tiny portion every few days, to make it last as long as possible. The heterogeneous nature of the fruitcake, however, means that a sufficiently large bite must be taken to ensure the complete fruitcake experience, so a balance of concerns is in order. This is the point where you accuse me of overthinking this to a nearly ludicrous degree. And I can only shake my head sadly, because you just do not understand. Thank you, Mom. Thank you, thank you, thank you!

The Death of Childhood

My old college friend Ben, in his second year of teaching English literature to the privileged youth of northern India, has some very interesting comments on the state of childhood in the world today. I think his point is valid in the aggregate, but I think he might also be a bit short-sighted. His vision of what childhood ought to be is certainly not the norm, but I don't think it's entirely that rare, either. He might, methinks, be enheartened by some of the children of this blog's readership.

Internet is a Go

I have Internet in my hooch now. So if you'd been disappointed by my meager attempt at milblogging, well, I'm not saying I'm going to turn into Michael Yon, but it'll at least get somewhat more frequent. And I'll start posting pictures. Once I get a camera.

Surreality

Being here is very strange. There's just such a bizarre, jarring disconnect between various aspects of life on this base. A few samples:

• A few nights ago, our chow hall featured a Mongolian BBQ service. And they serve steak and crab legs on Rocket Attack Wednesdays (also known as "Wednesdays").
  
• Last week I mopped a floor with bottled water.
• I've met several soldiers who spend most of their free time fishing in the lone pond on base. No word yet if there's actually any fish in it.
  
• After nearly two weeks here, I still regularly get turned around in the elephant-maze of 12-foot tall blast walls that surround and divide every building on base.
• Despite being in Iraq, I've only met a handful of Iraqis. Most of the service workers on base are South Asians and Filipinos.
• In the middle of the desert, in a devastated, war-torn country, I have reliable electricity, running water, and Internet service.

All in all, it's a strange sort of existence here. I'm sure it'll only get stranger once summer sets in and we start seeing temperatures in the 130's and higher. And apparently summertime is the high season for rocket attacks as well, so that'll be interesting. I guess that's the most surreal thing of all, that there are people out there doing what they can to kill me and mine. To be honest, that really hasn't set in yet, that there are people behind the rockets. It still mostly just feels like a particularly dangerous sort of weather phenomenon.

Dust

As I mentioned in my first deployed post, the desert in this part of the world isn't particularly sandy. In fact, it's not sandy at all. Somehow, God in His wisdom decided that the Iraqi desert should be completely devoid of particles between the grades of corn flour and brussels sprouts. Which is to say, there's gravel. And dust. But no sand. Chalk it up to divine irony. Oh, and corn flour is the coarsest grade of dust around here. It goes down through cake flour, to powdered sugar, and all of it in an uncharmingly drab khaki color you're probably more familiar with from suburban vinyl siding. And for two days now the sky has been completely full of it. Last night the wind really picked up for a few hours, in what I suppose counts as my first real dust storm. Pretty awesome, except for the fact that you can't open your eyes in it without goggles. And the way the wind drives the grittiest dust deep into your ears, and how you blow mud boogers out your nose. And then it started raining. Of course, rain falling in a dust storm doesn't come down as water. It falls as mud. Mud rain. Worth seeing, just once.

The finest grades of dust, of course, have the most incredible ability to infiltrate the tiniest of crevices. You can't get away from it, so you just have to accept it. If you thought of the dust as being 'dirty', I'm pretty sure you'd go insane. Though it's still troublesome. It's limestone dust, so it's chemically reactive enough to wreak havoc on electronics and engines and such. Nice, huh?

Military Efficiency

Elapsed time from touchdown in Iraq to first PowerPoint briefing: 5 minutes.

Elapsed time from inprocessing unit in Iraq until assignment of first furniture-moving detail: 1 hour.

Airborne.

Thoughts From The Desert

As many of my readers probably already know, I'm currently on my way to Iraq to play my little part in this war. Right now, I'm sitting around on a base in the Gulf, killing time while we wait for a plane to take us into Iraq. A few thoughts:

• When you think of the desert, you think of sand. Wrong. This place is nothing but dust. You'd think, eventually, all the dust would have blown away leaving just clean sand, gravel and rock. But no, this entire country is nothing but dust. We've seen workers digging pits, and it's solid dust down to three meters, at least. The gravel on the roads seems to have been shipped in from somewhere.

• Why do they even bother making gravel roads anyway? It's not like there'd be anything to keep you from driving anywhere else. The whole place is a giant parking lot anyway. Maybe the gravel is just to mark where the roads are.
  

• Ditto that for the sidewalks. I suppose enough road traffic could turn this place into one giant washboard, but do they really need to pave concrete walkways for us? It's a touch surreal.

• A previous base en route, closer to civilization, had some sparrows singing. At this place, the very first non-human life I've seen in two days was a single cricket.

• I'd heard before how much the service industries in the Gulf rely on TCNs (Third-Country Nationals): Pakistanis, Bangladeshis, Indians, Filipinos. But it's still a shock, to come to a country and see next to none of the locals. I suppose if I wanted to meet them, I'd have to go into town. But I don't think there's any towns anywhere near here.

• Despite being on an isolated base in the middle of the desert, with no drugs, no alcohol, no pornography allowed -- in short, no way to get in trouble if we wanted to -- we still have to break up our free time hiking back and forth to the tents for accountability formations. Just to keep track of us. Where exactly would we go? Sigh.

Look forward to my next post from Iraq. Got no clue when that'll be.

So It Begins?

Turkey's Department of Religious Affairs has released details to the BBC about their ongoing project to publish a revised edition of the Hadith, the account of the words and deeds of the prophet Muhammad. The (collective, authoritative) Hadith is theoretically second in authority to the Koran. In many ways, however, it is more influential in the daily lives of Muslims, for whom any of life's questions are to be answered in the light of Muhammad's words and deeds. WWMD writ large, if you will. This gets problematic, however, in that the authorship of many of the individual hadith is uncertain. From the earliest generations of Islam, supposed hadith flourished, and one of the most significant acts of the early Caliphs was to collect and canonize those hadith which were judged authoritative, and stamp out the transmission and use of those judged apocryphal. Indeed, conflict over the authority and interpretation of various contested collections of hadith was a significant component of the internecine struggles that divided Islam in its first centuries.

The Turkish government is now hoping to enlist modern academic research and textual criticism to weed out those hadith that can now be determined to be illegitimate, as well as the illiberal and culturally-influenced classical interpretations of them. I'm pretty dubious that this sort of top-down approach will be able to achieve the stated goals, but I wish them all the best. It has to start somewhere, right?

Fasinjoon

I've been carrying around this recipe for months. I got it from one of my Iraqi teachers all the way back in Texas, but recipes don't exactly fit all that neatly into my organizational scheme, so it's just sort of been floating from folder to folder. So, here I post it for posterity. Also so you can make it and marvel at the deliciousness of Iraqi/Persian cuisine.

Fasinjoon:

2+ lbs. chicken pieces
1 large onion
1/2 bottle (2 dl) Dibis Rumman
(pomegranate molasses, available at Middle Eastern groceries or online)
1 lb crushed walnuts
2 tsp black pepper
4 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp salt
1 cup sugar

Boil chicken with salt and onions until done in enough water to cover. Add all other ingredients to broth and simmer for at least 1/2 hour. Serve over rice. Refrigerates/freezes well.

For American palates, it might be best to start with less of the pepper and sugar, then adjust to taste. Enjoy!

Laundry Night

Sunday evenings, the entire barracks smells faintly of dryer sheets. This is in no way unpleasant.

More Diversions

Are you busy? Do you have a massive list of things that really ought to get done? Well, join the club, forget that list and start poring through endless galleries of retro-ironic fun!

The 1974 Weight Watchers recipe card collection is really quite amusing. And James Lilek's Institute of Official Fun has compiled dozens of galleries of retro-irony for your enjoyment and diversion.

Corporal Punishment

Is it just me, or has Serbia been acting (for a very long time) like a geopolitical child in need of a spanking? I mean, good grief, by all rights Kosovo's Serb minority ought to be fearing for their lives, not angling to sabotage the new nation.

The Beeb Spins Turkey in Iraq

The Iraqi foreign minister has responded to the deployment of Turkish troops into Iraqi Kurdistan (see yesterday's post), and the BBC's spin is all too clear. His actual comments, standing alone, really don't seem to justify the tone of tension expressed in the piece as a whole. Only one comment even comes close to qualifying as a "warning":

"But if it goes on, I think it could destabilise the region, because really one mistake could lead to further escalation."

Rather, he seems to be stating the blatantly obvious -- we didn't approve this, we want it to end soon, please don't blow up more than you need to. But a reader skimming the article, or just seeing the headline, could be forgiven for concluding that the situation was escalating.

Turkish Forces Enter Iraq

Well, it's finally happened. Today, a small number of Turkish ground forces crossed into Iraq to strike Kurdistan Worker's Party (PKK) terrorists operating in remote border regions. Now, geopolitics wonks have long been wringing their hands that the Turks would be forced to this, and it's always presented as if it would necessarily be the first step in a major Kurdistan war. In reality, however, it seems to have made few waves. The Iraqi government has wisely followed a middle track since Turkish air strikes began some time ago, neither endorsing nor impeding Turkey's actions against the PKK, while making very clear that the PKK is anything but welcome in Iraq. The Turks for their part have been very conscientious of the perception of their actions in Iraqi Kurdistan.

In the bigger picture, why exactly has everyone been so convinced that Turkey can't tolerate the success of Iraqi Kurdistan? Are the Iraqi Kurds, having finally achieved freedom and significant autonomy through incredibly long-suffering patience, such a bad role model for Turkish Kurds?

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Demolition Detail

There are few things soldiers do better or enjoy more than breaking things. So yesterday, when six of us were selected for an unspecified detail at an obscure warehouse on the far side of the post, we were pleased to find that our task for the day was the destruction and disposal of several dozen pieces of 'unserviceable' barracks furniture. Well, technically our job was just to throw them away, but they had to be broken down in order to fit them all in the Dumpster. Several hours of delighted smashing ensued. Good times were had by all. And somewhat miraculously, nobody was hurt, probably because we went through a good half-dozen destruction methods as each was vetoed by the detail sergeant for safety concerns. So in the future, if you ever need some major demolition done for a renovation or whatnot, remember that any soldiers you might know would probably be happy to do the job for free, or at most for pizza and beer.

Photos and video forthcoming.

Berkeley

I haven't really spoken extensively on the subject of the City of Berkeley's spat with the Marine Corps and their supporters. Other blogs have covered the subject much more thoroughly, and I can't think of anyone who would read my blog who wouldn't have the same reaction as I. But now that zombietime has posted photos of the February 12 protest, I just have to make a few comments. Here, as everywhere else on zombietime, one sees how pervasive are the differences between the poles of America's "culture war". I like to focus, however, on simple comparisons:

Yeah, that pretty much sums it up.

Awesome

In my previous post, I linked to the Wikipedia entry on the Principality of Sealand in reference to a discussion about sovereignty and statehood. What I didn't mention is that Sealand happens to be located on a WWII-era naval observation fortress. This is awesome. Even more awesome, however, are the offshore anti-aircraft batteries built at the same time in the Thames estruary. Check this out:

Wikipedia

I want so badly for this to be mine.

Welcome to the World

Well, it's happened. Kosovo has finally given up on waiting for the UN's blessing and has unilaterally declared independence from Serbia. About time, really. The US and the majority of the EU are expected to recognize Kosovo's status tomorrow, at which point it will be more or less official, at least by one measure of these things. We don't often think about it, but "statehood" really is pretty nebulous, once you start considering how many quasi-states there are out there. There's Israel, an established, fully-functioning democracy that isn't recognized by its neighbors. You've got Taiwan, which is a fully independent state in everything except name. There are reservations for Native Americans and Aboriginal Australians, both of which are treated as theoretically sovereign for domestic purposes, but without any international recognition. And then there are some even stranger cases.

In any case, theoretical musings aside, Kosovo's independence is probably a good thing, and good on the US and those European countries who have committed themselves to recognize the new nation. Serbia has behaved abominably in regional geopolitics for a very long time. Kosovo has waited patiently. I understand that there are good reasons we can't go around encouraging every discontented minority group to declare independence. I realize that ethnic conflicts cannot always be solved by redrawing borders. But now and then it might be worth a try, right?

Classic Moments in Soldiering: Specialist in Charge

Our detail on Thursday, the last day before the Presidents' Day four-day weekend, consisted of moving equipment from one maintenance bay in the motor pool to another, then reversing the process. Basically, the unit is moving to the identical bay next door, and moving everything from that shop into their old one. In the process, we separated out all the recyclable scrap we could find, and "acquired" anything useful for the new shop. There were also a a few classic moments in soldiering. See, the sergeant in charge was in and out all day, which led to the very dangerous situation of Specialists making judgment calls. This inevitably led to the sight of a dozen soldiers standing around a pallet crate, spending inordinate amounts of time in debate over the best way to lift it without letting the bottom open and spill unidentified parts all over the place. Because, of course, nobody knew where the keys for the forklift were to be found and a simple pallet jack would have just made everything far too easy. In the end, though, things got moved, floors got slept, relatively little was broken or stolen, and so we actually got thanked for our efforts by a famously ill-tempered Sergeant First Class.

I think this picture is probably the best summary of the day:

A dozen or so junior soldiers + no supervision + industrial cling-wrap = PRICELESS.

Homecoming

This weekend I had the pleasure of meeting up with some old family friends in the Charlotte area. I hate describing them merely as "family friends", though. These were some fellow missionary families from my childhood in Liberia, people I grew up calling Aunt and Uncle, so they're really much more like family. It was awesome getting the chance to reconnect after long years away, catching up and reminiscing. I know I'll be back again soon, and once I get settled back in this area after deployment, it'll be a real blessing to have a surrogate family nearby.

Rock Band

Image Credit: www.xkcd.com

In California, our barracks continually echoed with the clicking and repetitive music of soldiers addicted to Guitar Hero II. In response, I boycotted the game, and still haven't touched it, despite the assurances of pretty much everyone I know that it's amazing. I had for a time also extended my boycott to all similar games, just on principle. At home over Christmas, however, I played SingStar, a karaoke-type game, with my brother (the man-of-infinite-resource-and-sagacity) and sister-in-law. Turns out it's a lot of fun. Well, last night I relented on Rock Band, the grandaddy of them all. It's got a guitar and bass controller similar to Guitar Hero's, with a microphone for vocals a la SingStar, with the addition of a drum set. It's a whole lot of fun. I'd hazard to opine that it's probably one of the best family-fun video games out there. And while it's certainly not a traditional musical education, the evaluation of the karaoke is a pretty harsh lesson in ear-training, and the guitar and drum lines certainly provide excellent rhythm and coordination training. Of course, I'm just trying to justify having this much fun playing fake instruments in front of a TV, but still.

Britain Embraces the Future II

As all too usual, an exchange with Shane has challenged me to clarify, elaborate, and reexamine my thoughts on my previous post. This is why I keep you around, you keep me intellectually honest. So here we go.

Europe is not very accommodating of the Muslim religion, and it simply doesn't fit well with Europe's cultural (but nonreligious) values.

I would agree with this statement, but only as it relates to Europe's historical cultural values of tolerance, individual liberty, social justice, and rule of law. The danger I see is the recent ascendancy of tolerance to a preeminent position over and above the rest, reaching a point where much of Europe has seemed willing to tolerate the intolerant and the intolerable. This does seem to be changing for the better, however, with greater public awareness and rejection of culturally-tied abuses (honor killings, female genital mutilation, and the like) that until recently had been kept under wraps for fear of seeming to malign someone's culture. That, however, is all on the side of civil society. Europe's political establishment is, in general, still working very hard to be accommodating of Islam with publicly-funded Islamic schools and mosques, and endless consultation with Muslim cultural organizations and councils on Islamic relations and the like. This of course means walking an impossible line between natives and conservatives resentful of being forced to appease the impertinent demands of relative newcomers, and immigrants and liberals for whom no amount of money spent on mosques or time spent in discussion will disprove the assumed societal bigotry against Muslims. It makes one very thankful for the Establishment Clause. There are any number of factors and theories why Muslim immigrants to America are visibly better-integrated than those in Europe, but I think America's ingrained culture of public tolerance of religion -- due, in my opinion, to the generally successful separation of church and state -- has preemptively defused the sense of conflict for most American Muslims (CAIR notwithstanding).

I'd like to think that Islam has no chance of substantially changing western values, and that as the Middle East modernizes they will moderate their own views.

So would I, my friend. It's one of those things that's hard to read. The idealogical resilience of a culture is very difficult to pin down, and it could well be that Europe's commitment to Western values is far stronger than it appears on the surface. There are some hopeful signs of a "backlash" of sorts, as I've mentioned above. I think the most hopeful sign is the reaction from those Muslims in Europe and America who've embraced Western political values and come to their own accommodation between those values and Islam, and are increasingly willing to openly defend their embrace of those values. In the end, this conflict may turn out to be intra-Islam rather than between Islam and the wider society. It is telling, and perhaps encouraging, that the strongest counterpoint to Dr. Williams has come from Muslim political and religious leaders who oppose the cultural balkanization these sorts of policies would engender. The response from Britain's Muslim communities, as far as anyone can read these things, seems to be bemusement more than anything.

As far as the modernization of the Middle East goes, I am actually somewhat hopeful, at least for select countries in the region. Several polls (which I will irresponsibly cite without reference) have shown public opinion in the Middle East to be more moderate than that of European Muslims on certain issues. The "wiring" of the Middle East and their enthusiasm for contact with the rest of the world can only be a good thing in the big picture. While the internet does also provide a medium for extremists to spread their agenda, I suspect and hope that the liberal axis of moderate Muslims in the West with reformists in the Middle East will prove stronger and more influential in the long run. Additionally, as Middle Eastern countries move tentatively forward on their political reforms, a return migration of wealthy, educated, and globalized expatriates could provide a massive stimulus for political and economic development, as it has in India and other places.

So, yesterday caught me in a pessimistic light, and Shane's challenge has forced me to acknowledge that there is as well considerable space for guarded optimism in this, as in many things.

Britain Embraces the Future

Well, of the institutions that might have been hoped to resist England's slide toward Londonistan, the Church of England can now definitively be counted out. Today the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rowan Williams, has revealed in an interview his feeling that the adoption of sharia law in the UK is "unavoidable". His justification is that there are now large segments of British society (i.e. unassimilating Pakistanis, primarily) who "do not relate" to the British legal system. Of course, there's another segment of society that doesn't "relate" to the legal system. They're called criminals. And one could make a pretty solid argument, particularly in British society (see Theodore Dalrymple) that much criminality is the result of the culture in which criminals are raised. Should society work to "accommodate" this different culture with their own courts as well?

His point that sharia is misunderstood and shouldn't be solely identified with systems like Saudi Arabia's is valid, but misleading. The term sharia is about as specific as "Western jurisprudence", and in practice just as variable. There is no one system of sharia, or even, for that matter, one interpretation of what sharia ought to embody. Pretty much every majority-Muslim country in the world at least pays lip service to the principles of sharia in their legal system, but these systems vary widely between essentially Western systems veneered with Islamic language to the sort of Hammurabic tribal justice code most people call to mind when they think of sharia. Exactly which interpretation of sharia does Dr. Williams imagine coexisting with British law, then? And how long will the more radical elements of British Muslim society be content with coexistence?

This sort of thing would be less disturbing if it weren't exactly in line with the strategies proposed by some of the subtler of the Muslim world's radical leaders. I refer here to the "conquest of the womb", first elaborated by the Algerian president Houari Moumedienne in 1974, through which the Muslim world will complete its long-stalled conquest of Europe, not through military but demographic strength. This strategy, clearly outlined by Oriana Fallaci, hinges not on confronting liberal democracy, but on exploiting Europe's liberal principles to fatally undermine liberal democracy itself. The special protections afforded Islam under European anti-defamation laws (under which Fallaci was facing criminal prosecution at the time of her death) are already celebrated by radical clerics as an example of their resounding success in this arena. The establishment of government-approved sharia courts, regardless of of how watered-down and Westernized at the outset, is a huge step forward for those who seek to finish a crusade they don't see as having ever stopped.

There are widely varying opinions as to the threat radical Islamism poses to Western civilization. I'm of the opinion, which I hope to elaborate better in future posts, that the characterization of 'Islamofascist' terrorism as an existential threat to our way of life is vastly overblown. The very idea that a few thousand cave-dwellers could directly threaten the strongest civilization the world has ever seen is laughable. The real threat, as Mark Steyn has put so very well, is far more insidious: a lack of "cultural confidence" in that very civilization, which allows radicals to exploit our own values to promote theirs.

Approaching Lent

Coming from a liturgical church background, and only lately coming more and more to appreciate the power and beauty of the liturgical structure, I sometimes find myself at odds to explain this structure to my decidedly non-liturgical Christian friends. The liturgical seasons and the church year in general are particularly mystifying to them.

Thanks, then, to Cheryl of A Round Unvarnish'd Tale, for her beautiful explanation of the Lenten season and her church's tradition of "burying the Alleluias".

I can't but quote a stanza of the hymn her church uses for this rite:

Alleluia cannot always be our song while here below;
Alleluia our transgressions make us for a while forgo;
For the Lententide is coming, when our penitence is renewed.

Amen.

Open Mike Night

My only internet access these days is at coffeeshops. Sadly, unlike in more civilized parts where free Wifi floats on the breeze thick as dandelion seeds on a summer's day, coffeeshops here in Fayettenam all charge for their internet access. Barnes and Noble has by far the nicest atmosphere, but their AT&T Wireless access is pretty slow, and costs $4 for two hours. The price really isn't unreasonable, but I hate having a time limit. I makes me feel rushed to get stuff done, and obligated to "get my money's worth" even if I've only really got 20 minutes of internetting to get done. Recently I've found a local coffeeshop with a more reasonable price for nightly access, so that's where I am right now. Unfortunately, said coffeeshop hosts Open Mike Nights on variously unpredictable nights of the week. So now I'm getting sung at by random talentless amateurs. And I do mean talentless. If your best gig is singing Tears for Fears covers at a characterless strip-mall coffeeshop in Fayetteville, NC, you are most assuredly talentless. And then they berate me for not "responding" to the performer. Shut up. Please. I paid decent money for this internet access. Sorry I didn't realize I was contractually obligated to assuage the egos of Fayetteville's amateur music community. Rant concluded.

Classic Moments in Soldiering: The Barracks Are Never Clean

For the last two weeks here in the Rear Detachment (i.e. the skeleton crew holding down the fort for the units that are deployed), one of our main tasks as we wait to deploy ourselves has been cleaning the barracks rooms for the soldiers who will shortly be returning from Iraq. Granted, there's some satisfaction in that, because those guys certainly deserve to come home to a clean barracks room. But there's a little rule of Army life that comes into play. A barracks is never clean. Ever. There's definitely no such thing as "clean enough". So we've been taking scouring pads to each and every tile in these rooms, polishing them to an unnatural pearly white that's probably several shades lighter than the manufacturer's intended color. On top of that, we're also completely scouring off whatever nonporous finish once protected these tiles, leaving them clean and white, but positively begging to absorb the first dirt that comes along, ensuring that they will in short order be far dirtier than if we had never undertaken this job in the first place. Leave it to the Army, as usual, to make things about six times more difficult than necessary.

Like I said, this is still a noble, if unglamorous undertaking, to clean rooms for returning soldiers. But these are soldiers. How clean do they really want their rooms? Sure, give them a spotless bathroom and a clean refrigerator, but I would bet good money not a single one of them is going to note the glowing whiteness of their tile. I am, on the whole, far cleaner by instinct than my average colleague, and I can assure you the tile floor would be my last concern.

If I had more time, equipment, and ambition, I'd love to make a parody recruitment ad. "There's clean... and then there's ARMY CLEAN."

Here's a few YouTube videos along similar themes:



There's sleepy. And then there's Army Sleepy.



Here's one about cleaning, along the lines of the old "Army Of One" ads I joined under.

Krakatoa

So I've been reading an excellent book about Krakatoa, the volcanic island between Java and Sumatra that obliterated itself and about 40,000 people in a phenomenal explosion on August 27, 1883. It's a great example of one of my favorite sorts of non-fiction: a book that focuses on one event, resource, invention, or movement, but uses it as a focus for discussion of a much broader range of topics. In this particular case, the author uses the topic of Krakatoa to weave together the history and economics of Portuguese, English, and Dutch colonialism and the Dutch East India Company; the development of global geologic theory and the sciences of plate tectonics, vulcanology, and meteorology; the media revolution spurred by the then-cutting-edge transoceanic telegraph; and the still-burning fires of modern politicized Islam, one of the earliest outbreaks of which occurred in Java in the aftermath of the eruption.

The explosion of Krakatoa produced by far the loudest sound heard on earth at any point in recorded history, heard clearly up to 3,000 miles away on the Indian Ocean island of Rodriguez, for example. Most of those who heard the sound assumed it was the rumbling of a faraway naval bombardment, or a ship firing its guns as a distress call. The reason I share that particular fact is that for the last three days, as I hear the thundering reports of the artillery ranges rolling across Fort Bragg, I like to imagine myself in a different time and place, an unwitting witness to the unimaginable forces that roil beneath all our feet. Yeah, I really am that geeky.