Bunker Mulligan "Let us endeavor so to live that when we come to die even the undertaker will be sorry." ~Mark Twain

Well… as white as we can expect in Corpus Christi.

I’d rather sweat than shiver.

**** UPDATE****

Thundersnow! Lightning and snowfall all at once.

I can’t imagine ever shutting down my comments. I find some interesting blogs in my comment section. This morning, while checking for emails from Julie for an update on Wallace, I saw a comment from someone new. So I went to the site. Elitist Pig is the website of Dave Nalle:

Dave Nalle was born in 1959 in Beirut, Lebanon while his parents were serving in the diplomatic service. His early childhood was spent all over the Middle East in countries like Syria, Iran and Jordan. When he was 6 his family returned for two tours of duty in Washington DC before being sent abroad again. During his early teens they lived in England and ultimately in the Soviet Union.

He’s now on my links list.

Wallace is getting his chest cut open as I write. Triple by-pass. I would ask all of you to say a prayer asking for ultimate skill on behalf of the surgeon involved. Wallace is a tough old Ranger, so he should be fine. But he won’t be getting any sugarplums this Christmas.

Drop by his site and leave a message, or go to Julie’s page to do the same. She may not remember how to get into his blog!

This morning I took a vacation day, so I went in to Lago’s show rather than calling in. One of the topics was sacrifice during a time of war, and how the American people were asked to sacrifice during WW II. Jim also asked if I had ever read Bull Moose. Yes, I have. But not in some time. Jim had a link today, and I went to see about the topic at hand.

The issue is whether there should be grand Inaugural Balls and parties as there is each election. The folks at Bull Moose (The Democratic Leadership Council) believe not:

Official partying is entirely inappropriate while our brave troops are sacrificing life and limb for country.

I tend to agree. But I doubt any parties in Chevy Chase or Georgetown have been cancelled recently.

More than two months before Bill Clinton’s second inauguation, I was in DC. I had gone to see Slice graduate from the Marine Officer Training Course at Quantico, and took my wife for her first visit to what is one of my favorite cities. Unfortunately, we couldn’t visit the Capitol because of all the construction going on in preparation for the inauguration. I was inconvenienced and unable to visit my seat of government so that a single day’s activities could take place in expensive grandeur some time in the relatively distant future.

The cost estimate for this inauguration will be high, too (about $40 million). And that is the real issue. If the RNC picks up the tab, I have no complaint. But taxpayers should be spared. I’m sure that’s not the reason the DLC has in mind.

And in their “About” section, they recall my favorite President, Theodore Roosevelt (the original Bull Moose), and one of his best quotes:

“It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat.”

Do you think the Democratic Leadership Council feels that way about Dubya? Not if you listen to what they say about Iraq.

Arthur Chrenkoff has posted what may be the last of his “Around the World in 80 Blogs.” When you put together all the good news coming from Iraq, and Afghanistan, it leaves little time for your own thoughts. I thank Arthur for taking on that task, and he has performed admirably–well enough that the major blogs and NRO have noticed and turned him into a celebrity. That amount of notoriety has a cost, as Arthur has found out first-hand.

Merry Christmas to Arthur and all my other friends in Oz!

In the 1966 Simon and Garfunkel album “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary & Thyme”, one track was not a tradition song. That track was 7 O’Clock News/Silent Night. Even though it was not a protest song, per se, it was taken on as one by the anti-war movement. The track had the duo singing the classic Christmas song, while a newsman read highlights of news in the background. And all the news involved anger and violence.

Ben Pfeiffer at Keys Radio here in Corpus Christi put together the following track as a modern version. The sense I now get from it is thanks and grace upon those who give up their Silent Night so that we may keep our own Holy Night here at home.

You can hear it at Homespun Blogger Radio. I also have a link to this feature, an ongoing effort, down the left column.

I watched this show on the Discovery-Times Channel this afternoon. Interesting. It was one where I could hear the anti-war crowd screaming in my head, “See! They would leave us alone if we left them alone!”

Really, it showed very clearly why we have to continue this fight, although the producer did a good job of not drawing any conclusions for his viewers.

The scene is Pakistan, and the protagonists are two young boys. One is an Afghan refugee whose family fled during the invasion because they were Taliban supporters. Some of the things the boy said made it very clear why they hate us. “They were killing Muslims!” “They wouldn’t even give us bread!” “I will go back and fight as soon as I am old enough!”

His hatred is extremely localized. Muslims were being killed. No logic involved here. Those same Muslims had been killing other Muslims for years. Yet I’m sure these are words he has heard from his father over and over. How can anyone believe he or others like him can be reasoned with?

The second boy is a student at a madrassa. He is taken to a swimming pool area and is aghast that there are both males and females cooling off in the same place. “They will all go to Hell.” Then he thinks about it and says, “I will probably go to Hell because I saw them there.”

Education is the only thing that will bring these people out of that mentality. But education cannot take hold or become universal until these attitudes are changed. Catch-22. And it will take more than a couple of years. It will take a couple of generations. We in the US have little patience. We want things to change immediately so we no longer have to think about them. We want to see the results, and see them now.

The recent election in Afghanistan means little to many here. Big deal–we have elections all the time. An election in Iraq next month will mean even less to those folks. It is just another sham perpetrated by the Bush Administration.

Little steps. Little steps. We must be content with little steps, because that is what it will take to change the anachronism that is the Middle East. I wish it could move faster myself, but I understand how easy it is for a culture that has something novel thrust upon it to revert. The NGOs have shown quite clearly that building a well means only that some will use it, and none will care for it unless the use of that well becomes a habit for the locals. It soon falls into disrepair. So it is with democracy. Too many nations in history have had representative government only to discard it in favor of a strongman as something “easier” to do. France went through that several times after the Revolution. The US is the exception.

Back in July, Dean Esmay asked if Conservatives would honor and support Kerry if he were to be elected:

Now here is my interesting question: I’ve made myself some friends among conservatives by speaking this way. But I do find myself wondering: how many of you on the right will embrace such a philosophy if John Kerry should carry the election in November?

I responded:

That unity of purpose is what we saw in the one or two days after 9/11, which dissolved quickly once people saw Dubya was looking too good to suit them. We cannot survive in this world operating that way. As long as Kerry, if elected, acts like a President I will support him as one. Too bad Dubya wasn’t given that opportunity.

If we are to make things better for all the groups in the Middle East that the activists constantly cry for, we must present to the world a unified vision. The election campaign is over. Can those groups now live up to the same pledge I made last summer?