Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
Excluding non-sentient infants, there are no “innocent” casualties. I prefer the term non-combatants. As a 9-13 year old during WWII, I was not innocent. None of the kids were. We did all we could to help the war effort, and if it lasted longer, we would have been future soldiers. To fight a war successfully, one must not worry about collateral damage and have the guts to win. Apologize after from strenth, not grovel from weakness. Worry about nation building after the war. But have a grand strategy, to quote Liddell Hart. We truly have become a wussified nation in many ways.The outcome of a war can by judged by this quotation, the origin of which I forget and paraphrase: A successful war produces a better peace than the one that preceded it.
An intelligent population that figured out it is healthier to drink upstream and pee downstream, that is willing to innovate technologically, and has a strong moral code. Luck too. Not being debilitated by plague or disease at the time an invading army approaches.
As a writer of historical fiction, I can say there is a significant differnce between writing a dull tome for some academic journal and bringing History to life through well researched Historical Fiction that often uncovers material not generally known in academia.. There are exceptions such as Virginia Cowles and Barbara Tuchman. I exclude bodice buster and romantic HF.
Back in 2006-7, I thought I would do public service at minimal pay as an adjunct professor at then Polk Community College in Florida, not a State College. I taught two first year writing courses( aka the 13th grade) but was not allowed to downgrade anyone for misspelling words. Had I that freedom,no one would have passed. With rare exceptions, the pupils (cannot call them students) were not smarter than a 5th grader, as the game show was titled. Most never mastered the following: differences between its and it's; they're, their, and there; me or I, he or him after a preposition; who, whose, who's and whom; paragraphing; organizing thoughts; and critical thinking. One day I was asked to sub a class for an ill instructor, and four girls were having a farting contest. The librarians did not enforce silence. Fairfax, the high school in West Hollywood wheere I taught 1957-87, went from 85% legitimately qualifying for college to 75% of those entering in 10th grade graduating, most of those by courtesy. Yet, and you can Google it, schools like my alma mater Lowell High School in San Francisco, are oases in the current public school desert.
Yes, I wanted to say much more in the alloted time my way. I gave him an outline of what I wanted to cover. It is a partial scam. The interview was free, but they push marketinbg pplans from $$$ to $$$,$$$.
One of my colleagues who taught Art hated the Impressionists because he was so far left he referred to their painting as bourgeoisie. Yes, at Cal it was so political that the communist students were violently divided between Stalinists and Trotskyites. I posted early after I joined this site I was interrupted by by Speech 1A instructor when I attacked socialized medicine as not viable and instead of make me defend my point he said, “Nations do not degenerate into socialism, they advance to socialism.” we had the wackos as I said before. Minutes before a Philosophy section began, I told a joke to my classmates, and they laughed, at which point the T.A. cried out, “Why are you laughing at me?” Mondo Bizzaro in Academia.
At Cal wayyyyy back in 1949-54, the bias was everywhere outside the History classes as well. It was said during the Viet Nam War, History professors were the least likely to demonstrate or indoctrinate their students. I ran into it more in Speech, Poli Sci, and other classes, but and this is a caveat — even if the professors might have been relatively balanced, most of their T.A.s were not, and some were absolutely weird. FYI, the Loyalty Oath culled the uberlibrals from the faculty, and at Cal the entire Sociology Department resigned rather an sign it.
When we lived in Playa de Rey, a beach community in the L.A. basin, the bus route was altered. Instead of delivering people directly to the beach, the bottom of our hill became the end of the route. Rapes and violent burglaries and assaults, which never existed before, came and increased. The bus would drop off groups of types who obviously did not mean well, and when they walked to the beach, they obviously scoped each home as they passed. At a community meeting, the police told us they were undermanned, with only 8 patrol cars covering an area from Venice to El Segunda from the beach to 5 miles in land and dealing mostly with more violence in less affluent areas. They told us to arm ourselves, and if we shot anyone on our property, drag them inside.After that I purchased an AR-15 and handguns, and we kept our flood lights on throughout the night. Occasionally during the day, I would sit by the upstairs living room window “cleaning” my weapon whe gangs walked by.I am solidly for no ban on semi- and automatic, and hand weapons. Given one cannot wear body armor 24/7 unless one is a total fruitcake, I still stand by my original comment.”Slippery Slope” is a specious argument because all laws can be said to lead there. It is no different than someone asking “but what if …” to stop an effort to build a wall on our border or get tougher with criminals.I wish we could go back to the days when looters could be shot on sight, but the mantra that began in the 1960s that human rights were more valuable than property rights is equally specious, for your property is your human right.Cross my threshhold unbidden and you die.
Aside from any gun debate, start with making it a Federal crime for any civilian to sell, purchase or own body armor. Only a paranoiac or someone intent on doing great harm would own it.
No hard cover this time. Binding is costly, and a surprising numberof people prefer soft cover because it is easier to carry and read in bed.I had been in the Nertherlands and mostly in Amsterdam, but the geography is radically different now than the 17th century. A city in the north like Franeker is now 7 miles farther inland because of reclaimed land, common along the coast over the past 400 years.
As matters stand today:1, The issue of Secession was settled with finality in 1865. 2. No State has or will have a majority willing to secede because our divisions are not dileneated by state boundaries.3. There are always hissy-fits by some on the losing side after elections.I remember way back when 7 Days in May came out as a book and then a film, I rooted for the President and his defenders. During the Carter Administration I had more sympathy for the Generals who wanted a weak President ousted by coup. Alas, in real life often the JCS is dominated by political generals and admirals. Admiral Zumwalt during Carter's years agreed with cuts in the military, and when Reagan came in he agreed the military had to be built up.Point being — without the military, there cannot be a secession or coup.
