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August 15th, 2008
11:27 am - Making a Special Triptych
Last night, I spent a couple of hours making something that I'd like to share with everyone: a triptych.
Now, because this is me, you know this is not going to be just any triptych. No, I created a triptych based on one of my favourite myths, a sort of little portable Pagan shrine or altarpiece.
My triptych is the story of The Original Snub.
( For more, including a picture detailing the items on the panels, read on. . . )
Why, yes: this little triptych will be for auction at Summerland next Saturday.
Not preregistered for Summerland? Get Pre-Registered! Today is the last day to pre-register!
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/smile.gif) amused
Current Music: "Smart Woman (In a Real Short Skirt)", -JB
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July 7th, 2008
03:44 pm - Jimmy Buffett, on World Peace
A lot of people like to post lyrics to songs. I can't read them very well (long story, having to do with blunt-force trauma to the head), so I generally skip them.
As I was listening to the music today, though, an old Buffett piece came up. It's called "Today's Message," and you can find it on Feeding Frenzy. It's done, of course, in a sermon-style (with backups and the audience singing "hallelujah's" and "amen's" in the background). For reference, this album was released in 1990, so that gives some historical perspective. Here's my favourite section:
"And world peace? I've got an answer for world peace. We take the money that it'd cost us to build just one B-1 bomber, you know that one that doesn't work? We change it into five dollar bills. We put all of this money into bags and we fly over the Atlantic Ocean, past Europe (because they're getting their shit together anyway). We drop this money on the Russian people. All those little tiny pictures of Abraham Lincoln come tumblin' down out of the sky.
I want them to feel those sawbucks in their hands. You know how your money feels when you accidentally leave it in your blue jeans and you take it out and it's all warm and soft, oooh!
Well we let those Russian people hang on to that money for about a week and then we fly back over there. We fill our airplanes full of mail order catalogs from L.L. Bean. From up in Columbus, Sporty's Pilot Shop. And Victoria's Secret!
The Russian people have this money in their hand, the catalogs come down. They look at those pictures on the opening pages of the Victoria's Secret catalog. (Not back in the outdoor section: you know what I'm talking about, right?)
They got the money, they got the catalogs: they're going to get the idea. They send all the money back to us to buy the stuff. We have full employment. There's world peace, and the Russians have crotch-less underwear through the twenty-first century!"
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Music: "Coconut Telegraph", -JB
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June 5th, 2008
09:24 am - Of Army Men Who Cannot Stand
I have an army man who can't stand. He's not one of the cheap plastic army men (I have plenty of those, truth be told, most of whom cannot stand), but rather a little detailed reproduction soldier on a 1:32 scale.
And if something has a "scale," you know it's a quality reproduction.
Currently, he's leaning against a mobile anti-aircraft vehicle (from a war his grandfather probably fought in, rather than contemporary to his own equipment: I haven't bought an M1A1 yet for this infantry group). This is interesting, because he's posed to be running, not leaning. But it's either that or deal with him looking gut-shot instead of active.
And really, who wants a figurine of a First Marine Division soldier that looks like he's gut shot and lying on the ground? It's not like I have a Corpsman to pose next to him.
This is a minor issue, really, but one that bothers me for some reason. I could glue him down, or find some other creative way of securing him, but what I really want is for him to stand on his own.
It's odd, and it's childish, but hey: I may grow older, but I don't expect to ever grow up.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/angry.gif) aggravated
Current Music: "Off to See the Lizard", -JB
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October 25th, 2007
09:46 am - Walking the Path Again: Virtues (courage)
There is a page about lost, stolen, or destroyed Victoria Cross medals (the UK's equivalent to the Congressional Medal of Honor). One in particular caught my eye:
"The loss of Samuel Harvey's Victoria Cross in the 1920s are variously believed to be: swapped for beer in a pub; lost in a wood near Ipswich whilst returning home from a pub; or possibly Harvey sold his Victoria Cross privately. There have been no sightings of the VC since."
I guess I'd rather swap mine for a beer than have my kids loose it in a field while playing "soldiers," like Duncan Home's VC was. . .
I was re-reading Medal of Honor and VC citations last night as I was working on my Nine Virtues essays, hoping to get a better feel for the virtue of "courage." Courage, of course, is different now than it was. The inscription on the monument to Periclean citizen-warriors at Yale University sums up our modern idea of courage best, I think: "Courage disdains fame, and wins it."
And yet, the ancient world (particularly the IE world) was very strongly centered on the immortality of fame. I might almost be willing to argue that the IE example is best described as, "Courage wins fame, and revels in it."
It is an interesting issue for me to consider. I love re-doing my Dedicant Path documentation, particularly since I did my work before the change in requirements in 2003/2004.
Every time I sit down to re-work my DP, I find that I am learning more from the process. It's an excellent Path for those who take it seriously: easy enough that if you want a hoop to jump through, you can use it as that; but if you're serious about the work, and you want to gain deeply from it, the DP can be as challenging and rewarding as you want it to be.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: working
Current Music: "No Woman, No Cry", -JB
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July 13th, 2007
08:36 am - Badgers?
UK military spokesman Major Mike Shearer said: "We can categorically state that we have not released man-eating badgers into the area."
And honestly, nothing more needs to be said.
(thanks to ![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tlachtga for that gem. . .
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "The Great Filling Station Holdup", -JB
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July 2nd, 2007
01:53 pm - Wondering Why We Ever Go Home: Greece, 2007
Journal Entry 11
04/12/07
Athens War Museum
sorry: this particular entry was just me drawing a horse-drawn pillbox
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "We Are The People Our Parents Warned Us About", -JB
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May 22nd, 2007
10:11 am - Wondering Why We Ever Go Home: Greece, 2007
Journal Entry 7
04/10/07
1:20 PM
Thermopylae
 You inspire me.
I remember you.
I know your story.
Sleep in blessed rest.
Your duty is done.
I stood on the burial mound where two hundred and ninety-eight Spartans (and many other Greeks, forgotten in time and multi-million dollar films) lie buried, surveying the landscape.
A lot has changed in 2,500 years: the sea is now over a mile from the Hot Gates, and a road runs a bare 30 meters from the edge of the wall that once ended in the Aegean.
But the topography is unmistakable.
The mountains to the left are obviously impassable, and it is obvious why the God-King Xerxes himself felt so powerless against them that he did not force his army to march over them before the traitor revealed the trail.
Looking out across the same view the Greeks must have seen, it is easy to understand why this pass seemed like an ideal place to meet the Persians (and years later the Romans and the Germans). To men as tough as the Spartans, trained from age 7 (or before), this was obviously the best place to kill the troops of the Eastern God-Emperor: there was nowhere for the enemy to hide.
View from the burial mound
to the north and west along the coast
The modern site does not have many maps: initially, we could find none. From the top of the Greek burial-mound, though, there was a trail. Hoping to find the old wall, I started down it with zylch.
While we could no wall (only a flower truly caught my eye), we did get a startling view of the mountains as they must have looked so many years ago: the road and the roofs of houses were gone from our sight, and even the sound of traffic was dampened.
We later discovered that we had traveled for a short time on the traitorous goat path, left ingloriously undefended by the Phoicans.
When we returned to the burial mound, I was disappointed to have not found the wall. Still, I look some time to offer and pray to the dead buried beneath me.
And on my descent, there it was.
In what appeared to be a construction site, 100 meters from the base of the mound, I saw the wall. As I wondered how I could possibly have walked by it, I pointed it out with excitement to zylch, and convinced her to come with me.
I came up to it, stood on it, and looked around it. The wall is obviously reconstructed, but its position is obviously correct, as are its formation and size.
Here stood the men who I have held in awe and reverence for twelve years. Here they brushed out their long hair, singing as they were surrounded by certain death. Here, they fought over the body of a king descended from Herakles, fated to die that Sparta may live. Here, at this wall, Western warfare was defined.
Here, the Spartans were obedient to their laws.
And now, we had to go. Next stop: the oracle that doomed either a city or one of her kings. Delphi.
The Phocian Wall
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: chipper
Current Music: "Wonder Why We Ever Go Home", -JB
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March 29th, 2007
06:31 pm - Going back to an old lover. . .
 I find it interesting that, according to everyone I've spoken to in the military, Bernard Fall's Street Without Joy is no longer read in either OCS or ROTC courses. It was required reading in my Vietnam War class, and I picked it up again because I just didn't have the time to really absorb it the first time through.
And all I can say is, "Wow."
I understand better now, my father's constant insistence that this Iraq war is nothing like Vietnam. He's completely right. Reading about the destruction of Groupement Mobile No. 100 (GM 100) alone shows the relief sharply. (Of course, this doesn't make Iraq right, but I expect that comparisons to Vietnam are going to bug me worse than Sept. 11th's comparisons to Pearl Harbor.) Road 19, Mang Yang Pass, and Chu-Dreh Pass are like nothing we have seen in Iraq.
When we became involved in engagement in Vietnam, after the French left, Street Without Joy was required reading. It described the French debacle perfectly, explaining why better armoured and armed troops were at a serious disadvantage to an army that walked everywhere, carried everything on its back, and had few outside sources of supply. "The picture he draws is not a pleasant one," the foreward to the book reads. "He presents for critical inspection two widely divergent military philosophies, one built on the mobility of the individual soldier, the other resting on the mobility of armies." And there was the central, pivotal point that Fall makes.
Had Fall not died in 1967, victim of a Vietcong explosive on the Street Without Joy, I wonder what he would have said about the fall of Saigon in 1975.
I know it would not have been kind, regarding our policies.
But I find myself happy to have picked this book up. I've been in religious studies, a love of mine that has come from my need and want to understand what I'm doing as a priest, too long. I needed to get back to my roots, my love of military history, a love long forgotten and gathering dust on the shelves.
It is, of course, just a past love, one that will return to the shelves soon in favour of more religious studies work. But for now, I needed it.
Now, the object is to finish the last 150 pages of this book before next Thursday, so I can take something lighter and easier to carry to Greece.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/thinking.gif) contemplative
Current Music: "Live is Just a Tire Swing", -JB
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March 12th, 2007
08:15 am - Thermopylae, the Delphic Oracle, and Other Tidbits
Because of the popularity of the movie 300 and the fact that I've now seen it twice and been amused by how Frank Miller represented the history (and, admittedly, appreciated the revalorizing of the myth of Thermopylae), I figured that I would provide the three Delphic oracles that particularly focus on the situation at the Hot Gates. (I just happen to have the collected Oracles on my desk):
"People of Sparta, either your city is destroyed by the Persians or it is not, and Lakedaimon will mourn a dead king of the Haraklid line. For the might of bulls and lions will not stay the enemy in battle; he has Zeus' might. And I say that he will not stop until he has destroyed one of these two." -Q152, Oracle of Delphi to the Spartans, regarding the Persian invasion (481/480 BC) [Herodotus, 7.220.3-4]
"Do not stay; fly to the ends of the earth, leaving your houses and city. For the whole body is unsound; nothing is left. Fire and war destroy it. Many fortresses will be destroyed, not yours alone. Many temples will burn, and blood drips upon their roofs, presaging inevitable evil. Leave the adyton and be ready for woes." -Q146, Oracle of Delphi to the Athenians, regarding the Persian invasion of the Hellas (481/480 BC)
"Pallas cannot appease Zeus with her many prayers. But I shall tell you this immovable decree: all Attica will be taken, but Zeus grants Athena a wooden wall that shall alone be untaken and will help you and your children. Do not await the onset of cavalry and infantry from the continent at your ease, but turn about and leave. You will face them sometime again. O divine Salamis, you will lose many children of men either at sowing time or at harvest." -Q147, Oracle of Delphi to the Athenians, regarding Oracle Q146 (481/480 BC)¹ Other items of possible interest, regarding the battle itself:
( Quotes and anecdotes; no spoilers but a bit of history )
¹ - Source: Fonternrose, Joseph. The Delphic Oracle: Its responses and Operations With a Catalogue of Responses. University of California Press. 1981
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Nautical Wheelers", -JB
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December 7th, 2006
01:02 pm - Paying the dues and reading about infantry warfare
Crap: I have to re-buy the Pals book now. He added a theorist.
Eight Theories on Religion
What used to be "Seven Theories on Religion" is now "Eight Theories on Religion". Personally, I liked the flow to the title better when there were only seven theorists, but whatever, right? I found out about the change when updating my Amazon.com wishlist this morning. (Figured if I posted it yesterday, I should bring it up to date.)
I paid my OSU parking fine today. $25 they charged me for being at an expired meter just before I left for Walking With Fire this year. I consider it the cost of doing research, because the OSU Center for Epigraphy Studies was so helpful. They even let me make several hundred copies at no charge, so escaping with only a $25 parking fine is well worth it, I think.
I spent some time this morning remembering, which is what one is supposed to do today.
I have recently been re-reading The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece by Victor Davis Hanson, a man I heard speak about the battle of Delium, one of the most horrific battles in history and the first recorded example of fratricide in battle. I still shudder thinking about his description of the Athenian realization that they were killing each other.
The thing about Hanson's book (and others like it) is that it does not focus on strategy or tactics, but on what the individual experienced: why he fought, how tactics and strategy influenced the experience of battle, and the way these things focused themselves directly into theory of war that the west embraced and still holds as the highest form of combat.
It's books like this that got me into military history. Well, books like this and Stan Czaplak, but that's a whole other story.
Current Location: South
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "West Nashville Grand Ballroom Gown", -JB
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September 11th, 2006
02:15 pm - "How will you celebrate this holiday?"
The Buffett Oracle today informed me:
52. Better break out your thinkin' cap and your old dunce cone. This morning, when I woke up, the radio alarm was, of course, playing the morning DJ on the station I wake up to. As I drifted in and out of consciousness for a half hour, I caught the radio chatter about the fifth anniversary of September 11th, and found myself wondering:
"How will you celebrate this holiday?"
It seemed like a strange question to ask: how does one "celebrate" this holiday? How will it be celebrated in the future, when the "sting" has worn off, when terror is "defeated," as Bush has informed us it will be ("But the only way to defeat terrorism as a threat to our way of life is to stop it, eliminate it, and destroy it where it grows")? Make no mistake: it is a holiday. President Bush declared it such: today is Patriot Day.
I meant to ask, "How will you remember the events of five years ago?" But that is not the question I found truly interesting and deeply personal.
In a proclamation on September 4, 2003, President Bush said, "I call upon the people of the United States to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities." Rememberance services and candlelight vigils are indicated as "appropriate," as is flying the flag at half-staff (if you aren't flying a flag today, you're in violation, FYI).
But still, what will this holiday become? How will it be celebrated?
Will we one day celebrate September 11th with fireworks? John Adams predicted that July 2, the day the Resolution of Independence was voted on, would be forever remembered with fireworks. ("The Second Day of July 1776 will be the most memorable Epocha, in the History of America. . . . It ought to be solemnized with Pomp and Parade, with Shews, Games, Sports, Guns, Bells, Bonfires, and Illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this Time forward forever more.") He was mostly right: July 4th is.
But fireworks seem almost disrespectful: the explosions of September 11 were not explosions of freedom, but explosions of terror. If the proclamation of President Bush is any indication, we are to sit in our homes and remember the day somberly. Or, if we look at it from another angle, we are to cower within our homes, remembering the day fearfully.
But Bush also indicated that we were embarking on an age of liberty, that "this will not be an age of terror; this will be an age of liberty, here and across the world." September 11th, it seems, ushered in a new age of liberty and democracy. I will not force you to listen to my out-loud wondering about where that liberty and democracy are to be found with the Patriot Act in force.
But today, as I listened in my half-asleep stupor, I realized what September 11th really was: a media gimmick. I have been hearing about the "special rememberance" editions of radio morning shows, where clips from various news stories and commentators will be played, for almost a week. September 11th is a way to garner listeners, to sway them to your station and your morning show, and a time to say things that perhaps you can't get away with on other days.
This morning, I was told that I "had to be angry," that I had a right to hate. "We have to get him," I was told, informed that getting Osama would somehow make the world right, make it a happy-go-lucky pre-9/11 world.
The modifier "terrorist" (as regards Sept. 11) is now a casualty of this war. No longer is this the "worst terrorist attack on US soil." It is now the "worst attack on US soil." There is no longer need to justify that, though: the comparisons to Pearl Harbor have stopped as well. This is now officially a bigger, badder attack. Historians will teach it that way to our children, too, much as they teach that Gettysburg was the turning point in the Civil War and that the Tet Offensive was the turning point in the Vietnam War.
But still the question remains: How will you celebrate this holiday?
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/confused.gif) curious
Current Music: "Someone I Used to Love", -JB
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June 21st, 2006
08:50 am - WWF, a lesson in pseudo-history, and some real history
 A couple of things that came up at Walking With Fire ought to be noted.
We went to America's Stonehenge (biggest fraud ever!) one day, and there was a large map on the wall about all the "explorers" who have been sent around the world. A couple caught our eye: Prince Madoc, a Welshman who discovered America in 1170 and settled in Kentucky; and Sir Henry Sinclair, a Templar Knight who discovered Nova Scotia in 1397.
All we had when looking at the maps were the names, so I wrote them down in hopes of eventually figuring out who they were. And wouldn't you know it, the Internet has come through again.
Also, we came across a memorial to Captain James Mugford in Marblehead, who was killed on May 17, 1776. His grave was at the top of Old Burial Hill, on a monument that describes his ship, the Franklin (60 tons and four 4-pound guns), and the capture of the HMS Hope, a 300 ton, 10 gun ship. The Hope was one of the most valuable prizes of the revolution, amounting to about $1,349,343.15 in prize money.
Captain Mugford had been pressed into service on a British frigate, where he learned of the Hope's arrival and destination. His wife managed to get him released from his impressment by indicating that they were only recently married and that she needed the support. He immediately boarded a fishing ship called the Franklin, outfitted the ship for battle, and got his own crew (he had not received an actual commission at this point, only applied for it, which makes him technically a pirate, and the prize money was never properly paid out).
When the Hope appeared, he sailed alongside her, still pretending to be a fishing boat. He then grappled the English ship, called his crew from below decks, and boarded her. Then he sailed off to Boston with her.
All this was done within sight of the British fleet anchroed at Nantasket Roads.
The siezure of the powder on the Hope also prevented the British, at Nantasket Roads, from opposing Washington's entry to Boston in March 1776 (the British had evacuated, and were partially pending the supply of powder from the ship to counterattack). Washington also had only nine rounds of powder to each man at this point, and could never have repelled the British, had they attacked.
Two days after the siezure, the Franklin was sailing through Sherley Gut alongside the USS Lady Washington and was attacked by a number of British ships (about 100 or so men in 12 or 13 ships, compared to the 21 men on the Franklin and 7 men on the Lady Washington). Mugford was mortally wounded, the only loss of life on the American side, his last words being an answer to the question, "Are you wounded?"
"Yes, but don’t let the enemy know the situation, and if I die act as if I were alive and am still commanding."
The Franklin escaped, and Mugford was buried with full military honours on Old Burial Hill.
A good description can be found about half-way down this page, utilizing primary sources to describe the battle in which Mugford lost his life (search on "May 17" to find the specific spot). Apparently, before he died, Mugford personally cut off the hands of about 5 pirates trying to board.
A couple of sources.
Current Location: Southeast of Disorder
Current Mood: ![[mood icon]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/mood/classic/sad.gif) exhausted
Current Music: "Everybody's Talkin'", -JB
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December 19th, 2005
02:19 pm - And the President speaks. . .
I watched the Prez speak last night.
I have to say that I have never, ever seen anyone so insistent that we are not losing a war.
And all I wanted to do was watch Desperate Housewives.
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Blue Heaven Rendezvous", -JB
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December 12th, 2005
09:59 am - A busy weekend, war, wildlife relocation, and a photo
Oh, a busy freakin' weekend it was, but I got a lot of things done. The tree is up, my new computer is fixed (in this case, "new" = "hand me down"), and my walk and driveway are clear of snow. I went to the Zoo and checked out the lights.
Last night, around 2 AM, I relocated some impressively-legged wildlife to the great outdoors. She did not take kindly to the sudden change in temperature.
I didn't get time to call the people I wanted to, namely romandruid and aislinggheal. This annoys me, because I was really hoping to solve the time/location issue, though a 6:30 PM start time at aislinggheal's house sounds like it's a go on her end, at least.
While listening to the classic song, War, I realized that war is the one thing that can really seperate humans from every other living thing on this planet. I can't think of anything else that is unique to humans.
And this morning I looked at my LJ to find a lovely picture that should come with my next WWF update. Thank you, shizukagozen. Some of you have already seen it, but you'll get to see it again.
I admit to feeling a bit out-of-sorts recently. That has, generally, been changing. And it will continue to change, I think. The North Wind licked my face this weekend.
There's a Golden Delicious Apple on my desk, awaiting my pleasure. It may sound a bit dirty to put it like that, but if you knew what went through my mind as I ate one, you'd think that was tame.
I won't be responding to the comments already left on my last entry. I think I said everything I needed to in the entry itself. While I like to make my journal a conversation, I don't think that there's much conversation left on that one. I've said my peace.
Poll #632115 Poll 13: What would you do for a Chronarchy Bar?
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: All, participants: 4I'm updating my webpage, target date is currently 12/17/05. What would you like to see? Are there sections you'd like updated? Any suggestions?
Current Mood: amused
Current Music: "Twelve Volt Man", -JB
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