Category Archives: Civilization

Right back where we started from…

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I’ve always had a bit of a soft spot for Fort Lee. When I was desperate to leave teaching and sloshing my way towards high-functioning alcoholism, Ft. Lee was my first step towards redemption. It was the place that restored my faith in my own abilities. Coming back to this place is a little like coming home to mama. It is one of those little pieces of geography that gives me a warm fuzzy. I am a firm believer that there are certain places, geographic locations that have a huge impact on who we become as people. I’m not going so far as arguing that geography makes the man (although there are some interesting theories floating around), just that it has an influence.

I’m sitting here 1000 yards from where Grant broke the rebel line at Petersburg in the last great battle of our Civil Way. After Petersburg, the worst of the conflict was over, though peace would come only after the fall of Richmond and the long march to Appomattox. After Petersburg, normal was still a long way off. There remained the struggle of national Reconstruction and decades of Jim Crowe. The Republic had endured the dark threat of disunion and although Gettysburg is remembered as the battle that turned the tide, it was Petersburg that finally broke the back of the rebellion. This is where the process of restoring faith in the Union began in earnest.

In so many ways, Petersburg did the same thing for me. There’s something about the symmetry that I like.

Suburban bliss…

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I think ranting about my neighbor is going to become a regular feature here. There’s just too much good (bad) stuff to pass up…

Given the ridiculous heat and the fact that my lawn is staying alive only through the nourishing power of fertilizer and thousands of gallons of irrigation, I mow, on average, every other weekend. I did the mowing, did the trimming, and was putting the power equipment away when my neighbor fired up his, much more wussy than mine, mower. Not a big deal, glad to see the guy take an interest in lawn care. I won’t get into the fact that he actually ground it down to bare earth or that in the 6 months grass has been growing, he has never actually done any trimming.

Hearing the neighbor shut down his mower, I stepped onto the back patio for a tasty smoky treat and to look askance at the travesty the guy regularly inflicts on his lawn. I know my lawn and it only took a quick look over to see that something wasn’t right. Somehow, this putz had managed to leave a three foot tall swath just on his side of the property line between our houses. I know it’s on his side of the line because there’s a steak at the back corner and another at the front curb and that remembering my high school geometry, I can identify a line using those two points.

I’ll be the first to admit that property boundaries on our subdivision are a little odd, but they are all straight lines, rather than the gently curving arc that now appears to separate us. Really, numbnuts, how the hell can you not know where your property stops? And even if you didn’t know, the part I cut twenty minutes before you started should have been a pretty damn good indication. Yes, I know it seems strange and intuitively, you’d think that the boundary would be equidistant between our houses, but in reality, 2/3 of the open space is on your side of the line.

If you can’t get something this relatively easy figured out, how in the name of all things holy do you function in actual society and deal with issues that require more than breathing and walking all at the same time?

Someone once commented on good fences making good neighbors… do you suppose that’s still true when you make your fence out of razor wire and seed it with claymores?

The Glorious Fourth…

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We live in troubled times. Love of country is seen as the exclusive province of the closed-minded and Patriots are derided as jingoistic bombasts. The good that America has done and continues to do in the world is swept under the rug in favor of discussions on where our steps have faltered. The long list of our national accomplishments are pushed aside and only our mistakes are held up to the light of public scrutiny.

Two hundred thirty one years ago, 55 patriots, working under conditions of secrecy and in contravention of the instructions that had brought them together, voted for independence from Great Britain. Those colonials, mistreated and abused by the king’s government, launched the world’s greatest experiment in representative democracy. We fought a great civil war to determine if such a nation could endure. In the century just passed, we fought two world wars to ensure that this legacy of freedom did not perish and a long cold war that pitted America against the forces of an evil empire. Now, America’s bravest sons and daughters stand post in places with names like Kabul and Tikrit, just as their predecessors held the line in the la Drang Valley, at the Chosin Reservoir, in the snows of Bastogne, and the muddy trenches of the Marne.

Today is Independence Day and I remain committed to the proposition that our country, warts and all, remains the last, best hope of earth; that, as it was at the beginning, it is a shining city upon a hill.

What separates us from the primates…

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Authors note: This is not directed at any individual, living or dead. It is based on a series of observations over the last week. The use of the word “you” does not refer necessarily to “you” the reader, but more general “you” directed at the general public.

I’ve had two separate people tell me over the course of the last week some variation of the phrase, “you can’t always lead with your head.” I call bullshit. I call bullshit on the people who stumble blindly through life from one thing to the next because they’re “following their heart.” I call bullshit on people who turn left instead of right because “they have a feeling.” I call bullshit on a society that values luck over skill and mediocrity over greatness.

People, listen up, because your Uncle Jeff is only gonna go over this material one time. And yes, before someone asks, it will be on the test. Look in the mirror. Do you see that great big melon-looking rock sitting atop your neck? That’s your head. It’s where your brain lives. Your brain is useful for completing all sorts of tasks like addition, breathing, and general problem solving. Your brain, unlike that of say, a swallow, is well developed and provides you with the ability, when used correctly, to apply reason and intellect to even the most difficult of situations. The human brain has developed over millions of years to protect the rest of the body from writing checks that are too expensive to cash.

The ability to apply reason is what separates us from our primate cousins. It’s why we have built civilizations while they pick fleas off one another. I’m not saying that the heart or the spleen or the liver can’t be the point of inspiration, but it’s up to the brain to take that inspiration and flesh it out. It’s through reason that we come to understand the inspiration and impulses for what they are. It’s our intellect and our ability to make the hard decisions without getting waylaid that fundamentally makes us human.

Use your heart, or your intuition, or your ESP for all I care. But at the end of the day, try running things through your brain first before you declare the decision making process to be at an end. Try leading with your head for a change. You might be surprised.

If I had a hammer…

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If you were thinking this post would include a link to some kind of damned dirty hippy music, you’re a moron. I actually learned an important lesson about self-restraint today. For the record, it’s best to avoid Home Depot on the Monday of three-day weekends. I knew better, but there were a few odds and ends I needed to pick up. One of those things was a 5-pound sledge so I can shape the stone that’s being delivered tomorrow. The other was a rubber mallet so I could level the stone and use it as lawn edging. The real danger here is the confluence of three factors: 1) Home Depot on a holiday weekend; 2) a rubber mallet in my left hand; and 3) a 5-pound sledge in my right hand.

I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t some nascent desire to start swinging the above mentioned hand tools at some of my fellow customers. I don’t know why I continue to be surprised by the complete inability of people in general to perform more than one simple task at a time (i.e. walking and talking with the person who came with them). I thing just one soul-satisfying “thwack” of cold steel meeting noggin, would give me an indelible feeling of inner peace. Once again my heart-stopping fear of prison and sodomy have kept me on the straight and narrow. Damn you social contract! Damn you!

A question for the masses…

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This is probably one of those things that’s “too soon” to rant about, but I’m looking for some guidance from you good and wise people here on the internet. I want to know what the hell goes through someone’s head when they wake up one morning and decide that it’s a good day to go on a shooting rampage at their local college, high school, box social, cafeteria, or other public place. I have a vague recollection of being in high school, and sure, it has its moments of pure suck. I did the college thing and for the most part had a fantastic time although it too had its moments. I also grew up with guns in the house, watching violent movies, and playing early versions of the now-infamous “first person shooter” video games. Somehow, I and everyone I know managed to survive this experience without shooting up 50+ of our friends, acquaintances, and associates. Come to think of it, we didn’t shoot anyone. The worst thing that ever happened was the occasional fist-fight. Brutal? Yes, of course. Deadly? No, not so much.

I’m too damned young to start telling stories that start off “well, when I was in school…” But still, I want someone to fill me in on what the hell has changed in the last 8-10 years, so if you’ve got the answers, now would be the time.

My God… It’s full of stars…

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Note: This post was lifted directly from my notes on Saturday, March 31st. It is complete and unabridged.

It’s Saturday afternoon now and I am taking lunch on the Piazza della Signoria. Michelangelo walked here in this square. So did Galileo. So did Machiavelli. The Medici rose to power on the business flowing through this square. The Renaissance was born and flourished in these walls. This is the cradle of what is good and right about Western civilization… Of art, of science, of understanding what it means to be men. Someone wiser than I once said “If I see further, it is because I have stood on the shoulders of giants.” It is how I feel here in this place. My own learning, my curiosity, and the desire for improve constantly find their own root here. In coming Florence and seeing these things and walking in the steps of the ponderously brilliant minds who lived and worked here I have a deeper understanding of myself and a far more humble perspective of my own meager talents.

Goddamn hippies…

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While today has been mainly about catching up on class work, I’ll admit to occasionally checking in on the course of the filthy hippy protest in DC this afternoon. Listening to the so-called “leaders” of this movement was quite simply horrifying. The words “we support out troops,” was featured frequently in statements, but it seems that phrase has been picked up as a throw-away line, by those who neither understand nor appreciate the sacrifice the troops are making. That the protest was shown live on cable television, that these people would stand in front of the world, and call for the US to disengage from the war on terror, to retreat back behind the walls of a fortress America that can no longer exists, provides nothing short of aid and comfort to the enemy. Because those who truly do support the troops, those who undeniably know that they only way to win is to destroy the enemy where he lives, remain silent because to speak out is to be labeled a warmonger.

I don’t love war. And in a perfect world, there wouldn’t be a need for America to garrison the world. The world isn’t perfect and that’s why we stand a watch while other countries cower in dark corners. Let’s not pretend that we started this conflict. Despite what the protesting mob thinks, we did not ask to be attacked. It wasn’t 90-year old grandmothers who attacked us. It wasn’t even the French whose main mission in life is to be collaborators. Each and every one of you reading this knows who attacked us and you know, even if you won’t admit it in public, why we are where we are in the world today and not in Europe or South America waging this war.

We’re not waging this war on the streets of America, either, but mark my words, if we throw up our hands and declare that defeating terror is too hard to do. If we cut and run. If we abandon this mission, then mark my words: In our lifetime, and sooner rather than later, we will face this enemy here. We will face him at home in our towns and cities. Because we were unwilling to take the fight to the enemy, the enemy will most certainly bring the battle to us.

News of the world tonight…

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I just did a quick check of the headlines a few minutes ago and as expected, most of the major outlets are still running something about pot-smoking kids as the lead story. Another link on CNN was a story about a baby whose nose was chewed off by rats. I can’t help but think that if there these are stories that make the news, there are probably more examples of similar experiences out there that have simply never made it to tape. These stories appear to be the latest confirmation of my pet theory that the collapse of a civilization occurs exponentially more quickly than its rise. Using the year 1900 as a baseline for the start of the “American Century,” the rise took approximately 125 years. With parents who allow their young to have appendages removed by rodents and get stoned with the family (while the mother was apparently cranked out on pain killers according to the report I heard on news radio), I’m guessing we have maybe 25-30 relatively good years left before the scale is completely tipped and the inmates have achieved the critical mass needed to take over the asylum.