For any young boy, nothing could ever replace the breathless adrenaline rush of hunting down one of your mates in a wooded area and finishing him off with a well-aimed shot to the torso before he gets to you first. Realistic toy guns are, of course, pretty much outre in this post-hippy age, but there was a glorious time in the not-so-distant past when toy makers knew exactly what boys actually like and were allowed to sell it to them big-time.
Hoo-ah! On the ground, running dog! I will not arrange your flowers!
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Down at Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario a few years ago, I watched an expensive Volvo SUV pull up. Out stepped a smart, metrosexual Toronto couple with their Gap-clad little ones.
One of the kids – a boy of about six I’d guess – saw a stick on the pavement and, in the merest blink of an eye, was brandishing it about with all the relish and gusto of a cut-throat pirate.
Mum and Dad were shocked and horrified by the wee fellow’s aggressive behaviour; much flapping and whining ensued as they wrestled that stick from his grasp.
Boys will be boys regardless of how nancy you try to mold ’em!
Heh heh.
Oh and another comment. There is no way that Obama could have sat down and discussed an issue with people.
First, he cannot ‘think’ about issues; his brain effectively freezes. I mean that. And second, to sit down and discuss would be to act ‘as if among equals’. Obama, psychologically, cannot handle being on the same ‘life-level’ as others. He has to control, or he feels threatened.
As well, notice an aspect of his ‘virtual’ reality; he assumes that by calling something by a name, he controls it. So, he renames terrorism to ‘man-caused disasters’. That makes it in his control..rather than terrorism being the powerful agent. And so on…
As for the comment on Islam as a political ideology, I’ve been saying that for years. You have to consider origins; after all, religions are man-made. So, how and why did Islam develop? And you always have to focus on the economy.
I maintain that Judaism, for example, outlines a people, tribal (i.e., ties are defined by kin), whose economy is primarily horticultural. That’s small scale gardens – and that’s revealed by the fact that kinship is determined by the matrilineal links. Horticultural societies tend to privilege the women, who are the primary workers in the gardens while the men deal with small animals and basic gardening.
Christianity on the other hand is a market economy, a result of the Roman infrastructure of roads, irrigated water lines, common currency, security. This enabled populations, previously isolated from each other and subject to attacks by others, to interact and settle and develop surplus for market trade. That’s why Christianity is not tribal or kin-based, but rejects tribalism. You are a member by choice, and also, must not treat other people as outsiders, but ‘love thy neighbour’.
Islam, I claim, developed as an economic result of the spread of the market settlements, which encroached more and more into the basic Islamic economy, which was pastoral nomadism. You can see this by the emphasis on kinship and ownership of goods by the male kin; this is indicative of an economy based around the men looking after herds of animals. You can see this in the texts. Pastoral nomadism requires a large vacant land base where the animals eat their way out of one area and move on to another while the first regenerates. And, moving with the seasons and rains. The expanding population of the ME, with settlements, was encroaching on these vacant lands…and the result was a militant and violent political and economic ideology. Islam.
You can’t say ‘gypsy’ in Spain anymore. Needless to say ‘pike’ is a taboo globally.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101102/ap_on_he_me/eu_spain_child_mother_1
“Spanish newspapers say the mother is of Romanian origin”
10 year old gypsy girl delivering a baby in Spain gives whole new meaning to France’s gypsy deportations. You go, Sarkozy!
We all shot homemade slingshots powered by surgical rubber.Ammo was trophy marbles and “steelies”, ball bearings salvaged from the local bone yard.
Buddy Simon had to serve serious time for crafting his stone pouch out of the tongue from his dads golf shoes.
for income,We got 2 cents a tail for rats killed under the local cannery wharf.
August ushered in, pitched battles fought with blackberry ammo. it left great “blood” stains.
We used to reenact “Sea hunt” in the deep woods using tanks carved from firewood(heavy!) and vacuum hose.
Most of us got pellet guns later but it was never as much fun as those homemade slings.
Via Advancing a Free Society:
Mary Eberstadt, ‘The Trojan Pragmatist’
Kathryn’s thorough and informative interview with Stanley Kurtz about his new book, Radical-in-Chief: Barack Obama and the Untold Story of American Socialism, is must reading. As one of a few people who read the manuscript before its publication last week, I know that this interview is the best preview yet of what’s inside — and that anybody reading it will end up wanting to read the whole book.
And no wonder. Radical-in-Chief compellingly lays out as never before the firm ideological chain running through the president’s political life. It joins Obama’s earliest radical mentors to his college Marxism-Leninism to his attendance at Socialist Scholars Conferences in the early 1980s to his years spent collaborating with Jeremiah Wright and Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn and other radicals to his steady rise in the world of socialist politics in Chicago and beyond. It also connects the dots between those decades of thought and work and associations — and current White House policy….
And here’s the link to the interview:
Kathryn Jean Lopez, Radical in the White House
MCGUINTY GOVERNMENT SLAPPED WITH $500M LAW SUIT FOR FAILING TO ENFORCE LAW AGAINST ILLEGAL TOBACCO INDUSTRY
Looks like the tobacco producers have taken exception to two tiered taxation as well as two tiered policing. Seems Harper gets tagged in this two tiered cigarette tax collection con as well.
http://www.tobaccojusticeclassaction.com/
“Students who skip 20 per cent of classes will flunk”
This sounds like progress to me, but not very “progressive”!!
http://thechronicleherald.ca/Front/9018535.html
We were never allowed to play with toy guns as kids. Most farm kids aren’t, really. At the same time, however, a 10 year old could fire a .22 and eventually a .30-06 or something because they hadn’t developed poor habits such as pointing a gun at friends.
I can remember very much wanting a toy gun when I was younger but I can also guarantee you that every kid with a toy gun wished he could be playing with my real gun a couple of years later.
What’s funniest is wondering, in retrospect, what other parents thought of mine. I can only imagine how irresponsible they must’ve thought they were.
I may have to watch Toy Story 3 with my kids, judging by what Andrew Klavan got out of it.
“Which brings us back to the midterm election, which may also be the beginning of a narrow escape indeed — a narrow escape from a leftist culture that has sought for 40 years to people and shape our imaginations with Lots-o’-Huggin’ Bears, Big Babies and sissified men; an escape from race-baiters and gender warriors who have sought to take away our pride in our heroic cowboy past and replace it with a droning litany of our all-too-human sins; an escape from an intellectual and political elite who have attempted to destroy our Space Age optimism by selling us environmental hysteria, guilt and fear. Most of all, let’s hope this “Toy Story 3″ election is the beginning of an escape from the smothering notion that we are helpless victims who need to live in a daycare state that supplies our every need.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-klavan-toy-story-3-20101102,0,6568516.story
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula watch:
W. Andrew Terrill, Preventing Yemen from Becoming Fallujah
That leaves the questions of what to do and what not to do. The United States must not seek to Americanize the conflicts in Yemen, and should avoid sending major ground combat units there under almost all circumstances. However bad the situation may become in Yemen, Americanizing the war against AQAP can only make it dramatically worse….
Under these circumstances a smarter strategy for the United States is to continue and strengthen its policies of supplying intelligence, training, and military equipment to Yemen so long as these assets directly support counterterrorism missions. So far, the United States has been highly effective in tailoring its military aid to Yemen in ways that focus on the needs of the counter-al Qaeda mission. Units of elite troops with a rapid movement capability can be extremely effective in dealing with terrorists. Should AQAP be able to develop into a widespread and effective insurgent forces in Yemen, Washington will have to expand aid in ways that are less counterterrorism focused….
What, may I ask, does it mean to ‘Americanize the conflict’? It surely can’t mean just ‘sending in major ground combat troups’ for that is hardly indicative of ‘the American military way’. Such a statement ignores the US focus on strategic forces such as SEAL, etc, intelligence etc. And it ignores that other nations such as the UK, France, Germany, Canada, ..Russia, Iran, Iraq also use ground combat troups.
It means, ET, for the Americans to take the lead in suppressing AQAP, rather than conducting foreign internal defence.
charles macdonald – what do you mean ‘take the lead’..rather than conducting foreign internal defense.
What does ‘foreign…’ mean? SAS style teams? They already do this. Training the internal military? They already do this.
Can the defense of the West against Al Qaeda be left up to such nations as Pakistan, Afghanistan etc? I doubt it. They are, after all, still bound in tribalism, internal conflicts, massive corruption..etc.
I don’t have time, ET. If you’re interested in FID, look at the link and the other materials at USAWC, Joint Special Operations University and similar sites. If you’re not, don’t waste my oxygen.