Screw Journalism

The last time I paid attention to the White House Correspondents Dinner was in the 1990's when radio host Don Imus was the keynote speaker.

It did not go well:

I used to love Imus. That's the subject of another post.

Last night we had the spectacle of the White House Correspondents Dinner. Nerd Prom they call it now.

Being a child of the 80's we don't know when 'nerd' became a superlative. We suppose it was inevitable. We live in Bill Gates' world after all and if he and Waz and Jobs and company aren't nerds...

So now the WHCD is called 'nerd prom'.

It's enraging. The people attending this thing weren't the nerds back in the day. These were the smart kids, the preps. These were the kids who took all the honors classes, who used to speak French in the lunchroom, who got the good reco from the teachers. They looked good, had nice close and drove nice cars.

God I hated them.

The real nerds maybe had a table of their own in the corner, if they were lucky. More likely the nerd was sitting by himself, reading Issac Asimov and hoping no one noticed him.

Last night we saw a room full of Huma Abedin's [again with this?-ed].

President Trump completely outflanked these people last night by holding his own rally. Good for him. The media even had the gall to criticize Trump for holding a competing even that journalists would have to cover.

President Trump's war against the media continues. And he is winning.

The Second Battle of Berkeley

Here's the best video we've found showing the Second Battle of Berkeley in its entirety.

Basically you have two rival forces gathering in Martin Luther King Park, here:

Based Stick Man, Proud Boys,  and other Patriot forces seem to be outnumbered by Antifa.

The action is taking place on the north side of the park on Center Street, where all the cars are parked in this photo. Below is the best comprehensive video:

There's a lot of shouting, a few scuffles, but generally things are pretty cool, at least for this kind of planned, control riot. Based Stickman and his people have shown up in force and ready for action. They wear an amusing assortment of batting helmets. motorcycle helmets, army helmets, sun glasses, football equipment, and it would seem any other protective gear that was hand. These are large, meat eating men, burly. The kind who loved wrestling and tackle football when they were kids.

One gets the sense that seeing this assemblage, Antifa understands that it has screwed up.

Gradually the two crowds move east toward the end of the park and the intersection of Center and St Milvia Street. At his point Antifa throws several smoke bombs into the crowd but this only blows back and them in two ways. The office building in the far right corner of the screen cap below, mars the initial point of contact.

Watch that video very closely. Based Stickman's Patriot forces are well organized and led. They present a solid line and are told 'Hold the Line'!. Then all hell breaks lose and Antifa is routed down Center Street.

We can see Patriot forces beating the hell out of at least half a dozen Antifa. Most observers concentrate on the drubbing Moldylocks took (you wanted equality, you got it, bitch), but watch Red Shirt Man. He's a terror. Others have the presence of mind to steal Antifa flags. There are men on scene shouting 'Enough! Enough!' and 'Kill!" as in 'Kill the fight'. Patriot forces know exactly how far to go.

Patriot forces then reform and push Antifa down to Shattuck Street, 250 yards from the original point of contact.

Based Victory

Yesterday's rally at Berkeley was a tremendous victory for free speech, even bigger than the right's victory at the Battle Of Berkeley two weeks before:

Nothing so dramatic happened yesterday.

This time Proud Boys, etc marched to the center of enemy territory and held their rally.

That's the first victory.

They forced Berkeley Police to come out and keep the peace.

That's the second victory.

Antifa did shit.

That's the third victory.

Just a huge day. Yuuge

Friday Updates

Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom, 60,000 words and we're working on the Iraq 2003 chapter.

The Austrian Painter, five days 5,000 words, just as we planned. Its coming along well.

Nothing on Pershing in Command, but we feel a sense of resolve welling up within our breast.

We press onward, ever onward. As failed media fiend Dan Rather said, 'Courage!'

Tiger's Tail Part One, Unknown Unknowns

Before the war began certain parameters were understood by American and South Korean planners. Geography necessitated that the North Korean offensive concentrate in the western part of South Korea on both banks of the Han River, on the Han River plain.

Both sides also understood that the contest at its most basic would be North Korean mass against American time. That is, could North Korean mass win the battle before American reinforcements arrived?

So no one was surprised when two of North Korea's four first echelon armies rolled across the border and onto the Han River plain.

This put a dozen North Korean divisions against the American 2nd Infantry Division and South Korean forces. These were of course hammered by American and South or Korean air assets which attained air superiority the moment the war began.

These were the last known-knowns of the war.

Kim was expected to concentrate his massive arsenal of artillery on Seoul, Instead. these fell upon the 1st Brigade of the 2nd Infantry Division, which was unprepared for the onslaught and pinned. The brigade, under siege within the first six hours of the war, hunkered down and waited for the 2nd and 3rd Brigades (deployed from Ft. Lewis in the lead up to the crisis), to move up.

No one expected what happened next. Advancing north both brigades were subjected to bombardment by nuclear armed artillery units. It is now known that at least have of the nuclear shells failed to detonate. No matter. Both brigade's were shattered and the 1st, isolated and cut off, fearing nuclear bombardment itself, disintegrated.

A path to Seoul was now open...

Star Wars: The Evolution of Thinking the Prequels Suck

The loyal but sadly misguided Marky Mark (please tell me you are actually Mark Wahlberg) made reference to something called Episode II in our previous post about the best scenes in the Star Wars universe.

Like all right-thinking, decent humans we loath the prequels. We loath George Lucas for retroactively fucking up Episodes IV, V, and VI (go on try to watch the scene where Vader kills the Emperor, I dare you).

George Lucas not only raped William Stroock's childhood Star Wars memories, he sold them to a Mexican narco-cartel who put them in a cheap Juarez brothel where they serve Carlos Slim and his fellow Yellow King cultists. Only Mathew McConaughy and Woody Harelson aren't coming to the rescue.

Time is a flat circle, indeed. [Is that Netzsche? Shut the fuck up-ed.]

I'll leave it to Red Letter Media to explain why these movies suck, and why George Lucas should be deported back to Mexico [back? -ed].

Today we'd like to confess something.

We saw Star Wars: George Lucas Sucks his own Ass [you mean The Phantom Menace ?-ed] the day it came out. We wish we could say we thought it sucked, or sucked George Lucas' Ass [what is it with you this morning? -ed]. But this is not the case.

We were enthralled, enraptured, enchanted. We felt our imagination had been recaptured. George Lucas held us by the fire and subtly undid the back of our dress and we felt his hands on our shoulders gently but instantly pressing down...[dude, you really need to get laid -ed].

We loved the Phantom Menace.

A few days after our mother-in-law died, and needing to get away, my sister-in-law, her husband and I saw Attack of the Clones the midnight it opened. We thought it was long [oh I bet you did, homo -ed] but liked it. After all, there were a lot of things in there we never thought we'd see, like Marky Mark's giant Vietnam like battle, Yoda in the light saber duel, etc.

Now, we're not sure what happened between 2002 and 2005, but we know we went into Revenge of the Sith thinking 'Ok, one good movie can save this entire effort'. We came out of the theater thinking, 'Alas it is not to be'.

Any questions? [Yes, when do you get the reassignment surgery? -ed]

Tuesday Tally

Best Star Wars Scenes Ever...

So aprops of a debate we were having on FB the other day, we'd thought we'd put together a list of the best Star Wars scenes ever,  This is a list not of sequences, but of one off shots that last a few seconds, perhaps ten at most.

*
**

-Opening shot, A New Hope: The rolling credits followed by the peaceful space scene shattered by the Hammerhead Cruiser and Star Destroyer. This has mesmerized children (including the author) for two generations now.

-Final trench attack, A New Hope: Tension anyone?

-The asteroid chase, The Empire Strikes Back: God bless John Williams and director Irvin Kersher for giving these scene epic Gone with the Wind cinematic sweep.

-The carbonite scene, The Empire Strikes Back: 'I love you', 'I know' was improvised. John Williams' soundtrack adds unbelievable depth an emotion.

-Luke lops off Vader's hand, Return of the Jedi: An incredibly intense sense. Well shot, the Gregorian chanting in the background is another John Williams triumph.

- Vader tosses the Emperor, Return of the Jedi: I don't know how they can back a robot mask look emotionally twisted, but they did. The last time I was in a movie theater and anybody clapped.

- Vader arrives, Rogue One: Utterly transformed the ending and incredibly dark. Doom is everywhere.

[What about the prequels? -ed] Prequels, what prequels?

*These are in chronological order.
**Do I really need to put the scenes up here?

Vive le Pen!

Well Marine Le Pen made the cut. combined with the Macron tosser advancing yesterday's election was a humiliating defeat of Le establishment de France.

Let's review what's been happening.

First, Brexit, Trump now Le Pen. Throughout the Western World the public is pissed.

Now lets look a little deeper at what's been happening election wise. From the US elections of 2014, the Israeli elections of 2015, the British elections of 2015, Brexit, the 2016 election and now France, the right has been surprising and over-performing expectations.

The trend continues.

Before we our tissues and paper towels out let us recall that Le Pen's dad did the same thing in 2002 and was eventually crushed by Iraq Chiraq.

Our own sense is that Le Pen has no path to victory. Le establishment will unify and crush her.

Of course we thought the same thing about Brexit, and Trump in the primary.

We'll see.

Yam HaShoah Super Meshuga

So last night our synagogue, I use the term 'our' loosely as I set foot in the thing about once a year, had a Yom HaShoah service. My oldest expressed interest in going, but mentioned the event too late. Besides after a day of gardening and setting bricks the grownups were far too tired and sore for that kind of thing.

So via Yom HaShooah they're turning the Holocaust into a religious ceremony. We suppose this was inevitable. We also think this is the problem with modern Jews, at least the Americans. Yes, let us all take the chance to deify victim-hood.

My oldest loves the story of Ann Frank. I'd prefer if she loved the story of Ariel Sharon.

This default victim-hood position is half the reason for A Line Through the Desert. Young Jake Bloom is tall muscled, and not afraid to throw a punch. His cousins Myron and Roger wanted to play Fiddler on the Roof. Jake wanted to play Raid on Entebbe.

Here's an idea, Yom We Humiliated Idi Amin.

How about Yom We Kicked the Ever Living Shit Out of the Arabs?

We could recite the events like the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle does the Vikings.

1956-And in this year we kicked the shit out of the Arabs...
1967-And in this year we again kicked the shit out of the Arabs...
1973-And in this year we once more kicked the shit out of the Arabs...

Or we could really have some fun:

1956-In this year Ariel Sharon pissed in the Suez Canal...
1967-In this year Ariel Sharon pissed in the Suez Canal...
1973-In this year Ariel Sharon pissed in the Suez Canal...

Let's contemporize it:

2008-Here Israel blew the fuck out of Gaza....
2012-Here Israel blew the fuck out of Gaza....
2014-Here Israel really blew the fuck out of Gaza...

Now let's predict the future:

Yom we Stopped Iran.

Why not?

Earlier Today in France...

Video: AEF, the First Fights

New Youtube video.

Friday Flag

The Flag of Imperial Germany, for whom my great grandfather flew in the Luftwaffe:

Boy is that ever my Louisiana grandmother's face staring back.

20 Years On

So I just started War Against War about the American peace movement during the Great War. So far so good.

The author is a pretty well known progressive historian and was my thesis adviser at American University. It was 25 years ago this spring that I graduated HS,something we've been meaning to write about, and 20 years ago this spring that I dropped out of American University.

For academic and personal reasons my college career exploded. It had nothing to do with unsavory pursuits. Mostly I was sick of college, sick of school, and sick of what was for me then, a lifetime of being sick of school. Maybe we'll go into more detail about that in another post.

Fatigue and bad planning were the culprits, I guess. Also a young man's laziness.

 American University is not something I've talked abut much in the last 20 years.

Anyway, Professor Kazin's thesis class ran two semesters. Obviously, we discussed history on our way to writing a 50 page thesis. Mine was titled, 'President Polk and the Decision to go to War with Mexico'. I earned a B +.

Alert readers will notice that Professor Kazin is an old style progressive lefty of the Steve and Elise Keaton bent. How was he in class confronting a student who was much more brazenly and openly conservative than the author you read? He was absolutely fair. Looking and recalling I don't even think he liked me at all. It didn't matter he was professional.

Professor Kazin presented history interpretation  (historiography) issues and asked us to work our way through them. He never gave his opinion and seemed interested in fairness above all else. See for example the Smithsonian Enola Gay controversy.

Good for him. We'll report on Professor Kazin's book later in the week.

Friday Updates

Ok, folks, we are declaring complete the rough draft of World War 1990: ANZACs.

Of course President Bush declared and end to major combat operations in 2003, how did that work out?

We still anticipate beginning the Austrian Painter on May Day.

We anticipate resuming our Youtube video series this weekend.

We might have a bite on Pershing in Command.

Whatever happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom is 60,000 words. We are writing the chapter where Jake is commanding an armored company in 2003. That's the last unfinished chapter.

On the book and sales front we are making some of our books available via Kindle Unlimited. These are:

A Line Through the Desert
A March Through Hell
The Devil and Heavy Metal
Tie Dye Warrior 

Ironic Notes on a Book

We've been working on Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom for some time now.

If yo got a better title I'm all ears.

Note, this is the sequel to A Line Through the Desert, now available via Kindle Unlimited we might ad.

We've gotten to the section about Jake Bloom, now a captain commanding an armored company in the 3rd ID in March of 2003.

We've been hit by a bit of irony.

March 2003 is exactly when we began A Line Through the Desert. The early chapters were written in dinning room in an old rustic Peapack farm house to a blizzard of Robert Plant screams and Jimmy Page guitar licks. We were rediscovering Led Zeppelin. So lo and behold 18 year old Jake Bloom loooooves Led Zeppelin.

So Jake is on a bit of leave in Kuwait City and goes to a record store, those still existed 2003, to get some new music. What should he buy?

Alert readers and fans know I love music. This seems like a good time for Jake to explore some new music, something I love. But what? Now if we were writing A Line Through the Desert in 2005 Jake would looooove AC/DC. If we were writing it in 2007 Jake would looooove Iron Maiden. If we were writing it now he'd looooove The Answer. Problem is The Answer didn't exist then. Neither did our other big new music-crush Wolfmother.

Classical? We tried the Classical angle in A March Through Hell and don't want to go back.

So to recap: were're writing to the sequel to a book we started in 2003 and focusing on events that happened in 2003 while we were writing the book. Time and circumstance have conspired to put the zap on our brain.

These Are the Guys Who Want to Live Forever

Via Kathy Shaidle, an article about trans-humanists:

The apparent paradox, then, is that so many transhumanists, while bent on defeating or ‘solving’ death, also seem rather, well, misanthropic. To be transhumanist is on some level also to be anti-humanist: people tell O’Connell what contemptible ‘monkeys’ current humans are, how disgusting it is that they are doing all this breeding, and how they’d rather be machine-based consciousnesses exploring the vastness of space. But when it comes down to it, you might think there is not all that much to distinguish this, as a consummation devoutly to be wished, from good old-fashioned death.

Creeps. You know whose like that? The sociopathic, Asperger ridden Sheldon Cooper from the Big Bang theory. Anyone want to live with that? Or how about the evil doctor from Forbidden Planet? These guys are from another world.

For that matter, who wants to live forever? We're going to break our prohibition against Steve Guttenberg films [you blogged The Day After-ed] and recall watching Cocoon. Here a gaggle of geezers was being swept away by benevolent aliens to live forever. At ten years old I didn't like the idea.

Does anyone really want to be like that Eye-talian woman who just died at 117? She outlived her kids and grand kids.

Fifteen years ago we watched a dear old aunt die because she had a bad fall and the doctors wanted to amputate her leg. She refused. My uncle was eight years gone and she was alone in a big house and decided that at 87 it was time to go.

Of course my grandfather is 94. He has his brains and can get around. But want to talk about being from another world? He remembers people who fought in the Civil War, he watched both the Lincoln Tunnel and GWB get built. And he just buried his second wife.

No thanks.

Chelsea Lately

We've noted before in this space that Hillary! plans on running again in 2020. We've also noted that she won't be alive by then. We stand by both statements.

That said the Clinton's are hedging their bets.

Chelsea, the least accomplished person in the history of the universe, has been Tweeting up a storm lately. Her Tweets are vapid and free of content but convey a general smugness. In this sense she is the perfect progressive candidate.

Now we have this 'interview'. Ah yes, Chelsea on 'sexism'. Given her father she knows all about it.

We are not interested in the interview per se, except that we hope that after servicing Chelsea appropriately, said interviewer at least got a handjob for his trouble. We doubt it even after these two tongue tornadoes:

Where does your empowerment come from?
My powerful mommy, daddy and husband.

What’s the best advice you ever received about balancing your career?
Use the millions and millions you got trading off your mommy and daddy's access.

[Those may not be Chelsea's actual answers-ed]

This is part of the package, folks. High twitter profile followed by a celebrity interview. Anthony Weiner and Huma Abedin (back to Huma? Really? -ed) got such a profile before Tony's ill-fated mayoral run.

Now Chelsea has her own.

To restate, (Jesus I just almost wrote 'Hillary')...to restate, Senator Gillibrand (S-NY) will step down, Chelsea will run/be crowned Senator in 2018. President Trump will be reelected, trouncing a Democrat sacrificial socialist, we think Bill de Blasio. [Why not Al Franken? -ed] Too Jewish. The way is thus cleared for a Chelsea candidacy in 2024.

Hustle Your Own Books

Breathtaking stupidity from one of your 'traditionally published' authors. In several bullet points, Ros Barber says why she won't Indy publish and why you shouldn't either. I'd like to take one of those points head on:

You have to forget writing for a living
If you self-publish your book, you are not going to be writing for a living. You are going to be marketing for a living. Self-published authors should expect to spend only 10% of their time writing and 90% of their time marketing. The self-published author who came to my blog to preach the virtues of his path, claiming to make five figures a month from Kindle sales of his 11 novels, puts his writing time percentage in single figures. If that sounds like fun to you, be my guest. But if your passion is creating worlds and characters, telling great stories, and/or revelling in language, you might want to aim for traditional publication.

Listen, sweetheart, your trad publisher isn't going to do any leg work for your book, not unless your Tom frekin Clancy or some such.

Meanwhile you can hustle for yourself all you like.

This is why my best book has 158 reviews and yours has 28.

I do all my own marketing and advertising and it takes  a fraction of my time, most of the rest of  which is spent writing.

Look folks, for aspiring authors out there, here's the skinny, the 411 on advertising.

I do at least one thing a day to hustle for my books. This post fills that requirement. I'll also do some light tweeting (gabbing?)on Gab or maybe post something on FB. You're all welcome to look me up on either of those platforms.

Other than that I buy print and digital ads, I'm experimenting on Goodreads right now. Still my most important platform is magazines, history and/or military history. After much mixing and matching I think a small ad is the most cost effective. I was just experimenting with full pagers but I don't think it makes enough difference to make the extra cost worthwhile. So a battery of 1/3 or 1/4 adds in three or four mags, say Military Heritage, Vietnam and WWIIQ, is the most effective way to go.

If you're wondering, I can't divulge prices, but it really isn't all that much. You can get a 1/3 or 1/4 for well under a thousand.

So basically here's my mag ad strategy. Go with a solid corps, in my case its the Sovereign Group and History-net group, run about three ads with each.

I also run ads in a couple of magazine empires in Britain. Per-capita I'm more popular with Her Majesties' subjects than I am with American citizens.

Last year I also took out a series of ads in European military history magazines, German, French, Spanish, etc. For a while I thought these were a bust, but over time the sales added up and we are well in the black now. I've done ads in Australia too. Same thing.

In this way I've gained thousands of fans and followers.

Ros Barber cannot say the same.

Updates

We have a few long term updates on the Future Projects  page.

Metal Monday, Psycho Lead Singer Edition

Ahhh Guns and Roses. Or if you prefer, Axl Rose you son-of-a-bitch!


The band was strong and talented enough not only to give metal a much needed shot in the arm in 1988, but to survive the Grunge Apocalypse of '92. Axl is one of the best vocalists in rock and roll, Slash an innovative and interesting guitar player, Izzy Stradlin a talented writer. Appetite For Destruction is a sharp edged classic while Use Your Illusion I and II are masterpieces. They are the soundtrack to my senior year in high school. Use Your Illusion I and II are easily the equal of say Led Zeppelin IV.

In fact, GnR should have been the Led Zeppelin of the 90's. Unfortunately Axl couldn't let that happen because he's a controlling nutcase, primadonna. I've hated the man for 20 years.

We all know the standards, November Rain, Estranged, You Could be Mine and many others. I  love the fact that I thought these songs were awesome before they became hits.

With that in mind we'd like to present a list of underrated GNR songs:

The Garden: Bluesy and menacing with a strong and heavy baseline. You can just tell that something evil is about to happen. Alice Cooper sings on it as well.

Locomotive: Great opening drum and bass line. Slash's guitar sounds like a train. The intro is great and the rhythm strong throughout. Slash's riffs in the bridge a great.

You Ain't the First: Izzy Stradlin's acoustic slap at lover. If you've ever been jilted, and you have, this song is for you.

Get in the Ring: The band slams the media. Why not? It's a fun song and one of those anyone can use in their own life.

Breakdown: Overwrought and epic, seemingly filled with wisdom, at least for an 18 year. Also a lot of fun. With piano, banjo and several sounds thrown in Breakdown is a musical explosion. The intro is fantastic. Throughout the song surprises.  We don't know another song quite like it.

15 Years On

15 years ago today.

My wife and I were about 1 year in NJ and living in a rustic old farmhouse in Peapack.

It was finals week for me, the last finals in my BA from American Public University (online). In this case I had to write a term paper on the Duke of Marlborough. It was unseasonably hot that week, I mean into the 90's. All week I had the windows open, the house was warm and humid, the air just seemed to hang there. Mrs. Stroock was away on business so it was just me and the cats.

This was one of the most important weeks of my life. That paper had to be 7,000 words and it was due in three days. I wrote it in the first two days and edited it on the third. That's right, 3500 words a day. I still have no idea how I did it.

That Saturday we went to a Yankees-Jays game. Roy Halladay started.  We sat next to a nice Canadian couple who peppered us with questions about Yankee Stadium. Then it was up to my folks house for the night.

Anyway that paper eventually became a feature in Strategy & Tactics Magazine, (you can read the whole thing at the link)  I had published a few pieces by the time Marlborough got printed, but this was my first cover piece.

'Fearless Girl' is So Stupid...

...and she is soooooo modern privileged woman.

This statue is about making a statement and feeling good. Once said statement is made the 'empowered' women can go back drinking wine and watching The Good Wife.

As a work of 'art Fearless Girl' is not just derivative its appropriative, like painting a smiley face on Starry Night and saying, 'Look at my art.'

But, but, but...'Fearless Girl' is taking a stand against gender inequality and lack of women brokers and execs on Wall Street!

Oh please, women don't work on Wall Street because they don't want to and I don't blame them. I don't either. I don't want the commute, the hours, and the stress.

This is all pointless, symbolic feelgood-ism. You want to stand up to the bulls? Well, here's how men do it:

Friday Updates

We've been reading through World War 1990: ANZACs all week and fixing it. After that it will sit for a couple of weeks before we get the final draft together.

Next week for sure we will write the final unwritten chapter in Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom about Jake commander an armored company in 2003.

May 1 looks like a good start date for the Austrian Painter.

Nothing on Pershing in Command.

Nuke the University

Update: Kurt Schlichter fans, thanks for stopping by! If you like techno-thrillers and alt-history novels, links are above. Thanks again and enjoy.

Every word written by Kurt Schlichter is right.

Let's take his two main points one at a time.

First Schlichter talks about academia being the enemy of all things good and decent. Oh boy is he ever right. Raritan Valley Community College, where I taught for five years, has departments run and staffed by communists, cross dressing perverts, Feminazis, Black Panthers and SJW creeps who give their kids names like 'Justice'. I am not making that up.

As far as curriculum, just insert any whacked-out lefty-prof nightmare you've ever heard of. I actually came in for a lot of grief because I turned my World-Civ I class into a Plato to NATO course. This is what we used to refer to as 'normal'.

Now before we get our second point, we should address something Schlichter says that resonated with us:

Let’s set aside the fact that community college exists to give everyone the opportunity to get some higher education; today, it’s job is to occupy high school students for a few extra years by intermittently teaching them the things the incompetence of unionized teachers ensured they didn’t learn in public high schools.

God Almighty this is so true. The reader should never, ever listen to the 'poor' public school teacher telling them how great and underappreciated they are.  Most school teachers think they are 'light workers'. Yeah you get a week off at Xmas, another in the spring, not to mention summer. And your day ends at three. This doesn't stop them from constantly bitching. I know. I was a sub at Bernards High, Bernanrdsville, NJ for seven years and I listened to them every day.

The kids I got in World Civ and US-I knew dick.

Schlichter moves on to a great point that I can vouch for personally:

At the same time, we can use the law to help facilitate the transition away from the current centralized campus with a bloated administration and faculty/four-year booze cruise model. Laws can mandate and regularize credentialing for technology-based learning to help make non-traditional programs a viable and accepted alternative to a traditional degree. Right now, college is less about learning than about creating a cultural signifier – someone who went to college is “one of us.” But that snobby luxury can’t endure when tuition becomes unaffordable for everyone but ultra-rich folks willing to pony up for their spawn’s sojourn on campus. And it’s unnecessary. To the extent college teaches hard skills – I learned how to beer bong like a boss – students can go on-line at a fraction of the cost to get the specific education they need, without spending time and money on nonsense they don’t. Oppression Studies requirements, I’m looking at you.

I finished up my BA in 2002 at American Public University and earned an MA at same in 2005. Most of the papers I wrote became magazine articles.

On-line education, and I was doing it before anyone had heard of Phoenix, was great for me, and a great way to undermine the communists running higher ed today.

Living History and Influence BMMS

So I'm an alum of Blue Mountain Middle School, Class of '88. In 1982 we received the president's Excellence in Education Award, complete with a plaque and a photo up of Principal Frank Thomas (rest his soul) with President Reagan. We were also mildly famous because one of our social studies teachers was a historical re-enactor and started a 'Living History' program at BMMS.

Practically this meant that we had a Civil War drill team complete with uniforms (denim acid wash in those days,) flags, and toy muskets.

Recently my family and I attended a reenactment of the Battle of Boundbrook. This put me in mind of ole BMMS and I wondered what my old SS teacher was up to.

Well, here's his living history website. More amazingly here's a news video that was produced about said BMMS program:

My guess is that's the fall of '88 or spring of '89. I recognize many of those kids and grew up with a few of them. Actually, one of the girls in there is the real life Patricia Bloom.

Mr. Ryan was a great teacher. He was something like 6-4 with a big, booming voice one heard from waaaay down the hallway during class. In that sense he was something of an inspiration for me as a college professor. I was nothing if not loud.

He had me from day one, talking about the then raging Iran-Iraq war. He'd give cool assignments like interpreting Rock and Roll songs. When he played us Eve of Destruction I swore he had a flashback to being in a dive basement bar somewhere in NY State. Another time he had us war game the Battle of Gettysburg. Once he divided the class into pro and anti-slavery senators and had us debate an anti-slavery amendment. He'd make us interview people about historical events they experienced.

He told great stories too. One was about his old man being at Pearl Harbor another about growing up next to a B-52 base in upstate NY and hearing bombers taking off during the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Mr. Ryan had a huge influence on me in another way. In the fall of '87 he made some remark about NATO and I scoffed at the idea that NATO could stop the Warsaw Pact. His exact words were, and I can still see him sitting there at his desk in the middle of the room, 'Read Red Storm Rising. That'll solve your problem.'

Well I did during the winter break of '88. The Result, well....

Tuesday Tally: More Talmudic Commentary

The five worst things about Passover:

Manischewitz: What is this 'wine'. It tastes either like stale wine spiked with Sweat and Low or grape juice spiked with fermented wine. Who thought this up and who thought it was a good idea? Sadly it is now a kind of unholy Passover tradition for American Hebrews. We cant speak for Israelis. *

Gefilta Fish: Made from cod and whatever they could scrape off the bottom of the boat. Just a rolled up ball of fish. Jesus, people. We can do better than this!

Elijah: In Casa de Stroock Elijah's arrival leads to a mass scramble from the dinning room in a race to open the door.  Last year we closed it on Elijah's foot. In previous years the cat has escaped. Thanks to a particularly virulent intestinal cancer we no longer have the later problem.

In-laws: No explanation required. Sadly, my own mother-in-law is fifteen years dead, but we dine on the table cloth she made for our wedding hoopa.

Culture Clash: In Familia de Stroock Passover was a solemn event requiring a coat and tie. In my wife's family it was more casual, like jeans and T-shirts with haggadahs courtesy of Maxwell House. God I was horrified at our first combined-joint Passover. Guess whose version won out? **

[oh don't be such a standoffish prick. You're grandfather could blow through the entire Seder in an hour and fifteen minutes-ed]

*Australia makes a fine kosher for Passover wine. Perhaps related, the commander of the Australian Expeditionary Force in the Great War was Jewish, General Sir John Monash. This is why the Israeli commando attached to the SAS in Operation Eastern Storm is code-named MONASH.

**One year, during the four questions, they actually called my wife's younger sister, then in Hawaii, so she could ask them.

***We also use my great grandfather's bris cup (1868). he would not have approved of my marriage. You see, we come from respectable Western (German) European Jewry, while my wife is descended from Eastern European (Lithuania) peasant stock. My great grandfather would stand at the door of the The Temple Emanuel Synagogue on 61st st. and ask the young girl's the names of their dates. If the name was Eastern European he wouldn't let them in.

****Further irony, my wife's mother's maiden name was Applebaum, which means while Lithuanian, they were actually descended from Jews that came to the country with the  Teutonic Knights, you know, Krauts.

Life Imitates Will Stroock

Via Vox Day we learn that China is mobilizing troops in Manchuria against North Korea. In conjunction with the President's deployment of two carrier battle groups to the region, this is interesting.

We suspect that the deployment of Chinese troops is just a diplomatic message to the whack job running North Korea. But what if it isn't? We were stunned when President Trump ordered the strike on Syria. What if he and the Chinese have had enough?

Well, someone's already written a book that covers this. From To Defend the Earth's 2nd chapter:

Six hours into their massive assault, Chinese field commanders reported that the lead brigades of two infantry and two mechanized divisions were across the Yalu and fighting to consolidate their bridgeheads. The already battered and shell-shocked North Korean troops, desperately fighting in isolated and ever shrinking pockets, could not hear the drone of engines high above, the second wave of transport aircraft carrying crack Chinese paratroopers south to Pyongyang. As planned Liao-pen ordered two reserve infantry divisions to begin crossing the Yalu. Once across these divisions were to advance along two axes toward Pyongyang, one near the coast, and one further inland. The 4^th Armored Division would come up behind these two divisions for an eventual dash to Pyongyang.
Liao-pen had been concerned that Kim would lob Scud Missiles into China. He didn’t. Instead he launched them at Japan. None got through, however, as the Japanese Navy’s Aegis destroyers shot them out of the sky. Several dozen North Korean jets also tried to fly across the Sea of Japan, but these were engaged and destroyed by the Japanese air force. By noon the Americans reported that a brigade of the 82^nd Airborne Division had secured Yongbyon but could find no weapons of mass destruction. Again? Liao-pen said to himself. Most importantly as far as he was concerned, the coastal column had pushed more than thirty kilometers inside North Korea and was reporting that resistance was slackening dramatically. The inland column was about halfway to Pyongyang.

Alt-Right Horror

Well, well, well....the Alt-Right is freaking out over President Trump's attack on Syria.

Look guys, its a lousy Tomahawk strike. It doesn't mean that next week the 82nd Airborne Division is dropping into Damascus and the 1st Marines are landing at Tarsus to be followed up by the 1st Cavalry Division. Though I admit that sounds like a pretty good idea.

I kid, I kid.

Let's think about this. So you've got two divisions on the ground reinforced by a third. The 82nd Airborne drops south and east of Damascus and isolates the city from those directions. The 1st Marine Division lands at Tarsus and advances up the M-1/M-20 to the Homs cutoff. They isolate Homs with one brigade, leaving the other two to secure the rear back to Tarsus. From there they hand the advance off to the 1st Cavalry Division. You've got an 80 or so mile road trip along the M-5 south to Damascus. I'm reinforcing with the 10th Mountain which will hold open the M-5 corridor as the 1st Cavalry approaches Damascus.

I'll be relying on three carrier battlegroups for air support, plus B-1s and B-2s out of Whiteman and Deigo Garcia.

From there it ought to be a simple matter of...

Hahahahahah.

I amuse myself.

Seriously, Alt-Right guys. We all have ideas, preconceived and otherwise. Then reality hits. What's the president thinking? I dunno. And neither do you.

Until we learn what's happening, calm down.

Monday Metal

Wolfmother!

We discovered these guys a decade ago.

Suffering a bought of insomnia, we staggered downstairs and turned on the telly. There they were:

Sounds kind of like punk, then metal. Stick with it through the solo, which is awesome. I love playing it me self.

Overall we like to describe the band's sound as Acid Metal. They sound kind of like Deep Purple tinged with the very heaviest Black Sabbath.

Is it derivative? Absolutely. It's all derivative, mate.

Now they're sound is consistent. But they don't get stale. Here's Wolfmother with some groove:

They rock, and thankfully they've kept it going for a decade.

Friday Updates: Sunday Slacker Edition

We are plugging along with the editing of World War 1990: ANZACs. Right now we're in the uneasy phase. That is, we're wondering if this thing is really going to work. This is typical and I worry about authors who don't go through this phase.

We are wrapping up one of the sections of Whatever Happened to Jake and Patricia Bloom. It's 55,000 words. We want to go back and add a few things about his time in college on the GI Bill and need to write the section on Jake and his armored company in Iraq in 2003.

No news on Pershing in Command.

We think we might start work on The Austrian Corporal tomorrow.

Speaking of Syria...

I wrote Israel Strikes in 2012. Back then Syria's civil war was not the nihilistic bloodbath we see now. As such I imagined the nation cobbled back together under the rule of a military dictator.

When said dictator needs a way to rally and unify his people, he see's Israel's war with Iran and chooses to jump in. There follows a massive air battle and ground campaign for the Golan Heights culminating in the 'Highway of Tears':

As the platoon slowly made its way through the wreckage, Gonzo looked to his right, back toward the Golan. There were explosions in that direction as Israeli forces engaged the Syrian rear echelon elements. To the east, toward Damascus, he could make out the rest of Division 162, two brigades, as they pushed toward the city. The Beirut/Damascus highway was just ahead of them.They emerged on the other side of the now wrecked missile battery to see a vast open plain, dotted by only a few small ridges and the Beirut/ Damascus highway.‘Holy crap!’ said the gunner.Gonzo looked forward. About a kilometer away was the highway. From east to west it was packed with tanks, trucks, and armored vehicles - crawling along the road bumper to bumper to the Golan.‘Target, dead ahead!’ shouted the gunnerWithout waiting for the order, the gunner fired. A few seconds later a Syrian APC exploded in a ball of flame. The other tanks in the platoon fired, destroying three more Syrian vehicles in quick succession. The gunner looked at Gonzo. ‘Get down there and load!’ He pushed Gonzo down into the turret.‘AP!’ the gunner shouted at Gonzo.‘Huh?’‘A-P!’ he shouted again. The loader pointed to one shell storage locker. ‘This holds AP rounds!’ He pointed to the next. ‘This holds HE. This one over here holds Frag. Got it!’‘I don’t know anything about loading it.’‘Like this!’ In frustration the gunner pressed a lever on the turret floor which opened the AP storage locker, took a shell out, and slammed it into the breach of the main gun. ‘It is not rocket science, see!’‘I see.’’The gunner got back in his seat, lined up a Syrian tank, and firedThe gun breach flew back and spit out a spent shell.‘AP!’ the gunner shouted.Gonzo hit the floor peddle, grabbed an AP shell and slammed it into the breach.‘There you go.’Gonzo heard the company commander on the radio, ‘What is going on down there?!’The platoon commander responded. ‘We just found half the Syrian army in front of us!’‘Do not exaggerate.’‘Come see for yourself.’‘I am coming down to your position now.’‘Good, Captain, bring the whole company, and then the battalion. And whoever else you can find.’Minutes later, when the company commander had joined the platoon’s skirmish line, he reported back to battalion. ‘Yes, that is right, hundreds, thousands of vehicles here. Must be a division or more.’‘Do you want to retreat?’ the battalion commander asked.‘Hell no, we’re tankers.’‘You’re too weak to defend against them.’‘Then we’ll attack!’

The 'Highway of Tears' makes a cameo in War of the Red Sea:

Lovy ordered an aide to get Matti. He returned with him a few minutes later. He was the opposite of the burly, barrel-chested Nagid. Matti was a slight, thin man, well short of Nagid’s six feet. He had curly black hair and wore trendy, rectangular black glasses. Matti saluted and then extended his hand.            ‘Minister, we never met, but I’d like to say I was at the Highway of Tears. Thank you.’            Nagid shook the man’s hand. It too was small but his grip was like iron. ‘What are you thanking me for?’            ‘For allowing us to do our job. Sometimes, I close my eyes and see those Syrian vehicles on the highway, just before we shot the shit out of them. Sir, I wish you could have seen it. It was beautiful, like having a blonde laid out on the bed.’            Lovy laughed, Nagid smirked.            ‘Of course, we weren’t gentle with the Syrians, were we, Minister?’

Read 'em now, before they get Overtaken by Events!

Syria!

Word this morning, for me anyway, that we bombed the Shayrat airfield in the Homs district in Syria. Via Breitbart:

At 8:40 p.m. EDT, the U.S. launched 59 Tomahawk land attack missiles at the Shayrat Airfield located in the Homs Governorate in Western Syria, according to Pentagon officials. The strike lasted minutes.

Here's a screen camp from Google Earth, dated 2014:

One can see aircraft revetments at each point of the airbase...

A sand berm and vehicle emplacements against ground attack:

This facility at the eastern end of the base seems important:

For reference here's a video of what a Tomohawk Missile can do:

We are looking forward to seeing some photos of the results.

One Hundred Years On

One hundred years ago today the United States joined the Great War changing a world that was already in the midst of change.

I don't have much new to say about the centennial. Here's part of the intro from Pershing in Command:

It is not true to say that America has forgotten the Great War. The war exerts a light but persistent pull on American memory. Countless Americans have photos in the attic of grandpa or great-grandpa in stiff-necked, uncomfortable Doughboy uniforms.[1] Hundreds if not thousands of towns have statues of Doughboys outfitted in trench-coat, British style helmet and carrying a bayonet tipped Springfield Model 1903 Rifle. The Great War shows up in American pop culture. In the movie Forest Gump, the audience sees a macabre montage of Lt. Dan’s forbearers dying in every major American war, a tri-corner hat wearing continental, a gray-capped Confederate soldier, and a trench-coat clad Doughboy. Bart Simpson once did yard work for a little old lady whose brother was blown to bits in the trenches. Snoopy engages the Red Baron in a perpetual aerial duel. The army named the M-26 Tank after Pershing while a square next to Grand Central Station in Manhattan honors the general.
            Still, as Europe commemorates the Great War’s centennial it is obvious that the conflict does not have a strong hold on America’s memory. For the European the Great War broke the 99 years ‘long peace’ that saw no continent wide conflict and brought about the fall of kings and empires. In America the Great War falls between the nation’s two existential conflicts, the Civil War on one end and the Second World War on the other. The Civil War still occupies a central place in American popular memory, more so in the south, but among the northern states as well.  In postwar America, World War Two was part of the texture of everyday life. Everybody’s father or grandfathers served.[2] Every weekend in the 1970s and 80’s, one could turn on the TV and see a movie about ‘the war’.  There are only a few World War One movies. We can see a wholesome Gary Cooper in Sgt. York, or James Cagney in The Fighting 69^th and What Price Glory.  In the new century, Rick Schroeder reprised the war of Captain Charles Whittlesby in The Lost Battalion. Where the army of the Second World War rode into battle on Lee, Grant, Stuart and Sherman tanks, the Cold War military table of organization and equipment was peppered with vehicles named for the war’s generals and admirals; the Patton Tank, the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, the mighty Nimitz Class aircraft carrier. Tom Brokaw wrote a paean to the men and women of that era in The Greatest Generation. That generation, and America at large, knew what it was fighting for and fighting against in the Second World War.
            Conversely, the reasons for the Great War are a bit obscure for an American. Most wonder why the assassination of some duke in a strange sounding city was worth a continent-wide war that killed millions; and was the Kaiser really that bad anyway? Here once again America’s other great wars overwhelm the memory of the Great War, for however bad the Kaiser may have been, nothing he did can compare to the pure evil of Adolph Hitler. The reasons for America’s entry into the war are just as vague. When asked why The United States went to war, most Americans would answer ‘the Lusitania’ if they would answer at all. Few know about Germany’s unrestricted submarine warfare, and fewer still about Germany’s ridiculous offer of military and diplomatic help to Mexico if she attacked the United States.[3]            In 1917 the America was a vastly different place than it is today.  When an American referred to ‘the war’ he meant the Civil War; hundreds of thousands of Union and Confederate veterans participated in yearly parades and bored their grandkids with the same old stories of the March through Georgia or the Seven Days. Those veterans were ghosts of an army long past. As will be discussed below, in 1917 America had no army to speak of, merely a constabulary scattered throughout the west with outposts in Hawaii and the Philippines and a few other places. America’s army was smaller than Portugal’s, and the German general staff, which studied everything including the American Civil War, gave the U.S. Army no thought at all. The navy had some punch and global reach but did not master the seas the way the USN has since 1945.            The consumer culture was still in its infancy and few had disposal income to spend on luxury goods. People dressed much more formally, and informal attire had nothing in common with modern ‘leisure wear’. In 1917 much like today, America was in the midst of a great immigrant wave; unlike today, those immigrants were overwhelmingly European. In 1917 German was as ubiquitous as Spanish in 2017. Americans were discovering an exotic food called ‘tomato pie’.  Baseball was already the national past time, while football reigned supreme at the college level. Women could not vote and blacks were segregated. The growing temperance movement was on the verge of success. Cinema was a new technology that most had yet to experience. To demonstrate how much the nation has changed in the last century, the most important film of the time was Birth of the Nation, a racial passion play that helped revive the Klan and was screened in the White House by President Woodrow Wilson.            Wilson was a product of his time. Born in the south, he eventually became a professor at Princeton and governor of New Jersey. His election to the presidency was an historical accident brought about by the fracture of the Republican Party into two camps, one for the sitting President William Howard Taft, the other for the upstart and former president Theodore Roosevelt. If the GOP had a united ticket, it would have defeated Wilson by more than a million votes in 1912. Wilson was very much a turn of the century Democrat. A progressive who wanted to improve the lot of the common man via the power of the Federal Government, but also a staunch Segregationist who introduced the practice to the Federal work force. Wilson may have been an idealist, but he understood that from 1914-16 America was not ready for, and did not want to enter the Great War. That said, he disliked Germany in general, thought the Germans the aggressor in the war and personally supported the Allies. While Wilson was troubled by Germany’s actions, much of his time was occupied by events in Mexico, where a civil war was spilling over the Rio Grande into the United States. Most of the Regular Army and National Guard was deployed along the border and in Vera Cruz, an almost forgotten event dimly remembered by Americans through movies like Sam Pekinpaugh’s The Wild Bunch.
            From 1914 to 1917 the ongoing struggle in Europe was a controversial topic in America, editorialized in the pages of American newspapers, debated on college campuses, and argued about over family dinners. America’s sympathies generally but not universally lay with the Allies. After all, millions of German Americans had family fighting for the Kaiser. Millions of Irish-Americans deeply resented the British, who in 1916 crushed the Irish Easter Rebellion. Wilson may have supported he Allies, but without a cause bellis, there was nothing he could do to persuade America to go to war. The Germans provided him with one.
            1916 ended in bloody stalemate in Europe, with the Allies stuck on the Somme, and the German offensive having failed at Verdun. The German General Staff felt 1917 was the year to force a decision, this time via a U-Boat offensive meant to starve Britain. Once more, Germany would practice unrestricted submarine warfare, sinking any ship that entered the warzone. The Germans understood that this tactic would most likely bring America into the war.  In anticipation of American entry, the foreign minister, Arthur Zimmerman instructed the German embassy in Mexico City to offer an alliance with Mexico including military aid and diplomatic support for the Mexican annexation of Texas, New Mexico and Arizona. Only the Germans could have proposed something so ludicrous and written it down. Said message from Berlin to Mexico City was intercepted by British Intelligence who later published the telegram in the London Times. The nation demanded action against the German affront.
            What follows is the story of the American effort against Germany. Pershing in Command relates the character and makeup of the United States Army on the eve of the war and the subsequent scramble to prepare it for the trenches of France. In 1917 John J. Pershing was the obvious choice to command the AEF in France. He was vastly experienced and had just led the ill-fated Poncho Villa expedition in Mexico, and had the necessary political connections; his father-in-law was a U.S. Senator. Imposing, formal and stiff, Pershing was a Midwesterner and fits the modern notion of a no-nonsense American sent to give strait talk to a gaggle of effete Europeans. He was also an advocate for an independent American army and fought tenaciously for one. Over the course of the war Pershing made many enemies in the Allied high command.            The American Expeditionary Force was unlike any army the country ever fielded. True, America had raised an army to fight Spain and later to win the Philippine Insurrection, but these were not national efforts involving a levy en-mass. During the Great War, nearly three million men enlisted or were drafted. Afterward, the war veterans of the AEF formed a powerful community reminiscent of the Civil War’s Grand Army of the Republic and the 21^st Century’s Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. Most divisions formed alumni committees and in turn published histories of their exploits. These vary in historical quality, ranging from the useless jingoism of the 28^th Division’s history, to the extremely useful history of the 89^th Division including maps, orders and after action reports. The 42^nd Division commissioned an 850+ page tome filled with battle histories and personal recollections. The original is handsomely bound with the 42^nd’s rainbow insignia emblazoned on the spine and front cover and decorated by one-inch square reliefs off each subordinate unit. The 32^nd Division issued a 300-page coffee table book complete with a clear history, rosters, medal winners and a ‘roll of honor’. The interior back cover is marked ‘Memoranda’, a place to gather autographs at the annual alumni conventions. Perhaps most impressive of all the post war ‘official histories’ is American Armies and Battlefields in Europe.  This book was commissioned by the American Battle Monuments Commission, chaired by John J. Pershing. The guide is an impressive 550 pages, hard bound and printed on heavy paper. It contains descriptions of all AEF actions, dozens of maps, including several large fold-outs, and dozens of pictures and terrain sketches to assist the tourist in orienting himself on the battlefield. It is at once a tour book of the battlefields and voluminous narrative and visual history.[4] In 1938 American Armies and Battlefields in Europe could be purchased from the Government Printing office for $2.75. The book is not a bad way to learn about the AEF in the Great War.[5]

---

[1] The author has such a photograph of his great-grandfather, though he wears the uniform of the Luftwaffe.

[2] The author had one grandfather in France and another slated to go ashore with the first wave in the invasion of Japan. An uncle served in Merrell’s Maruaders.

[3] The author’s freshman college student’s usually laugh at the idea.

[4] The author owns an original copy in immaculate condition and suspects he is the first person to ever crack the binding. The book’s turned down corners suggests it sat in a box, its smell suggests in someone’s basement, for decade upon decade.

[5] The author will refer to these tomes as ‘official histories’ throughout the work.

Rogue One Helmetology

In a lot of ways Rogue One, my knew favorite movie, BTW, seems very familiar. Take a look at some of the costume props.

Here's a screen cap of one. This looks to me like the old standard issue helmet from the Second World War:

And these here, well, they look Israeli:

Nice.

Has anyone else noticed that Captain Cassian's outfit looks a lot like a vintage Battlestar Galactica Viper pilot uniform? Behold:

The later is probably just a sci-fi 'name check' as it were, Our director saying, 'See, I'm one of you.' The former when combined with the olive and brown uniforms is a not so subtle message, 'We're the good guys.'

I mean come on. These guys look like they're about to scale the cliff at Point du Hoc:

Well done Rogue One people, Well done indeed.

Fook the Bloody IRA

Get a load of this:

Israel has strongly condemned the decision by a Dublin City Council subcommittee on ceremonies to raise the Palestinian flag over city hall in solidarity with the Palestinian people "who have lived under brutal Israeli occupation."
According to the decision Tuesday, the flag will be raised on May 15th, marking 50 years since the territories of the West Bank and Gaza Strip came under Israeli control.

Is there anyone in the English speaking world smugger than the Irish? Oh....The Troubles...Ohhhh Bloody Sunday....the Famine....U-2....the Easter Rebellion. These goddamn people think their awful history gives them carte blanche to lecture the rest of us about human rights.

Sorry lad, I'm not taking human rights lectures from people who on the great issues of the 20th century didn't really have a strong opinion one way or they other. Hitler, Stalin...whatever. Get me another pint, mate.

Hell, Israel Strikes: War of the Red Sea has a tense moment where the Turkish navy is attempting to escort a bunch of Irish do-gooders to Gaza. Damn it, I should have blown that bitch right out of the water.

The above article goes on to explain that the Dublin City Council is controlled by Shin Fein. Now let's get something straight. Shin Fein is a terrorist group, perhaps you've heard of the their military wing, the IRA. Forget Michael Collins and John Ford films and any other movie with a coat and tie wearing, fedora sporting revolutionary. The modern IRA, the Provisional IRA is a '70's era Marxist organization.

John Ford would take one look at these people and think, 'Maybe I should make some movies about the Krauts?'

I can't wait to write World War 1990: Maggie's War. Just as soon as I clear out a few things...

Filibustering Maverick

So John McCain, author of the original Gang of 14 deal in 2005 that saved the judicial filibuster now says he will vote to nuke the filibuster this week.

I'm biased of course, but I've been less hostile to Senator McCain than a lot of other Conservatives. Sure he works hardest against other Republicans, he loves the media and he loves to Maverick.

So stipulated.

McCain was Goldwater's protegee. He has a sense of humor and used to go on the Imus show a lot. He would have whupped Algore in 2000. And on the big issues of the last 15 years he's been right. He went all out for W in 2004, something I was not sure he would do.The press loved him right up until he refused to follow their narrative on Iraq. Rather than make serious, stentorian speech about the need to withdraw, he stuck to his guns and supported the Surge. So did I. Here's his 2004 RNC speech. Michael more got it hard and dry:

No I am not a sycophant. I've long thought he is a walking case for term limits and indeed its time to go.

That said, I'm glad he's around to be right on Neil Gorsuch.

Tuesday Tally: Talmudic Edition

We present a list of the worst Jewish politicians in America:

Chuck Schumer: This is obvious, really. Amy Schumer's uncle is a jerk, who just last week accosted someone in a restaurant because they voted for Trump. During the inauguration we saw him speak out against discrimination, brave there, Chuck, based on race, color, creed, orientation and I swear I'm not making this up, 'gender identity'. Come on, Chuck. You don't really believe that. I'm not just bitter because he beat my man and fellow Crow Honest Al D'Amato.

Elliot Spitzer: The former governor of NY was on track to making himself a viable presidential candidate when he got busted for being Ashley Dupree's Client Number 9. Look, he has good taste I'll give him that. Anyway, this is the man who waged war on Wall Street but missed Bernie Maddof. He had the chutzpah, yes, chutzpah to run for public office in again.

Gerald Nadler: A Congressman from New York City, he is regular Hardball fodder. He looks like a troll.

Anthony Wiener: Another obvious one I guess. And a loser. While Schumer is the king of smarm, Wiener is the king of creep. Everything about him says, 'Show me on the doll where the Congressman touched you'. 50 year old men should not have the bodies of 25 year old wide receivers. I don't care how hard they work. The documentary, commissioned by himself,  is compelling. I own it. The NY Post reports Hillary's lesbian concubine is trying to patch things up with Anthony. This tells me Hillary! is actually going to run again in 2020.

Eric Cantor: Former House Majority Whip. Everything he said seemed disingenuous. Cantor talked a good game but like the rest of the GOP-e couldn't get anything done. Defeated in a primary.


*Robert Moses was the most imperious Jewish politician ever.
** Mayor Ed Koch may be the best Jewish politician ever.

Monday Metal, Animated Loser Edition

God, how I love Beavis and Butthead. I've loved them since my friend Dave and I watched them in the early 90's on MTV's Liquid Television. Ha! I loved them before they were cool.

Creator Mike Judge brought them along at just the right time. Five years before would have been too early. Five years later and nobody would have cared.

In 1992 when Beavis and Butthead first showed up on Liquid Television, MTV was a decade old. Personally I learned about and experienced music through MTV, not the radio, and my sense of what was hit wasn't through 95.5 WPLJ, But Dial MTV. In 1992 the music video was established and it was important. And it was going down hill.

Just look at this pretentious piece of crap:

Everything that killed music videos is there; pointless symbolism, blurred shots, shaky-cam, uber-seriousness. This wasn't a music video, it was art.

Here's another one:

At first a lot of people thought Beavis and Butthead were 22 minute insult to heavy metal. After all they're decks out in AC/DC and Metallica T-shirts. But this was just background. Metal was the music of the white working class, and Judge was trying to tell us this from where his animated video critics hailed. He gives a few other hints. Once Beavis starts yelling at a plant and it becomes clear he's repeating a tongue lashing he got form his mom, 'How can you do this, after everything I've done for you!?' In another instance Butthead hilariously says, 'I'll have to ask my mom's boyfriend'.

Through Beavis and Butthead Mike judge pilloried what was happening to the genre.  This usually took on two forms. One, this pair of morons was utterly baffled by what they were seeing because it was incomprehensible. Or, the video presented was so sodden with 'edge' and 'art' that Beavis and Butthead 'got it' and would riff on the video in a way that made absolutely no sense, just like the video.

Now I'm not going to show examples, at least not here. That would a a research project, really.

Maybe another post.

You know who else liked music videos? Jake Bloom in A Line through the Desert.

Will's Good Idea for the Week of 4-2-17

Actually its several ideas.

We've always wanted to write a series of novels about the Pacific War. This would include a novel about soldiers on Bataan. This battle has fascinated us for decades. Maybe its the sense of impending doom.

But its the navy that we'd really like to chronicle in an in an unconnected trilogy.

The first about a Gato class submarine. This one would actually start with the main character on one of the old S boats evacuating personnel from Corregidor.

Next we'd like to write about a PT Boat, again starting at Bataan and moving on to action in New Guinea.

Finally a novel about a young (in years but not combat experience) married naval officer that in 1945 becomes the XO on a brand new cruiser with a green crew and captain. We'll use flashbacks to show every action he's been in, including Java Sea, Savo Island and Leyte Gulf. Actually, we'll open with our protag taking command of a tin can at Leyte Gulf because the rest of the bridge crew is dead.

Sounds great. But who has the time? Besides, we have to begin The Austrian Painter.

Brief notes on Douglas MacArthur

Apropos of the Arthur Herman biography of MacArthur we've been reading, not to mention the work we've done on Mac with the Rainbows in the Great War, here are some thoughts on man:

-His father, General Arthur MacArthur, won the Philippine Insurgency, we knew this. We did not now how famous and revered he was afterwards.

-MacArthur is often thought of as a Mama's Boy, but he also worshiped his father who won a medal of honor for commanding the 24th Wisconsin at Missionary Ridge.

-At West Point MacArthur was an academic standout, perhaps the greatest student the academy ever had, and a sports enthusiast. He loved baseball and football.

-After the war MacArthur was the commandant at West Point, which the Great War nearly wrecked. He was fought at every step by the board and only partially successful. He detested hazing and tried to get rid of it.

-He chaired the 1928 US Olympic Committee, being intimately involved in training, and brought home 24 Gold Medals.

-The Bonus Army fiasco was not really his fault. The controversy at the time centered around removing the marcher's main camp on the Anacostia Flats. Hoover ordered the army not to cross the river, but MacArthur never received the order. The only persons killed during the imbroglio died at the hands of the DC police.

-MacArthur more or less ran the CCC when he was army chief of staff. It gave the army something to do and he felt the quasi military training would benefit the working age men in the CCC.

-MacArthur and President Roosevelt knew each other from Roosevelt's days in the Navy Department during the Great War and got on quite well.

-MacArthur was almost certainly a virgin when he married a wealthy socialite at the age of 41. When that marriage broke up he conducted a fiery affair with a Filipino actress, aged 18. His love letters to her range from erotic to downright pornographic.

-As Chief of Staff, MacArthur lay the very early groundwork for the army  in WWII, fighting to retain a trained officer corps and selecting the M-1 Rifle to replace the Springfield 1903.

-MacArthur's s 2nd wife Jean lived till 2001. Their son is still alive and lives in NYC under an assumed name. He never served in the military.