A BANNER DAY...

Well, I’m off to Florida for ten days, but I will almost certainly have at least one new essay up during that time; hopefully two. The next one is WINDOW.

Lots of small items to cover before I roll out the door:

First, the new banner. The picture was taken yesterday, just before an incredible flight over the stunning coastline of San Diego. Visibility was almost a hundred miles. At 3000 feet you could look from deep into Mexico below one wing, past the Mt. Palomar Observatory dome, all the way to Mt. Baldy, just northwest of Los Angeles. We shot some touch and goes at Ramona, which were poor to okay, then a landing back at Montgomery Field which was so good I had to open the canopy and look down to make sure the wheels were on the ground. That sort of thing sets me up for the whole week.

I then had the distinct pleasure of having dinner with one of my idols, the illustrious Steven Den Beste from USS CLUELESS. Anyone who has read his work knows that this fellow has one of the most brilliant minds on the internet. What I did not expect was how soft-spoken and funny he was. He has that rare and delightful combination of confidence and civility that makes you like him immediately. It was a pleasure, an honor and an education, and I hope to do it again the next time I find myself in his gorgeous neck of the woods.

(A few weeks ago I had an equally interesting and enjoyable lunch with my friend the ARMED LIBERAL, and when I finally drive back from LA to Florida in mid-February, I’ll be stopping in Dallas to meet my new friends Kim and Connie Du Toit, pay homage to the most Magnificent, Cruel but Fair Emperor Misha I, and, of course, the one person that made all this possible for you and me both, the one and only, the wonderful, wonderful Rachel Lucas. So that will be a real thrill. Unfortunately, I’ll also catch up with Frank at IMAO when I get to Florida. He is, as you may know, still a fetus and this level of writing from someone so young frightens and confuses me. )

To top off a great day, I found some glorious things waiting in my inbox, namely these:

…We French learned the hard way what you gain from appeasement (even if some retarded ones seem to have forgotten).

Because in 1936 when German troops occupied Rhenania they had orders to withdraw in front of any French troop and Hitler had told he would resign. And the reason was that the still puny German army had not a chance. In 1938 when Germany invaded Austria we still could have crushed it with ease…

So when I think in appeasement, I think in the 1940 humiliation, in the occupation, in the millions of dead, in the atrocities in Yugoslavia, Poland and Russia, in the Russian prisoners used to test the gas chambers, in Mengele's experiments, in the Jews and gipsy ne- borns slaughtered for the crime of being born Jews or gipsy. All of this could have been prevented without blood shed if we had taken action when Germany occupied Rhenania, all of this could have been prevented at a far lesser cost if we had taken any of the other golden opportunities we had. That is what you get when you let the monster grow instead of quashing him when he is small and weak.

And there is another thing: when you fail to quash the monster you are _resposible_ for his crimes. The Nazis were trialed at Nuremberg and some of them (far too few) were hanged for their crimes, but there should have been another trial at Munich for the appeasers and pacifists who had made thse horrors possible. And I see no reason why some of them shouldn't have been hanged just like the high ranking Nazis were.

Having just read that again, I would like to once more apologize for my generalizations in this and other postings. When I criticized Canadians I heard from Canadian patriots reminding me of all of their many enormous wartime contributions and the magnificent quality of their soldiers. I meant to have said “Canadian leftist rabidly anti-American defeatist nitwits,” and for that I do apologize. Likewise now with the words of this gentleman who shows us that patriotism, honor, memory and common sense can be found everywhere. I respect people who stand up for themselves and their country. I immediately understand and sympathize with them. I feel I should apologize to Frenchmen such as these, who may in fact be in the majority.

Monsieur JFM, please accept my sincere apologies for lumping you in with the deluge of defeatism and smug condescension we hear from many in your government.

That thread also turned up the best damn single-line reason for invasion that I have ever read, anywhere, by anyone. Regarding the inspections process, Nick writes:

The problem with smoking guns is that you can not find them until after they have been fired.

Nick, if I had read that before I wrote WAR I would have just posted that one sentence and left it at that. E-mail that fine fellow and tell him what a genius he is.

And then, the grand finale: I get an e-mail from the greatest pure writer of them all, James Lileks. Lileks is the target for which we all aim and which always eludes us.

He wrote, "If Steven Den Beste is Spock, then you are Kirk."

I copied his e-mail and turned it into a new banner. It was like a bowl of bacon to a junkyard dog.

Mmmnnn. Metaphorical bacon...

Best. Compliment. EVER.

I’m off to the airport. Reports from the road, I promise.

Until then, you all take good care of yourselves.

BW

Posted by Proteus at January 31, 2003 08:11 PM