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October 2004 Blog Archives
Thursday, October 14
10:32 AM
Just took my sheltie for one last long walk
before leaving for the Horn of Africa. While Shiloh chased squirrels I said
goodbye to the goats, cows, and (especially) the horses. I'll have the
privilege of preaching every Sunday (through an interrupter) and teaching
(in English) in Addis Ababa (Evangelical Theological College), in Hosanna,
and in Dilla (at various Bible Schools). Subjects? The Gospel of John, How
to Study the Bible for All It's Worth, Forgotten Lessons from the Life of
Christ, and Current Issues in New Testament studies. My wife, a nurse,
will be working in two different clinics and practicing the fine art of
healing. We will miss yall, but I will check my emails (when I can get to
a pooter, which will be infrequently) and maybe even update my website. If
you should ever get the urge to pray for us, we would be most grateful.
Aloha, and God bless.
Wednesday, October 13
11:10 PM
Can't let this busy day end without praising
the Lord. Not only was I able to vote today (Go Michael and Chuck!) but we
closed on our North Carolina ranch - one day before leaving for Africa.
Tied up several loose ends on campus as well, and met with my good friend
Jim Weaver of Kregel Books on my next book project (he likes it). The
icing on the cake? Our Wednesday night prayer service - leaning on our
"Lord Protector" (J. I. Packer's unforgettable expression) as we
contemplate God's greatness and goodness on bright and cloudy days. Time
to take Shiloh outside one last time, then hit the sack.
Tuesday, October 12
6:10 PM
Jim Rudd is doing as much as anyone I know
to defend the most defenseless in our society. I praise God for his
ministry and his writings,
to wit:
Having repented of helping
to regulate the way people murder innocent human beings, then what do we
do? There is only one type of legislation our lawmakers needed to be
concerned about passing into law in the States and U.S. Congress: A law
that establishes without any doubt or alternate interpretation the
Unalienable Personhood of every human being from the moment of conception
until natural death.
We must continue to press in at all cost to speak for those who have no
voice until they have Equal Protection of the Law.
5:40 PM
Whatever room I'm in he's always there,
curled up at my feet. At the dinner table, whose plate does he await with
eager eyes? On whose side of the bed does he sleep? Who does he expect to
take him for walks? Who does he ask to rub his tummy?
Boy, will I
miss my sheltie.

4:55 PM
Sometimes it pays to read a blogger's
archives.
Here's an example - a very nice piece of prose - from Gimmie
Back My Bullets (dated June 15, 2004):
Thanking and welcoming
It occurs to me that the recent trend of saying "no problem" in lieu of
"you're welcome" is a symptom of the prevailing self-centeredness of our
culture. (Before I proceed, I should plead guilty of doing this
frequently myself.) If you say "thank you", you are expressing your
gratitude for a service rendered. If I respond that "you're welcome", I
am saying something about you. In both instances, the emphasis is on the
other person.
But if I say "no problem", what I'm really saying is "no problem
for me. The focus is no longer on you, but rather on me and what a
swell guy I am for helping you out. This flies in the face of the
Christian notion of putting others first. It's essentially the same
principle as the one behind saying "Bob and I" instead of "I and Bob".
4:04 PM
As I sit here contemplating our mission to
Africa my heart is full and overflowing with gratitude to God and my only
thought is to live so fully in the Spirit that all my thoughts may be a
sweet incense ascending to the Lord and my every deed an act of worship
and my only desire that He be exalted over all my possessions, my
reputation, my ambitions, my health, and even my life itself. I cannot but
think of these words: "Give of thy sons to bear the message glorious, Give
of thy wealth to speed them on their way. Pour out thy soul for them in
prayer victorious, And all thou spendest Jesus will repay." The parents of
my beloved wife, in a literal sense, fulfilled the words of this hymn,
breathing the prayer of Jim Elliott: "Oh, the fullness, pleasure, sheer
excitement of knowing God on earth! I care not if I never raise my voice
again for Him, if only I may love Him, please Him. Mayhap in mercy He
shall give me a host of children that I may lead them through the vast
star fields to explore His delicacies whose finger ends set them to
burning. But if not, if only I may see Him, touch His garments, and smile
into His eyes - ah then, not stars nor children shall matter, only
Himself." I heartily thank each of you who have written to say you will be
praying for Becky Lynn and me on our Abyssinian Odyssey, believing God for
miracles in response to faith and claiming for ourselves, though unworthy
to see it, the object of Moses' prayer: "Show my Thy glory!" To all of you
we are eternally grateful.
9:14 AM
Here's a
website that merited a rare bookmark on my computer.
9:05 AM
From the mailbag:
"I see a new breed of
citizen who realizes that the intoxication of
public attention makes otherwise sane persons silly with delusions of
their capacity to speak the truth unerringly."
Good comment. I had a similar thought from listening to some of the
debates and observing the strange behavior of the candidates. I was
reading in Revelation 17:3 and was stunned with the verse "and those on
earth were made drunk with the wine of her immorality". I suspect part
of that wine is raw power. The power of man over man which Satan
tempted the Lord with in Matthew 4 seem to be of the same blend of sin.
We don't handle a power well (political or otherwise). It is strong
drink.
8:50 AM
The latest pearls from
Doug's Blog:
Home educators must resist
the unbiblical practice of infiltration and assimilation with pagan
institutions, whether those institutions be the government schools or the
Hollywood establishment. Not surprisingly, the philosophy of infiltrating
systems which are root and branch corrupted by paganism is quite popular
with those who earn their living off these systems. But you can test this
theory by throwing a clean pig into a pool of mud. Does the mud get clean
or the pig get dirty?
8:45 AM
With rounds getting more and more expensive
(as we discovered again this past week),
this essay
makes a lot of sense.
8:41 AM
Baghdad now has a
blogger.

8:36 AM
Bekele
does
it again. Just what makes him such a good long distance runner?
8:25 AM
Just stumbled across an interesting
timeline of the Kale Heywet churches in Ethiopia, among whom my
in-laws served from 1954-1964. The statement that impressed me the most:
1974. Communist revolution. 2,500 churches.
It
corresponds perfectly with my morning devotions from Acts 4-5 where Peter
and John and the other apostles, filled with the Holy Spirit, rejected any
human authority that itself had rejected God's authority. The
result? The church grew tremendously, not only in numbers but spiritually
as well (filling with the Spirit meant not only boldness in preaching but
a willingness to share one's possessions with those in need, Acts
4:32-37).
8:10 AM
We will have a brief stopover in Frankfurt
am Main on the way to Addis Ababa. I well remember my last visit to
Frankfurt a few years ago. I was lecturing at Tyndale Theological Seminary
in Holland at the time and took the train south to meet up with a
missionary friend in Giessen. I was "auf der Suche" - in search of a site
near Frankfurt I had long wanted to visit. Being a fan of WW II escape
stories, I knew that allied pilots were processed through a camp located
in a suburb of Frankfurt called Oberursel but doubted whether any of the
old facilities would still be standing or even if anybody knew where they
were. We arranged to have the city planner meet us, and she took us to a
site where she had heard rumors of an old army base. The base turned out
to be a U.S. army installation that had been closed some ten years
earlier. Yet as I looked at the barracks - many of them still had bars on
their windows - I immediately recognized the place as Dulag Luft - the
German POW processing camp and the site of the first mass escape of the
war (18 British flyers escaped through a tunnel there in 1941, among them
Roger Bushell, "Big X" of the Great Escape). It was an eerie feeling to
stand on the exact site where that escape had taken place. Other sites
near Frankfurt that always merit a visit are the Gutenburg Museum in Mainz
and, of course, the Church in Worms where the famous Diet took place and
where Luther courageously defied church tradition and upheld the authority
of the Bible. Lord willing, we'll be visiting both places during our
Reformation Tour next summer.

Monday, October 11
6:23 PM
To those readers who misunderstood the
intent of my essay, Why I'm Not Voting for Michael
Peroutka, sorry for the confusion. I unequivocally support the
Peroutka-Baldwin ticket.
8:46 AM
Things in Washington are getting
zanier by the day. Stanley Kubrick would feel right at home.
"I can no longer sit back and allow Communist infiltration, Communist
indoctrination, Communist subversion, and the international Communist
conspiracy to sap and impurify all of our precious bodily fluids... "
(Base Commander Ripper).

8:32 AM
The wisdom of
J. Gresham
Machen:
It is upon this
brotherhood of twice-born sinners, this brotherhood of the redeemed,
that the Christian founds the hope of society. He finds no solid hope in
the improvement of earthly conditions, or the molding of human
institutions under the influence of the Golden Rule. These things indeed
are to be welcomed. They may so palliate the symptoms of sin that there
may be time to apply the true remedy; they may serve to produce
conditions upon the earth favorable to the propagation of the gospel
message; they are even valuable for their own sake. But in themselves
their value, to the Christian, is certainly small. A solid building
cannot be constructed when all the materials are faulty; a blessed
society cannot be formed out of men who are still under the curse of
sin. Human institutions are really to be molded, not by Christian
principles accepted by the unsaved, but by Christian men; the true
transformation of society will come by the influence of those who have
themselves been redeemed.
8:01 AM
Tribute
to a fellow horseman. Farewell, Mr. Reeve.

7:57 AM
It
is coming, mark my words. Just look at Israel. Thanks to the Internet,
however, the steady stream of insight into the coming draft will not allow
it to go unchecked.
Sunday, October 10
7:47 AM
Latest weather in
Addis Ababa. Not bad at all.
7:45 AM
One reason why
learning German
vocabulary is so easy.
7:36 AM
Which do you prefer:
Constitutional
Government or Big Brother? Chuck Baldwin is surely right:
This administration is quickly turning what
was once a constitutional republic into a federal police state. But what
is worse is that the architect of this tyranny, President George W. Bush,
seems to enjoy the support of the vast majority of Christian
conservatives.
It is extremely difficult to imagine how willingly we forfeited the
fundamental principle of limited government upon the altar of
pseudo-conservatism and disarming Christian rhetoric. Yet, that is exactly
what we seem to have done.
7:34 AM
The putrefaction in America goes pretty
deep. But this Nigerian Anglican leader is not loath to
condemn Episcopal counterparts in U.S.
"Even if the rest of the
world will say ... `That's all right,'" Akinola said, "Nigeria will
not."
This is my kind of guy.
7:23 AM
For your Sunday reading: Bill Einwechter's
Biblical Standards for Choosing Civil Magistrates. Read it, study it,
THEN decide who to vote for.
Saturday, October 9
3:23 PM
Quote of the day (Robert L. Dabney):
There
can be, therefore, no true education without moral culture, and no true
moral culture without Christianity. The very power of the teacher in the
school-room is either moral or it is a degrading force. But he can show
the child no other moral basis for it than the Bible. Hence my argument is
as perfect as clear. The teacher must be Christian. But the American
Commonwealth has promised to have no religious character. Then it cannot
be teacher.
3:05 PM
This may surprise you, but language learning
has never come easily for me. Being a complete linguistic nincompoop when
I started learning my first foreign language (ancient Greek), I probably had to study longer than
most students before the lights when on. (Yes, being from Oahu I knew
Hawaiian Pidgin, but by my college years all I could remember was "Aloha"
and "Book 'em Danno.") And now my father-in-law sends me an Ethiopian
phrase book which can only be described as utterly impossible. To be sure,
Amharic is a Semitic language like Hebrew (which I can read), but any
other similarities are purely accidental (such as the script). If anyone
knows of some simple Amharic audio files with basic phrases, I'd be
eternally grateful to you if you'd email me the link pronto. (Below: The
Amharic Syllabary.)

2:56 PM
A new book discusses
heroes. Here's
one of
mine.

1:23 PM
Just had an absolutely brilliant idea. If
Tony Blair
wants to help the Ethiopians so desperately, why not start by returning
the
artifacts looted by British troops over 130 years ago? Einstein would
be proud of me, eh?

8:56 AM
Why Christian Burns
won't be voting for Bush.
8:50 AM
Michael Spencer learned a lot from watching
the presidential debates, such as:
Bush has a smirk and
doesn't work very hard at sounding Presidential. Kerry has a
paternalizing head shake and really works hard to sound serious.
Bush can't make a
coherent sentence, has grammatical challenges and repeats prepared
phrases to the point of irritation. Kerry is well spoken, well prepared
and glib.
Bush believes it was
necessary to go into Iraq. Kerry does, and doesn't, and can't explain
either position in simple statements.
Bush believes the war in
Iraq is going to yield many positive benefits in the war on terror.
Kerry believes it was a mistake or not a mistake, can't explain either,
and says both.
Want more?
Go
here.
8:32 AM
This just in from Mark Dankof. I gladly pass it on.
My good friend, Daniel New, has written an article
for today's Lew Rockwell. I encourage you to read it and to pass it along
to friends. I have a tribute to Mr. New on my own site at
http://www.MarkDankof.com.
His son, Michael New, was court-martialed by Bill Clinton for refusing to
don UN insignia on his military uniform in Macedonia, minus the
Constitutionally prescribed Act of Congress. Daniel New is a most key
figure on the Real American Right. Enjoy and forward.
Mark (Dankof)
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig5/new1.html
7:52 AM
Mr. Bush has proven himself. (Yep, this is
tongue in cheek.)
7:50 AM
The young Mr. Friedrich has done it again. Check out his new blog
here.
7:48 AM
Mr. "No" is
right again.
7:43 AM
Farm Update: Last night at supper my wife made this comment: How many
people do you know who are still eating fresh squash at this time of the
year? Kudos to Nathan for his excellent garden this year, the fruit of
which we are still enjoying (that goes for the juicy watermelon, too).

Friday, October 8
8:30 AM
Check it out:
Mid-South Regional Southern Baptist Founders Conference. Man, they
even have a Greek prof speaking!
8:14 AM
So utterly content is
Jay
Sekulow with his support of Bill Pryor that he does not even see fit
to mention the Constitution. Sniff.
8:07 AM
Election Update. Mark Dankof just sent me this good news:
PASADENA, Md., Oct. 7 /PRNewswire/
-- Michael A. Peroutka and Dr. Chuck Baldwin -- the Constitution Party
presidential and vice-presidential nominees -- are proud to announce the
launch of their new television, radio and print ad campaign. The ads
focus on the main themes of the campaign: honoring God, protecting the
family and preserving the Republic. The campaign, which launched this
week, includes 18 new television ads that will air in eight states now
until Election Day, Nov. 2, 2004. Additionally, the campaign has
released 18 new radio ads and several print ads.
Two of the TV ads are designed for the MTV
generation and feature the animated character "Chad," which implores
voters not to let their vote "get wasted" this November by voting for
President George W. Bush or Sen. John F. Kerry (D-Mass.). Other ads
address a range of topics vital to America's continued security, growth
and success, including immigration, abortion, national sovereignty,
Constitutional restoration and protecting the family.
Targeted states for the
television ads include Alabama, Alaska, Colorado, Florida, Maryland,
Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia and Washington, D.C. The campaign is
currently reviewing several other states for possible media campaigns.
The radio ads are
airing nationally on XM Satellite radio, on Stan Monteith's syndicated
radio show and on the 50,000-watt, non-directional powerhouse WHO AM
1040 based in Des Moines, Iowa. Radio ads are also airing in Alabama and
Colorado. Full-page print ads are running in several outlets including
Business Reform Magazine, The American Conservative, Human Events and
The Washington Times Weekly Edition.
"Many Americans are
planning on voting for George Bush because they either truly believe, or
at least hope, he is a conservative who will represent and defend those
pro-life and pro-family values that comprise the moral fabric of our
society," observed Peroutka. "Still others plan on voting for John Kerry
because they no longer believe in our current leadership and think Kerry
will bring real change to the White House.
"As our new ads will show,
if Americans want a president who will take substantive action to end
abortion, preserve the sanctity of marriage between one man and one
woman, defend our country from threats -- foreign and domestic -- and
who will restore our Republic to its constitutional foundation, then
Peroutka-Baldwin is the only choice that will not result in a wasted
vote this November," concluded Peroutka.
7:47 AM
It is a blessing and a joy to edit this website. Here's one of the reasons
why (from yesterday's mailbag):
Dear Mr. Black,
I thank God for you daily as I read your blog. I don't even remember how I
stumbled across your website. I started reading your blog about four
months ago and am very challenged and encouraged each time I read. I
regularly print your articles and read them to my children (16,14, 12 and
7). They have become a regular part of our home schooling political
discussions.
God is using your articles and at least three families (including mine)
are planning on voting for Peroutka this November. Thanks to your
willingness to proclaim truth, we are no longer voting for one party out
of fear that the other may win. You have consistently reminded us that God
is in control. When thinking about the election, I often think of David
and Goliath. Even David's brother mocked him and doubted. David trusted
God and rejected mockery. And all the earth knew there is a God in Israel.
We have never met Mr. Peroutka and chances are slim that will occur in
Illinois. If you know him, please let him know that we are earnestly
asking God to put him in office.
May the United States wake on November 3, and know there is a God that
works through a faithful remnant in America!
God richly bless your teaching the book of John in Ethiopia. May He give
you, your wife and those traveling with you a safe return.
Thursday, October 7
5:01 PM
Quote of the day (Vance Havner):
Too many church services start at eleven
sharp and end at twelve dull.
7:14 AM
I am no pacifist, but I will never be convinced that there was a
casus belli.
Question: Will our policrats ever
own up
to it?

7:12 AM
Trivia, anyone? Here in rural Virginia, we're convinced that country
living is just grand. Of course, we are about 100 years behind the times,
too. My son stumbled upon these stats and shared them with me. The essay's
called "In
the Summer of 1900." Here's a selection:
Only 14 percent of the homes in the United States had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone. A three-minute call from
Denver to New York City cost eleven dollars.
There were only 8,000 cars in the US and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was ten mph.
Alabama, Mississippi, Iowa, and Tennessee were each more heavily
populated than California. With a mere 1.4 million residents, California
was only the twenty-first most populous state in the Union.
The average wage in the US was twenty-two cents an hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births in the United States took place at
home.
Ninety percent of all US physicians had no college education. Instead,
they attended medical schools, many of which were condemned in the press
and by the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound. Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen. Coffee
cost fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month and used borax or egg
yolks for shampoo.
There was no Mother's Day or Father's Day.
Coca-Cola contained
cocaine instead of caffeine.
7:05 AM
Sitting in a waiting room yesterday I ran across a Time magazine report on
the pilot of the ill-fated Concorde that crashed in Paris. Christian Marty
was the first Frenchman to windsurf across the Atlantic (now that
feat boggles the mind). He even refused to allow his support team to tow
him while he slept. "I didn't want to gain a single mile unless my wrists
and arms felt it," he said. But I like this quote the best: "For me,
freedom is being able to choose my own challenges. I am not afraid of
losing because there are honorable defeats." Remember that on November 3.
7:00 AM
One hundred billion pounds of food go to waste every year in America. I am
looking forward to eating whatever portions of food are placed before me
in Ethiopia beginning next week, and eating it without any utensils. I am
already a big fan of
injera, the nation's staple.

6:50 AM
By now most Americans think they can just about forget such "foolish"
notions as nullification and state sovereignty. Thomas DiLorenzo, who
thinks almost faster than he can write and doesn't suffer fools gladly,
offers some insights on states' rights and the enemies of constitutional
government:
Despots and tyrants
have always been the enemies of states’ rights, as have all manner of
power-hungry politicians and their intellectual supporters, such as
modern-day neoconservatives, especially the
nationalistic
warmongers at the Claremont Institute. "9/11 proves more than ever that
we need a strong federal government," Harry Jaffa declared during my May
2002 debate with him at the Independent Institute, apparently oblivious
to the fact that it was the failure of our "strong federal government"
that allowed 9/11 to happen in the first place.
Then there are the
weak-willed or cowardly academics, who are intimidated by the statists’
tactic of falsely identifying states’ rights with racism or slavery as a
means of censoring all discussion of it. These are people who are much
more concerned with being "accepted" by the establishment than with
discovering historical truths or defending the free society.
Read
more
on this vitally important but neglected topic.
Wednesday, October 6
8:50 AM
Rusty Lee Thomas ably exposes our
homosexual
heresies:
The only thing about
homosexuality that is inherent, however, is the sinful nature every human
being has received because of the fall of Adam and the subsequent advent
of original sin. Homosexuality is simply one of the many actual sins that
flows from the polluted well of original sin that springs from within
every human heart. Why do dogs bark? Because they are dogs. Why do people
sin? Because they are sinners. Homosexuality is simply one of the many
sinful expressions man chooses that reveals our depraved nature,
alienation from God and our need to know God’s great salvation through
faith in Jesus Christ.
8:40 AM
Michael Moore
bribing
students to vote? Has it come to that? (By the way, last night I read
one of the dumbest books I've ever held in my non-nicotine stained hands:
Michael Moore Is a Big Fat Stupid White Man.)
8:30 AM
WMD Update:
Before and after quotes. Of course, that there was never
an Iraq - al-Qaeda link or that WMD have
never been found doesn't matter to supporters of Bush-Cheney. If it did,
Kerry would be up at least 10 percent in the polls.

Tuesday, October 5
8:33 AM
Wales Update: Mike Tuggle over at the LOS website links to an interesting
story on
Welsh independence.
8:28 AM
Here's a
book I've got to read this year!

8:19 AM
Quote of the day (Tip: Charles Porter):
Beware the leader who
bangs the drums of war in order
to whip the citizenry into a patriotic fervor, for
patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both
emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And
when the drums of war have reached a fever pitch and
the blood boils with hate and the mind has closed, the
leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the
citizenry.
Rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded
by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto
the leader and gladly so.
How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am
Caesar.
-- Julius Caesar
8:06 AM
A "Wale-sized"
mistake?

8:05 AM
U.S. Empire:
Greatly overextended.
Most of this spending could
be eliminated if the United States returned to the foreign policy ideas of
the Founders. Current U.S. foreign policy can only be described as
reckless, interventionist, militaristic, and belligerent.
8:03 AM
We all knew it:
too few troops early on.
7:24 AM
Words can be funny things (kepi tip: Connie Ball):
DORMITORY:
When you rearrange the letters:
DIRTY ROOM
PRESBYTERIAN:
When you rearrange the letters:
BEST IN PRAYER
DESPERATION:
When you rearrange the letters:
A ROPE ENDS IT
GEORGE BUSH:
When you rearrange the letters:
HE BUGS GORE
THE MORSE CODE:
When you rearrange the letters:
HERE COME DOTS
SLOT MACHINES:
When you rearrange the letters:
CASH LOST IN ME
ANIMOSITY:
When you rearrange the letters:
IS NO AMITY
MOTHER-IN-LAW:
When you rearrange the letters:
WOMAN HITLER
SNOOZE ALARMS:
When you rearrange the letters:
ALAS! NO MORE Z'S
A DECIMAL POINT:
When you rearrange the letters:
IM A DOT IN PLACE
THE EARTHQUAKES:
When you rearrange the letters:
THAT QUEER SHAKE
ELEVEN PLUS TWO:
When you rearrange the letters:
TWELVE PLUS ONE
7:20 AM
The weekend's reenactment is still fresh in my mind. I thought the battle
scenarios were executed almost flawlessly, and the Yankees (many of whom
are my good friends who had galvanized) looked superb in their sky blue
uniforms. During Sunday's battle I noticed about 10 of them aiming at me
(!), and after they got off their crisp volley I figured I would look even
more foolish than I normally do not to take a hit, so down I went.
It's amazing to contemplate that thousands of Southern boys actually
fought and died on soil not too far from the event site. If you are a
person who still thinks these farmers were fighting to defend slavery, you
might take
The
Civil War Quiz. As my son put it at the supper table last night, the
war was essentially between two opposing world views - one that saw man as
basically good and considered government solutions to societal problems to
be workable and desirable; the other that affirmed total depravity and the
tendency of concentrated political power to corrupt (hence limited
government). If you think this is an over-simplification, it is; if you
want to read more of what I think about the war, see my book
Why I Stopped Listening to
Rush.
We just
downloaded our photos of the reenactment. Here are three. Below: The Black
clan reliving the 1860s.

A nice shot
of my wife with a real daughter of the Confederacy. You don't know
just how rare a find this is!

The three
warriors after Sunday's battle. The young Jeremy Enquist fell in with us
and did a fantastic job of shouldering his musket.

Monday, October 4
8:29 AM
The weekend's Jeb Stuart reenactment went off splendidly. No injuries,
either on or off the field, and great weather (the only exception being a
brief downpour just before the last battle). Congratulations to Jeremy
Enquist who fell in with us as a "fresh fish" and "saw the elephant." You
did a great job, young man, and I hope this was only the first of many
events you can attend. I met up with long-time DBO reader Edwin Sineath
and his friend Steve, up from Winston-Salem. Edwin had seen me "mortally
wounded" during Sunday's battle and stopped by to check on my condition.
The music was spectacular, and we enjoyed the period worship service on
Sunday. At our campsite a number of people joined me (guitar) and Nathan
(gut bucket) with various instruments, including fiddle, mandolin, banjo,
and spoons. I think the music is my favorite part of these events. We'll
be looking for yall at next year's big event: the 140th anniversary of the
Battle of Bentonville, NC.
Friday, October 1
8:29 AM
How we're
failing in Iraq.
8:24 AM
Pat Buchanan on the
Bush legacy:
Those of us who were called
unpatriotic for opposing an invasion of Iraq and who warned we would
inherit our own Lebanon of 25 million Iraqis were proved right. Now our
nation is tied down and our army is being daily bled in a war to create a
democracy in a country where it has never before existed.
With the guerrilla war, US prestige has plummeted. The hatred of President
Bush is pandemic from Marrakesh to Mosul. Volunteers to fight the
Americans have been trickling into Iraq from Syria, Saudi Arabia and Iran.
In the spring of this year revelations of the sadistic abuse of Iraqi
prisoners at Abu Ghraib prison sent US prestige sinking to its lowest
levels ever in the Arab world. We may have ignited the war of
civilisations that it was in our vital interest to avoid. Never has
America been more resented and reviled in an Islamic world of one billion
people.
8:20 AM
Why not vote for the best?
There are unwritten
alliances in the two party system for status quo conformity while
retaining power via non-term limits with unending perpetuity. Democrats
and Republicans have betrayed us, seeking primarily to accumulate wealth
thru authoritative control of power. One is a clone to the other and the
lesser of two evils is still evil. But why choose either evil when you
can vote for the best of the best.
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