Current Events

Don’t Fear the Beeper

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I have to admit that I am snickering still over the Mossad’s targeted beeper offensive against Hezbollah … who ought now to go by the nic of “Hezball-less” – snickering in those intervals between genuflecting in respectful admiration to a national intelligence organization who can actually undertake an operation of such … intelligence. And sneaky, original creativity. And command of technological aspects. And a complicated operation conducted by a sub-rosa organization over a long period of time, without a single desk jockey blabbing to a fool like Seymour Hersh. And pulling the detonating cord at a time calculated to inflict the most damage on an enemy chain of command.

From the liver to the knee, indeed.

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Mwen Rekòmande Panik Imedyat

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Having sensed that my public is calling: “In fair Springfield, where we lay our scene …”

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Visible Signs

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My daughter and I have done a handful of long road trips over the last few years, especially after Texas sensibly lifted the most onerous COVID restrictions. For many of these trips we preferred to take country roads; various two or four-lane routes which meandered through miles of Texas back country, hopscotching past small ranches and passing through small towns of varying degrees of prosperity. One thing we often noticed in passing was a scattering of Trump banners, many of them weathered and obviously left over from the 2020 campaign. It was a hard-fought campaign; obviously many Trump supporters out here in flyover country remained sore about the steal. Also rather obviously, residents in rural Texas aren’t worried about random retaliatory vandalism to their property or vehicles by displaying such political partisanship.

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Quote of the Day

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John Hinderaker:

We are not a serious country because, as a democracy, we do not have serious voters. Autocracies like China and Russia have many disadvantages compared to us, but in the present historical moment, they are nowhere near as stupid as we are. One trembles for the future.

See also.

Fair Play

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“The Saxon is not like us Normans, His manners are not so polite.
But he never means anything serious till he talks about justice and right.
When he stands like an ox in the furrow with his sullen set eyes on your own,
And grumbles, “This isn’t fair dealings,” my son, leave the Saxon alone.
Rudyard Kipling

If there is one concept thought to be more quintessentially English over any other, I think it must be the concept of fair play. Fair dealings, as Kipling put it. That one party should be treated as any other, held to the same standard of conduct, and afforded the same penalties or rewards for the same acts, regardless of economic standing, religious beliefs or racial background. A lot of this concept of “fair dealings” carried over into the American cultural mainstream as well; honored as a concept and an ideal to be striven for. I’d guess that a lot of that general support among Americans generally for the civil rights movement was based on the dawning realization among most of us that Jim Crow laws restricting black Americans were not fair at all.

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