Sacrifice. What's Wrong With The World

In the West, we just celebrated Easter.  In the East, where the Old Calendar is sometimes used, it's today.  This might mean, for the observant, that they were in Church the prior Sunday, in which case, for churches using the Catholic liturgical calendar, they heard this.

Then Judas, his betrayer, seeing that Jesus had been condemned,

deeply regretted what he had done.

He returned the thirty pieces of silver

to the chief priests and elders, saying,

"I have sinned in betraying innocent blood."

They said,

"What is that to us?

Look to it yourself."

Flinging the money into the temple,

he departed and went off and hanged himself.

We all know, of course, that Judas was Christ's betrayer.  Not too many stop to think that he was seized with remorse and hung himself.

Why was he so miserable?

Probably for the same reason that Western society, on the whole, is.

He thought of himself and chose his own inner wishes rather than being willing to sacrifice.

It's struck me recently that this is the defining quality of our age. We won't sacrifice and don't believe we should have to.  It explains a lot.

Interestingly, in a matter of synchronicity, after I started writing this I happened to listen to an episode of Catholic Stuff You Should Know on Augustine's City of God and Lewis' The Great Divorce that ties in perfectly.  It's here:

The one that explains exactly where we are.

CAN WE BUILD THE CITY OF GOD?

And I do mean exactly.

Also, a matter of synchronicity, we passed the 111th anniversary of the sinking of the Titanic after I started this.  

The wealthy men on board the doomed ship, and a lot of the other men, stayed on the sinking ship so that women and children would be saved.  The men who went were largely the crew, needed to man the lifeboats as part of their tasks.  Otherwise, men didn't complain, they just stepped aside so that as few women and children as possible wouldn't die. A Catholic Priest stayed with them to prepare them for entry into the next life.  All of them were living up to a standard, but the interesting thing to note there is that it was a standard.  They were heroic, but not because they exceeded the standard, but rather because the occasion came to apply it, and they unflinchingly did.

Now we shove women into combat, something that in any prior age would be regarded as an outright societal act of cowardice and a complete failure of male virtue.

We've come a long ways, all right.  And not in a good way.

Sacrifice was almost the defining quality of any prior age, or at least those that preceded the late 1960s, and very much the defining quality of the 18th through mid 20th Centuries.  Men would die before they'd let women and children be injured, and if they didn't, they'd be branded as cowards for the rest of their lives.

Most people married, and marriage was understood to have a sacrificial element to it in numerous ways.  People didn't "write their own vows", the vows were part of the ceremony and they were, well, vows.  Promises you weren't getting out of, in other words.

Latin Rite English wedding vows still reflect this.  The entire series of events reads goes as follows.

First, the Priest asks a series of questions, to which the couple responds "I do", or words that effect:

(Name) and (name), have you come here to enter into Marriage without coercion, freely and wholeheartedly?"                   

"Are you prepared, as you follow the path of Marriage, to love and honor each other for as long as you both shall live?"                       

"Are you prepared to accept children lovingly from God and to bring them up according to the law of Christ and his Church?"

Only after ascent to that, the Priest reads:

Priest (or deacon): Since it is your intention to enter into the covenant of Holy Matrimony, join your right hands, and declare your consent before God and his Church.

Groom: I, (name), take you, (name), to be my wife. I promise to be true to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health. I will love you and honor you all the days of my life.

Bride: I, (name), take you, (name), to be my husband. I promise to be faithful to you in good times and in bad, in sickness and in health, to love you and to honor you all the days of my life.

The element of sacrifice is so strong in marriage, that in Croatia, a Catholic country, an added element is present, in which the Priest states:

You have found your cross. And it is a cross to be loved, to be carried, a cross not to be thrown away, but to be cherished.

That's really heavy.  That's not a fuzzy bunny, flowery rose, type of view of marriage at all.  You're signing up for a real burden.

But one to be cherished.

And that's the thing that the West has lost. 

We don't want to sacrifice at all.

If you look at life prior to the late 1960s, sacrifice was darned near universal.  Everyone, nearly, married and divorce was rare.  People sacrificed for their marriages.  Most married couples had children, and having children entailed sacrifice.  Reflecting the common values of the time well, the screenwriter of The Magnificent Seven summed it up in this fashion in a comparison of family men to hired gunfighters:

Village Boy 2 : We're ashamed to live here. Our fathers are cowards.

Bernardo O'Reilly : Don't you ever say that again about your fathers, because they are not cowards. You think I am brave because I carry a gun; well, your fathers are much braver because they carry responsibility, for you, your brothers, your sisters, and your mothers. And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground. And there's nobody says they have to do this. They do it because they love you, and because they want to. I have never had this kind of courage. Running a farm, working like a mule every day with no guarantee anything will ever come of it. This is bravery. That's why I never even started anything like that... that's why I never will.

The line, "And this responsibility is like a big rock that weighs a ton. It bends and it twists them until finally it buries them under the ground." was literally true for many.  Indeed, it's been noted that up until some point after World War Two Finland, which rountinely comes in as the happiest country on Earth, had a very early male death rate, simply because the men there worked hard, and basically worked themselves into the grave for their families.

People were not, of course, perfect, and therefore children naturally arrived on the scene with an unmarried origin.  Depending upon the age of the couple, that often ended up in a marriage before the child was born, adding an added element of sacrifice in which the couple sacrificed, in essence, an element of freedom or even their future for what they'd brought about. When that didn't occur, the child was more often than not given up for adoption, which involves an element of sacrifice, but because it arises in a different context, we'll not get too deeply into that.

Things tended to be focused on that fashion. There were people who didn't follow this path, but they were a minority.

This has been portrayed, since the 1970s, as some sort of horrible oppression.  But the surprising secret of it is that people seem to be hardwired for it, and when it's absent, they descend into, well, a descent.

None of which is to say that sacrifices aren't present in the modern world. They are, although by and large society tries enormously to avoid them.

It's tried the hardest in regard to the natural instincts of all kinds.  People are able to avoid nature, and so they do, least they have to sacrifice. But that's a sacrifice in and of itself, but for what?

The self, is what we were told initially.  But the self in this context turns out to be for the economy.  In a fairly straight line, we're told that you should avoid commitments to anything requiring commitment, so that you can get a good career, make lots of money, and go to Ikea.

Very fulfilling?

Ummm. . . 

No, not at all.  

In The Great Divorce, which I haven't read but which Catholic Things summarized extensively, Lewis placed a self focused Anglican Bishop in the role of the self-centered intellect.  Self Centered is the epitome of the current age.  And that self-centered role placed the figure in Hell.

We're doing a good job of that figuratively for the same reason, and literally as well.

Prior Related Threads:

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 1. A thought on community

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 2. Care, lack of care, and an existential lack of focus.

Lex Anteinternet: What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 3. Our lost connection with animals.

Today is Easter for Churches using the "Old Calendar"

 

Friday, April 16, 1943. Mercader starts his wait.

Photo of a B-18 that had done a gear up landing, April 16, 1943.

The Battle of Cigno Convoy occurred off of Sicily, in which a Royal Navy attempt to interdict an Italian convoy resulted in the loss of the British destroyer Pakenham. The Italians lost a torpedo boat.

U.S. submarines under construction.

Swiss biochemist Albert Hofmann accidentally ingested LSD, making him the first human to do so.  He'd repeat the experiment and endure a "bad trip" two days later.

Hofmann was an advocate for the drug, hoping it would find some use, which it never did.

Ramón Mercader, a.k.a. Jacques Monard, was sentenced to 20 years in prison by Mexican authorities for murdering Leon Trotsky.  Mercader would serve out his term and ultimately move to the Soviet Union, where he was employed by the USSR and regarded as a hero. Before his death in 1978 he noted;  "I hear it always. I hear the scream. I know he's waiting for me on the other side."

Monday, April 16, 1923.

 Every once in a while a century old paper, and a current one, almost look the same.

Eleven Moscow housing officials were condemned to death for taking bribes.

The one that explains exactly where we are.

CAN WE BUILD THE CITY OF GOD?

And I do mean exactly.

Why a 21-year-old had a top-secret security clearance

You really can't have it both ways, you know.

That is, if you are old enough to vote, be drafted, by booze, marry, buy firearms. . . 

Summing it up.

Tom Nichols ("The Narcissists Who Endanger America," The Atlantic) probably got it right when he identified narcissism as a common trait linking compromisers of our national security - from those older, more traditional spies like Aldrich Ames and Robert Hansen to those ostensible "whistleblowers" like Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden to the young braggart Jack Teixeira, whose main motivation seems to have been to impress teenagers in a chat group and thus establish himself as an important person in an ultimately unimportant community of ultimately unimportant digital gamers.

Rev. Ronald Franco, CSP

A great line and observation from the City Father's blog that is one of the ones we link in and follow.

His essay is entitled "Where Are We Going".  Well worth reading.

 

The Scapegoat

The Best Posts of the Week of April 9, 2023

The best posts of the week of April 9, 2023.

The Blizzard of 13.

Message to the Faithful Priests of the Church in Germany. An die gläubigen Priester der Kirche in Deutschland.

On the first day of the week, Mary of Magdala came to the tomb early in the morning,while it was still dark, and saw the stone removed from the tomb.

So she ran and went to Simon Peter and to the other disciple whom Jesus loved, and told them,

“They have taken the Lord from the tomb, and we don’t know where they put him.”

So Peter and the other disciple went out and came to the tomb. They both ran, but the other disciple ran faster than Peter and arrived at the tomb first; he bent down and saw the burial cloths there, but did not go in.

When Simon Peter arrived after him, he went into the tomb and saw the burial cloths there, and the cloth that had covered his head, not with the burial cloths but rolled up in a separate place.

Then the other disciple also went in, the one who had arrived at the tomb first, and he saw and believed.

For they did not yet understand the Scripture that he had to rise from the dead.

Jn 20:1-9

Monday at the Bar. So, Yeoman, what do you think about. . .

Blog Mirror: The We The People Amendment.

Saturday, April 10, 1943. Sfax taken.

Sunday, April 11, 1943. The Last To Eat

About says it all.  By the way, as this was an Army publication, the watermark does nothing.  You can't claim a government publication.

Pandemic Part 10. A new paradigm?

Monday, April 12, 1943. They also serve. . . an accidental tragedy.

Moonlight Graham and other lessons. At some point, you are stuck in your career.

Subsidiarity Economics. The times more or less locally, Part XII. Holding back the tide.

Wars and Rumors of War, 2023, Part 4. Бездоріжжя

Saturday, April 14, 1923. Waiting Dates, Young Couples, Racist Organizations Where You Wouldn't Expect Them.

Lex Anteinternet: What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 3. Our lost connection with animals.

The Air National Guard and other comments in the context of the classified leak

Social fantasy confronted by science. Transgenderism.

The 2024 Election, Part II. What could go wrong?

Primitive seasons, modern technology

Primitive seasons, modern technology

 An item linked in from one of the blogs we follow:

ARROWRIFLES DURING ARCHERY SEASON IN OK

I'm not a bow hunter.  A lot of the hunters I know are, including ones my age and a little older. Some quite a bit older.  I note that as it's not merely a matter of having grown up before there were bow seasons.  At least, I think I did.  I know it wasn't popular in the state until I was in my early 20s, and it followed the Game & Fish allowing some large caliber handguns to be used for hunting. I recall that coming first.

I'm an avid hunter, but I'm a modern firearms' hunter.  If bows were my only option, I'd use them, but they are not, I don't. They seem retrograde in a way that isn't appealing, as firearms are more deadly, and we owe the animal that.  I'm not going to get preachy about it, however, and the few hunters I know really well that bow hunt are very proficient, and no doubt highly deadly with a bow.

Anyhow, I'm okay with their being bow seasons, but the way that people use early seasons as simply a vehicle to get out first, and then evade the spirit of the original thought I don't care for. The spirit of bow hunting was to hunt with something that humans used that required skill and reflected our hunting nature in earlier times.  Basically, if Ötzi would have recognized it, well then it was good to go.  I'm not demanding a bow that Welsh archers or Sioux warriors would have used, but a real bow.

Catalan depiction of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, 1086.

Well, soon enough, some people wondered if they might use crossbows.

I should know more about the history of the crossbow than I do, but I think of it as a weapon of war.  It was sort of the magnum strength projectile launcher of its day, launching a heavy bolt through armor or mail.  I didn't realizes they were legal for hunting anywhere until a colleague asked me about it, as he wanted to buy one, thinking that he didn't have the physical strength to use a bow.

Hmmm.

Mind you, I don't mind archery at all.  I think it's really cool, and I've thought about doing it in the backyard just for fun.  And I wouldn't mind pinking with a crossbow.  I'm just not going to hunt with either, and I don't think that using a crossbow meets with the spirit of the original concept.

The same evolution, I'd note, occurred with "primitive rifles".

Following the movie Jeremiah Johnson, there was a blackpowder rifle craze that developed and it never really stopped.  I like blackpowder rifles and I wouldn't mind at all hunting with one of them.  I guess they cross the threshold of lethality enough for me that and they appeal to my interest in history.

What doesn't appeal to my interest in history is modern "muzzle loading" rifles that are expressly designed to evade the rules and be as close to modern hunting rifles as possible while still being "muzzle loading".  They don't have a big following in Wyoming as Wyoming doesn't have primitive rifle seasons, but they do have one where they're allowed.

Now, as the item above notes, there are "arrow rifles". This is really a bridge too far, and is a technological development solely to get a person out before rifle season, with something that's really a rifle.

This really ought not to be allowed, and frankly, it's a good reason to go back to the original concept.  Seeing that technology will always find a way to evade the spirit of something, and somebody will always avail themselves of it, there are places to restrict it, and this is one.

Thursday, April 15, 1943. V-Mail.

 

The first Victory Mail station established overseas, in this case in Casablanca.

The technology involve microfilming mail for more efficient transmission.

From Sarah Sundin's blog:

Today in World War II History—April 15, 1943: Maj. Gen. Omar Bradley takes command of US II Corps in Tunisia; George Patton is relieved to prepare for the invasion of Sicily.

All in all, Patton had been in command of II Corps for a mere matter of weeks.

On the same day, Gen. Eisenhower toured the front in North Africa.

The State Bank of Ethiopia was established.

The Sino-American Cooperative Organization was established as an intelligence gathering cooperative between Nationalist China and the United States.

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand was issued. I haven't read it, and I'm not going to, as Ayn Randites don't impress me.

Sunday, April 15, 1923. Technological advances.

 It was an interesting day in terms of scientific advances.

April 15, 1923 – A Dramatic Moment in Medical History, Insulin Becomes Available

On the same day, Phonofilm, a talking movie technology, was publicly introduced.  It was revolutionary, but it was not uniquely being worked on, and therefore it would end up a technological dead end.

Turkey issued the Law of Abandoned Properties, allowing the transfer of property of "abandoned property" to the government.  Given the recent expulsion of Anatolian Greeks. . . . 

The Tribune featured a cartoon from the golden age of boosterism:

Released on this day in 1923:

As was this:

 

A constitutional right to a clean environment in NM, etc.

Social fantasy confronted by science. Transgenderism.

And evolutionary biology and science rear their heads:

More children and adolescents are identifying as transgender and are being offered medical treatment, especially in the US—but some providers and European authorities are urging caution because of a lack of strong evidence. Jennifer Block reports

And:

Internationally, however, governing bodies have come to different conclusions regarding the safety and efficacy of medically treating gender dysphoria. Sweden’s National Board of Health and Welfare, which sets guidelines for care, determined last year that the risks of puberty blockers and treatment with hormones “currently outweigh the possible benefits” for minors.24 Finland’s Council for Choices in Health Care, a monitoring agency for the country’s public health services, issued similar guidelines, calling for psychosocial support as the first line treatment.25 (Both countries restrict surgery to adults.)

Medical societies in France, Australia, and New Zealand have also leant away from early medicalisation.2627 And NHS England, which is in the midst of an independent review of gender identity services, recently said that there was “scarce and inconclusive evidence to support clinical decision making”28 for minors with gender dysphoria29 and that for most who present before puberty it will be a “transient phase,” requiring clinicians to focus on psychological support and to be “mindful” even of the risks of social transition.30

And: 

Guyatt, who co-developed GRADE, found “serious problems” with the Endocrine Society guidelines, noting that the systematic reviews didn’t look at the effect of the interventions on gender dysphoria itself, arguably “the most important outcome.” He also noted that the Endocrine Society had at times paired strong recommendations—phrased as “we recommend”—with weak evidence. In the adolescent section, the weaker phrasing “we suggest” is used for pubertal hormone suppression when children “first exhibit physical changes of puberty”; however, the stronger phrasing is used to “recommend” GnRHa treatment.

And, in Scandinavia:

The Norwegian Healthcare Investigation Board, (NHIB/UKOM) has deemed puberty blockers, cross-sex-hormones & surgery for children & young people experimental, determining that the current “gender-affirmative” guidelines are not evidence-based and must be revised. /1

"Transgenderism", in the fashion, at any rate, it's boosted by the political left just frankly really doesn't exist.l  What does exist is mental illness, and this is a symptom of a mental illness, doubtless different in men than women.  But in the world of the "progressive", we've gone to a state where we define our own reality, which in turn, is the epitome of anti reality.  Fantasy is elevated, so that cries for help or distress cannot be heard.

At the end of the day, this is in some ways the ultimate result of October 31, 1517.  On that date, what began as a questioning evolved ultimately into a revolution, defeating its own original thesis pretty quickly.  Questing perceived abuses, and being concerned about actual ones, lead to a radical proposition, that being that we are not subject to any larger existential authority, but can define the nature of an existential authority on our own.  That lead to endless redefinitions, and cemented in, north of the Rhine and west of the Channel, the concept that individuals defined what was existential, not metaphysics.

From there it was only a matter of time that, when wealth and science allowed for it, that those cultures adopting the revolution of 1517 would ultimately reject any concept of the existential at all, and instead go to it being all internal.  Each person would be their own god, at the end of the day, defining a reality which everyone else must acknowledge.  With no external to be considered, no existential standard would exist.

Pundits of the Robert Reich ilk like to claim that the opponents of progressives are fascinated by sex, when in fact the opposite is really the truth.  Progressivism, in a very real sense, only cares about sex in the crudest, most pornographic, terms and in tying people to employment. That's pretty much it.  You'll serve your corporate master, who will be taxed heavily to make you feel better about it, and then go home to your apartment and look at yourself, your own individual special being, a they, them, it, he and she.

Problem is, none of it is real.  And those crying for help keep crying.

A shooting just recently in Colorado Springs was by a person who claimed to be "non-binary".  In Denver, another shooter identified as transgender.  The recent Aberdeen shooter did as well.  The Ulvade shooter pretty clearly was, although the press avoided stating it plainly.

Prior shootings, mostly by males, have tended to almost all be by men who placed on "the spectrum". A recent shooting by a minor was by a child who was such, who had been forced into school on the popular basis that you can socialize people out of organic conditions.

In the 60s, the Who released The Kids Are Alright, which went:

I don't mind other guys dancing with my girl

That's fine, I know them all pretty well

But I know sometimes I must get out in the light

Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright

The kids are alright

Sometimes, I feel I gotta get away

Bells chime, I know I gotta get away

And I know if I don't, I'll go out of my mind

Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright

The kids are alright

I know if I go things would be a lot better for her

I had things planned, but her folks wouldn't let her

I don't mind other guys dancing with my girl

That's fine, I know them all pretty well

But I know sometimes I must get out in the light

Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright

The kids are alright

Sometimes, I feel I gotta get away

Bells chime, I know I gotta get away

And I know if I don't, I'll go out of my mind

Better leave her behind with the kids, they're alright

The kids are alright, the kids are alright, the kids are alright

The song was sort of about rebellion, and sort of not.  The Who was basically safetly rebelling in the song, as the rebellion was against a standard they were implicitly adopting and leaning up.

Well, the kids aren't alright anymore.

Because ignoring reality and the cries of the desperate isn't alright.

Is The Extraordinary Attorney Woo worth watching?

The Air National Guard and other comments in the context of the classified leak

As the fairly rapid investigation has revealed that the disgrace brought upon the United States by the leak of confidential information regarding the Russo Ukrainian War was committed by one Airman 1st Class Jack Douglas Teixeira, and as this will inevitably lead to all sorts of inaccurate commentary on the National Guard among other things, a few things to keep in mind.

The Air National Guard is not like the Army National Guard in that the Air Guard is pretty much a 24 hour a day, seven days a week, military establishment.

This tends to go really under the wire in the U.S., which tends to think that the Guard is active, other than for monthly drills, when it's called up in an emergency. Not so. The Guard in general is much more active than supposed.  I was an Army National Guardsman, as has been noted here in the past, and I worked full time status periodically.  Indeed, if I add up all my full time status, and my time in the Army for training, I have as much or more time in day to day uniform as many of the soldiers in my era who did two years in the Regular Army.  

And that's the Army Guard.

The Air Guard flies 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and for some of its pilots, that's their full time job.  If you have an establishment flying that often, that means that it has ground crews working that often as well.  Air Guardsmen that I have known not only have done weekend drills, but week day stints of duty, and the like, even if they're ground crews. Air crews obviously have the same schedules as their aircraft.

Teixer was a member of Massachusetts Air National Guard's 102nd Intelligence Wing, which is probably now reeling in shame.

What's it do?

Well, it doesn't fly anything.

According to its website:

Our mission is to provide worldwide precision intelligence and command and control along with trained and experienced Airmen for expeditionary combat support and homeland security.

That doesn't really tell you much, but what we can piece together is that it's been quietly put on a sort of active duty status at some point to support the U.S.'s mission to Ukraine.

Truly, most of the stuff that was leaked has been interesting, particularly if you are a military geek, but not hugely secret.  What is embarrassing, however, is that this is further proof that the U.S. can't keep anything secret.

What's also of interest is this.

The leaker is an AIC.

That's an Air Force two striper, but that's deceptive.

In the Army, two stripes is the rank of Corporal, and at one time it kind of was the same thing in the Air Force.  Corporals have always been sort of a big deal in the Army. As late as World War Two, corporals fulfilled a role that was later filled by sergeants.  In the Army, a corporal is a Non Commissioned Officer and holds the grade of E-4.

An Army E-3 is a Private First Class.

In the Air Force, an E-4 is a Sergeant.  In the Army, a "buck" sergeant is an E-5. An Army Sergeant outranks an Air Force One, in other words.

Most E-4s in the Army are Specialists, a post World War Two rank that is not a NCO.  Corporals are rare.

E-3s aren't rare, but this guy has been in the service since 2019.  I don't know about the Air Force, but at the time I was in the Army National Guard, a soldier who was an E-3 after four years in the service would have been slated to go right out the door.  I frankly doubt he would have been eligible for reenlistment. That's a shocking lack of progress, at least it would have been, but maybe things are different now, or different in the Air Force establishment.

It's rally dangerous to psychoanalyze with; 1) no real patient, 2) remotely, and 3) without a license, but most psychology is flaming BS anyhow, so why not. That leads to this.

This stuff was all leaked, apparently, on a Discord.  I'm not familiar with Discord, but from what I understand of this story, this guy was pretty aggressive and got huffy when people weren't reacting with Cyber Joy in his small community over his leaks.  This leads to this.

Being an E3 at the end of four years and acting that way seems to put this guy in the oddball status to me.  He sure wasn't making grade in the Guard, so why not be a big deal on one of those stupid internet societies.

This is the second time in recent years where leaks were made by somebody pretty clearly psychologically disturbed, the other time being by Army Specialist Bradley Manning.  Manning figured in the Wikileaks matter, and there were clear signs that he wasn't right.  I don't know about Teixeira, but I note this as the service seems to have at least a semi poor record for screening folks with problems out, even in this era in which its difficult, to some degree, to get into the service.  Manning shouldn't have had access to classified documents, and it'll be interesting to see what was known about Teixeira.

What this does reveal, which should have already been known, that not everyone in the service is a hero or even normal.  Most people in the service are normal, but in recent years it's gotten so that whatever you did in the service affords you with Audi Murphy like status, which is just nuts.

There are a lot of predictions now that Teixeira can look forward to hard time at Leavenworth for eons.  Maybe. That has happened in some prior instances.  But my guess it that Manning's story is probably more illustrative.  He did seven years in prison, during which time he decided that he was a girl and underwent some sort of process to artificially attempt to affect that appearance, and then was pardoned by President Obama.  American justice at work.

That does raise this question, although it probably answers itself.  Given as the Russians were seriously wondering, and openly, if this was a disinformation campaign, why not build on that?  A more cynical nation might have simply had a couple of guys from intelligence stop by the Teixeira apartment in the middle of the night and give him an option he practically couldn't have refused and turned him into an asset.  Indeed, why not?  He could have been used to leak disinformation for the rest of the war, or as long as useful.  After that, well, he could have been given the choice of being discharged at the E1 grade with the condition he shut up, or assigned to something really unpleasant for a freaking long time.

But we don't do things like that, apparently.

So now we have this drama, which will play out with the drama of the war.

One person trying to make hay from the drama is Marjorie Taylor Greene, the overgrown toddler from Georgia who pretty clearly just uses stuff to draw attention to herself.  She's not a serious person, and has suggested that the Airman is a Christian antiwar hero.

Seriously?

Tucker Carlson jumped on the bandwagon a bit too.  Carlson shouldn't be taken seriously, but all of this goes to show how far gone the far right really is.

18,000

That's the number of cattle killed in the explosion in Texas.  18,000 dairy cattle.

That's obscene.

I own cattle, and beef cattle at that. But this shows what's really gone wrong with the United States and the Western World.  Everything has to be some sort of factory.

Lex Anteinternet: What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 3. Our lost connection with animals.

ICELANDIC MILKMAID ON HER MORNING ROUND

This is a fine, sturdy pony standing so stockily for his photograph, and he can make light of his burden of buxom beauty with her heavy can of milk. She cares not for saddle or stirrups, for most of these island people are born to horseback, and her everyday costume amply serves the purpose of a riding-habit for this strapping Viking's daughter, with her long tresses shining in the breeze.  

(Original caption, of interest here I wouldn't call this young lady "buxom" or "strapping", but just healthy.  This might say something about how standards have changed over time.)

The other day, I posted this in a footnote on a completely different topic.

Lex Anteinternet: What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, par...:   

4.  One of the odder examples of this, very widespread, is the change in our relationship with animals.

Our species is one of those which has a symbiotic relationship with other ones.  We like to think that this is unique to us, but it isn't.  Many other examples of exist of birds, mammals and even fish that live in very close relationships with other species.  When this occurred with us, we do not know, but we do know that its ancient.  Dogs and modern wolves both evolved from a preexisting wolf species starting some 25,000 to 40,000 years ago, according to the best evidence we currently have. That likely means it was longer ago than that.

Cats, in contrast, self domesticated some 7,000 or so years ago, according to our best estimates.

Cat eating a shellfish, depiction from an Egyptian tomb.

We have a proclivity for both domesticating animals, and accepting self domestication of animals, the truth being that such events are likely part and parcel of each other. Dogs descend from some opportunistic wolves that started hanging around us as we killed things they liked to eat.  Cats from wildcats that came on as we're dirty.  Both evolved thereafter in ways we like, becoming companions as well as servants.  But not just them, horses, pigs, sheep, cattle. . .the list is long.

As we've moved from the natural to the unnatural, we've forgotten that all domestic animals, no matter how cute and cuddly they are, are animals and were originally our servants. And as real children have become less common in WASP culture, the natural instinct to have an infant to take care of, or even adore, has transferred itself upon these unwilling subjects, making them "fur babies".

It's interesting in this context to watch the difference between people who really work with animals, and those who do not.  Just recently, for example, our four-year-old nephew stayed the night due to the snow, and was baffled why our hunting dog, who is a type of working dog but very much a companion, stayed the night indoors.  The ranch dogs do not. . . ever.  The ranch cats, friendly though they are, don't either.

I started this thread back in February, when the entire news on "transgenderism" really hit the fan, so to speak.  Since that time there's been the filing of the sorority lawsuit in Laramie, a host of transgender mass shooting, and an absolutely freakish campaign by Budweiser in which a guy trying to channel a girl of the 1960s is sponsoring Bud Light.  Anyhow, this thread was to tie into it somehow, but now a lot of time has gone by, and working seven days out of seven, etc., I've really forgotten what my brilliant point here was to be, more or less.

But I'll go on anyhow.

This photograph shows a young woman at work, doing something that counted, and doing it in a way that was very close to nature.

So does this one:

Mid Week At Work: Mail Carrier, 1915, Los Angeles

And also this one:

Rural Nurse, Virginia. 1919.

And this one:

LOC Caption:   Sarah Crutcher, 12-year-old girl herding cattle. Route 4, c/o S.O. Crutcher. She was out of school (#49 Comanche County) only 2 weeks this year and that was to herd 100 head of cattle for her father, a prosperous farmer. She said: "I didn't like it either." She is doing well in school. Is in Grade 8.] Location: [Lawton, Oklahoma]

I think one of the interesting things about this photographs is, contrary to the modern image of what women wore when doing livestock work in the early 20th and late 19th Centuries, she's dressed in completely typical female attire for the time. She's riding wearing a fairly long skirt and a woman's hat that is typical for the period.

The point here?

Well this.  

We've gotten to the point where we don't deal with animals as they really are, daily.  We also are at the point where a large percentage of the original WASP demographic of the nation (more on this shortly) has lost most of the values it originally had, and replaced them with very weak tea instead.  And we've so removed ourselves from a state of nature, that most people don't have a grasp on what nature really is.

It's hard not to know the reality of the world if you live in it.

This past week, the Wyoming Supreme Court heard oral arguments in a case in Casper in which the plaintiffs claim they suffered emotional distress as their two pet dogs were caught in snares which they claim were improperly placed on public lands by a trapper.  Apparently, in a companion criminal case, the trapper was exonerated.  The state land is very close to the city, which is a problem, but it's still state land, and still unincorporated.

Losing dogs is a tragedy, but emotional distress?  This has never been allowed in the common law, as the law always held that the law is, basically, for people.  If you can claim emotional distress due to the loss of a pet, why not anything?

Now, that sounds cruel, and I understand grieving over the loss of an animal.  I've done it myself.  That is, in fact, one of the things about owning pets.  Normally, you outlive them, and if you are normal, you'll miss them when they die.

It's a part of life.

But emotional distress has been reserved, in the common law, for the loss of humans, based, in the end, for what we feel with the loss of a loved human being.  Not an animal, no matter how loved.

And of course, up until recently, there was no such concept as a legally recognized animal for "emotional support".  Support they did provide, but the bond was in a naturalistic way, not one for which the law afforded protection.

Have we lost something here?

I think we have, and it's connected with real work and real animals.

We'll explore What's Wrong With The World more in this series of threads, but here's one.  Being connected with animals in a real sense, and not in the sanitary removed from nature sense, helped keep us real.  

We've lost that.

It's hard to be obsessively focused on yourself, including your reproductive self, if you're around animals as animals, particularly great big ones that can hurt you.

And I'll bet the thought "I'm a girl, but I want to be a boy" didn't much cross the minds of Icelandic pony riding milkmaids, Oklahoman girl cowpunchers, or Los Angeles mounted mail carriers.

Related Threads:

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 1. A thought on community

What's wrong with the (modern, western) world, part 2. Care, lack of care, and an existential lack of focus.

Wednesday, April 14, 1943. Code Breaking With Fatal Results, The Death of Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili.

The Japanese broadcast a coded message regarding a visit to the 8th fleet by Admiral Yamamoto, something that would put in place a dramatic chain of events, as the US had broken the code.

Senator Harry S. Truman appeared as a speaker in Chicago and called for the U.S. to respond directly to the Holocaust.  The rally itself was to draw attention to this cause.

Yakov Iosifovich Dzhugashvili, the eldest son of Joseph Stalin, died when he ran into an electric fence at Sachsenhausen concentration camp, Oranienburg, Germany, where he was being held as a Prisoner of War.  He ran into the fence after an argument with British POWs.  

He'd never been mentally stable, and the circumstances of his death may be related to that.