tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-44771312998177338432024-02-20T10:06:46.105-05:00The Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snake... in a voice of dretful scorn.Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.comBlogger622125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-83421993042906323232014-10-11T23:51:00.001-04:002014-10-12T00:01:48.668-04:00Tamale Pie<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on">
Preheat oven to 400<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; line-height: 17.9200000762939px;">°</span>.<br />
<br />
Prepare 1 pie crust (regular or cornmeal).<br />
<br />
Roll out pie crust and form into 9" pie pan. Parbake pie crust 15 minutes at 400<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; line-height: 17.9200000762939px;">°</span>.<br />
<br />
In a large skillet or saute pan, saute until translucent:<br />
<br />
1 med onion, chopped<br />
2 T fat (butter, bacon fat, oil, etc)<br />
<br />
Add and cook until fragrant:<br />
<br />
1-2 clove garlic, minced<br />
<br />
Add and brown:<br />
<br />
1 lb ground beef<br />
1/4c flour<br />
<br />
Add and heat until bubbling:<br />
<br />
1 T chili powder (or to taste)<br />
1 t ground cumin<br />
1 t ground coriander<br />
1/2 t salt<br />
1 15oz can beans, drained (pinto, kidney, black, etc)<br />
1 small can tomato paste<br />
<br />
In a saucepan, heat until steaming:<br />
<br />
2 c water or milk<br />
1 T chili powder<br />
1/2 t salt<br />
<br />
Whisk in:<br />
<br />
1 c grits, masa, or cornmeal<br />
<br />
Cook over medium heat until thick and bubbling.<br />
<br />
Mix in:<br />
<br />
1/2 lb grated cheese (cotija is delicious, otherwise cheddar, jack, etc)<br />
<br />
Pour meat mixture into pie crust and spread evenly. Spread corn mush on top, spreading against pie crust edges.<br />
<br />
Bake at 400<span style="background-color: white; color: #252525; font-family: sans-serif; font-size: 14.3999996185303px; line-height: 17.9200000762939px;">°</span> 30 minutes or until pie crust and cornmeal are browned.</div>
Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-45894883850392532982011-03-22T13:41:00.000-04:002011-03-22T13:41:28.943-04:00Decisions<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">As many of my readers are no doubt aware, I'm currently preparing to go back to school this fall in order to get my MBA. The latest step in the process has been choosing a school, and it's been a hard decision. Each of my options had a lot to recommend it, which, as my future father-in-law very helpfully pointed out, meant that there was no wrong choice to make. That didn't make the decision any easier, but it did take most of the stress out of it.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Faced with a decision between three good options, I did what any military intelligence veteran and prospective MBA would do: I made a spreadsheet. I compiled a list of competing criteria, including everything from program rankings and student body attitudes to proximity of family and friends and survivability in a civilizational-collapse scenario. I rated each school on these criteria as impartially as possible, then ranked the criteria by subjective importance to me, had my fiancée do the same*, and multiplied the average of our rankings by the schools' ratings to come up with a value-weighted score for each school. And of course, my approach failed completely, leaving two of the three schools perfectly tied.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">What next? Time to cook the books. I went back through the theoretically impartial ratings columns and adjusted them until one school started to pull ahead. Was I intentionally tipping the balance toward one school? Probably, but even in that case, my spreadsheet still did its job by revealing to me which school I truly most wanted to attend. And what was the result? Well, I'm happy to announce that I am now officially a member of the Wisconsin School of Business Grainger Center for Supply Chain Management Class of 2013.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It is a bit ironic, since I had initially considered it my third-place school, and I nearly didn't bother to finish the application after I was admitted to the school I had considered my number two. I only went to the interview and class visit out of a grudging sense of obligation to finishing what you start, but was so impressed during that visit that it suddenly became the school to beat. In the end, it was the only program I felt like I would regret missing if I went somewhere else, and that's what ultimately tipped the scales. I guess it's a good lesson in not closing doors or burning bridges.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">So Madison-area friends, see you soon! And Chicago and Twin Cities friends, we'll only be a few hours away, and we're planning to have a guest room.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;"><br />
</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span style="font-size: xx-small;">*My fiancée's independent prioritization of school selection criteria was nearly identical to mine. I'd say that's a good sign, no?</span></div></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-8585411540837261902011-03-16T15:27:00.000-04:002011-03-16T15:27:35.671-04:00Against Intervention<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">Opinions regarding the proper response to the situation in Libya cut across partisan lines, with the full spectrum from not-our-problem isolationism to something-must-be-done interventionism represented on both sides. The Right is convinced President Obama's handling it poorly, of course, but there's nothing approaching a consensus about what ought to be done. The confusion is clear at the conservative flagship National Review, whose editorial <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/262203/save-benghazi-editors">now supports a no-fly zone</a> (though they initially opposed it) opposite a <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/262217/should-we-intervene-libya-victor-davis-hanson">column from Victor Davis Hanson</a> (one of the preeminent cheerleaders of the Iraq invasion) who opposes intervention.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">It's appropriate that opinions are all over, I suppose. It's a fraught question. As VDH sums up the humanitarian argument,</div><blockquote><br />
Libyans have been living an ungodly nightmare since Qaddafi’s coup in 1969, and it would be a fine and noble thing to lend them a hand to end their four-decade-long misery. The world would be a better and safer place without Qaddafi and his odious clan in power.</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"> Yes. But Qaddafi will have to be replaced. There is simply no indication that there is any significant core of individuals among the rebels who would be any better, and it is a deeply dangerous folly to suggest that things could not get any worse. Libya's modern history -- a lawless span of coast that nobody else wanted, so the Italians got it -- uncomfortably parallels Somalia's. And the probably-doomed rebels? Well, they're the enemy of our enemy, but <a href="http://www.cnas.org/blogs/abumuqawama/2011/03/rebels-love-us-right.html">it's not at all clear that they're our friends</a>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote>On a per capita basis, though, <em>twice </em>as many foreign fighters came to Iraq from Libya -- and specifically <em>eastern Libya</em> -- than from <em>any other country in the Arabic-speaking world</em>. Libyans were apparently more fired up to travel to Iraq to kill Americans than anyone else in the Middle East.</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">It would be whistling in the dark to suppose that whatever demographic cohort sent so many to fight and die in Iraq is not also front-and-center in the ranks of the rebels we are currently debating whether to support. The most cynical part of me might support a no-fly zone simply to even things up, to prevent this struggle from ending before it has worn down both sides. Like the Iran-Iraq war, it's a war you wish both sides could lose. Sadly, the real losers, as always, are the Libyan people, the majority of whom are by all accounts friendly, hospitable, and desirous of rational government. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wish there were an easy answer, but there just isn't. This is the world we live in. Foreign policy is really hard. As I've mentioned before, <a href="http://bicolouredpythonrocksnake.blogspot.com/2009/06/reflections-on-cairo.html">my biggest concern about President Obama at his inauguration</a> was that he seemed convinced that foreign policy is easy and everyone else had just been doing it wrong. He does seem at least to have been disabused of that notion.</div></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-61600975683572885422011-02-08T22:09:00.001-05:002011-02-08T22:09:00.674-05:00Free Story Concept: Super Bowl Anti-History<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">While watching the Super Bowl on Sunday (Packers won the Super Bowl! Packers won the Super Bowl! Packers won the Super Bowl!), I was struck by a thought during the ads for commemorative Super Bowl champions gear. I'm sure that these days they do most of the printing to order, but there's still a non-trivial amount of swag printed with the losing team as champion, "Dewey Defeats Truman"-style. It's a fair guess that all the Super Bowl XLV Champion Pittsburgh Steelers sweatshirts then get dumped on the second-hand clothing market and ends up in the developing world. So there's my trope, free for the taking: all the "Super Bowl Champion" commemorative swag in the developing world tells an anti-history of the Super Bowl. Someone could make something of that.</div></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-2987676924084585212011-02-07T22:07:00.000-05:002011-02-07T22:07:30.951-05:00Project: Fish Tank Stand Bookshelf<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">I recently decided that while I'm happily unemployed, I can occupy my time by making myself some things that I will find useful in the future. The fact that I currently have my father's well-appointed garage workshop available is another incentive, as is the desire to develop my basic woodworking skills in the more challenging realm of furniture-making.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">For my first big project, I settled on something that will accommodate a small portion of my absurd private library, as well as display a pursuit of mine that I don't think has come up before, tropical fish. This was also my opportunity to learn how to use <a href="http://sketchup.google.com/intl/en/">Google Sketchup</a>. Here's what I came up with:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbRZ4Y_BjC6V_dvptvcQVzYtiSsi8XEqQM7wwMjDH-LZJPIEt1F2r19ANN9RCGuC-vSfbvvOhwTS3ejPiVJJqmuUgBx5Q3h3gvTe1DtEGvOoIk50HH6oeL9ioUaZp7den9aI4Iw-igC6e/s1600/fishstand.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSbRZ4Y_BjC6V_dvptvcQVzYtiSsi8XEqQM7wwMjDH-LZJPIEt1F2r19ANN9RCGuC-vSfbvvOhwTS3ejPiVJJqmuUgBx5Q3h3gvTe1DtEGvOoIk50HH6oeL9ioUaZp7den9aI4Iw-igC6e/s320/fishstand.JPG" width="227" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The thin lines on the lower portion are dowels which will support the bookshelves. You may notice I neglected to include them on the rear verticals; Sketchup was giving me fits with the cylinders. The shelf above the tank will hold a deep tray for plants, with growlights for them mounted in the topmost frame. I don't know yet what I'm going to do for a finish. I'm leaning toward a dark stain to try to minimize the "clearly-made-from-2x4s" look, but I might just embrace that, put on a clear poly coat and use shiny hardware all over it.</div></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-50210368937780852782011-02-01T15:11:00.000-05:002011-02-01T15:11:14.186-05:00Dinner: Sausage and Spinach White Bean Soup<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">This is an original creation that worked out pretty well for a quick weeknight meal. I know dried beans taste way better and are a lot cheaper bla bla bla, but they also require something in exceedingly short supply for a lot of people: planning. You want to make it with dried beans, I'm not going to stop you. For the rest of us, here goes (sorry, no pictures):</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">2 fresh bratwurst</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 medium onion </div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 box (9 oz) frozen chopped spinach</div><div style="text-align: justify;">2 cans (15 oz) navy or great northern beans</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1/2 tsp caraway seed</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1/4 tsp ground cardamom</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1/4 tsp black pepper</div><div style="text-align: justify;">1 tsp lemon juice (adjust to taste)</div><div style="text-align: justify;">salt to taste </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Squeeze the sausage out of their casings into a medium saucepan over low heat, breaking it up as it starts to brown. Chop the onion. Add to saucepan and increase to medium heat, continuing to break up sausage as it cooks until onions are translucent and sausage is well browned. If you've had the foresight to thaw the spinach, add it to the saucepan now. If you haven't, no worries, just put it in the pan frozen, cover it, turn the heat down low, and wait a few minutes until your spinach block thaws. Add the beans and enough water or stock to bring it to the consistency you prefer. Heat to a boil, reduce heat and simmer for 10 minutes or so. Add lemon juice and salt to taste. Enjoy.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">30 minutes or so. Serves 3-4 as a meal, more as a soup course.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-19841387367208852742011-02-01T14:53:00.000-05:002011-02-01T14:53:28.908-05:00A New Direction?<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div style="text-align: justify;">I've been having a hard time deciding whether I really have a reason to keep blogging. While I'm as plugged into politics as ever, I really don't have the expertise to justify opining about much, and Facebook has really become my venue for the daily heylookitthats. For that matter, my blog reliably gets more comments on Facebook than on the website. So instead of kicking myself that I really ought to be commenting on this or that world event (cough cough <b>Egypt</b> cough), I'm going to be blogging things that do matter to me personally: daily life observations, recipes, projects I'm working on around the house, that sort of thing. Dretful scorn will, of course, continue to be in the offing. It'll still be irregular and haphazard, but that's life.</div></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-5842542420051153032011-01-04T02:33:00.000-05:002011-01-04T02:33:00.152-05:00Essay<div style="text-align: justify;">Hello, friends. Long time, no see, I know.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I'm currently working on applications to business schools, which means I've been writing a lot of essays. Tonight I was working on an essay about a time in my life when I took a risk. I'm going to have to do some major revision in the morning, but I think this is too good not to share, even in its rough state. Let this be an object lesson of the risks of writing application essays late into the night:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote><span id="internal-source-marker_0.42249782065614694" style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">When a paratrooper is asked about risks he’s taken, the immediate thoughts are of risks quite concrete, of literal leaps of faith out the doors of perfectly good airplanes, but I don’t expect anyone wants to read about all the routine parachute jumps I remember. Rather more interesting is the jump I can’t remember, the one that nearly killed me, but since everything I know about that jump is hearsay, I don’t feel right repeating that, either. I took more than a few risks in Iraq, too, some for better reasons than others. I took a risk every time I entrusted my life to a complete stranger with a GED and an ASVAB waiver, but in a combat zone that’s a risk common enough to become banal. It was a greater risk when I entrusted my safety to Iraqi soldiers who might well have been al-Qaeda sympathizers, if not active members, but that’s how building legitimacy works, and anyway, I had orders to follow. So maybe it’s more useful to take a couple steps back and look at the first big risk I took, the one that got me into the Army in the first place.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">Unlike most servicemembers, the military wasn’t something that loomed large in my family background. The last contact my family had had with the Department of Defense was my grandfather’s service in the occupation of Japan, and I made it to my senior year of college without ever considering military service a plausible option. I was on a solid path to an undistinguished but comfortable career in academia when a visit to the Commonwealth cemetery at the World War II battlefield of el-Alamein, Egypt, challenged my assumptions about my role in the world and planted the seeds of my dissatisfaction with the prospect of a sedentary academic life. As I approached graduation seeking opportunities for intensive applied language training, I was pointed again and again toward the military’s language training program. I looked into what the military language program had to offer, and something just clicked. It all made perfect sense: I would enlist in the US Army as an Arabic linguist and make my career as a military man. All that stood in my way was the minor practical matter that I was 70 pounds overweight and so desperately out of shape I couldn’t run a quarter of a mile without stopping.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">The reality of weight loss and exercise is irredeemably dull, and if this essay were a movie, this sentence would no doubt be replaced by an eighties-rock montage. Suffice it to say that over the course of the summer following my college graduation, I had lost weight and gained stamina sufficient for me to ship off to Basic Training in the fall. I arrived at Fort Knox with absolutely no context or outline of what to expect beyond the vague Hollywood conception of “Boot Camp”, and faced a culture shock more extreme than any I ever felt circumnavigating the globe. I had joined the US Army as an Arabic linguist during the darkest period of the Iraq war. I knew where I was headed. What it would take to get there was a bit hazier.</span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;"></span><br />
<span style="background-color: transparent; color: black; font-family: Arial; font-size: 11pt; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none; vertical-align: baseline;">I realize I’m writing an essay, not trading war stories at the VFW, so I suppose I should get to the point: what I learned from taking my big risk. I learned a bunch of little things, only some of which are motivational poster cliches: Meritocracy is the ideal, but patronage is the reality. Compliance is generally valued higher than competence. Always, always, always pay your mercenaries. I also learned a few big things: I am capable of working harder and enduring more than I ever thought possible. Individualism is bunk; my proudest moments have been as a cog in the best machine. And the antithesis of fear is not courage, but trust in the man ahead of you and behind you. </span></blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-5179243775138197312010-11-24T12:52:00.000-05:002010-11-24T12:52:52.690-05:00Train Madness<div style="text-align: justify;">Okay, this high-speed rail madness needs to get addressed. Most of the opposition to HSR attacks it either as a wildly expensive boondoggle, which it is, or comes from people who aren't concerned about the fundamental expected benefit of HSR, emissions reduction. But HSR <b>doesn't work</b> even on its own merits. Adding nationwide HSR would <b>increase net emissions</b>. Let me explain. A friend of mine recently shared this infographic from <a href="http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/2010/11/trains-planes-and-pollution/">Yglesias</a>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacioyorbdSBGh0m6LWHqVSXZ_swpdGyneV3FNZmuQvMBB9gUui3XOPBeseby8ZiQMf0-V-80y9cYveQKSUFZscIhS8JDCaR9xraw1DaUM3m6cIuun4I8Q9Vaxsqu-x1QwbEGlsA4oVzha/s1600/intercity_rail-02-1.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="217" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgacioyorbdSBGh0m6LWHqVSXZ_swpdGyneV3FNZmuQvMBB9gUui3XOPBeseby8ZiQMf0-V-80y9cYveQKSUFZscIhS8JDCaR9xraw1DaUM3m6cIuun4I8Q9Vaxsqu-x1QwbEGlsA4oVzha/s320/intercity_rail-02-1.png" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><span class="entry-comment-content">Yes, but. The thing missing from this infographic is that these numbers need to be broken down by BTU per passenger mile <b>per pound</b> and compared to the other things they're replacing, that is, the marginal cost of what else we could be using those rails for. Air travel is fuel-inefficient, so we only use it for lightweight, time-sensitive cargoes like passengers and priority mail packages. Rail is very efficient, but isn't currently very fast, so we generally use it to move the heaviest things that need moving, i.e. bulk goods and freight. All the HSR proposals out there right now are trying to get comparatively lightweight passenger trains onto our rails and make them go faster than freight trains currently do, but none of these proposals address the reality that this will displace several times that weight of freight onto comparatively inefficient trucks on our highways, multiplying net emissions. Even if we built brand new dedicated rail corridors for HSR (which is what we'd have to do if we actually want shiny 200mph bullet trains, instead of just 90mph express trains like we had in the 1930s) we'd still reduce <b>more</b> emissions using those new rails for heavy freight than for light passengers. We'd save a lot of money on highway maintenance, too, since semis are responsible for the overwhelming majority of wear-and-tear on our roads. If we really wanted to be preventing emissions, we'd certainly be looking at ways to encourage and expand use of our nation's railways, only for freight rather than passengers. We would also be looking at what it would take to get our canal networks back into commission, since barges are an order of magnitude more efficient even than trains. As it stands, the current advocates for HSR are more interested in seeing shiny, sexy new passenger trains (and handing multi-billion-dollar construction contracts to political backers in the case of the politicians) than in actually reducing net emissions. It is fundamentally unserious.</span></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-25980499716872383452010-10-28T21:03:00.000-04:002010-10-28T21:03:28.563-04:00Going in Circles<div style="text-align: justify;">Do you ever feel like you're just going in circles, like no matter how long you drive, you find yourself back where you started? I've felt that way in these first 850 miles of my <a href="http://bicolouredpythonrocksnake.blogspot.com/2010/09/road-trip-of-freedom-2010.html">epic post-Army cross-country road trip</a>. And for a good reason: I <i>have</i> been going in circles, one big one, specifically:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTaFyyf-CYxq7-vmw8fm7WoHSP-mR6KkSB0NMljihC9MzKdioph_Q-tiZcOLNp15kQZreRDqaZoVDLgR93hkHDznem-3hYa1mbnN5Y__kuO3bu9W7wbxhVRuEP1xy4x5nhFBpMVKYfO-XP/s1600/circles.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTaFyyf-CYxq7-vmw8fm7WoHSP-mR6KkSB0NMljihC9MzKdioph_Q-tiZcOLNp15kQZreRDqaZoVDLgR93hkHDznem-3hYa1mbnN5Y__kuO3bu9W7wbxhVRuEP1xy4x5nhFBpMVKYfO-XP/s1600/circles.png" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I had to come back to Fort Bragg this morning to tie up some a few loose ends, and tomorrow morning I'm taking the GMAT here in Raleigh, my last big hurdle in the business school application process. After that's done, the road trip proper can commence. Up 'til now I've been making my way around Virginia and North Carolina, enjoying the natural and historic beauty of this part of the country, as well as good times with some old friends in Charlottesville, Richmond, and Norfolk. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You'll notice my path on the map above looks for all the world like I took an extended detour into the Atlantic. They're too narrow to show up on this zoom level, but I assure you <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outer_banks">North Carolina's Outer Banks</a> are there, and they are absolutely beautiful. They have easily the nicest beaches I've visited in the US, and I'd put them comfortably in the top three beach regions I've enjoyed worldwide, along with Egypt's Mediterranean coast and Thailand's Andaman coast. Prices for vacation rentals are also shockingly reasonable, particularly in the off-season, and things just get cheaper the further down the banks you go. Most of the construction boom in the Outer Banks happened in an era when Americans were much more willing to drive a couple hours of two-lane road to spend a week doing nothing much, rather than just flying off to an all-inclusive resort. Which is to say, if you make the Outer Banks your next vacation destination, you will be being simultaneously counter-cultural <b>and</b> nostalgic. All right, enough boosterism. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-1394483981958762632010-10-22T19:07:00.000-04:002010-10-22T19:07:00.506-04:00Out<div style="text-align: justify;">I apologize for the lack of posting these past ten days. I was a bit overwhelmed with the process of getting out of the Army, and since then I've been trying to focus all my energies on studying for the <a href="http://www.mba.com/mba">GMAT</a>, which I'll be taking a week from today.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">You read that right, though, I'm out of the Army. Getting out was a miserable process, but I managed to get all the checks in all the right boxes and all the signatures on all the right forms, and I am now officially a civilian again. It's a great feeling. One day I'll get around to reflecting on my Army experience generally, but right now I've got a bit too much on my plate for that.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-14714183872954748212010-10-12T14:51:00.003-04:002010-10-12T14:51:00.396-04:00On Failure<div style="text-align: justify;">Everyone can celebrate the accomplishment and heroism of a man like Joseph Kittenger, who took the "long, lonely leap", skydiving from the edge of space in 1960 and setting a record that is yet to be broken. The <a href="http://artofmanliness.com/">Art of Manliness</a> blog recently <a href="http://artofmanliness.com/2010/09/29/skydiving-from-space-part-i-joseph-w-kittingers-long-lonely-leap/">profiled his story for their "A Man's Life" feature</a>. But what about the "magnificent failure" of the man who tried to break his record, <a href="http://artofmanliness.com/2010/10/07/skydiving-from-space-part-ii-nick-piantanidas-magnificent-failure/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+TheArtOfManliness+%28The+Art+of+Manliness%29">Nick Piantanida, whom Art of Manliness profiled in a sequel to Kettinger's story</a>. After a life of shoestring exploits, Piantanida died from the effects of a failed attempt to beat Kittenger's record. AoM sums up the question of Piantanida's legacy well:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="background-color: transparent; border: medium none; color: black; overflow: hidden; text-align: justify; text-decoration: none;"><blockquote>Was Nick a reckless daredevil? His jumps were never about the thrill; he genuinely wished to aid scientific progress, to push the limits of what was out there, and to accomplish something no other man had done. Did he prepare enough? He did the best an ordinary civilian could have but inevitably lacked the opportunities for rigorous testing and the access to the very best and most experienced minds in the field.<br />
<br />
What are we to make of a man like Nick? Was his inability to admit the risk of failure, and the chance he might leave his children fatherless a form of hubris? Or should we cheer his adventurous spirit, DIY effort, and manful demonstration that great daring is not reserved for the loners or the lucky?</blockquote><br />
I'm reminded of another great failure in history, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Terra_Nova_Expedition">Robert Falcon Scott's <i>Terra Nova</i> expedition to the South Pole</a>. Sure, <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amundsen%27s_South_Pole_expedition">that Norwegian fellow</a> made it there first. And none of Scott's party made it back alive. Still, I think there is a place to celebrate heroism even in failure. Scott himself thought so, as he wrote in his journal these words, <a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/evan.r.meyer/EnnZedd#5446570233461056226">recorded on a memorial to the <i>Terra Nova</i> expedition</a> in Queenstown, New Zealand:<br />
<br />
<blockquote>For my own sake, I do not regret this journey, which has shown that Englishmen can endure hardship, help one another, and meet death with as great a fortitude as ever in the past. We took risks; we knew we took them. Things have come out against us, and therefore we have cause for complaint, but bow to the will of Providence, determined still to do our best to the last. Had we lived, I should have had a tale to tell of the hardihood, endurance and courage of my companions which would have stirred the heart of every Englishman. These rough notes and our dead bodies must tell the tale.</blockquote></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-56300961840166736262010-10-11T19:35:00.000-04:002010-10-11T19:35:45.764-04:00Continuity<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://thisisindexed.com/">Indexed</a> is a charming little webcomic that's almost always good for a quick morning chortle. It's a lot of fun to see the way she plays with graphs to tell stories, but it does often betray a somewhat blinkered lefty view of the world, though in a way that's not at all off-putting. <a href="http://thisisindexed.com/2010/10/why-zip-codes-have-connotations/">Today's comic is a particularly good example</a>.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;"> </div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: justify;"><a href="http://thisisindexed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/card2707-335x231.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="220" src="http://thisisindexed.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/10/card2707-335x231.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
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</div><div style="text-align: justify;">The commenters spot the problem right away. Do you?</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-58284618112859568792010-10-11T01:04:00.001-04:002010-10-11T01:05:33.497-04:00Dinner: FasinjoonI finally got a chance to try out <a href="http://bicolouredpythonrocksnake.blogspot.com/2008/02/fasinjoon.html">the recipe for fasinjoon that I got off one of my Iraqi teachers three years ago</a>.<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU88sN2pe4N_QZBGnHD_OLk_mErAglNNjla2znm7EnitGHpQdn4VK7DS3xnHcw9F0Dg1oFYn_dRqGa2StUDMN_rULFWC5O2PEg2I3nGJEMBthYsTv4h8hMSfymVSXxUerWfYVuRVYdcNFx/s1600/fasinjoon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjU88sN2pe4N_QZBGnHD_OLk_mErAglNNjla2znm7EnitGHpQdn4VK7DS3xnHcw9F0Dg1oFYn_dRqGa2StUDMN_rULFWC5O2PEg2I3nGJEMBthYsTv4h8hMSfymVSXxUerWfYVuRVYdcNFx/s320/fasinjoon.jpg" height="240" width="320" border="0" /></a></div><br /><br />It turned out pretty well, if I do say so myself, so I figured I'd share the recipe again, including my updates of what I changed. It's truly one of the world's great sauces. It would pair just as well with other meats, particularly lamb, but here's how I made it with chicken:<br /><br />2+ lbs. chicken thighs<br />1 large onion<br />1/2 bottle (2 dl) pomegranate molasses (available at Middle Eastern groceries or<a href="http://www.daynasmarket.com/syrup_molasses.html"> online</a>)<br />8 oz. walnut pieces<br />2 tsp cinnamon<br />2 tsp black pepper<br />2 tsp salt<br />Parsley and lemon to garnish<br /><br />Chop the onion and begin sautéing in a deep frying pan with a little vegetable oil. Meanwhile, rinse the chicken thighs and skin. Toss skins into the pan to sauté with the onions so they release their chickeny deliciousness. Once the onions begin to caramelize, add the chicken thighs and enough water just to cover. Bring to a boil, reduce to a simmer for 10 minutes. Remove chicken skins. With a blender or food processor, grind the walnuts finely. Add walnut meal and pomegranate molasses to the pan, stir to combine. Cover and continue simmering for 30 minutes, stirring occasionally. Add cinnamon, pepper and salt when 10 minutes remain, uncover as needed to allow sauce to thicken to desired consistency. Serve over rice (basmati is most appropriate, but any will do). Garnish with parsley and lemon slice (I didn't, and the dish suffers visually, as you can see above).<br /><br />Enjoy!Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-22312202540202327722010-10-09T10:23:00.001-04:002010-10-09T10:23:00.406-04:00Why They Hate Him<div style="text-align: justify;"><a href="http://bicolouredpythonrocksnake.blogspot.com/2010/10/on-speech-and-freedom-thereof.html">I wrote a bit the other day about the ongoing hate speech trial of Dutch politician Geert Wilders</a>. The Wilders trial, of course, encompasses issues broader than freedom of speech. There's an apparently credible allegation (I can't really judge, other than that the Dutch media is covering it in earnest) that his trial has been orchestrated by his political opponents, who hate him perhaps more than his Islamist enemies do. Despite the fact that his party's platform on every subject but one is mainstream European social-democratic -- which is to say hard Left by American standards -- he and his party are regularly described as "far right" by their opponents and the media. Why the disconnect? It comes down to that one subject left out: immigration, which in the Netherlands mostly means Muslim immigration.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Wilders is loathed by his political opponents because he dares to argue that European nations should be proud of their cultures and should pursue policies of immigration and assimilation that will maintain and strengthen those cultures for the future. Why on Earth is this controversial to the point of being labeled hate speech? Firstly, the practical matter: there is simply no other way for a nation like the Netherlands to remain anything you or I would recognize as Dutch while continuing to welcome immigrants. Secondly, being a culturally-defined nation is one half of being a nation-state, and such cultural definition is positively uncontroversial elsewhere. The Arab League is made up of 21 countries that proudly declare themselves Arab nations and seek to maintain and strengthen their Arab cultural identity. The Organization of the Islamic Conference consists of 57 nations that declare themselves officially Muslim and enshrine Islamic jurisprudence in their constitutions. Is it really so offensive then for a Dutch political party to argue that the Netherlands should be proud of her Dutch culture and Enlightenment political philosophy? If this is hate speech, Europe is surely doomed.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-13458129361424247352010-10-08T15:42:00.007-04:002011-01-05T23:18:52.149-05:00Justified Jingoism<div style="text-align: justify;">In his <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/248613/september-diary-john-derbyshire?page=1">September Diary</a>, John Derbyshire shares a quote from the American music critic James Huneker regarding Chopin's Etude Op. 25 No. 11: "Small-souled men, no matter how agile their fingers, should not attempt it." Derb kindly linked a video of a performance of this piece by young Korean pianist, Yeol Um Son, who <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/249075/music-video-month-john-derbyshire">made quite an impression on him</a>. Me, too. Here's the video:<br /><br /><object width="480" height="385"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/B1yr7lOM27A?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/B1yr7lOM27A?fs=1&hl=en_US&color1=0x234900&color2=0x4e9e00" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="480" height="385"></embed></object></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />I had an interesting thought on watching this. I emailed Derb about it; I'll just share what I wrote him:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><blockquote>Reading your follow-up today I was struck by something you didn't explicitly address: Ms. Yeol is Korean, and yet she's devoted her life to studying and sharing music written by a bunch of dead white Europeans. How many Westerners have taken the time and effort necessary to become virtuosos of another culture's classical music? I would guess the answer is in the dozens. I say this not to tut-tut the West, but rather as a bit of unashamed cultural jingoism. Our culture produced this, and its surpassing worth is so universally evident that millions of students in east Asia -- confident and economically-successful cultures all -- choose to study it rather than the products of their own well-developed cultures. We're happy to share it, of course. Makes me awfully proud of my heritage, and also a bit guilty that I haven't studied it better, at least in this particular realm. I think Ms. Yeol has inspired me to fix that.</blockquote></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">And she has. Also to get back to practicing piano.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-48332182482012703732010-10-07T10:37:00.001-04:002010-10-07T10:44:18.062-04:00On Speech and Freedom Thereof<div style="text-align: justify;">This is quite the week for the discussion of speech and freedom. The <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/CRIME/10/06/washington.free.speech.trial/index.html?hpt=Sbin">Supreme Court is currently hearing the case of <i>Snyder v. Phelps</i></a>, which hinges on the determination whether standing outside a fallen Marine's funeral with signs reading "GOD HATES FAGS" and "THANK GOD FOR IEDS" qualifies as protected speech. This, of course, is the penchant of the aforementioned "Reverend" Phelps, who with the few dozen blood relatives who make up his "church" has made an avocation of tormenting the bereaved beloved of this nation's fallen heroes, as well as those of gay victims of AIDS. The premise avowed by Phelps's Westboro Baptist Church is, as far as I can stomach to gather, that God is punishing the U.S. with military defeat in Iraq and Afghanistan for our collective sin of allowing closeted homosexuals to serve in the military under the "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" policy. Presumably God would be appeased if we only cleansed the Armed Forces in some sort of gay-baiting witch hunt, after which our Certified Straight® military would win the War on Terror. I'll admit, I'm not exactly clear on the theology involved.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">In any case, the question before the court is whether the "Reverend" Phelps, his minions, and their odious ravings fall under the protection of the First Amendment. I believe they do, and I'll be rather surprised if the court doesn't come to the same conclusion. The protest in question was held at the statutory thousand-foot distance from the funeral, and was thus unable to directly interrupt the proceedings. The remaining argument is that their protest might constitute "hate speech". </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Ahh, "hate speech". We are right to be a bit queasy about limiting any speech at all, so if we are going to say that hate speech is unprotected, clearly the definition of what constitutes hate speech becomes a very important matter. Much political advocacy is hateful to its detractors, after all, so it would seem obvious that to define hate speech based on the perceptions of the aggrieved effectively grants censorship authority to the thinnest-skinned in society. Our Supreme Court seems to have recognized this, as I understand they have historically worked from an exceedingly narrow definition of hate speech.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">Not so in the Netherlands (you knew I was getting to this, right?). After prosecutors chose not to file hate speech charges against the Dutch politician Geert Wilders, Muslims aggrieved by his short film <i>Fitna</i> took the issue to the Court of Appeals, where they succeeded in forcing his currently-running trial. There is considerable evidence that <a href="http://gatesofvienna.blogspot.com/2010/10/legality-does-not-guarantee-legitimacy.html">Wilders's political opponents have been involved in orchestrating his trial</a>. In a way, seeing this trial as just another function of machine politics as usual is comforting, more comforting anyway than seeing it as part of the "legal jihad" to put criticism of Islam off-limits worldwide (as in the UN's ridiculous "Combating Defamation of Religion" resolution). European countries are increasingly embracing a definition of hate speech based on grievance, and the result of the Wilders trial will signal whether Europe continues on the road toward mass censorship by the aggrieved. Speech doesn't become "hate speech" simply because it makes someone cranky.<span style="color:black;"> Be thankful that our Supreme Court has upheld that narrower standard.</span></div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-90005834034262269772010-10-04T13:11:00.001-04:002010-10-04T13:29:40.119-04:00Blog Bomb for Geert Wilders<div style="text-align: justify;">Geert Wilders is a Dutch politician who lives under police guard because his life is threatened by radical Islamists. Dutch Islamists have already murdered the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh and forced Van Gogh's collaborator, the Somali-Dutch politician Ayaan Hirsi Ali, to take asylum in the US. These three have been targeted for the same deeply ironic reason: they have all alleged that political Islam's penchant for violence makes it incompatible with Dutch society's traditional ethic of tolerance and commitment to Enlightenment values. Not to be outdone by the Islamists where irony is concerned, <s>Dutch prosecutors have chosen to put Wilders on trial</s> <b>[Correction:] after Dutch prosecutors chose not to pursue charges, the Dutch Court of Appeals has ordered Wilders to be tried in response to public complaints regarding</b> his outrageously hateful comments about how the people who are trying to kill him are, you know, trying to kill him. The Netherlands, see, despite her aforementioned Enlightenment history, has no freedom of speech protections that approach the weight of America's First Amendment (<a href="http://bicolouredpythonrocksnake.blogspot.com/2010/09/on-flags-and-freedoms.html">for what that's worth anymore</a>).</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">This story needs to be told, so I was glad to hear from <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/248635/geert-wilders-trial-john-derbyshire">John Derbyshire</a> that someone's gone and designated this Thursday to host a little blogoriot on the subject. <a href="http://www.parapundit.com/archives/007537.html">Parapundit's got the scoop on how this works</a>, but short of it is this: if you support freedom of speech no matter who feels cranky when they hear it, if you think the Wilders story is something America and the world needs to be paying attention to, then you should blog about it this Thursday. Tell your friends.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-21835203752323663972010-09-28T21:08:00.000-04:002010-09-28T21:08:58.050-04:00On Education, and Essentials Thereof<div style="text-align: justify;">I spent the past long weekend visiting a dear friend, an old Army buddy from all the way back in Basic training, <a href="http://sleepingreason.blogspot.com/">Empty-Handed Army</a>, as well as his lovely and perceptive wife. We three spent nearly the whole waking portion of three days in deep discussion of a huge variety of topics, usually approaching them from a philosophical angle well outside my own comfort zone of practical applications and real-world historical proofs. The topic of education popped up again and again, mirroring and developing conversations I'd had with friends during my past month on leave. What are the goals of modern education? Who ought to be seeking higher education? How much does public policy contribute to educational success? Previous conversations with a wide variety of educators -- Masters of Education students, inner-city "alternative" school teachers, radical unschooling homeschoolers -- all came back to the same point: the overwhelming contributor to education success is cultural while public policy plays an important but fundamentally marginal role. I was reminded of all of this by a reader comment <a href="http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/248077/ingredients-education-jay-nordlinger">shared by Jay Nordlinger</a>:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote>If you asked a thousand people at random about their favorite teacher, how many would bring up how well the teacher employed <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD1">education</span> software, or whether she had a master’s degree from an ed school, or whether she took the class on fancy field trips, etc.? </blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">To which Nordlinger follows up a quote from Dr. Gerrit Jan van Heuven Goedhart, a former UN High Commissioner for Refugees: </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote>Many years ago I participated in a discussion on the problem of international education. After many <span class="IL_AD" id="IL_AD3">experts</span> had presented their complicated theories, an old headmaster of a certain school got up and quietly said: “There is only one system of education, through love and one’s own example.”</blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Nordlinger responds, "I don’t think I have ever read anything truer on the subject of education." I can only agree. The children of the radical unschoolers I know are well-adjusted and whip-smart. I have no doubt at all that my other friend's inner-city alternative school students would end up the same if they were brought up in a similar loving environment with good examples, no matter what the outward form of their schooling. Public education policy cannot solve cultural failings that are antithetical to education. Meanwhile, a functioning culture can mold successful youngsters even in the most dismal of school settings (<i>cough cough <b>Asians</b> cough</i>). All of our arguments over education policy that are based on the presumption that the <i>right</i> policy will produce success are just wasted breath.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-84868093828511992672010-09-23T14:10:00.000-04:002010-09-23T14:10:42.403-04:00On Leadership<div style="text-align: justify;">Leadership means responsibility -- responsibility for the failure of one's subordinates just as for their successes. It's an old-fashioned definition, I know, but <a href="http://ricks.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2010/09/23/continuing_wanat_repercussions_why_general_schloesser_chose_to_punch_out">I'm not the only one who still believes it</a>.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-52763145386979623592010-09-20T20:14:00.000-04:002010-09-20T20:14:00.251-04:00On the Surge<div style="text-align: justify;">It's a week late, but Walter Russell Mead's reflection on the 9th anniversary of 9/11 is <a href="http://blogs.the-american-interest.com/wrm/2010/09/11/911-islam-and-war/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+WalterRussellMead+%28Walter+Russell+Mead%27s+Blog%29">still worth reading</a>. In particular, his commentary on the turning point in Iraq circa 2006 is spot-on:</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;">[But] the Sunni Arabs of Iraq made a choice. They saw Al-Qaeda at its best — volunteer freedom fighters come from around the world to fight for them — and they saw America at its worst: incompetent, insensitive, vacillating and violent. And they chose the United States... <span class="body">What those Sunni Arabs in Iraq came to understand is the basic truth of this conflict. The war unleashed nine years ago is not a clash of civilizations between Islam and the west. It is a clash between civilization and barbarism, and in that clash the Americans and true Muslims are on the same side.</span></div></blockquote><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div><div style="text-align: justify;">The strategic realignment that occurred in the Iraq theater during 2006-2007 -- what was sold in the US media as "the Surge" -- laid a foundation for a far more momentous and far less heralded realignment of the Iraqi Sunni tribal leadership. </div><div style="text-align: justify;">I wholeheartedly agree with Mead that the (self-)rehabilitation of Iraq's Sunni Arabs was more pivotal than any US Forces strategic decision. Furthermore, I attest (from my own conversations with Iraqis themselves) that a significant element of that realignment was distinctly generational in nature. The worst of the sectarian violence circa 2005-2006 was committed by Iraqis of my own generation, those with birthdates of roughly 1980-1990. These young Iraqis came of age during Saddam's most desperate struggles to hold on to power by playing sects against one another, and after the US invasion were egged on by foreign extremists, primarily from Saudi Arabia and Iran among the Sunna and Shi'a, respectively, who both looked to a bountiful harvest in political influence and cold hard cash resulting from the bloody collapse of Iraq. The violence finally ebbed when Iraqis of my parents' generation -- who fondly remember a long-ago era when nobody knew or cared who was Shi'i and who was Sunni -- stood up and said, "This is not the Iraq we remember, this is not the Iraq we hope for."</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">I, like Mead, am optimistic for the future of Iraq, and am guardedly so for the future of the Arab world as a whole, and that of the "Muslim World" beyond that. But it is worth remembering, with humility, how limited the American role in directing that future really is.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-64751438005682173152010-09-19T20:12:00.000-04:002010-09-19T20:12:36.497-04:00An Excuse, or No Excuses<div style="text-align: justify;">I apologize for the lack of posting this past week. I really did intend to, in fact I'd put off posting I was reasonably confident I could post regularly. Look how that turned out. This past week was spent in a leisurely journey from my homeland of Wisconsin back to my place of sojourn here at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. It was a lovely trip, during which I visited the <a href="http://sopranointherealworld.blogspot.com/">Soprano in the Real World</a>, <a href="http://roundunvarnishedtale.blogspot.com/">A Round Unvarnish'd Tale</a>, the <a href="http://rebelliouspastorswife.wordpress.com/">Rebellious Pastor's Wife</a>, the <a href="http://elephantschild.typepad.com/the_elephants_child/">Elephant's Child</a>, <a href="http://bloggingbethany.blogspot.com/">Excuses Excuses</a>, <a href="http://witandwhim.blogspot.com/">Wit & Whim</a>, <a href="http://indianajanesnotebook.blogspot.com/">Indiana Jane</a>, the <a href="http://mrmackabroad.blogspot.com/">Scruffy Rube</a>, and many other dear friends from high school, <a href="http://www.stolaf.edu/">college</a>, and beyond. I attended the service of the installation of Reverend Matthew Harrison as my church body's president, and was blessed to hear <a href="http://www.lcms.org/pages/internal.asp?NavID=17739">the sermon delivered by Archbishop Walter Obare of the Lutheran Church of Kenya</a>. Does my personal life eerily mirror my blog following? Yeah, kinda. Am I a ridiculous theology geek? Um, yupp. No excuses.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-81106783372996126082010-09-09T15:29:00.001-04:002010-09-09T15:29:00.496-04:00On Mom's Basement<div style="text-align: justify;">Over brunch with a college friend, the <a href="http://sopranointherealworld.blogspot.com/">Soprano in the Real World</a>, we chatted a bit about changing family structures in America. An interesting point came up: American society in general is not particularly aware of how much we've lost as a culture with the loss of the extended multigenerational family and the enshrining of the nuclear family as the archetype. Specifically we spoke of the loss of support structures for young people and particularly young parents, and how our culture strangely treats the 1950's-era nuclear family archetype as if it were something deeply traditional, when it isn't at all. Yet there's very little general awareness that this significant cultural change even occurred, certainly far less than that of other contemporary changes such as women entering the workforce in large numbers. </div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br />
</div><div style="text-align: justify;">Also, there's a really strange disconnect at work, where youth are expected to be more or less socially independent of their parents at the age of 18, while it is acceptable for them to remain economically dependent until their mid-20's at least. I mean, which 26-year-old does our society consider more respectable? The auto mechanic who lives with his folks because he's still single and thus has no particular reason not to, or the grad student who is entering his eighth year of spending other peoples' money? Living with one's parents in adulthood is often interpreted as a sign of hopeless immaturity, and yet our society doesn't seem to expect financial independence much before the age of 30. This is almost a reversal of the situation that would have been the norm a century ago, where an 18-year-old might quickly be expected to become a productive member of society (and indeed likely be engaged in productive work much earlier), but would not be expected to move out of his parents' home until he married.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"></div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-44082000194710386122010-09-08T06:49:00.000-04:002010-09-08T06:49:00.274-04:00On Baseball<div style="text-align: justify;">I don't care for baseball. While I don't care enough about any sport to really follow it, I'll still enjoy watching a good football or soccer game if I happen to catch one. But baseball fandom is just mystifying to me, so it's mostly with bemusement that I follow <a href="http://heavenlypeanuts.blogspot.com/">Peanuts From Heaven</a>, the wacky baseball blog of two of my good school friends. But today, <a href="http://heavenlypeanuts.blogspot.com/2010/09/something-bigger-than-ourselves.html">the Scruffy Rube explains baseball fandom</a> in terms I can understand and respect.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4477131299817733843.post-51161437494526782462010-09-07T22:40:00.000-04:002010-09-07T22:40:00.225-04:00On Flags and Freedoms<div style="text-align: justify;">Now that I'm back up and running on this whole regular blogging thing, I fear I'm obliged to make a comment on this <a href="http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2010-09-07-church-quran-burning_N.htm">Florida Koran-burning brouhaha</a>. Firstly, I'll make perfectly clear that this so-called pastor's plan to celebrate 9/11 with a ritual Koran-burning is both un-Christian and thoroughly contemptible. It would be entirely appropriate for fine dining establishments to refuse him service and for elderly ladies to curse him in the street. I do not think it appropriate, however, <a href="http://www.cnn.com/2010/US/09/06/florida.quran.burning/index.html">for a US general to advise a civilian on the proper use of constitutionally-protected speech</a>. Yes, if this church goes through with their imbecilic plan, US soldiers' lives will certainly be further endangered. But there are all manner of ways that adherence to the Constitution makes the military's day-to-day work more difficult. We could save more soldiers' lives if we set aside the fourth through eighth amendments, for example, but the Constitution of the United States is the very thing that we soldiers have sworn an oath to defend. That is the fundamental mission of the armed forces, and that doesn't change just because a particular exercise of that constitutional freedom is foolhardy and reprehensible.</div>Bi-Coloured-Python-Rock-Snakehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/10486453438350039642noreply@blogger.com0