USA

Patriot’s Day

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April 18-19, 1775 … .

So through the night rode Paul Revere;

And so through the night went his cry of alarm

To every Middlesex village and farm,—

A cry of defiance, and not of fear,

A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,

And a word that shall echo for evermore!

For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,

Through all our history, to the last,

In the hour of darkness and peril and need,

The people will waken and listen to hear

The hurrying hoof-beats of that steed,

And the midnight message of Paul Revere.

RTWP. (Read The Whole Poem.)

Political Funny Business

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The Native American Graves Protection and Repatriation Act (NAGPRA) is intended to balance the interests of North American Indian tribes and scientists.

There’s a long-running scandal in the handling of the prehistoric skeleton known as Kennewick Man, which is thought to be over 9000 years old and is of great scientific interest. An Indian tribe claimed the skeleton as one of its own and refused to allow it to be studied. Despite a lack of evidence for its claim, the tribe was supported by various government agencies and other Indian tribes. Scientists who want to study the skeleton sued the government and the tribes, claiming a right to access under NAGPRA. The suit dragged on for years during which the tribes and government did not distinguish themselves by their behavior. (Typically, the defendants repeatedly insisted that tribes have the right to control the remains of their members, while they ignored requests to show a connection between the Kennewick skeleton and the tribe that claimed it.) Eventually, and only quite recently, the defendants exhausted all appeals and the scientists prevailed.

Now comes a bill, S-2843, introduced by retiring Senator Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R, CO), that would amend NAGPRA essentially to give control of all pre-1492 human remains in North America to Indian tribes, whether or not there is any evidence of affiliation. In the words of a press release from a group opposed to the bill:

. . . the amended definition would now include all human remains that pre-date European contact (1492), even if the remains are not from Native Americans. It presumes that any remains found this century, even if 50,000 years old, are somehow related to modern American Indians and should be placed off limits to scientific study (and buried if tribal groups so wish).

S-2843 is stealth legislation designed to moot the scientists’ court victory. If enacted, it would give Indian tribes a legal choke hold over much North American anthropological research. It upsets the reasonable balance struck in the original NAGPRA, and invites the extraction of rents from scientific institutions that wish to obtain permission to do archaeological studies. It deserves wide publicity and scrutiny and should be defeated.

More information:

Moira Breen’s Kennewick Man Links (indispensable)

Friends of America’s Past

Center for the Study of the First Americans

Don’t Put Up With Any Crap

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So I’m in DC for work. It is basically all the time in the office. I get a rare chance to get outdoors. I’m walking down the street. I get to the corner of 16th and P.

There is some guy there who has just pulled a pair of Bush / Cheney signs off a lightpole and is putting them in a trash can. He’s with his girlfriend, and they are laughing about this. He’s maybe 25 year old, tall guy in one of these leatherette looking jackets.

I’m instantly irate.

I pull them out of the trash ,just as he’s putting them in there. “Thanks. I’ll take those. I’ve got a use for these signs.” I am loud. I can be heard by passersby and the people waiting for the bus. He just smirks at me. That sets me off “What the f*ck do you think your doing, pulling these signs down?” I am now making a scene. Him: “Hey, it’s a free country.” Me: “So you can sh*t on other people’s free speech in a free country? Your behavior is f*cking outrageous.” I am bellowing. He said something in return but I turned around and kept walking.

I’m too old to get in a fistfight with some kid who’d mop the floor with me.

I gave one of the signs away. The other one is up in my office now.

Too many Democrats think there are no rules this year. Simple as that.

Don’t sit on your hands when you see abusive behavior.

Object.

Loudly.

Raise Hell.

Make a scene.

Don’t put up with any crap.

(BTW, If I saw a guy taking down a Kerry sign I’d have reamed him out, said, “hey, I’m voting for Bush and you are making us all look bad, play it straight, man.” But you know what? I’m not going to see that, am I? I’ll tell you what I’m going to see. I’m going to see an increasing level of vandalism and fraud and intimidation by the Donks leading up to this election. Don’t sit still for it if — when — you see it.)

“The Surreys Played the Game”

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[Warning. Rant ahead.]

Brooding about Jonathan’s post reminded me of something. I had a friend in law school who was younger than me, a GenX type. Very smart and funny in an ironic way. In the run-up to the ’92 election I was registering to vote, and I asked him if he had registered, and he said to me, in an almost contemptuous drawl “dude, you vote? Why?” My head almost exploded. I poked him in the chest with my finger and I got right in his face “Why? Why? Because better men than you and me bled and died so we could vote, that’s why!” He remained cool, “dude, OK, chill, chill.” But I think I got through a little.

And I brooded some more on this comment from Jonathan: “because on the margin our system can live or die depending on how carefully the voters vote, and they are more likely to take voting seriously if intellectuals don’t denigrate it as an activity.” The thing I take away from his description of all these supposedly smart people is that they live in an academic or intellectual cocoon. They have lost touch with the basic values of living in a country like this. They don’t understand that democracy is a gift they have neither earned nor deserve. They live in a world of safety and abstraction. They have lost touch with the fact that our system of democracy can live on or die because of what we do or don’t do. And the smart guys all too often despise the ordinary motives of ordinary people, ordinary citizens whose conduct and sacrifices they disdain, but which makes their cozy little nest-world possible.

I have a lot more respect for the Repubican lawyers I know who are volunteering to be poll watchers, who are going into Democratic areas where fraud is suspected to happen, into possibly hostile situations. (I can’t do it this year.) They are willing to “dirty their hands” to preserve the integrity of the process, to keep this country from turning into a banana republic, one voting precinct at a time.

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Homeland Terror: What Are the Odds?

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Beslan seems to have raised a lot of consciousness (as lefties might put it). Until a few weeks ago most of us didn’t seriously consider the possibility that such an attack could happen here. I think that a lot more people now realize that it could easily happen. Lex is right on all points.

What would happen if it happened? I thought we might not handle it well the first time, and I still think that’s likely to be the case. Matthew Heidt comes to a similar conclusion from a much-better-informed perspective. I agree with Lex and Dave Kopel about the value of armed teachers (and why not parents too), but the PC grip on our educational system is so strong that I suspect many deaths will occur before such common-sense protective measures become accepted. (Links via Instapundit and Hugh Hewitt.)

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