Category Archives: News

Drop

Traffic on this site just dropped dramatically. Having posted about it, I will probably now see the traffic go right back up to new heights. But hopefully, the registration and askimet implementation are having an effect. The spammers can’t post here, for now.

Light Blogging

Must have exhausted by gallbladder with last week’s diatribes. I’ve got a lot on my mind, so I’ll just link to this great post over at Right-Thinking about the dirty tricks the Dems might use on Fred Thompson.

Of course, the GOP taught them everything they now with last year’s despicable Jim Webb shenanigans.

On another note, the morning show on KLBJ predicted the French lefties would riot over Sarkozy’s election. Looks like they were right. Didn’t take long, did it?

Iran Bumbles Again

Seriously, it’s stuff like this that’s going to get the Islamists hung from the minarets. People will put up with suffering and oppression. But as the Soviets found out, they will not put up with an unhappy lifestyle.

“A huge totalitarian system, with all its tanks and guns, gulag camps and secret police has been brought to its knees because nobody wants to wear Bulgarian shoes.” – P. J. O’Rourke, on the fall of the Berlin Wall

How long will it be before Islamism is destroyed because burkhas are soooo 1354.

Turkey

Leave it to the EU, the Human Rights organizations and the State Department to support an Islamist Turkey. ‘Cuz it would be democratically-elected, dontchya know. The Turks, better than say the Bush Administration, seem to understand that religion should be a personal thing, not a governing philosophy:

Mehmet Gunes, 39, whose wife was wearing an Islamic-style headscarf, said: “We support what the army said. It’s a warning. My wife wears a headscarf — we’re not against that. We came here to stand up for a secular, enlightened Turkey. Our children’s future is important.”

Democracy is only one of the safeguards of freedom and not a particularly good one. I hate to risk Godwin’s Law, but we’ve seen democracies elect some pretty awful people to high office.

My VT Thoughts

I was going to write this yesterday, on the day of mourning, but days of clear weather had exhausted me. So I post my scattered through today. I’m tired. I’m at high altitude. I’m emotionally drained. So forgive me if I get a little preachy or sappy.

The greatest tragedy of the Virginia Tech killing is the lives cut short. The loss of any of us is a tragedy. But that tragedy is diminished when it is, for example, a man of 76 years who lived a full life, survived the Nazis and the Communists and gave his life saving others. While we mourn the loss, it is not nearly as tragic as the loss of, for example a young triple-major residential assistant with a bright future, a big smile and a generous heart. Or any of the other promising bright young people who were just trying to better their lives that morning.

We have no idea what was lost. We will never know which of these kids might have gone on to become a great doctor or write a great novel or heal the sick or invent something that bettered the lives of millions. We will never know. Their potential has been closed to us forever. I am reminded of the great wars and the millions of young men who lost their lives — and the great novels and symphonies and inventions and ideas that died on those battlefields with them. That is the true tragedy – the loss of potential.

But there is hope. A hope that what people will do is live the lives these young people should have. To work harder, live better, love deeper and laugh louder so that, rather than the world being diminished by their loss, the world is grown by it. That their legacy is the efforts of millions to make up for them, to live for them.

There were 27 students cut down before their lives had even begun. And five faculty who still had many years to give. If everyone in the nation were to spend just a few more minutes living and loving and working, the loss we as a species and a nation have suffered would be more than made up for.

The killings can be Cho’s legacy. He’s welcome to it. But let the legacy of the victims be our lives and our future.

NBC

Sign me up with the people who think NBC was right to show clip of the Cho video. As repulsive as it may be, as hurtful for the families, there is value for the nation in seeing that this guy was insane, mean and evil; that his actions had no meaning, Right-wing ranting about Ismail Ax aside, beyond just a crazy evil person doing something crazy and evil things to a bunch of good people.

That’s twice I’ve linked to Atrios in one week, by the way. I’m getting scared.

BOB

I’m re-watching HBO’s outstanding Band of Brothers. I just read that Ronald Spiers died at the age of 87.

It’s wonderful to know that so many of the men who served in the War managed to live such full and complete lives. I bet very few of them thought they’d live to see the 21st century. And it’s a pity we’re now starting to lose them in droves. Within the next 20 years, they will all be gone.

At least with these veterans, we have a good record of what they did. I watched Gettysburg the other night and watched a documentary attached that showed video footage of some of the last veterans of that battle. Almost all of what we know of Gettysburg comes from the senior officers who survived (such as Chamberlain). With World War II, we’ve got a far better accounting of what the war was like for the standard soldier.

Kids

I agree with what Ross says about the sociological study that says having more than one kid doesn’t make you any happier. As a father-to-be, I’m not having kids because I think it will make me happy. I hope it will. But I’m principally having kids because I think it’s an end in itself, that I have a duty to the future to create and form a good person to advance the human comedy one more generation. To not have kids because it might affect my life is the ultimate selfishness, no? To sacrifice the future to sustain my present?

We all do things that we must do, whether we like them or not. I work a job because I need to provide for myself and my family and I hope to contribute something with my time on this planet. That I enjoy my work is a nice side effect. I also do a lot of things I don’t like because I must. That includes mowing the lawn, cleaning the house, scooping the cat litter, etc., etc. I have always hated the Utilitarian philosophy.

I hope that having kids will bring me happiness. And I think it will. But that’s not the reason I’m doing it.

Via the Agitator, I found this philosophical phart that reminds me of the arguments I used to have with my college philosophy teacher.

That bringing a child into existence is “one of the greatest goods there is” may be a truism in Ross’s moral scheme, it somehow figures into none of the major moral philosophies in the history of moral philosophy, as far as I can tell.

Apparently, he hasn’t read the Bible. I guess religion doesn’t count as “philosophy”. But the Bible is, in fact, the source of our oldest major moral philosophy and the one that still has the most relevance in America. And it’s first commandment is to be fruitful and multiply. Try telling the Catholic Church that no major moral philosophy regards having kids as a supreme moral good.

But even putting the Bible aside . . . as I argued back in undergraduate school, if the major moral philosophies don’t see reproduction as one of the greatest goods there is, then the major moral philosophies are garbage. Any philosophy that does not have the survival and continuation of the human race as an important principle is automatically defunct. An extinct race, by definition, does not behave morally.

Ross is saying that there exists a person who is harmed by the fact that it has not been made to exist. It refutes itself.

No it doesn’t. Or maybe he’s missed the whole abortion debate.

And the spectre of “a mostly unhappy world swimming in billions upon billion of children” is the reducto ad absurdum. No one outside of the Vatican is suggesting that people should have as many babies as possible. But we are suggesting the replacing ourselves might be a good idea — and a supreme moral good.

I especially love the psycho-analysis at the end where he concludes that Ross must want a big family. Well, two can play at that game. I conclude this is written by one of the defensive non-breeders who gets extra miffed when someone suggets that being fruitful and multiplying might be important. And that the next generation is the only real legacy we will ever have.

Update: Looking back over my comments, I should clarify that I don’t think the inverse is true — that not having kids is a supreme moral evil. There are people who can’t have kids and that’s not their fault. There are people who shouldn’t. And there are people who find other ways of contributing to humanity (Michelangelo, for example). What I’m saying is that having chidlren is “a” supreme moral good, not “the” supreme moral good.

Green

Sue got approved for her green card today. As much as I bash federal agencies, I must say that the people at the INS and DHS are very nice and helpful. They are hideously bound by regulations. For example, Sue need a medical waiver because our stupid politiciticans have decided that immigrants need a useless flu shot. We didn’t want her to get one because of the baby. And we had the medical waiver but the doctor had not checked the right box. We were presented with a scenario in which if we got the fixed waiver to them by 4 pm, she would get her green card. If she didn’t, the application would go back on the shelf and it might be months before it was considered again. The INS agents were strictly limited in this. They could not hold a file open for a a few days. They were only allowed to pull down X number of files at random for consideration each day. It was ridiculous.

Fortunately, the agent in charge stayed a bit late to get our FAX and approved her.

VT Vics

One the things I’ve been captivated are the growing profiles of the VT victims being posted on the news web sites. On the one hand, it’s heart-wrenching to read about these promising lives cut short. One the other hand, everyone should read it, so that these people are not just a statistic. These were real lives cut short in a moment by a monster. Real people who had plans and hopes for the future. Now gone.

Of course, the most inspiring story is that of Liviu Librescu, a Holocaust survivor (Yom Ha-Shoah was the day before, ironically) who apparently gave his life to save those of his students. I never cease to be awed by the simple courage that dwells in so many of us. I only hope that if, God forbid, I should be in such a situation, I will be as brave.