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

January 18, 2005

Homespun Symposium IX

Filed under: International — Bunker @ 12:12 pm

I’ve been a bit busy recently so I haven’t participated in something I initiated–the Homespun Bloggers Symposium. Bad me. This week I definitely need to say something about the topic: What are your predictions for the elections in Iraq? Will there be violence? What will the government look like? Will it be legitimate, liberal, and capable of accomplishing anything? And what effect will the election have on the U.S.?

I’m certainly not prescient, but I felt a strong need to respond to a couple of the points which seemingly come up in every news story about the election.

The election in Iraq is absolutely a benchmark in Middle Eastern government. Not withstanding an election in Afghanistan last year where women, for the first time ever had the opportunity to vote, this one will be for all the marbles. The jihadists know it, and will do what they can to disrupt it. That didn’t happen in Afghanistan, but it most assuredly will in Iraq. It will happen not to keep Iraqis from the polls, but to give news outlets a basis for claiming the election lacks legitimacy. The jihadists know they don’t need to keep the election from happening, they only need to provide rationalization for continuing their fight.

Watch to see if the voting public comes out in greater percentages than ours did in November.

If the Sunni strongmen get their way, few Sunnis will vote. They, and the media, will again claim the vote was illegitimate. Sorry. If you choose not to participate, then you get what you deserve. If the Sunnis want to be part of the government, they better get their candidates out and their voters energized. That isn’t how the game is played in the Arab world, so they don’t grasp participation as a vehicle for governance.

This election is to create a new assembly which will begin the work of writing a constitution. Once it is ratified, there will be new elections based on the procedures laid out, and that election will be this time next year. One Year. Ours wasn’t comlete and ratified until more than a decade after the Declaration of Independence. Fortunately, the Iraqis have several examples to follow, including ours.

The election will mean nothing here in the US. Those of us cheering for the Iraqis will still be in conflict with those cheering against. A succesful election will only make them more shrill as they try to find a way to claim its irrelevance.

Who could have imagined even three years ago open elections in Iraq, or any other Arab country? Will the world applaud them, or criticize? I think we can at least predict that.

Major Jim Miles

Filed under: Media — Bunker @ 7:02 am

Jim equates embedded reporters to the Soviet model of Political officers.

La Famiglia Goomba

Filed under: General — Bunker @ 6:02 am

Nickie just blew my cover. Nobody knew my nickname was “Spoons” but him.

Ya think?

Filed under: Media — Bunker @ 5:34 am

Condoleezza Rice goes before the Senate today for confirmation. This morning, an NPR reporter stated, “Condoleezza Rice has close ties to the White House.”

I’m glad they’re all over that story.

January 17, 2005

Book Swapout

Filed under: General — Bunker @ 6:31 pm

I finished reading Hewitt’s Blog the day after I got it, and have looked through it again several times since. I also finished Ben Hogan, and have picked up two replacements. I have read much of Theodore Rex before, but need to start again at the beginning. I set it aside a while back for some other things I needed to read first. I also will go through Golf, As it was in the Beginning, which I’ve only perused on Christmas Day when I received it from Bogey and his lovely bride.

Hewitt’s book is well worth reading for a good overview of the blog medium and its past and future impact. The book on Hogan, however, I wouldn’t recommend to anyone who isn’t a golf or Hogan fan.

It isn’t well-written. It seems to jump around far too much, and I had difficulty following all the names. The chronology left me confused far too often. Having said that, if you are interested in Ben Hogan and his accomplishments, this book is the most detailed I’ve seen.

But the thing that kept me going was something that would mean little to most. The descriptions of Fort Worth, and many of the places I know. Last year I played Glen Garden, the course where both Hogan and Byron Nelson began their golf careers as caddies. When I was younger, I couldn’t play it because the course was still a closed club. I was fortunate the day I went out because it was windy and cool, and I played eighteen all alone just enjoying the atmosphere and history.

In high school I spent much of my free time at Shady Oaks Country Club which Hogan and Marvin Leonard built as a refuge even from Colonial. I caddied, waited and bussed tables, parked cars, and did janitorial work when school was out. All of the club’s menus were handwritten rather than sent to a printer. I know because I did all the scribing. I did about 500 of the same one once when there was a reception for Pearl Mesta, “The Hostess with the Mostest”. I did a lot of them during home room, and my home room teacher was the Home Ec teacher and asked for one as a souvenir. I didn’t even know who Pearl Mesta was.

I spent many hours at the club, and many of those memories floated back into my consciousness as I read of Hogan’s last years. I still remember Art Hall, the club Pro, and many other people who worked there and are mentioned in the book. Marvin Leonard, a Fort Worth legend, was getting old then, and usually came with his daughter Marty and her husband. Marty Griffith was an excellent golfer, and I sometimes caddied for someone in their group.

I only saw Mr. Hogan hit balls once while I was there. He usually walked the course alone with his regular caddie. I remember distinctly him hitting two tee shots on the tenth hole. The two balls finished in the fairway no more than two feet apart. No accident.

I also remember his table in the men’s grill. Yes, it was his table, and nobody ever sat there unless he was at the table and invited them to join him. Most of the time the table was vacant, even when the others were all occupied. As I said, it was his table.

The mind is an amazing thing in how such long-ago visions can return. The book made me almost homesick.

Lefty Quiz

Filed under: Society-Culture — Bunker @ 12:46 pm

Tim points to a quiz for liberals done by John Hawkins. I admit right up front that I was unable to answer “yes” to a single question, although there were a few I had to ponder as to whether I thought the premise was reasonable–not whether I agreed with it.

John put this together in response to another quiz put together by Kevin Drum, and the comments there run the gamut from sensible to lunatic.

I agree with John that the questions seem reasonable to ask. So many of these are issues raised not just on liberal web sites, but on national television as well. And a couple come directly from comments on Drum’s site. Tim offers his comments section for scoring by anyone who visits.

January 16, 2005

MLK Day 2005

Filed under: Society-Culture — Bunker @ 6:15 pm

Martin Luther King, Jr., is a man I respected. Last year, I wrote a small piece about him. Today I wanted to do something more, so I spent a lot of time searching for the text of a speech King gave which has become known as “The Street Sweeper Speech.” No luck. I did find the quote which generated the name for the speech:

If a man is called to be a street sweeper, he should sweep streets even as Michelangelo painted, or Beethoven composed music, or Shakespeare wrote poetry.

He should sweep streets so well that all the hosts of heaven and earth will pause to say, here lived a great street sweeper who did his job well.

Unfortunately, most people care only about this line rather than its context. And that context, along with most of his other speeches and sermons, showed that King was not interested in the essence of “being black,” but in the concept of individuality. One other piece sums up his reasons for his belief in individuality, from American Dream sermon

You see, the founding fathers were really influenced by the Bible. The whole concept of the imago dei, as it is expressed in Latin, the “image of God,” is the idea that all men have something within them that God injected. Not that they have substantial unity with God, but that every man has a capacity to have fellowship with God. And this gives him a uniqueness, it gives him worth, it gives him dignity.

Dignity. It is an individual trait. King viewed mankind in the same way as my site looks today–No, not black and white, but colorless. And individuals cannot begin to realize their own potential until they accept what King spoke of. One man who achieved, and was an example King recognized, was Frederick Douglass, whom I also wrote about last January. He lived the life King advocated, pushing himself to excel.

This week, and all next month, hucksters of all colors will remember King as a man who struggled to achieve equal rights for blacks in this country. That sells him short, and ignores the greater goal he espoused. And they ignore it for a reason–He advocated personal responsibility.

****UPDATE****

It is too easy to predict Jackson:

In a passionate speech at Dixon Grove Baptist Church in Jonesboro, south of King’s native Atlanta, Jackson assailed the war in Iraq and insisted the gap between rich and poor in America is widening despite King’s message of peace and equality.

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