A Window on the Religious Left

Fox News' Todd Starnes reported on another glittering example of the religious left's intolerance. Of course, the incident had to occur in California, at Helen Hunt-Jackson Elementary School in Temecula. The offender was a first-grade girl completing her homework assignment by explaining to the class one way in which her family celebrated Christmas. The bearer of the sword, in this case, was the child's teacher, who will never rank right up there with the nation's founders or with those who have fought and died for American freedoms on foreign soil. Predictably, the local school board is mouthing patriotic slogans while circling the wagons around this epitome of what a teacher is not.

The principle, too, Mrs. Ami Paradise, is part of the problem; for, according to Starnes' article, in later allowing the little girl to finish reciting her story in her office, said that the teacher had done the right thing, confirming "there was no way [the young girl] could finish that presentation."

Why?

Well because the little girl was about to quote John 3:16, and "there are specific education codes that protect the school."

Protect the school from what, the love of God?

Educators, as the term is normally understood, they are not.

Sometimes "Champion" is the Wrong Word

Champions?

So I'm looking over my blog, thinking of ways it could be improved (besides getting someone else to write it), and I notice a text box lower down on the right-hand side in which is a Bible quotation from the book of Romans. It's been there since I started this blog but I had forgotten that the text was hyperlinked. So I clicked on it and it took me to a page on the website of the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.

Now, one never quite knows what one will find when clicking around on the Internet, especially with all the pop-up ads these days. So I wasn't too surprised to see an ad for Liberty University Online. What got me was Liberty's motto: 

"Training Champions for Christ Since 1971."

I'm sure Liberty is a fine school but, seriously, champions for Christ?

Have you ever read a New Testament epistle that began with something like, "Paul, a champion of Jesus Christ, unto ...?"

Me neither.

Did you know that "champion" is found in the scriptures only three times, and that each time it is a reference to a Philistine named Goliath?

I'm thinking maybe Liberty, if they are serious about their image as a 'Christian university,' could use a new PR person.

The Buzz on 'Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War'

I have ordered this book, part of my Christmas bonanza, Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War, by Robert M. Gates. I ordered it before all the published reviews of it started to appear in the press. Apparently, the book is causing quite a buzz. Here are some examples ... 

Book review: ‘Duty: Memoirs of a Secretary at War’ by Robert M. Gates, by Greg Jaffe, a reporter for the Washington Post with extensive experience covering the Pentagon. One of the better parts of Jaffe's review is what Secretary Gates had to say about the vice president ...

“I think he has been wrong on nearly every major foreign policy and national security issue over the past four decades,”

White House pushes back against claims made in former SECDEF's book, by USA Today writer, David Jackson, which relies heavily on quotes from a National Security Council spokeswoman named Caitlin Hayden. I've read and listened to a lot of, so called 'pushback' from Barack Obama since 2008, and this USA Today article is pretty weak stuff. On the Biden issue, all we're given is that the president disagrees with Gates' criticism, saying that (quoting Ms. Hayden) -

"From his leadership on the Balkans in the Senate, to his efforts to end the war in Iraq, Joe Biden has been one of the leading statesmen of his time and has helped advance America's leadership in the world. President Obama relies on his good counsel every day,"

Robert Gates, former defense secretary, offers harsh critique of Obama’s leadership in ‘Duty,’ by the famous, Bob Woodward. From Woodward's point of view, 

"It is rare for a former Cabinet member, let alone a defense secretary occupying a central position in the chain of command, to publish such an antagonistic portrait of a sitting president."

And Fox News' Stuart Varney posted a brief synopsis of what seems to be a brewing storm on his Facebook page, saying -

"The Left is now in full, defensive, spin mode. Democrats take their marching orders from the New York Times, and those orders are: attack the bearer of bad news. In fact, the gates' book is devastating to the President's credibility as Commander-in-Chief, as the leader of troops he was committing to battle. His heart wasn't in it. Worse, gates writes that both Hillary Clinton and President Obama considered the surge in Iraq as mainly a political move. They weren't concerned with winning the war. They were concerned with the vote. The politics. I come from a family that for several generations, has served in the military. I am trying to put myself into the shoes of parents here, who saw their sons and daughters volunteer to fight and die, with Barack Obama as Commander-in-Chief. I would not be happy, reading that a defense secretary is calling out the president for putting politics in front of victory."

Megyn Kelly interviews Brit Hume on the subject at the Fox News website.

Commentary Magazine had this to say ...

"Unless the reporters who read advance copies of the book missed something juicier, nothing in Gates’s memoir seems likely to spoil anyone’s presidential aspirations, and I doubt Gates has any interest in doing so anyway. Picking out excerpts and anecdotes can easily skew the perception of the book, especially before the public has had a chance to read it. But the splash being made by these (mostly unsurprising) insider claims is a testament to the credibility Gates has earned over his distinguished career, and suggests the considerable authority his account of these last few years will carry."

With reviews like that out there, I'm looking forward to reading the book.

The Article V Movement

"This is where America stands today: a tyrannical president who is coldly robbing millions of Americans of their healthcare; a renegade judiciary that cannot be relied upon to faithfully follow the word of the Constitution; a power hungry, goose-stepping party that works relentlessly to drag the nation down the road to serfdom; and a castrated opposition party too afraid to fight for their principals."

So writes Mark Levin, popular radio personality and president of the Landmark Legal Foundation.

Unlike so many critics, Levin does more than just identify the problem. He offers a legitimate solution. That's what his latest book, The Liberty Amendments: Restoring the American Republic, is about. The answer, he says, is to be found right in our Constitution, in Article V. In a recent Front Page Magazine article, 

"He explains [in his book] that '[Article V] provides for two methods of amending the Constitution.” In the first method, “two-thirds of Congress passes a proposed amendment and then forwards it to the state legislatures for possible ratification by three-fourths of the states[.]' The second method 'involv[es] the direct application of two-thirds of the state legislatures for a Convention for proposing Amendments, which would thereafter also require a three-fourths ratification vote by the states.' It is the second method he focuses on. 

"This process, it is important to point out, does not provide for a constitutional convention. Instead, it provides a way to offer Amendments to the Constitution over the heads of our inept political ruling class and at the same time preserves enough roadblocks to prevent a runaway caucus. Levin supplements all eleven of his proposed Amendments with the words of the Framers, showing that each of the ideas is in the tradition of their thinking, and offers examples of how these values are at risk by an ever-expanding and oppressive federal leviathan."

Hear Levin talk about this Article V process at his website.

Andy McCarthy on Free Speech and It's Enemies in the State and in the Culture

"Free speech cannot work if the government it is designed to restrain does not respect it. A lawful American government — one that takes seriously its sworn obligation to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution — would not only enforce the First Amendment; it would refrain from engaging in unconstitutional schemes in the first place."

McCarthy always writes a good article. This is one of his best.

Read more ...

The USAF Band Holiday Flash Mob at the National Air and Space Museum 2013

The Charlie Norwood VA Medical Center at Christmas

The parade of leftist intolerance at this time of year, especially this year, it seems, is astonishing. It would almost be humorous if it weren't so serious. The latest in the continuing saga is brought to us by the good folks that run the Charlie Norwood Veterans Administration Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. They're having such a merry Christmas, they couldn't stand for a group of high school students to sing traditional Christmas hymns to the vets.

Read the story ...

Ohio Democrat Proposes Draconian Homeschooling Legislation

"But the Home School Legal Defense Association has a different take, calling it the “worst-ever home school law” and saying Senate Bill 248 “is breathtakingly onerous in its scope.”

“It requires all parents who home school to undergo a social services investigation which would ultimately determine if homeschooling would be permitted. Social workers would have to interview parents and children separately, conduct background checks and determine whether homeschooling is recommended or not. If it is not recommended, parents would have to submit to an ‘intervention’ before further consideration of their request to home school.”

"That intervention would include individual and/or group behavioral counseling and classes on parenting, decision-making, personal or household finance and homeschooling – plus anything else the agency might decide is needed. Agency social workers would decide whether the intervention was successful, or not – and whether the parents will be permitted to homeschool their children."

Read more ... 

Astonishing?

Phil Robertson

The Media Research Center, on their Facebook page, calls the response, over the past 24 hours, to Duck Dynasty's outspoken star, Phil Robertson's firing, "astonishing."

I can understand why they would say something like that. But what should be truly astonishing is the extent to which the bigoted, narrow-minded, holier-than-thou attitude of the religious left, most recently exemplified in the A&E Network's firing of Mr. Robertson, is taken as normal thinking.

Robertson's views are much closer to normal, and thankfully much more prevalent, than the views of those freaks at GLAAD. Just saying.

"Silent Night" is Offensive to the Religious Left

Well, I've got to start somewhere. So, there's this ...

School officials at Kings Park high school on the northern Long Island coast in New York have demonstrated their commitment to academic freedom by forcing their religious beliefs on their students. In the view of these hypocrites, the old Christmas hymn, Silent Night is offensive. Consequently, they have disallowed the hymn to be sung as originally written (John F. Young translated Joseph Mohr's "Stille Nacht" into English).

Offensive phrases include: "Holy Infant" and "Christ the Savior."

Kings Park high school has existed since at least 2007, but only now, as its students prepare for their annual Christmas concert, has its pharisaical leaders felt brave enough to declare--A&E Network-like--that the words to Silent Night must be banned.

"Welcome to the Kings Park Central School District," the district's website proclaims. 

"The Kings Park School District will provide an excellent education for all children. Students will be given the opportunity to develop academically, physically, socially, and emotionally, while learning the necessary skills to communicate effectively. This will be accomplished in a stimulating and challenging environment that maximizes every resource available."

Yeah, right. This will actually be accomplished by the school's censoring of historical texts.

In demonstration of the high school's official's higher learning, we are informed that their "intent was to avoid offending non-Christians." So they end up offending practically the whole audience.

No, their intent was to demonstrate to their students, to their students' parents, and to their community how enlightened they are, how superior they are to mere citizens. Their intent was to shove their own religious views down the throats of their aforementioned audience.

The article concludes by telling us that the school's principal later apologized and that officials promise that something like this "won't happen again."

Don't hold your breath.

Elections have consequences ... even in North Carolina

North Carolina On Cusp Of Passing Worst Voter Suppression Bill In The Nation

Liberals have a unique vocabulary. For example, they describe common sense voter legislation, such as are presently under serious consideration in the Old North State's capitol as "voter suppression" bills. There is much whining and snivelling going on at ThinkProgress.org and in certain state senators' offices.

North Carolina General Assembly
complex in Raleigh, NC

In the North Carolina General Assembly, lawmakers are about to enact legislation requiring voters to prove they are who they say they are. No more same day registration or voting outside of one's district, which plays havoc with the system to the advantage of Democrats. They probably won't even let dead people vote, or convicted felons, or non-citizens.

Man, those Rascally Republicans.

'Bout time!

Military History and Ted Williams

The thought occurred to me that I might want to take a break from military history and read something else. So, at the library, I selected a biography of a famous baseball player, Ted Williams, who played for the Boston Red Sox. Imagine my shock when I opened to the table of contents and found this ...

       Prologue

1     Boston

2     San Diego

3     Minnesota

4     Boston

5     .406

6     World War II

7     Boston 

8     Korea

9     Boston

10   Boston

11   Cooperstown

12   Washington

There it is. Two wars. In a book about the national pastime. I can't get away from it! I'll tell you more about it after I've read the book, but Hall of Famer, Ted Williams took time away from his baseball career twice to serve in the armed forces as a fighter pilot.

Vince Flynn

“[He] saw communism for the sham that it was--a bunch of brutes who seized power in the name of the people, only to repress the very people they claimed to champion.”
― Vince Flynn, American Assassin

From Goodreads.

Patton on the Presidential Election of 1932

" ... I am completely disgusted with both political parties.  I cannot imagine two more spineless candidates, and at a time when the country needs backbone for more than brains.  I am glad I don’t vote as I certainly would not dishonor myself by casting one for either of the straw men we have to choose from.”[1]

Practically fits 2012 to a 'T.'

---

[1] George S. Patton, quoted in Stanley P. Hirshson, General Patton: A Soldier’s Life (New York: Harper Collins, 2002), 206.

On the Petraeus Thing

Not in any particular order, here are few accounts an opinions about what happened ...

A Fox News account by Jennifer Griffin and Adam Housely.

Jed Babbin's point of view.

Not a particularly bright piece by Tom Ricks.

The kind of article Ricks should have written, authored by Spencer Ackerman.

Amity Schlaes writes a great analysis of Petraeus, the man.  (Pity no one ever bothers to analyze the woman in cases like this).

Here's Don Imus' interview of author Vince Flynn, during which the whole Petraeus matter was discussed.



Since it came up in his interview of Vince Flynn, here is an Imus segment at which his reviews the Paula Broadwell interview.



And the latest from Fox News, via Bret Baier's Facebook page.

Petraeus taking the oath of office as the new
Director of Central Intelligence

On the Eve of Election Day 2012

The Romney of my choice

Reagan on the Democrats' Platform

Classic Reagan.

 

Turning Point(s) of the Second World War

George C. Marshall. Was his appointment as Army 
chief of staff the turning point of World War II?

Fighting the Second World War was an immense operation.  Viewing the war as a single event, one must still be cognizant of its many parts and pieces.  These parts and pieces—the war’s battles and campaigns—were the subplots of the overall war.  Each had its own story, its own unique circumstances and challenges, its own turning points.  Like beauty, the construing of any single one of these as the point upon which the entire outcome of the war turned, depends much upon the eyes of the beholder.

A couple of years ago, historian Laurence Rees framed a question for a list of distinguished historians (he doesn’t say how many), asking each of them, “what was the turning point of World War II?”  What is probably not so surprising is that he got a range of answers.  One gentleman, writes Rees, thought the entire war turned upon the Germans’ victory in France in May of 1940.  His argument was that the French and the British had the advantage in terms of terrain and equipment, that attacking with such a disadvantage the Germans assumed a huge amount of risk, and that the outcome of the battle turned upon the superiority of German leadership.  “If the [Allies] had not performed so appallingly in this one fight,” argues this one historian, “then World War II would have ended by the summer of 1940 in an ignominious defeat for the Germans.”[1]

Japan’s surprise attack on Pearl Harbor was the answer to Rees’s question by two historians, Conrad Crane and Akira Iriye. Crane, a former West Point history professor and current director of the U.S. Army Military History Institute, chose Pearl Harbor because that is the point when the conflict became truly a world war.  Mr. Iriye, a Harvard University professor of Japanese descent, chose Pearly Harbor because it “turned out to be such a monumental mistake.”[2]

Six historians, including Robert Dallek and Max Hastings, chose Stalingrad.  "Stalingrad changes everything," said Hastings.  "Once the Germans have been thrown back from Stalingrad, once they've lost that battle, the war was never the same again."[3]  Winston Churchill is said to have exclaimed “we have won!” the minute he learned of what happened at Pearl Harbor.  But another historian, Richard Overy, argued that Stalingrad was “not a turning point necessarily in strategic terms, because a lot more has to be done before the Soviets can be certain of defeating Germany."  But what was made clear there, more than anything else, is that the Germans were vulnerable.[4]

The Impact of Lessons Learned When Really Learned

World War II Soldier

In 1942, in the war in North Africa, the Americans were stung by a serious defeat at Kasserine Pass. In that defeat, their eyes were opening to the realities of war. They received a further sting from a British general’s biting criticism. General Alexander, the 18th Army Group Commander, called his American allies “soft, green, and quite untrained [lacking] the will to fight. My main anxiety,” he said— 

“is the poor fighting value of the Americans. They simply do not know their job as soldiers and this is the case from the highest to the lowest. Perhaps the weakest link of all is the junior leader, who just does not lead, with the result that their men don’t really fight.”[1]

But even as the U.S. soldier was licking his wounds, something was changing. Ruthlessly, Eisenhower began sacking incompetent commanders. Soldiers who could lead started doing so. The Brits, who had been fighting for almost two years, referred to the Americans’ experience as Kasserine as their “being blooded.” There is a line in Rick Atkinson’s history on the war in North Africa that succinctly describes this change. Atkinson’s line was this, that— 

“a great sorting out was under way: the competent from the incompetent, the courageous from the fearful, the lucky from the unlucky. It would happen faster in the American Army than it had in the British. Alexander was not wholly wrong, but he was wrong.”[2]

“The Battle of Kasserine Pass was humiliating.” That’s how one of General George C. Marshall’s biographers described it.[3] It had the effect, however, of galvanizing the American fighting spirit. Eisenhower himself spoke of “lessons learned,” and of how all his soldiers and commanders were actively “seeking from every possible source methods and means perfecting their own battlefield efficiency,” and of how good a teacher combat had been.[4] Kasserine Pass was to the Atlantic theater what Pearl Harbor had been in the Pacific. It was defeat, it didn’t taste very good, and it made GIs want to do something about it. 

Favorite TV Shows of the Past: Superman

When I was in second and third grade, this show was on every afternoon, right after I got home from school. Never missed a show.