Turks and Kurds and Us

We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion. Our constitution was made for a moral and religious people... it is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.--John Adams


Astros behind. I never thought they would be scored on.
Mom really cut her hand.

The more freedom we have, the more there will be very feminine and masculine subcultures too, and this might explain a great deal of recent political developments — in particular the campus identity politics movement and the alt-right. The former is heavily female, while the latter is overwhelmingly male — in fact, not just male, but populated by men who seem to have difficulties with women…

Single women tend to be politically very liberal, voting for the Democrats in huge numbers, while in Britain Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn has overwhelming support among young women, the vast majority of whom are unmarried. Generally speaking, the culture wars are far more intense between women because women have to make more sacrifices — whether children or career — and this inevitably influences their worldview. Political liberalism, with its strong relationship between the state and the individual, favors single women, while conservatism, with its emphasis on monogamy and support for the nuclear family, speaks to their married equivalents. And while married men with children are also more conservative than single ones, the difference is not as pronounced.

So what happens when fewer people get married and, indeed, spend time with the opposite sex? Gender-segregated politics it seems.--Ed West

 Pretty funny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=616&v=QwqnRYPcrl0

On September 19, the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (ISAS), a 36-year-old organization of academics specializing in the history, culture, and literature of England before the Norman Conquest, hastily voted to change its name. Indeed, the vote was so hasty that the organization had no idea what its new name ought to be (it is soliciting suggestions from members). Nonetheless, the majority of its 600-odd members were certain of one thing: they no longer wanted to be associated with the words “Anglo-Saxon.”

A report alleges that Auston Matthews and a group of friends attempted to open a car door as a security officer sat inside completing paperwork at 2 a.m. local time. This led to a confrontation between Matthews' group and the guard during which Matthews allegedly pulled down his pants.

In 1983 on this day,  a suicide bomber drove a truck filled with 2,000 pounds of explosives into a U.S. Marine Corps barracks at the Beirut International Airport. The explosion killed 220 Marines, 18 sailors and three soldiers. A few minutes after that bomb went off, a second bomber drove into the basement of the nearby French paratroopers’ barracks, killing 58 more people. Four months after the bombing, American forces left Lebanon without retaliating.


              Turks and Kurds and Us

So we have now declared we are pulling back in Syria--not bringing guys home, mind you, just letting the Turks and the Russians loose a little in Syria by moving 50 guys around. This is going to be hard on our old friends, the Kurds. The Turks are already moving against them.

But of course, Turkey is our ally, too. Just like the Kurds. But Turkey is NATO. NATO! Turkey hosts American nuclear weapons. It has a huge number of armed military personnel and they are dangerous. Who do we owe more to? And if we have conflicting loyalties, how do we bridge them?

In 2012, then–secretary of state Hillary Clinton said that Americans were indebted to their Turkish allies and would not allow Syria to become a haven for Kurdish terrorists. Read that again. If abandoning the Kurds is bad for American credibility among our allies today, why wasn’t our similar abandonment in the 2012 promises to Turkey equally undermining? 

For that matter, what about the American vaunted "Line in the sand" in Syria? How about that for undermining credibility?

Really, isn't this shameless mendacious behavior just part and parcel of the disreputable practice of politics and how America has forfeited on its revolutionary promise?  

The Penultimate Vice

Sing, goddess, the anger of Peleus’ son Achilleus
and its devastation, which put pains thousandfold upon the Achaians,
hurled in their multitudes to the house of Hades strong souls
of heroes, but gave their bodies to be the delicate feasting
of dogs, of all birds, and the will of Zeus was accomplished
since that time when first there stood in division of conflict
Atreus’ son the lord of men and brilliant Achilleus. . . .

Translated by Richmond Lattimore (1951)

Anger be now your song, immortal one,
Akhilleus’ anger, doomed and ruinous,
that caused the Akhaians loss on bitter loss
and crowded brave souls into the undergloom,
leaving so many dead men — carrion
for dogs and birds; and the will of Zeus was done.
           Begin it when the two men first contending
           broke with one another —
                                         the Lord Marshal
           Agamémnon, Atreus’ son, and Prince Akhilleus. . . .

Translated by Robert Fitzgerald (1974)

---

Rage — Goddess, sing the rage of Peleus’ son Achilles,
murderous, doomed, that cost the Achaeans countless losses,
hurling down to the House of Death so many sturdy souls,
great fighters’ souls, but made their bodies carrion,
feasts for the dogs and birds,
and the will of Zeus was moving toward its end.
Begin, Muse, when the two first broke and clashed,
Agamemnon lord of men and brilliant Achilles. . . .

Translated by Robert Fagles (1990) 

These are three translations, generally regarded as the best, of the first line of The Iliad, the great epic poem of Homer, one of the foundations of Western Art. The first line in epics of this type traditionally encapsulates the nature of the whole poem, as this line does. But these three are quite different in emphasis, Fagles, the more modern, highlights "rage" as the focus in the story, Fitzgerald "anger",  where Lattimore is more deferential with an invocation to the goddess as the stimulus of this story but then blames anger also. There is more than a qualitative difference in the words "anger and"rage." "Rage" is "anger" uncontrolled; "rage" possesses, "anger" torments. "Rage is "anger" in action.

The terrible Achilles, possessed as he is by "rage", destroys his own friends and countrymen. "Anger," being more self-contained, cuts a narrower swath and damages the self and those nearby, usually family, has less of an impact when compared to rage and seems an inferior choice.

So the great hero of the Iliad is a pawn to his rage and, in the first great epic in the Western canon, rage is elevated to the most prominent place among the destroyers of personality and life--even before "hubris," the Christian's "pride," that dooms Lucifer in the Old Testament. More important, one's fate and that of one's surroundings are not written in the stars but in our hearts.

The Source of Resolutions

Pale Gas is the mnemonic for the seven deadly sins (vices): pride, avarice, lust, envy, greed, anger and sloth. These were originally listed by Pope St. Gregory the Great but, of course, redefined by Aquinas who felt they were rather vices which led to sin. It is a shame that lust so dominates our cultural prohibitions because the other vices are vibrating and alive. They all deserve some thought. And these old thinkers thought about them so well.

Five are of the "inordinate desire" variety: "For one's own excellence"--pride (Aquinas changed this to "vainglory", the desire for the recognition of one's own excellence), of "possession or riches"--avarice, "sexual pleasure"--the old reliable lust, "of food and drink"--gluttony, "for revenge"--anger (vs. the righteous anger of seeking justice.)

Anger, the Achilles killer, is surprising as only revenge, an interesting sharpened point. And the church fathers struggled over pride and where it fell among fulfillment, ambition and achievement which explains St. Thomas' modification away from excellence and into the recognition of same. Envy is defined as "sadness on account of the goods possessed by others." Envy is sadness! And sloth is "sorrow in the face of spiritual good", not just laziness but "a malady of the will which causes us to neglect our duties." (Sheen, Fulton not Martin) Sloth is more than slobbering weakness or self indulgence, at its core is sorrow! Therapists take note.

The world is the lesser for the absence of these thinkers, high-minded, confident and clear. And it misses the debate on these qualities--or lack thereof. There is a frisson in just the reading of them.

Tension, drama, fullness are all impossible without confines, without a fixed point, without the right of judgment.

American Airlines

We demand a lot of airlines; safety is a lot. There is no margin, no 96% safe. Air travel is an all-or-nothing event.
But it is actually not, any more than surgery is. One can have a great appendectomy, survive and do well. That does not allow the surgeon to place  misery, insincerity and down right meanness in the greater context of the surgical success. But that is exactly what these airlines do.
Last weekend my wife flew in to Miami to connect to Key West. The flight left on time but landed late and the connection the airline booked was missed. That left her and several others from her flight in a quandary. They were soon joined by others from other late flights. (Included was a couple with two infants.) It was late--after ten--and there were no facilities available. No food. No drink. And no transportation. Just ten to fifteen people of various ages--infants included--trapped in front of an American Airlines desk presided over by one woman available to process the marooned victims and reschedule them for the next day's flights. What then evolved was an individual and precise explanation to each victim as to why the airline had no responsibility for anything the victims would undergo. Had they been trapped beneath border guard searchlights they would have been handled in a more charitable manner.
The coup de grâce was delivered by the attendant when her shift was up and it was time for her to shuck the inconvenience the travelers created for her. She handed out vouchers to each victim for transportation and lodging and she left. Tellingly she looked away as she did in a surprising moment of guilt: The vouchers turned out to be dummies--there was nothing at the end of the phone line.
The survivors were left to sleep on the floor.
It is easy for the racist cabby to say, "Stop complaining. I got you here." But a civilized society demands more. It--we--demand some personal involvement, some personal responsibility for the well-being of others. That is how civilized people behave and it should be second nature in us. When it is not, when some huge aberration of total disinterest to the wellbeing of others becomes a routine element in a people or group, or becomes formally institutionalized in some legalistic checklist, the people involved deserve a lot more than disrespect in return.

Sunday Sermon: Deadly Sins or Different Values

Pale Gas is the mnemonic for the seven deadly sins (vices): pride, avarice, lust, envy, greed, anger and sloth. These were originally listed by Pope St. Gregory the Great but, of course, redefined by Aquinas who felt they were rather vices which led to sin. It is a shame that lust so dominates our cultural prohibitions because the other vices are vibrating and alive. They all deserve some thought. And these old thinkers thought about them so well.

Five are of the "inordinate desire" variety: "For one's own excellence"--pride (Aquinas changed this to "vainglory", the desire for the recognition of one's own excellence), of "possession or riches"--avarice, "sexual pleasure"--the old reliable lust, "of food and drink"--gluttony, "for revenge"--anger (vs. the righteous anger of seeking justice.)

Anger, the Achilles killer, is surprising as only revenge, an interesting sharpened point. And the church fathers struggled over pride and where it fell among fulfillment, ambition and achievement which explains St. Thomas' modification away from excellence and into the recognition of same. Envy is defined as "sadness on account of the goods possessed by others." Envy is sadness! And sloth is "sorrow in the face of spiritual good", not just laziness but "a malady of the will which causes us to neglect our duties." (Sheen, Fulton not Martin) Sloth is more than slobbering weakness or self indulgence, at its core is sorrow! Therapists take note.

The world is the lesser for the absence of these thinkers, high-minded, confident and clear. And it misses the debate on these qualities--or lack thereof. There is a frisson in just the reading of them.

Tension, drama, fullness are all impossible without confines, without a fixed point, without the right of judgment.