Civil War

The Exchange - Civil War

Since my daughters are homeschooled we have been watching the Ken Burn's documentary about the Civil War over the past two weeks as part of our study of history. That documentary is my favorite documentary and I've seen it three of four times since I saw the original broadcast.

But watching it this time with my daughters two things struck me as they never have before. First I was struck by the fact that despite having grown up in the South and lived here most of my life and dearly loving this part of this country of mine I am more certain than ever before that I would have gone north to Yankeedom to fight for the Union in that particular war. My religious and even my political convictions would have probably rendered any other outcome impossible. Certainly very unlikely. Even as a small boy I remember thinking I would never fight for any cause which threatened another man's enslavement. That being said I am still to this day amazed however by how mediocre, even disastrous, was the military leadership of the North in general, and yet how tremendous the political leadership of the North in particular. And yet with the South all things were as reversed. Their military leadership was little short of brilliant and their political leadership hardly worth the mentioning. An Army of giants built upon a government of misshapen and dwarfish, petty ideals. It makes me wonder if this was not as it was always meant to be. The world is as it is because they were as they were. It is hard, very hard, for me to imagine that war, as it was conducted, as it was concluded, not being as surely foreordained as the Birth of Man himself. Indeed it was a kind of Rebirth of America, if not even of Man himself, as a new thing. War is such a very strange thing, that washes away all of our past sins in a bath of blood to cleanse us and make us ready for the sins of tomorrow. It is like a womb of wrong we must begrudgingly inhabit, and yet without it the day of new life never comes. Tomorrow is never born.

The second thing that struck me this time, really struck me - like a hammer blow to my skull - was how much of all we are today was foreshadowed in that war. Battleships, a more true and just Republican democracy, mass communications and transport, concentration camps, warfare against civilian populations and terrorism, lightning attacks, modern espionage, modern cities and industry, guerilla and unconventional warfare, the machine gun, vast leaps forward in all kinds and varieties of technology, political reform, modern civil rights, political corruption and reform, leadership a century ahead of time, leadership centuries behind the times, and the incredible, if not outright suicidal bravery of the American soldier embarked upon that cause he and his leaders feel is just enough to fight for. It is hard to see the American soldier of the Second World War and the modern American combatant in Afghanistan and Iraq and not see him outlined in the Soldiers of the campaigns of the Civil War. That war, like many wars, but that war especially and in particular, just as with the Second World War, was a prophecy and harbinger of things to come which I doubt very seriously that we will escape before the turn of the next century, or beyond. If ever.

If history is a stream which never runs dry then the Civil War was truly the Mississippi of our nation's capital frontier. And an omen for the world to come.
It is like visiting the graveyard of your ancestors only to discover that those ghosts never stayed aground, but wander around you still, their burial more a memory
than a fact.

Anyway, it was a graveyard worth revisiting, and a memory worth the disinterment.




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The Man in the Modern World

Pesharim - The Man in the Modern World

My nephew sent me this. I can't vouch for who wrote it and I'm sure it's probably been floating around the Internet forever, at least in email form. I also can't vouch for the quote by Leno. To tell you the truth I really don't care one way or another as to authenticity.

If a guy makes a good point then I really don't care who the source is. And I thought this made a good point.

When I was a kid I didn't need the government or some lawyer wiping my nose, my face, or my ass. I would have resented it had they tried. Once I was past about four or five years old I didn't need my mother doing that kinda stuff either.

Yet today we make pansies out of our kids cause we won't let them do anything dangerous, or even interesting, all danger and all adventure is regulated right out of their lives.

Is it any wonder that the modern world produces so many Britney Spears and so few Daniel Boones?

Hell, we live in a world neutered by nature, and naturally hostile to the very idea that boys should grow into men or that they should do anything even remotely resembling being a boy on the way to manhood. Come to think of it the modern world don't care much for men period, cause that implies manhood. And what migth that lead to?

This world would rather produce tattooed up pillowbiting, mascara wearing effeminate doodlewobbing pansified jewelry and hair product wearing mush mouthed squirrel rootin grass eatin little pink can't stand upright for anything gender neutral protest squealing squirt blossoms than anybody even posing as a real man, anyday.

I sometimes wonder how it go that way and then television, film, music, popular culture, global warming pansies, modern politicians and scientists, public education, and the internet all remind me. Yet again.

I know one day our descendants are gonna look back on this time as being particularly fairyfied and particularly funny. But I'm getting a head-start on this New Age of Dandies, Pimps, and Ginger Bread Men.

I scoff at you because you make me laugh.

"Oh Brave New World, that hath such feebles in it. Get you while you can, for you cannot make a man."

TO ALL THE KIDSWHO SURVIVED the 1930's 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's !!

First, we survived being born to mothers who smoked and/or drank while they were pregnant. They took aspirin, ate blue cheese dressing, tuna from a can, and didn't get tested for diabetes. Then after that trauma, we were put to sleep on our tummies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking.

As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pick up on a warm day was always a special treat. We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and drank koolade made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING ! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day. And we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes. After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-b oxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no video movies or DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms....... WE HAD FRIENDS and we went outside and found them!

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our 10th birthdays, We made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not put out very many eyes. We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment. Imagine that!! The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law! These generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past 50 years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

If YOU are one of them . . CONGRATULATIONS!

You might want to share this with others who have had the luck to grow up as kids, before the lawyers and the government regulated so much of our lives for our own good. And while you are at it, forward it to your kids so they will know how brave (and lucky) their parents were.

Kind of makes you want to run through the house with scissors, doesn't it?!

The quote of the month is by Jay Leno:

"With hurricanes, tornados, fires out of control, mud slides, flooding, severe thunderstorms tearing up the country from one end to another, and with the threat of bird flu and terrorist attacks, "Are we sure this is a good time to take God out of the Pledge of Allegiance?"

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