brucelewis.com

LEPANTO

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Tue, 07 Oct 2008 06:23:00 +0000

WHITE founts falling in the Courts of the sun,

And the Soldan of Byzantium is smiling as they run;

There is laughter like the fountains in that face of all men feared,

It stirs the forest darkness, the darkness of his beard;

It curls the blood-red crescent, the crescent of his lips;         5

For the inmost sea of all the earth is shaken with his ships.

They have dared the white republics up the capes of Italy,

They have dashed the Adriatic round the Lion of the Sea,

And the Pope has cast his arms abroad for agony and loss,

And called the kings of Christendom for swords about the Cross.  10

The cold queen of England is looking in the glass;

The shadow of the Valois is yawning at the Mass;

From evening isles fantastical rings faint the Spanish gun,

And the Lord upon the Golden Horn is laughing in the sun.



Dim drums throbbing, in the hills half heard,  15

Where only on a nameless throne a crownless prince has stirred,

Where, risen from a doubtful seat and half attainted stall,

The last knight of Europe takes weapons from the wall,

The last and lingering troubadour to whom the bird has sung,

That once went singing southward when all the world was young.  20

In that enormous silence, tiny and unafraid,

Comes up along a winding road the noise of the Crusade.

Strong gongs groaning as the guns boom far,

Don John of Austria is going to the war,

Stiff flags straining in the night-blasts cold  25

In the gloom black-purple, in the glint old-gold,

Torchlight crimson on the copper kettle-drums,

Then the tuckets, then the trumpets, then the cannon, and he comes.

Don John laughing in the brave beard curled,

Spurning of his stirrups like the thrones of all the world,  30

Holding his head up for a flag of all the free.

Love-light of Spain—hurrah!

Death-light of Africa!

Don John of Austria

Is riding to the sea.  35



Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri's knees,

His turban that is woven of the sunsets and the seas.

He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,  40

And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees;

And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring

Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.

Giants and the Genii,

Multiplex of wing and eye,  45

Whose strong obedience broke the sky

When Solomon was king.



They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,

From the temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;

They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea  50

Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be,

On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,

Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;

They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—

They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.  55

And he saith, "Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,

And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,

And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,

For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.

We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,  60

Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done.

But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know

The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:

It is he that saith not 'Kismet'; it is he that knows not Fate;

It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey at the gate!  65

It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,

Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth."

For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,

(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

Sudden and still—hurrah!  70

Bolt from Iberia!

Don John of Austria

Is gone by Alcalar.



St. Michaels on his Mountain in the sea-roads of the north

(Don John of Austria is girt and going forth.)  75

Where the grey seas glitter and the sharp tides shift

And the sea-folk labour and the red sails lift.

He shakes his lance of iron and he claps his wings of stone;

The noise is gone through Normandy; the noise is gone alone;

The North is full of tangled things and texts and aching eyes,  80

And dead is all the innocence of anger and surprise,

And Christian killeth Christian in a narrow dusty room,

And Christian dreadeth Christ that hath a newer face of doom,

And Christian hateth Mary that God kissed in Galilee,—

But Don John of Austria is riding to the sea.  85

Don John calling through the blast and the eclipse

Crying with the trumpet, with the trumpet of his lips,

Trumpet that sayeth ha!

    Domino gloria!

Don John of Austria  90

Is shouting to the ships.



King Philip's in his closet with the Fleece about his neck

(Don John of Austria is armed upon the deck.)

The walls are hung with velvet that is black and soft as sin,

And little dwarfs creep out of it and little dwarfs creep in.  95

He holds a crystal phial that has colours like the moon,

He touches, and it tingles, and he trembles very soon,

And his face is as a fungus of a leprous white and grey

Like plants in the high houses that are shuttered from the day,

And death is in the phial and the end of noble work, 100

But Don John of Austria has fired upon the Turk.

Don John's hunting, and his hounds have bayed—

Booms away past Italy the rumour of his raid.

Gun upon gun, ha! ha!

Gun upon gun, hurrah! 105

Don John of Austria

Has loosed the cannonade.



The Pope was in his chapel before day or battle broke,

(Don John of Austria is hidden in the smoke.)

The hidden room in man's house where God sits all the year, 110

The secret window whence the world looks small and very dear.

He sees as in a mirror on the monstrous twilight sea

The crescent of his cruel ships whose name is mystery;

They fling great shadows foe-wards, making Cross and Castle dark,

They veil the plumèd lions on the galleys of St. Mark; 115

And above the ships are palaces of brown, black-bearded chiefs,

And below the ships are prisons, where with multitudinous griefs,

Christian captives sick and sunless, all a labouring race repines

Like a race in sunken cities, like a nation in the mines.

They are lost like slaves that sweat, and in the skies of morning hung 120

The stair-ways of the tallest gods when tyranny was young.

They are countless, voiceless, hopeless as those fallen or fleeing on

Before the high Kings' horses in the granite of Babylon.

And many a one grows witless in his quiet room in hell

Where a yellow face looks inward through the lattice of his cell, 125

And he finds his God forgotten, and he seeks no more a sign—

(But Don John of Austria has burst the battle-line!)

Don John pounding from the slaughter-painted poop,

Purpling all the ocean like a bloody pirate's sloop,

Scarlet running over on the silvers and the golds, 130

Breaking of the hatches up and bursting of the holds,

Thronging of the thousands up that labour under sea

White for bliss and blind for sun and stunned for liberty.



Vivat Hispania!

Domino Gloria! 135

Don John of Austria

Has set his people free!



Cervantes on his galley sets the sword back in the sheath

(Don John of Austria rides homeward with a wreath.)

And he sees across a weary land a straggling road in Spain, 140

Up which a lean and foolish knight for ever rides in vain,

And he smiles, but not as Sultans smile, and settles back the blade....

(But Don John of Austria rides home from the Crusade.)

—G.K. Chesterton

***
Commemorating the 437th anniversary of the Battle of Lepanto.

The Other September 11

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 16:32:00 +0000

On 11 September 1973, in response to formal requests by his nation's judiciary and legislature, General Augusto Pinochet led a military coup against the regime of the elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende, an avowed Marxist whose government had placed foreign agents of revolution in positions of power, stolen the private property of Chilean citizens, nationalized many of the country's major industries, and wrecked Chile's economy and sense of public order. The coup succeded: stolen property was returned, the foreign terrorists with Chile were hunted down and eliminated, and law and order were restored to the country. Allende died by his own hand, shooting himself with a gun given him by Fidel Castro of Cuba.

On 13 December 2004, General Pinochet (now 86 years of age) was indicted by a Chilean court for the disappearance of nine “opposition activists” and the killing of one of them during his regime.

Of course, General Pinochet’s most recent indictment has little to do with his brutally effective war on Chile’s domestic terrorists during the 1970s. His real “crime”is that he fought communism and won — and for that crime the socialists and Marxists of the world will never forgive him. Stalin sent a man with a steel pick to Mexico to show Leon Trotsky what happens to those who dare cross the old hammer and sickle; for today’s wannabe Stalins, getting a judge to send down an indictment against a man who fought them and won is no big deal. Great Stalin always gets his man.

Pinochet was a military dictator. I make no bones about that. He held power for fifteen years, all the while ruthlessly searching out and destroying those whom he deemed to pose a threat to Chile. During his war on his country’s dometic enemies, winning came first, and civil rights came second — and, sometimes, not at all. As is true in every war, there is no doubt that some of those who ended up injured or dead during his regime were innocent.

But that is the nature of war. War means killing people and breaking things, and and one cannot blame those who wage war on behalf of their country for doing so. No reasonable person holds the men who flew the airplanes that firebombed Dresden and Tokyo in World War Two personally responsible for the murders of the thousands of innocent civilians who perished at their hands. They killed those people accidentally, in the course of their duty as soldiers in wartime, not out of any personal malice or spite. The sad truth of war is that sometimes the innocent as well as the guilty suffer. So far as is known, General Pinochet never killed anyone arbitrarily, out of spite, or for personal gain. He killed them because his job was to kill the people who wished to kill his country. Civilized people everywhere call such a man a patriot.

Except the civilized, liberal people of the pampered, hedonistic, materialistic West. To them, the only things worth fighting for are sodomy, abortions, and the right to pillage the public coffers. To them, a patriot is a criminal, a dangerous sentimentalist with a penchant for violence. There is no room for heroes in a world where everyone is equal.

Pinochet’s critics are an amusing bunch — the kind of folks who think that it is more noble to sit back and watch a gang of criminals rape one‘s wife rather than use violence against them and risk violating the rapists’ precious civil rights. “Let the bad guys do whatever they want, as long as my personal moral hymen remains intact!” they seem to say.

In the part of Texas I come from, a person with that sort of attitude is called a coward.

“But Pinochet acted outside the political process!,” his detractors cry. “Allende was lawfully elected by the people of Chile!” My reply: Yeah? Well, so what? News flash, gang: communism is not a politcal force, like the Green Party or the local save-the-endangered-prairie-snail brigade. Despite their kooky politics, the Green Party and the snail-hugger club are composed by and large of civilized people — people who believe in law and order and who would never dream of using murder and terror to enforce their will upon the rest of us.

On the other hand, communism is a form of terrorism — an inherently evil ideology that feeds upon the blood of innocent people in order to gain power; Lenin and his Bolsheviks made that plain to all sensible people in 1917. Communism is based upon terror. Communism is terror. And a civilized country can no more allow communists to come to power than it could allow the IRA, the Klan, or the Islamic fundamentalists to come to power.

And elections be damned. Vox populi is not vox Dei as of the last time I checked, and the republican system is not a suicide pact. Here’s a thought experiment for the no-violence-outside-the-law crowd: let's say that a majority of the people of the United States were to all go nuts at once and cause a native-born Osama bin-Laden type Islamic fundamentalist to be lawfully elected president of the United States, God forbid. Now, would it be better to let him burn our churches, put women in burkhas, and kill all the Jews, or would it be better to support his overthrow by any means necessary, including an extra-constitutional military coup?

I dunno about the rest of you, but I’d be all for a coup myself.

General Augusto Pinochet is a hero, He singlehandedly prevented his country from being turned into a Pacific version of Cuba, and in so doing won a critical battle of World War Three, the so-called “cold war” — that fifty-year global battle for dominance between the Judeo-Christian, capitalist West and the atheistic communists of the USSR and her thralls. Did he get his hands dirty in the process? Yes, he did. He dealt with the communist bandits who hijacked his country in the only proper manner: he killed them. By so doing, he prevented them from killing Chile, a proud nation which is now the jewel of South America.

What General Pinochet did was heroic in the best sense of the word: he did his duty and accepted the consequences. His duty was to defend his country against all enemies, and he did so. Then, after attempting to undo the damage Allende had caused, he voluntarily relinquished the power he had assumed in time of emeregency, and submitted his actions to the judgment of others and of history. A soldier can do no more than that for his native land.

Was General Pinochet a dictator? Yes he was. Was he brutal? Yes, at times he was. But were his actions justified? Only God and history can judge that question. For today, Pinochet stands under indictment by a court of the nation he did so much to preserve. How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!

Meanwhile, not ninety miles from the shores of the United States a far worse dictator still holds his country in an iron-fisted grip of oppression and tyranny — to the lauds of many of the same human-rights crusaders that damn Pinochet.

Where are the cries of outrage from these foes of dictatorship when Cuba is discussed? When is Fidel Castro going to pay for his crimes?

Augusto José Ramón Pinochet Ugarte

November 25, 1915 - December 10, 2006

***

Note: This piece was written in 2004. I see no reason to change a single word.

Pinochet died on 10 December, 2006, without having been convicted of any crimes committed during his dictatorship.

I haven't

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 05:01:00 +0000

Seven years ago today.

H'wood, Libs Diss Hix Pix For Veep

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 05:56:00 +0000

Among those who take politics too seriously, recent days have proven spectacular. The Obamanoids, for example, are coming unglued. With the worm-gnawed corpse of the GOP suddenly up and walking around again thanks to McCain's choice of Alaska gov Sarah Palin for the VP spot, the lefty Dems are beginning to realize that Sen. Barack Muad'dib Obama (D-Arrakis) might not win the election — and they're fighting mad about it. Today alone I read three separate frothing screeds on various message boards — each written by a normally-sane person, mind you — in which the authors go on at some length about how this horrible thing, this, this Palin woman, is going to cost our country its last real chance for Hope and Change!!1!!1one. A certain Obama Otaku even promised to switch citizenship and lead an international effort against the McCain administration if the Chosen One doesn't win in November. Rise, Bene Gesserit sisters! The Kwitzach Haderach must not be denied his rightful place as God-Emperor!

Fortunately, it's all talk. Since few of these poor folks own guns, I don't think we have to worry about any kind of armed rebellion should Juan McAmnesty (R-México) assume the Top Spot this fall. The sad truth is that the sclerotic bureaucracies that actually run government and the pitiless supercorporations that control the economy will make sure the lives of the NASCAR audience remain untroubled. After all, as long as beer is cheap and sports are on TV, the vast majority of Americans are content to let the status remain quo as this sorry farce grinds on to its meaningless conclusion.

As for me, I'm a monarchist. No matter which team wins, I'm hosed. Therefore, since I can't do anything about the coming election, I intend to continue my policy of Not Worrying About It. Log on, pop a top, and enjoy the froth — that's the way to survive an election!

Necessary Evil

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Wed, 06 Aug 2008 22:58:00 +0000

THE WHITE HOUSE
Washington, D.C.

IMMEDIATE RELEASE -- August 6, 1945

STATEMENT BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES

Sixteen hours ago an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima, an important Japanese Army base. That bomb had more power than 20,000 tons of T.N.T. It had more than two thousand times the blast power of the British "Grand Slam" which is the largest bomb ever yet used in the history of warfare.

It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe. The force from which the sun draws its power has been loosed against those who brought war to the Far East.

We are now prepared to obliterate more rapidly and completely every productive enterprise the Japanese have above ground in any city. We shall destroy their docks, their factories, and their communications. Let there be no mistake; we shall completely destroy Japan's power to make war.

It was to spare the Japanese people from utter destruction that the ultimatum of July 26 was issued at Potsdam. Their leaders promptly rejected that ultimatum. If they do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air, the like of which has never been seen on this earth.

The Japanese began the war from the air at Pearl Harbor. They have been repaid many fold.

complete text

Vive le Roi! Vive la France!

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:43:00 +0000

219 years ago today, on 14 July 1789, the original terrorists — the Revolutionaries of France — initiated their diabolical democratic movement with the storming of the Bastille. So many of the ills of the world since then began then and there.

But the Revolution will fall. Heaven is a Kingdom, not a republic, and Christ is King, not president. As above, so may it be below.

Down with the Revolution! Long live the once and future Christian Kingdom of France!

Whither The Secular State?

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 16:01:00 +0000

A Christian registrar who refused to carry out gay 'weddings' won a landmark legal battle yesterday. Lillian Ladele, 47, was threatened with the sack [being fired], bullied and 'thrown before the lions' after asking to be excused from conducting civil partnerships for same-sex couples because of her religious beliefs.

But yesterday a tribunal agreed that her faith had been ridden roughshod over by equalities-obsessed Islington Council, which had sought to 'trump one set of rights with another'. The groundbreaking decision could lead to firms facing 'conscience claims' from staff who say their own beliefs prevent them carrying out part of their job.

Yesterday's ruling found that Liberal Democrat-run Islington Council in North London cared too much about the 'rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transsexual' community. It also found that the council – which gave Miss Ladele an ultimatum to choose between her beliefs and her £31,000-a-year job – showed no respect for her rights as a Christian. Source: London Daily Mail, 2008 10 July

The objections are predictable. "What would we all say about a registrar who refused to marry people because they are genetically inferior (according to the registrar’s understanding of such) and would produce defective offspring?" wrote one sensitive soul in reaction to this story. "If my ethical beliefs say that people with genetic diseases should not reproduce, and as a registrar I would refuse to marry them, it should be accorded less value than someone’s religious beliefs?" Another sincere writer declares in response that "Government needs to be able to define a job description and anyone who can't fulfill those duties, no matter the reason, should find another job." Still another opines that "the interpretation of words from an ancient book are more valid than one's own moral code developed independently of such dusty old books. You can all go back to your regularly scheduled programming, and lionization of this woman because her beliefs coincide with your own, and no other practical reason." [Link] It seems that many people, even on the so-called Right, object to Ms. Ladele's refusal to "marry" two persons of the same sex. The basic objection they share is that Ms. Ladele is a government official, and that those in the employ of the government of a democratic state should be neutral on matters of religion.

A lot of people share this view (even in England, a nation which has an established Christian church!). Unfortunately for them, however, the idea that a government should be neutral on matters of religious belief is absurd. There can be no such thing as a de facto secular government.

The modern concept of secular government flies in the face of everything we know of human history and behavior. Governments do no appear ex nihilo; they arise from human beings living in society. But human beings cannot live together in society unless they are bound together by a glue of culture — a shared system of thought and values based upon a cult, i.e. upon religious beliefs. Humans who share the same culture consider themselves “brothers” — members of a nation, a “family” defined by that culture. Bearing this in mind, it is obvious that no such thing as a secular society has ever existed, nor can such a thing ever exist. Once a given society loses its culture, the members of that society no longer consider themselves brothers, but competitors; the society then degenerates into a mass of competing nations, each defined by its own culture. A war of all against all follows, until one nation gains enough power to impose its culture on the others by force.

No government without society; no society without culture; no culture without cult. No matter what kind of secular constitution a given society might have, culture will out; in the end, someone’s morality will be legislated; someone's God is going to be the basis of government.

Our society is not exempt. The so-called Reformation removed the Catholic Church as the cultural root of the West; from the wreckage of Christendom came the wars of the nation-states, each with its own culture. Now "liberated" from the shackles of Catholic culture, every man was now free to be his own pope — to define Christianity to suit himself (each acting always under the “inspiration of the Holy Spirit”, of course). Christ the King was replaced by the individual Liberty enthroned, which stripped the nation-states of their sacramental hierarchies and replaced them with the cult of the Common Man, aka Democracy. Every man was now both his own pope and his own king. Then, came the rise of Baconian materialism, which denied the substantial and supernatural basis of existence itself; reality was now defined strictly as “that which can be poked with a stick”. By redefining the Universe (and Man himself) as mere material, Western man arrogated to himself the role of Creator as well. Each man was now his own pope, king, and God.

Yet the West hung on, protected from the worst excesses of self-deification by the lingering remnants of what once was called “Christian decency”. Despite the elimination of God as creator (by Darwin) and Christ as Savior (by Marx) in the minds of Western man, there remained a sort of genetic resistance to taking Liberty, Reason, and Materialism to their ultimate philosophical ends; there were some things that civilized, European people just didn’t do. As late as the 1890s, for example, the idea of soldiers deliberately targeting noncombatant civilians in time of war was unthinkable by Western military men. Any British, French, or German ship captain found to have deliberately sunk an unarmed ocean liner would have been brought before a court-martial on war crimes charges.

And so Western civilization tottered along, ever more liberal, ever more secular, protected from its own worst excesses by its legacy of “Christian decency”. Then came the 20th Century, the two World Wars, and the spread of the secular idea to the ends of the earth.

As a political entity, the United States is de jure a secular state; as a nation, however, it has survived and prospered as a de facto European Judeo-Christian nation, united by the remants of the shared European Judeo-Christian culture of the majority population. Sadly, as have the other nations of the West, we have slowly secularized, living off the cultural capital of pre-Enlightement Christendom while gradually becoming more and more liberal, more and more individualist, more and more materialist. In the past, this cultural legacy was strong enough to protect us from ourselves; now, however, the tattered strands of European Judeo-Christian culture are too thin to support us any longer. The collapse is coming.

And it will come, sooner or later. Our pretty little pretend castle of individual Liberty, materialist Reason, and idolatrous Self-Deification will collapse like the house of cards it always was. Civil war will follow. And, in time, one of the surviving cultural groups will impose its culture (and its God) on those who live through the years of chaos. For the sake of our descendants, I hope that European Judeo-Christian culture triumphs to serve as the pillar of Christendom reborn.

Until then, it will be the small victories — such as that of Lillian Ladele — that will give us hope.

Thomas M. Disch (2 February 1940 – 4 July 2008)

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Mon, 07 Jul 2008 07:39:00 +0000

Thomas M. Disch, science fiction writer and poet, committed suicide July 4 in New York. He was sixty-eight years old.

Disch was an exceptionally talented writer. Unfortunately, he was a man without hope, without which no man can survive. A futurist who had little use for the future, Disch specialized in stories of humans struggling to survive against inhuman, invincible forces outside of their control. His first novel, 1965's The Genocides, is a bleak no-future tale in which the entire human race is wiped out by aliens; his (arguable) magnum opus, 334 (1972), is a detailed examination of the grim, banal, and ultimately futile lives of the inhabitants of the titular New York City address in a Tomorrow where the Great Society envisioned by the technocratic macro-planners of the late 1960s/early 1970s has become a reality. Anyone who has ever wondered what America would have been like if the fondest dreams of well-intentioned '60s liberals had come true need only consult 334, which depicts in grimy detail a nation of hedonistic underachievers, living cheek-by-jowl in huge, crumbling urban housing blocks, tranquilized by mindless TV and legal drugs and insulated from risk by the benevolence of MODICUM, the federal government's all-encompassing welfare apparatus. Imagine a world run by the Food Stamp bureau — that's 334.

His disdain for the techno-utopianism common to the science fiction of the 1950s and early '60s was not a personal flaw, however; rather, it was born of a deep-seated desire for honesty on Disch's part. As did most of his New Wave contemporaries, Disch considered the traditional American SF idea of the Hopeful Future both dishonest and adolescent; like them, his goal was to give it to the reader "straight" — i.e. to attempt to give readers an "adult" perspective — an "honest" (i.e. essentially hopeless) future, without flinching and with no punches pulled.

Despite his disdain for the Wonderful World of Tomorrow, however, Disch brought a rare gift to readers of science fiction: quality. Amid the dull dross that inhabits the dubious treasure box of commercial English-language fiction, Disch's works are gems of considerable sparkle: his settings are evocative and integral to the text, his prose and dialog are carefully polished, and certain of his characters have an almost Dostoyevskyan depth and luster. Ultimately, however, these shining qualities are subdued by the flaw of gray, depressing nihilism that lies at their core.

A certain misanthropy lay at the base of the New Wave movement; as a group, the New Wavers did not have much use for mankind. As did the Existentialists that predated them, the writers of SF's New Wave ultimately held that Man was the problem, not the solution, and that only a future without Man could honestly be called "hopeful". Disch and his New Wave contemporaries employed the world-destroying tropes of SF to realize the maxim l'enfer, c'est les autres in a fashion of which Sartre and the Existentialitsts of the past could only have dreamed, and to which the Earth-Firsters and Human Extinctionists of our day can only aspire. It may be that in the end that nihilism rose up and consumed him. (Ordinarily, I'd trot out Nietszche's well-worn quote regarding the Abyss here, but the man is dead, and it's too late at night for that literary crap.) Suffice it to say therefore that Thomas Disch was a talented writer, an influential critic, and a suffering human being. Despite his suicide, I pray that in his final moments he managed to open his heart to the Man that saves all men, and that he has somehow found in the Hands of a merciful God the hope that eluded him in life.

Are You A Fascist?

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 05:55:00 +0000

Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, 9 June 2008:

A Canadian human rights tribunal ordered a Christian pastor to renounce his faith and never again express moral opposition to homosexuality, according to a new report.

In a decision dated May 30 in the penalty phase of the quasi-judicial proceedings run by the Alberta Human Rights Tribunal, evangelical pastor Stephen Boisson was banned from expressing his biblical perspective of homosexuality and ordered to pay $5,000 for "damages for pain and suffering" as well as apologize to the activist who complained of being hurt. ... [T]he penalty could foreshadow the possible fate of the Rev. Alphonse de Valk, who also cited the biblical perspective on homosexuality in the nation's debate over same-sex "marriage" and now faces HRC charges.

Boisson wrote a letter to the editor of his local Red Deer, Alberta, newspaper in 2002 denouncing the advance of homosexual activism as "wicked" and stating: "Children as young as five and six years of age are being subjected to psychologically and physiologically damaging pro-homosexual literature and guidance in the public school system; all under the fraudulent guise of equal rights."

The activist, local teacher Darren Lund, filed a complaint, and the guilty verdict from Lori G. Andreachuk, a lawyer, was handed down Nov. 30, 2007.

[... In her opinion, Andreachuk wrote] "Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc. shall cease publishing in newspapers, by e-mail, on the radio, in public speeches, or on the Internet, in future, disparaging remarks about gays and homosexuals. Further, they shall not and are prohibited from making disparaging remarks in the future about … Lund or … Lund's witnesses relating to their involvement in this complaint. Further, all disparaging remarks versus homosexuals are directed to be removed from current Web sites and publications of Mr. Boissoin and The Concerned Christian Coalition Inc."

Andreachuk also ordered Boissoin to apologize for the original letter in the Red Deer Advocate and told the two "offenders" to pay $5,000. Source

As a monarchist, and one whose political philosophy is somewhat to the right of Genghis Khan, I am often accused of being a fascist. Laughably, of course; fascism is worship of the State, and no self respecting fascist would ever consider a God-worshiping Altar-and-Throne type like me for membership. However, there are those who do worship the State, and who consider civil rights something to be given and taken away by the State. Ironically, most of these people call themselves Liberals.

A Liberal, being one who considers individual liberty to be the ultimate good, would seem at first an odd candidate for inclusion in the cult of State power; yet, as both history and current events prove, people who profess the greatest dedication to free speech are often among the first to bring the hammer of State power down upon the scrotums of those whose speech is a little too free.

Case in point: Canada. Long considered a haven for those who love liberty, it is in fact a nation where speaking one's mind can get one in deep, deep trouble with the government. Here in Texas, USA, despite the iron-fisted dictatorial regime of Chimpy McBusHitler, one remains free to express one's opinion publicly on any subject, using any desired words, without fear of retribution from Big Brother. Not so in Alberta, Canada, however. There, the government has the power to punish those whose public opinions stray from those officially approved by the provincial government. The Human Rights, Citizenship, and Multiculturalism Act (Chapter H‑14) passed by the government of Alberta spells it out:

"No person shall publish, issue or display or cause to be published, issued or displayed before the public any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that

(a) indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or

(b) is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt

because of the race, religious beliefs, colour, gender, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income or family status of that person or class of persons." (Sexual orientation was added to the list of protected categories in 1992)

And who gets to decide which statements, publications, notices, signs, symbols, emblems or other representations are illegal? Why, the ever-lovin' Alberta Human Rights and Citizenship Commission, that's who!

Still think Canada is a paradise of freedom compared to the US? Imagine what would happen if the government of the State of Texas enacted a law regulating statements, publications, notices, signs, symbols, emblems or other representations of opinion? The news media would freak! The pundits would froth! The streets would be full of Commies, resinous hippie fellow-travelers, and legions of earnest white, middle-class dupes bellowing at the top of their lungs about "fascism!"

But when Alberta, Canada does it, no one cares. Why is that?

Anyway, with this in mind, I pose to my readers a question:

Do you believe

a) that a given government should have the power to punish those who make any statement, publication, notice, sign, symbol, emblem or other representation that indicates discrimination or an intention to discriminate against a person or a class of persons, or is likely to expose a person or a class of persons to hatred or contempt because of the race, religious beliefs, color, gender, physical disability, mental disability, age, ancestry, place of origin, marital status, source of income, sexual orientation or family status of that person or class of persons; or

b) that people are by right free to think, say, express, and publish their opinions, even if such opinions are discriminatory, hateful, contemptuous, racist, bigoted, sexist, ableist, ageist, classist, and/or intended to denigrate those of a given ethnicity, handicap, or sexuality, without fear of government punishment?

If your beliefs match option B more closely, then you are a true Liberal, and I salute you for your integrity. However, if your beliefs match option A more closely, then I submit to your that you are a hypocrite at best — and, as one who holds that the State should have the power to deny people their God-given civil rights — quite likely a fascist as well.

So which is it, kids? Do you really believe in freedom of speech, or are you just another closet KGB informer ready to turn in the family next door for treason? Who's really the fascist? You make the call!

Healthcare In America: How Do We Fix It?

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Thu, 29 May 2008 06:41:00 +0000

[How to fix health care? When it comes to the current state of heath care services in the United States, there are no easy answers. However, most people I've spoken to — both within and without the industry — agree that the way we are providing health care services in America now just isn't working, and that something must be done. Both Democrat presidential candidates are touting a public/private system of universal health care; the Republican candidate favors tinkering with the current system. Other proposals include getting rid of all government involvement in the health care industry, full-on British/Canadian-style socialized medicine, and the unique quasi-public "social security" mode of healthcare provision as practiced in France. (Ref: Brookings report on the relative merits of the French and U.S. health care service models, and a Business Week article from last year on the French system.)

Which system is right for America? I don't know. It's a complex subject — and one we all need to understand better. Bearing this in mind, I have set out my understanding of how the health care industry in America works, and outlined the most commonly proposed methods of improving it. I urge you all to do your own research on this topic and draw your own conclusions. — BL]

Health care services are expensive. In every country, a static supply of providers has coupled with an exploding demand for services and the constant rise of new technologies available for diagnosis and treatment to drive the cost of health care services into the stratosphere.

Yet health care is different than other high-priced products. In a civilized nation, it is unwise to allow most of the population to go without health care services, lest civil unrest and/or plague result. A nation that allows the sick and injured to "die in a ditch" will not long survive — nor does it deserve to. Therefore, to stay on a "going concern" basis, each civilization must implement some way of forcing those with the means to pay for health care services to cover the costs of those without those means. Historically, this has been accomplished by three institutions: the Church, the State, and the Market.

In Judeo-Christian society, servitude is seen as a duty. In a country with a Judeo-Christian culture, it is unthinkable to allow human beings to suffer illness or injury without caring for them. In pre-modern times, the Church was seen as the guarantor of the human right to health care. To this end, the institution known as the hospital was created by the Church — a charitable organization operated by the Church which provided health care services to those too poor to afford them. This worked so long as the Church was a recognized Estate within the society at large — an Estate with its own lands and other sources of income — and as long as the limitations of pre-industrial food production (and other factors) kept populations small.

Over time, however, the number of poor and indigent patients began to exceed the number than the various religious charities could afford to care for. In modern times, the Church — now stripped of its status and incomes — has neither the resources nor the support to continue in this role. Our world is now secular; the Church has no fixed place among our society's institutions. The Revolution would never tolerate a Church rich and powerful enough to provide for the needs of today's poor.

As the Industrial Age dawned, the State and private industry therefore began to take on this responsibility — the State, with an interest in keeping the peace; private industry, with a eye toward making a profit. Proponents of State-provded "socialized" health care argue that the right to heath care is among the rights of any citizen in a modern society, and that the State should guarantee this right as it guarantees others. In countries with State-run health care systems, the usual form this took was the enactment of some sort of "national insurance" scheme, with the State collecting premiums in the form of taxes or other levies on employers and employees, and rationing health care services to citizens through State-funded (and often State-owned) hospitals and providers. Under national health insurance, the State is generally required by law to provide health care services to all, regardless of their current or potential health status. Sadly, the failure of socialism to guarantee citizens their rights in any form is a matter of historical fact.

The Church no longer has the power and income to provide for the health care of the indigent. State-run health care systems suffer from the same flaws which bedevil all enterprises of the State: mass inefficiencies, thick and cumbersome bureaucracies, impersonal service, and lack of personal vested interest by providers. On the face of things, then, it would seem that the free-market, private-insurance form of health care service is superior. Let us therefore examine how health care services are provided in a market economy.

In a liberal society, servitude is slavery — an intolerable affront to the rights of the atomistic Free Man. In our liberal society, where all forms of coercion are anathema, the free and unregulated exchange of goods and services by independent agents trading in an open market is seen as the only moral form of exchange. Proponents of free-market, cash-and-carry medical care argue that, left to itself, competition between providers in the market for health care services would in time provide everyone services that they could afford. It would therefore seem that the free market should be left to provide health care services the same way it provides soap and toothpaste: by unrestrained competition. Theoretically, medical care providers in a free-market system can compete for customer dollars on a fee-for-service basis until the cost of a given unit of health care service reaches its natural price.

Unfortunately, in the real world, there are costs associated with health care (physicians’ and nurses’ salaries, medical equipment, the costs of providing full-time care to invalid patients, and the ever-increasing price of medicines, et al) that are already at a natural price — a bottom, below which they cannot go. No amount of competition is going to reduce the costs of services, increasingly advanced technology, and new medicines. Due to these fixed costs, the price of medical care has been, is and will continue to be extremely high.

The institution of mutual insurance was extended to the heath care field by private industry as a means of spreading these high costs (and the associated risks) among as many people as possible. In a typical private insurance scheme, the insurer collects money in the form of premiums from subscribers; in return, it pays a certain portion of their health care costs (in the form of claims). Since those who pay premiums without filing claims pay for the care of those who file claims, the insurers must guarantee that those likely to file claims are kept out of the system. By restricting coverage to those groups least likely to file claims, private insurers guarantee that the amount of money gathered from premiums each year exceeds the amount paid out in claims plus operating expenses and taxes; this profit is reinvested, producing income for the owners of the company.

The problem with free-market, private insurance in countries with such a system is that not everyone can get insurance. In the United States, for example, most people are covered by group insurance purchased at bargain-basement group rates through their employer. However, those who are not employed (or who are self-employed) often cannot qualify for insurance coverage at any price — nor can they afford to pay the required premiums.

(Saving for medical care is futile; a person making $50K annually with a realistic savings rate of 20% can save at most $10K per year — the cost of a day or two in a hospital.)

Likewise, many persons who have serious chronic illnesses (e.g. cancer, kidney failure, HIV etc.) or are otherwise high risks (e.g. the aged) cannot get coverage at any price in a private-insurance regime due to the high costs of their care. In the U.S., some people in this situation are provided for by a piecemeal system of socialized medicine (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid), but not everyone is covered by these programs, and those that are covered often experience lackadaisical care, impersonal treatment, and the other typical problems of socialized medicine when they present for treatment.

For the rest — those outside the world of employer-provided private health insurance and/or the Social Security system — the only health care system to which they have access is the emergency room at the local hospital — an institution spectacularly ill-suited to the task of providing basic health care services. Due to the flood of uninsured patients using the ER as their sole health care provider, the costs of providing emergency room care to the indigent and uninsured — which care is mandated by Federal law — are ballooning out of control, forcing hospitals around the nation into insolvency and closure.

And these problems exist in a society where most people have insurance. What can we expect in a world where most people are without it? As costs rise, the number of employers offering health insurance as a benefit to employees is certain to drop; employers will be faced with the choice of going out of business, eliminating jobs, or cutting insurance benefits. In a situation where most people are without health insurance (whether national or private) to help patients pay these costs, health care would become something like owning a share of a private jet is today — a luxury service available only to those with the means to pay for it. The resulting society would greatly resemble the nineteenth century; like something out of a Charles Dickens novel, top-quality private care would be available for middle-class Lady Estella Havisham, while spotty and inadequate charity care would be the lot of working-class Bob Cratchit and Tiny Tim. Oliver Twist would receive no care at all, and would be reduced to obtaining health care services from unlicensed practitioners, quacks, cuaranderas, and witch doctors. Those with communicable diseases would be imprisoned, quietly murdered, or left to spead their sicknesses among the public; those with chronic illnesses and serious injuries would be left to suffer and/or die in the gutter. A revolution would soon follow, after which Soviet-style State-provided “care” would be implemented by force.

To avoid this grim scenario, therefore, we as a society are going to have to figure out a way to make sure everyone has access to health care services. And, since the private insurance companies have proved themselves unable to do this, it is likely that (barring a revival of Christendom) we as a nation will have to ration health care through some form of private/public national health insurance program.

With this in mind, I think that the only prudent course of action a citizen can take is to make a thorough examination of the various national health insurance systems extant, and compare their various strengths and weaknesses. Only in this way will each of us be able to have an informed opinion on the subject when the time comes for the U.S. to consider such a system of its own.

NOTE: If my analysis above is in error at any point, I'd appreciate someone pointing out the errors to me. Thanks.

In Memoriam

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Tue, 27 May 2008 01:08:00 +0000

In Memoriam
Clyde J. McGee

September 19, 1930 (Beach, MS)— May 11, 2008 (Dallas, TX)

BMC, USN

Retired from the U.S. Navy after thirty years of service. Laid to rest on Wednesday, May 14, 2008 at 10:00 A.M. at Restland Memorial Park in Dallas.

My beloved uncle and inspiration.

Clyde McGee was a tall, lanky, hairy-armed Scot — a real man's man — but over the many years I knew him, he was always kindhearted, soft-spoken, and witty. His most memorable trait was his sense of humor. As kids, his sons and I spent hours listening to his hilariously ribald aphorisms, jokes, and sea stories, and his many unprintable-but-true tales of his adventures in both the brown- and blue-water Cold War Navy often left us with aching sides and eyes filled with tears of laughter. He was, as we say in Texas, a Hoot.

But my uncle was no mere storyteller. He was among the last examples of the Real Navy — a boatswain's mate, a master of decorative ropework, and a true marlinspike seaman. Our modern Navy is full of fine men and women, but the ascendence of shipboard automation has made many of the things my uncle did obsolete. They don't make sailors like Clyde J. McGee any more.

My uncle was a Mensch. He was a tough customer who knew how to suffer without whining about it. He grew up in the worst of circumstances — as part of a family of sharecroppers in a Depression-era Mississippi cotton patch — but did not allow his hard upbringing to turn him bitter. (He did hate cotton until his dying day.) Later in life, he lost a lung due to service-related injuries, but did not use that injury as an excuse for laziness; instead, he continued to work long hours as an armed security officer until his second retirement. My uncle was unfailingly kind and fair to everyone, but he did not like bullies, goldbrickers, or cheats. He expected everyone to pull his own weight, as he unfailingly did.

He was also not the biggest fan of certain famous civil rights leaders of the 1960s, although his distaste for them was on the grounds of their politics, not their race. He married a Japanese girl when it was not at all the thing to do, after all. Together with her, he raised three fine American sons — plus many of us nieces and nephews.

He was a loving man: he loved his God, his family, and the USS MIDWAY until the day he died. You can still see his fancy knotwork on display as you cross the quarterdeck of that famous ship in San Diego.

He inspired me to join the Navy, and to many other things as well. I owe him a great deal.

I'll always miss him. May his name never be forgotten.

***

In Memoriam

Franklin Patric Willeford

HN3 USN

NAVY CROSS

March 17, 1943 (Lawton OK) — December 14, 1968 (Quang Nam, Republic of Vietnam)

Vietnam Memorial

Panel 36W, Row 021

Citation

The President of the United States takes pride in presenting the Navy Cross (Posthumously) to Franklin Patric Willeford (3537852), Hospitalman, U.S. Navy, for extraordinary heroism on 14 December 1968 while serving as a Platoon Corpsman in Company C, First Battalion, Fifth Marines, FIRST Marine Division (Reinforced), Fleet Marine Force, in Quang Nam Province, Republic of Vietnam. As Hospitalman Willeford's platoon was participating in a company-sized sweep through an area, the lead element came under intensive automatic-weapons fire which wounded and trapped one Marine in very close proximity to one of the enemy bunkers. Seeing his comrade fall and subsequently receive another hit from a grenade, Hospitalman Willeford unhesitatingly left his position of relative security and moved forward to the side of the mortally-wounded Marine. Hidden from the enemy positions by the tall grass in the area, he found the Marine bleeding severely and in no condition to be moved. Hospitalman Willeford raised himself up and into the grazing zone of hostile fire in order to administer a heart massage and mouth- to-mouth resuscitation, continuing his desperate attempts to save the Marine until all hope of life had expired. Only then did he begin the slow return through the fire-swept zone to the trench line, bringing with him the body of his comrade. As his platoon again started through the area, the enemy opened up with intensive small-arms and automatic-weapons fire, wounding and trapping the three lead Marines. When two Marines started to move out of the trench line to retrieve the casualties, one was mortally wounded and the other critically wounded. Disregarding the intense danger, Hospitalman Willeford again moved forward to aid his fellowman. Finding the first Marine mortally wounded, and realizing the impossibility of trying to move him back to a secure area, Hospitalman Willeford stayed with the Marine, rendering what aid and comfort he could, until the Marine succumbed to his injuries. After he had informed the remainder of the platoon that the Marine had died, he proceeded deeper into the fire zone toward the second Marine, and drew fire from an enemy bunker a short distance from the wounded man. With full knowledge that the enemy was now concentrating their fire upon him, Hospitalman Willeford forged his way through the tall grass to the wounded Marines' side and began administering aid. While treating the fallen Marine, Hospitalman Willeford was also struck and mortally wounded. His courageous actions were an inspiration to all who observed him and were in keeping with the highest traditions of the United States Naval Service.

Authority: Navy Department Board of Decorations and Medals

My best friend's dad: a Christian, a pacifist, a combat medic, and a hero. He gave his life for the values he held dear. May his deeds of valor never be forgotten, and may Light eternal shine upon him.

A Letter To American "Conservatives"

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Fri, 23 May 2008 06:09:00 +0000

[Note: The following rant is addressed to those Americans who consider themselves to be Conservatives. Of course, they are not; they believe that individual Liberty is the ultimate value, which makes them Liberals. (American "liberals" are likewise misnamed, and are actually socialists.) True Conservatives hold Duty to be the highest value, not Liberty. — BL]

My dear American conservatives:

You have cried out, and I have heard you. As the Obama juggernaut rolls on, and as the Republican Party flounders to field as a viable candidate a man who one advocated granting amnesty to foreign invaders of our country, cries of despair have begun to rise from your camps.

In reply, I say: save your whining for someone who cares.

"Oh, if Obama wins, the country will be controlled by the Democrats!" you cry. Well, so what? That's what the People want, right? Surely, all you believers in representative government would never want to deny the People their choice of the candidate that represents the things they believe in, would you?

THIS is why I'm a monarchist: because sometimes, the People are wrong.

Representative government is dangerous. It only works when the People are educated and intelligent enough to comprehend the issues, when they are sophisticated enough to see through the web of lies and propaganda spun by the political parties, and when they hold the values and mores of the Judeo-Christian worldview exclusively. None of this is true of the current United States population. Most people are damned fools who should no more be trusted with a vote than a chimp should be trusted with a machine gun. Most people are incapable of telling propagandistic shit from fact-supported Shinola. Most people, while nominally Christian, are actually pagan hedonists with no greater moral code than "if it feels good, and it doesn't hurt anybody in a way I can't rationalize, do it". And yet my little boy has to grow up in a country whose laws, military, and nuclear weapons are controlled by a gang of professional pirates chosen by whatever miniscule percentage of this slack-jawed populace remembers to show up on Election Day.

(Please note: I count myself among the slack-jawed populace. I am an unemployable, clinically-depressive Japanese cartoon voice actor, for Pete's sake.)

Yes, in our great country the People choose the political leadership, and the political leadership represents the people. But who represents the Nation — the culture, the values, the things that make a nation what it is? Under a monarchy, that is the role of the Crown. In a government "by the people", the answer is nobody.

So I will thank you all to please pardon me if I don't stand up and wave the flag this election year. All this (or any) election means to me is an opportunity for a new crew of rapists to show up and bend me and mine over the ol' prison bunk. No matter which dribbling assclown gets elected in November, abortion will remain legal, income will remain taxable, borders will remain porous, and the global Islamic jihad will be kept politely at arm's length instead of being smashed with a mailed fist, as it ought to be.

No matter who wins the election, America loses. But that's what we wanted: a free republic, where the government derives its just powers from the consent of the governed.

Too bad the governed are a bunch of morons.

Losing It For Lost In Space

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:24:00 +0000

I've been watching Lost In Space reruns over at hulu.com recently, and it's been quite an enjoyable time. In fact, in many ways I enjoy the show now more than I did as a child, which was a lot. A a child, I loved watching the original Star Trek, of course — and I still do — but I have to admit that in my early childhood I found a great deal of it to be baffling and or slightly scary. Lost In Space, however, was my favorite — the show I'd fight my little brother to see. It was never scary. It was exciting, yes, and suspenseful, but it far more suited the mental and emotional level of the slightly neurotic seven-year-old me than did the more cerebral Trek. I mean, what child of the moon landing era wouldn't love to watch a kid his own age having noisy, brightly-colored interplanetary adventures on distant worlds? What kid nurtured on Hogan's Heroes and Gomer Pyle USMC wouldn't cackle at the hilarious antics of a batty, pompous, and totally unpredictable fussbudget and his rapier-witted robot straight man?

The show itself is packed with entertainment. (For those unfamiliar with Lost In Space, the story centers on the family Robinson, a clan of astronauts who set out on a colonization mission to the star Alpha Centauri on October 16, 1997. Soon after their launch, however, their onboard robot "Robot B-9" is sabotaged by a stowaway saboteur, resulting in damage to the spacecraft, leaving the Robinson family hopelessly "lost in space".) In just one episode, the Space Family Robinson might find themselves facing the imminent destruction of their planet, while at the same time foiling the machinations of space croppers, bulb-headed aliens, and/or living statues, while at the same time dealing with the egotism-driven mishaps created by their hilariously prissy stowaway.

The actors in Lost In Space stand out as well. The series' headline star, the late Guy Williams ("Professor John Robinson"), was a fine actor, and his on-screen relationships with TV wife Dr. Maureen Robinson (June Lockhart, the mom from Lassie) and kids Judy (Marta Kristen), Penny (Angela Cartwright of The Sound Of Music fame) and Will Robinson (the ubiquitous Bill Mumy) were warm and believable. (Williams' son maintains a touching memorial to his father that is well worth a look.) Mark Goddard, as Major Don West (the Jupiter 2's pilot) is cocky and fun, especially when playing foil to the instantly memorable stowaway/saboteur Dr. Zachary Smith, portrayed with great brio by the show's regular "special guest star", the late Jonathan Harris. And of course everyone loves the warm-hearted, wry Robot (Bob May, voiced by Dick Tufield).

As production went on, the series' focus began to change from more-or-less serious sci-fi to a sort of space farce. During the first season, the episodes centered on the heroic and salf-sacrificing John Robinson character, but as the show went on it began to shift from straight-up action/adventure to a sort of Laurel-and-Hardy-In-Outer-Space comedy centered on the trio of Will, Dr. Smith, and the Robot. More than anything else, folks who remember the show recall with pleasure the many zinger-laden exchanges of repartée between the arch and self-aggrandizing Dr. Smith and the unflappable and dry-humored Robot. Even as Harris, Mumy, Tufield and May moved into the center spotlight, however, the rest of the cast continued to play the Robinsons and Major West absolutely straight, making the witty interplay between Will, Dr. Smith and the Robot all the funnier by contrast.

The special effects were truly special. Sure, the planetary surface sets and occasional monsters were cheap and unconvincing, and the "aliens" usually nothing more than character actors wearing whatever B-movie props the show's producer (the late Irwin Allen) found out on the Fox backlot, but when taken together, the show's visual effects were actually fairly sophisticated for a mid-'60s TV show.

And there was an upside to the cheesy effects. The series' low-budget SFX approach actually resulted in some of the most memorable sci-fi bad guys ever; at one point or another our heroes were variously menaced by space Vikings, space miners, and even "Chavo", the silver-skinned Space Mexican. (That episode must have been a hoot for series star Guy "John Robinson" Williams, who had famously played Zorro in a successful prior series.) The reliance on backlot props also facilitated some of the show's truly wacko episides, like the one where the Robot dons a crown and ermine robe from God-knows-which grade-Z Fox knights-in-armor epic and proceeds to rule over a race of tiny toy duplicates of himself. (He also recites the preamble to Lincoln's Gettysburg Address in that episode. Now that's value for one's entertainment dollar!)

There were other attractions. The Space Family Robinson lived in a split-level flying saucer (the Jupiter 2), drove a cool, jeep-like vehicle (the Space Chariot), and actually did stuff, like escaping exploding planets and whatnot, instead of talking the viewer to death. They also loved one another and stayed together no matter what, which at the time seemed more fantastic to me than the split-level flying saucer. All this, combined with fast-paced direction, lots of things blowing up, and "eerie" outer-space SFX (usually created by flashing lights of one sort or another) make for a solid hour of TV fun.

(As an aside, I must admit that as I grew older Lost In Space took on an added dimension of enjoyment for me, in the form of a monstrous crush on Angela Cartwright. Through my now-middle-aged eyes she appears in the show as a talented and cute child actress, but in 1973, the seven-year-old me regarded her as a mysterious and disturbingly attractive older woman.)

Lost In Space was, at its heart, a silly kids' show — a futuristic fairy tale designed to appeal to the romanticism and love of adventure that we kids of the Space Age grew up with. And there's nothing wrong with that. Sure, we all love Star Trek and so forth, but in this world of serious TV science fiction (e.g. Battlestar Galactica) it's fun to occasionally step away from the realistic dialog and densely-plotted storylines and enjoy an hour of good dumb fun.

As I watch Lost In Space today, the word that comes most readily to my mind is "charm". The show was charming — the bright colors, the earnest young actors, the goofy plots, and all. It was pure family entertainment in the best sense: traditional without being hackneyed, warm without being overly corny, thrilling without being frightening, and imaginative without being self-consciously weird (as so many shows of the late '60s were.) Sure, as science fiction it was a joke — I mean, come on, a vegetable rebellion? — but Irwin Allen thankfully saw no need to try and capture the high-brow skiffy audience with the show; he just wanted to entertain kids and make a buck doing it.

Mission accomplished, Mr. Allen.

Are You Ready For The Sex Bots?

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Wed, 07 May 2008 03:11:00 +0000

"Once they invent the Sexaroid, that's it for marriage" — Cliff Spears

Whither the Droid? The personal servant/buddy/crapworker robot was a staple of the Wonderful World Of Tomorrow that we kids of the '60s were sold back in the olden days. That world turned out to be a BIG FAT LIE — and no part of it more so than the foretold robot pal. I can live withot my rocket belt and flying car, but, dammit, why didn't I get the robo-butler I was promised?

It's not due to any lack of effort on the part of industry. The factories are full of fine, upstanding robots that pay their taxes and love their families. The military has lots of cool robots, too, some of which can kill terrorists in exciting ways. And of course there are the uninspiring-but-functional robot probes that NASA sends into space instead of using a MAN to do a MAN'S JOB — but I digress. Anyway, companies have been trying to market personal robots to middle-class consumers for years, but so far all have failed to catch on. It seems that no one wants to pay thousands of dollars for an instantly-obsolescent, mechanico-electronic serf when a real serf can be had much more cheaply from Mexico or one of those rinky-dink Central American countries. Neither is technology the show-stopper. While it's true that the technology of home robotics has not advanced at the pace once expected, the low operating cost and easy disposability of tiny Mayan maids have been the real roadblocks that have kept R2-D2 from becoming a reality in the US.

Will we ever have buddy robots of the kind seen in sci-fi? My guess is "no" — because there is no market for a robot of that sort. I predict that when better droids are built, we'll skip the clunky, metal-and-plastic Star Wars model and go straight to building Chobits — sexy girl robots that combine the functions of girlfriend and all-in-one digital device. Let's face it — no one wants another G.D. computer around the house; the damned things make life miserable enough as it is. Only winsome, obedient androids with which the Average Joe/Jane can have sex will bring in the big bucks. The first company to combine the functions of a PDA / palmtop / phone with the charm (and body) of a soft, sweet-natured, long-haired girl (and the functionality of a Hibernate/Mute button!) will have created the ultimate "killer app" — and one that will destroy the twin institutions of marriage and prostitution forever. Move aside, June Cleaver! Begone, Pretty Woman! Lo, the Sexaroid approacheth!

Will we ever see the dawn of the age of the Sex Bot? No one knows, but it is certain that, should that day ever come, confessionals from coast to coast will be sporting long lines of sheepish penitents. Until then, however, we are left with the cold comfort of Japanese big-breast videos on YouTube and the gallery of failed robotmakers past at megadroid.com.

Are you ready for the sex bots? Ready or not, here they come! As Criswell once said: "God help us... in the future".

Loving The Dictators

noreply@blogger.com (B-chan) — Thu, 01 May 2008 14:56:00 +0000

In a recent article ["The dictators are back ... and we don’t care", The Times (London), April 27, 2008] Robert Kagan bemoans the rise of authoritarian governments in Russia and China, among other venues. His reaction is natural — and typical of the post-Soviet generation. With the victory of the Western Allies over the USSR's Communist empire in World War III (aka the "cold war"), liberal democracy über alles was the watchword of the day. Papa Francis Fukuyama told us that we were at the "end of history", didn't he? Surely, the evil idea of authoritarian rule went down the tubes along with the USSR, right?

Wrong. Around the world, so-called "soft" dictatorships such as Putin's Russia (and auto-bureaucracies such as Singapore) seem to be perfectly acceptable to those living under them. It appears that despite the hand-wringing of some in our own media/government elite, authoritarianism is back. How can this be? Can't the Masses in these countries see the obvious benefits of liberal democracy, of voting, laws, and representative government?

In a word, no. To many people around the world, democracy does not bring to mind Pericles of Athens in a fresh, slave-laundered tunic, lecturing the people on the beauty of freedom; instead, it brings to mind guns in the streets, riots, and general social chaos. Democracy is not a one-size-fits all form of social order, after all, and representative government is neither suitable for nor adaptable to every culture. Believe it or not, many (most?) people in the world are profoundly distrustful of nose-counting as a means of government, and I'd like to propose a reason why.

From what I've seen in my travels and read in my studies, the truth is that people don't want to participate in an equal sharing of political power. I think most people want the social order to be ruled by a single, non-participatory authority. I submit that this esire for top-down order is a natural part of human psychology, and is one reason why representative governments always fail over the long term.

I know the dogma these days is that people everywhere instinctively crave democracy (or a republican form of government, at the very least). The historical truth, however, is that most people don't really care what form of government is in place at the national level as long as they are free to trade, worship, and live their everyday lives as they please. Singapore, for example, manages to function quite nicely under an authoritarian government today, as did Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal. Even the French, those lovers of liberté, prefer to live under a central government that would be considered intolerably invasive here in the States. (For example: in France, the government gets to decide if the name you've picked for your newborn baby is acceptable or not. Imagine the State of Arkansas or Alaska having the power to block you from naming your kid Canyon or Ta'niqua!) And it's not just the furriners who prefer to let the Big Boys run the playground; our current abysmally low rates of voter participation in the United States are proof that most people in America couldn't care less about participating in government as long as the streets are reasonably safe, gas and beer are reasonably cheap, the Big Game starts on time, and taxes are reasonably low.

Democracy is the system in which the masses (the demos) rule. As practiced by the Athenian city-state in ancient Greece, democracy was never intended as a means of organizing any polity bigger than a city-state, and did not allow all citizens a say in government. The system established in 510 BC under Cleisthenes allowed all male citizens their say before the general Assembly, but carefully limited the power of the hoi polloi to make laws and shape policy (this was the function of the Boule, a body of representatives elected from the heads of the local political and tribal groups.) The system began to crack almost immediately, as the leaders of the various demes (sub-groups) of Athenian society began jockeying among themselves for political advantage.

Which brings us to another point: democracies are brittle and prone to sudden collapse. Even the "ideal democracy" of Athens was hardly robust; 170 years after its establishment, the Athenian democracy had coalesced into an autocratic quasi-empire run by small, special-interest groups. It was then conquered, first by the autocratic Spartans, then by Alexander the Great, whose Macedonian empire ruled the Athenians for two centuries. Finally came the Roman Republic (not a democracy — they had elected dictators) which lasted five centuries off-and-on but which reverted to autocratic rule with the (elective) dictatorship-for-life of Julius Caesar in 44 BC. Thereafter, Athens was under the Roman imperium in one form or another until AD 1806. Thus we see that even in its most pure form democracy has a lousy track record versus autocratic rule. Like communism, representative government looks great on paper but just doesn't work well in Real Life.

Keep in mind we're tallking about big government here. At the city and county level, people do prefer to have a say in government, but only to the extent that their government influences their everyday lives. Otherwise, they are content to raise their families, run their businesses, and earn their wages — and leave the big decisions to the local aristocracy.

Yes, I said "aristocracy". Every city in America has one: a cohort of four or five families who control (overtly or covertly) the local business, civic and governmental institutions. In every community, a sort of cream (or scum, if one prefers) of leaders naturally rises to the top of the general churn of citizens. It seems that some people are simply born with a talent for governing and administrating, and this talent tends to run in families. (In our city, for example, the V_________ family has been involved in running the show in one form or another for sixty-plus years, and most people are fine with that, because they do a fairly good job of it.) People born with this ability tend to rise to the levels of power of whatever community they inhabit, and tend to do what's best for the community out of a sense of noblesse oblige. Such families represent a natural aristocracy, and without them, most communities would be chaotic.

And they are. The city of Dallas is a perfect example of what can happen when The People are allowed to take the reins of power. Over the first 120 years or so of its existence, the city was dominated by an unelected Power Elite of wealthy merchants, landowners, and industrial leaders, and things ran fairly smoothly under their crass, pitiless but generally benevolent domination. During this time, the city had an elected government, of course — a government composed of various candidates carefully groomed by the power group to fill these positions, but an elected government, nonetheless. This shadow government was not perfect, nor was it always run for the benefit of all, but under its offhanded tyranny the city thrived and grew, and most of its citizens prospered.

But beginning in the 1960s this tidy system began to be undermined. Due to legal pressures and societal changes, a genuine democracy began to rise in Dallas, and the aging (and now mostly suburban) members of the Power Elite decided to quietly and gradually surrender their control of the city rather than risk plunging Dallas into the kind of chaos that had gripped places such as LA, Detroit, and Chicago. (This is why there were never any real race riots or integration-related violence in Dallas: the Powers That Be simply decreed that Dallas would integrate, democratize, and desegregate, and it was so.) By surrendering their power gradually, the Power Elite facilitated the keeping of the peace, ensuring that Dallas remained an attractive haven for business.

Unfortunately, by surrendering their power, the monopolar rule of the “old money” tribe was slowly replaced by a multipolar battle for power between the city's various ethnic tribes, each of which of course had its own clique of the natural leaders, each of which had its own aims and interests. The city of Dallas today is "governed" by an exquisitely democratic, representational, and sensitive elected government — and is, of course, a big frigging mess, with a declining tax base, a rising crime rate, and a sputtering economy. The exurbs, which are now run by the sons and daughters of Dallas former Power Elite, are where the peace, quiet, and economic action is.

Democracy does not scale well. The lesson here is that representative government, where it works at all, works only at the scale of a city-state like Athens, and even then only when it is dominated by a natural aristocracy. A state or nation run by democratic principles will sooner or later devolve into chaos, as self-interested groups of all types battle each other for control. One need only look at Dallas — or the former Yugoslavia — for proof of that thesis.

So let the dictators come. We don't have to love them, of course — but we can live alongside them, so long as they respect the basic human dignity of their thralls (e.g. no genocides, mind control, or organ harvesting), and otherwise do not threaten their neighbors or the peace of the world. The United States and her allies can coexist in peace with any number of benevolent authoritarian nation-states. We might not want to live in an authoritarian state ourselves, but to people in other countries a dictatorship or autocracy could very well be an alternative preferable to chaos. As a representative republic that grows ever less representative and republican by the day, we can tolerate the dictatorships of the world as merely the latest examples of what might be called the default mode of human government.