Occupation of Independence

Nobody likes a thermo-wimp. Early winter's cold caught me by surprise, and I struggled to make it through the night without using heat in the RV. How could 45 F inside conquer a man? Off I went on a mountain bike ride, one cold windy sunny morning. Carelessly or deliberately I under-dressed, for the first time in years. It turned out to be a blessing. Being chilled brings on fear first and then anger, finally leading to combat. At some point I stopped at the top of a small cliff by an old mining area and faced the foe, the cold wind. I love visiting and writing about ridgelines, but this was different. It was bloodthirsty, vengeful, and triumphal. Maybe a book was working on me. In The Discovery of the Mind , by Bruno Snell, he talked about Homer's language being quite different from later (classical) Greek; Homer used 'skin' or 'limbs' in situations where later Greek or English would use 'body.' "Thus the early Greeks did not, either in their lan

The internet is abuzz with howls of protest about the TSA's new procedures for screening airline passengers. I wasn't too interested in this at first, probably because I haven't flown for years. But then I saw an angle that did interest me. When an issue fits neatly into the Left-versus-Right paradigm, it can be quite boring. All the shibboleths and slogans are so predictable. If you ask somebody for their opinion, it ends up being a mere recording. But it is much more interesting when an issue produces mixed feelings and cross-currents on both sides. Let's consider the poor Democrats first. A good liberal's instinctive reaction to some -- nay, to any -- new or expanded federal government program is that it must be a step towards Progress. At least its intentions must be good; what else matters? And yet, this is part of the War on Terror, which is Bush's War. And the airline unions hate the new procedures. Furthermore privacy issues are a not-insignificant pa

As national holidays go, Veterans' Day is a rare success. It stands for something serious instead of frivolous or merely traditional. Oh it's true that there are a few political cranks (like me) who get nervous about too much patriotic bluster on 11 November because they think it contains an implicit advertisement for the permanent Warfare state that America has become. But many people would admonish the cranks thusly: Why not put your stupid politics aside for one day of the year, and honor the individuals who suffered and sacrificed and were proud to do so? Very well then, let us put politics aside and admire individual soldiers for what they went through. But wasn't war itself once called 'the continuation of politics by different means?' If that is true, and if we are serious about ignoring politics, we should be just as happy to honor soldiers who fought on the "other side." Why focus exclusively on American troops? Surely most people have the great