The League of David

Hot, Smart

...and Catholic.  A rare bird in the jungle, though, a very rare bird.  He's got a good blog, too.

Real Men

To counter balance this recent post, I'd like to draw your attention to two wonderful stories of heroism and self-sacrifice by two real men.  Both stories come from a recent issue of the Catholic Standard, the newspaper of the Archdiocese of Washington, DC.  First is the story of Commander Erik S. Kristensen, a Navy SEAL recently killed in Afghanistan:

"Because of his determination, little was beyond him," said Jesuit Father Thomas Clifford. In his homily, Father Clifford recalled wondering how Kristensen would move from the classroom to the rigorous training required of the Navy SEALs.

But the priest said he also had difficulty figuring out how such a giant man could come to love literature and help others love literature too. "He protected his inmost thoughts rather fiercely." Father Clifford said he imagined Kristensen's heaven would resemble a great library with classic literature thrown in piles across the tables and a lacrosse stick leaning against the wall.

Kristensen who spoke French, planned to study at the Institute of Political Studies in Paris next year. He had been selected as an Olmstead Foundation Scholar. "He would have been a wonderful teacher, a wonderful writer," Suzanne Kristensen said.

There there's the story of simple bravery and everyday heroism (story not available online, but recorded here):

For rescuing a woman from a burning car, Redemptorist student Tom McCluskey was given the Maryland Citizen of the Year award...McCluskey pulled the woman from the car when he spotted it along Route 197 in Bowie on September 11, 2004.  He and two other men from the Baltimore Province of the Redemptorists were heading for Holy Redeemer College here in Washington when the witnessed a sport utility vehicle flip and burst into flames.  McCluskey , a former Marine, pulled the women, whose clothes were on fire, from the car. Several others helped.  Shortly after, the rescue, the car exploded.  McCluskey used his own short to extinguish the flames on the victim.

I have no words to describe how grateful I am to these two men:  one died in selfless service to his country, one has chosen a life of sacred sacrifice. Both in their own way are keeping me safe from the demonic forces of jihadism and the other legions of the Evil One. 

Each one is a blessing, and give me continued hope for our future.

The Colonel's Magic Carpet

Honorary member, Charles Johnson, recently had a caption contest.  The results were classic Internet:

The best captions?

"All your chicken are belong to us!"

" I give you the bird!"

"I prefer the original seventh century recipe, yes!"

"I came for the original recipe flavor , I STAYED for the jihad!"

"Is this guy doing the Pakistani version of 'Supersize me'?

"Gimme a franchise or else!"

"All your extra crispy are belong to us"

"You forgot your Unhappy Meal!"

"Where's my toy? I was supposed to get an Osama toy with my Jihad Meal!"

"HEY that Mutha Fracker just flew away on my prayer rug. STOP! THIEF!"

"Pick Me!  Pick Me!  I want to be the new colonel."

Watching the Philistines at the Post

I'd like to add to the role of honorary League members, PostWatch.org.  It's dirty job, but someone has to do it.

A Philistine Says Good-Bye

Today, in the San Francisco Chronicle, Keith Thompson, former Philistine, says goodbye to his tribe, and joins the rest of us:

I choose this day for my departure because I can no longer abide the simpering voices of self-styled progressives  --  people who once championed solidarity with oppressed populations everywhere  --  reciting all the ways Iraq's democratic experiment might yet implode.

As a former Philistine I can confirm Thompson's slow process of  realization:

My estrangement hasn't happened overnight. Out of the corner of my eye I watched what was coming for more than three decades, yet refused to truly see. Now it's all too obvious. Leading voices in America's "peace" movement are actually cheering against self-determination for a long-suffering Third World country because they hate George W. Bush more than they love freedom.

But there is always a moment -- the proverbial straw -- that makes it almost impossible to cling to whatever dimming shadows of good are left in the Left.  For Thompson, it was the January 30th vote.  For me it was the Left's -- especially feminists' -- inability to see anything good in our liberation of Afghanistan.  Eight years of Taliban horror, and all of the stern proclamations and U.N. condemnations did nothing.  It wasn't the Western academic feminists who liberated Afghan women, it was American Special Forces soldiers.   For this, Philistines will never forgive our military.  And for this, I will never forgive Philistines.

Philistines are incapable of giving their country -- especially their servicemen -- any credit, of any kind for anything that resembles good work.  They would rather reject reality all together, and manufacture failure, than embrace a good and noble cause. 

Don't worry, Keith, your're not alone.  Besides, you can still shop at Whole Foods.

By the way, Thompson's article proves a theory I've long held: there's often more eloquence in the parting than in the coming together:

Leftists who no longer speak of the duties of citizens, but only of the rights of clients, cannot be expected to grasp the importance (not least to our survival) of fostering in the Middle East the crucial developmental advances that gave rise to our own capacity for pluralism, self-reflection, and equality. A left averse to making common cause with competent, self- determining individuals  --  people who guide their lives on the basis of received values, everyday moral understandings, traditional wisdom, and plain common sense  --  is a faction that deserves the marginalization it has pursued with such tenacity for so many years.

All of which is why I have come to believe, and gladly join with others who have discovered for themselves, that the single most important thing a genuinely liberal person can do now is walk away from the house the left has built. The renewal of any tradition that deserves the name "progressive" becomes more likely with each step in a better direction.

Poor Michael Crichton.

Poor Michael Crichton.  He writes a novel about a bunch of hyper-political, blood-thirsty environmentalists, and is immediately crucified by...hyper-political, blood-thirsty environmentalists. 

"Crucified" is probably too strong a word to describe it.  After seeing the man in person, I can't imagine any milquetoast, vegetarian, metrosexual Philistines besting Michael Crichton at anything.  He'd just kick their collective, commie asses.

I sat in the audience at the National Press Club where he recently gave what appeared to me to be a thoughtful, if canned, presentation on the fool's science of Global Warming.  Mr. Crichton appeared to be a man in confident middle age.  He could crack jokes, and had at times that look of quiet cynicism I often see in men who no longer need to strive, who are at peace with themselves.

When it came to Q & A time, there was a number of expected idiot questions. One of the first questioners introduced himself as dye-in-the-wool environmentalist [Read: Philistine] the head of the Leesburg [VA] Environmental Advisory Commission.

Sigh!  Why do these folks always belong to commissions or committees? 

He asked his question, and then went on to throw in a little Bush-bashing into it, wondering out loud about our priorities.  After all, the thinking goes, we don't spend enough on energy technologies while we are throwing away money on the "so-called" war on terrorism and Iraq.

The audience went wild, clapping and hooting.  I think I was the only one booing.  I almost screamed, "Philistine!" but I would have been the only one to get the joke.  To his credit, Mr. Crichton didn't take the bait, and if I remember correctly, he actually talked about the issue of environmental technology investment.

Anyway, a talk he gave earlier in the day at the American Enterprise Institute will be aired this weekend on C-Span 2.   It's worth watching, even without the Philistines.

I'm famous!

Mark Steyn's webmaster e-mailed me today to tell me that my request has been granted!!

I'm flattered. I'm blushing!

I may just swoon.

A Noted Medievalist

Norman F. Cantor died.

When I was in high school, he introduced me to the history of the Middle Ages.

When I was in college, he introduced me to the Medievalists.

When the spark of love for things medieval was long extinguished, he revived it.

Not bad for a man I met only once, briefly, before he gave a talk to a large crowd.

Unlike the man discussed below, Professor Cantor was a real Renaissance man. For geeks like me, this is a sad passing.

Honorary Member: Roger Kimball

Roger Kimball, managing editor of The New Criterion is promoting a new book, The Rape of the Masters, and he was recently interviewed by National Review Online.

It's a concise discussion of the effect of politicization on the discipline of art history.

It's a depressing read. The Philistines -- in this case, academics and art critics -- have done a real job on the once honorable discipline, turning it into a laughable source clueless political triviality. It's almost as bad as the contemporary literary scene:

NRO: Which has suffered more in the modern academy, the study of literature or the study of art history?

KIMBALL: I think the jury is still out, but my own guess is that greater damage has been done in literature because 1) it started there earlier, and 2) departments of literature tend to be larger than departments of art history.

My other blog attempts to record the effects of political correctness on the study of literature. It's my own little slingshot aimed at the Golliath of tenured fools ruining the study of Western civlization for psenseless postmodern posturing.

Excerpt from "On Moral Fiction"

by John Gardner:

To maintain that true art is moral one need not call up theory; one need only think of the fictions that have lasted: The Iliad and The Odyssey ; the tragedies of Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Eripides; Virgil's Aeneid ; Dante's Commedia ; the plays of Shakespeare and Racine; the novels of Tolstory, Melville, Thomas Mann, James Joyce. Such works--all true works of art--can exert their civilizing influence century after century, long after the cultures that produced them have decayed.

The same can be said for true criticism.