One of Our Daughters to Remember With Pride

Myla Maravillosa, an American soldier from Hawaii, was killed in iraq on Christmas Eve, the Anchoress reports:

Maravillosa died from injuries she sustained when the Humvee in which she was riding was struck from behind by a rocket-propelled grenade. She was in the back seat of her vehicle, the last one in a convoy of five on a routine patrol.
…
“She met the sisters at the cathedral at Mass and she just felt right away the attraction for religious life,” said Sister Susan, one of the sisters who operate the downtown Pauline Book and Media Center. “She would come to visit us and volunteer at least a couple of times a week.

The Dec. 31 cathedral service was a somber hour of testimony and remembrances in words, pictures and music. The Rev. Gary Dale, a Protestant chaplain and Army major, offered the opening prayer.

“She touched so many in so many different ways,” Rev. Dale said. “She sacrificed her own (freedom) so that the Iraqi people could be free.”

Brig. Gen. Gregory Schumacher, commander of the Military Intelligence Readiness Command, flew in from Washington to speak.

“She approached everything she did with a positive spirit,” he said. “She was a servant of God, her country, her fellow man.”

Not all our young people are slackers. Some of our best are in the military.

A Southern Memory

I found this piece, a childhood memory of the white author's black nanny, very moving. An excerpt:

The sharpest memory of the color line that lingers in my mind is a spring day in 1968, when I was almost nine. Roseanna stood at the ironing board in between the twin beds where my brother and I slept, which she used as laundry tables on washday. I remember the smell of starch and the hissing of steam, and then the sudden realization that Mrs. Allen was crying. Silent streams of tears trickled onto my father's white shirts. When I asked her what was wrong, she almost bellowed: "What's wrong? What's wrong?" She seemed desperate and almost out of control. "They gone and killed Martin Luther King, that's what's wrong!" She choked hard on her sobs and buried her face in the laundry.

I knew vaguely who Dr. King was, and I knew that my father admired him greatly, but I was too young to understand even a little of the magnitude of that murder in Memphis. All I knew was that I wanted to comfort my beloved Roseanna. Never had I seen a grown-up crying like that. And so I said the only thing I could think of to say: "Maybe it will be alright, Roseanna, maybe somehow it will work out for the best."

She lifted her head and almost roared at the obscenity of the thought. "Work out for the best? How could it possibly work out for the best?" Mrs. Allen's face, contorted with tears and anger, looked at me with a stunned expression of rage. "How could it work out for the best that the man that God lifted up to save my people has been shot down like a dog in the streets? Did it work out for the best that Hitler killed six million Jews? Would it work out for the best if somebody burned your house down to the ground? Did it work out for the best that they took King Jesus out and nailed him to the cross?" Her head pitched forward into the crook of her arm again, and once again she sobbed into the laundry.

Somehow I managed to whisper, "We think it did, don't we?"

"What?" she said, raising her red-rimmed eyes at me.

"We think it worked out for the best that they hung Jesus on the cross, don't we, Roseanna? Jesus died on the cross to save us all from sin, didn't he?" I asked her.

"Oh, child," she cried, crawling toward me on her knees. "Oh, sweet child," and before I could move she was kneeling in front of me, reduced to roughly my height by her kneeling, and she squeezed me tight, rocking me back and forth in a muttered mixture of tears and prayers, and she held onto me for a long, long time. Afterwards, she rounded up my brother and my sisters and gave everybody their own little bottle of Coca-Cola, and we took the thick green bottles out to the back steps, where we sat together for what seemed like the rest of the day. Mrs. Allen would wail and cry from time to time, and cling to us. When my father came home, I remember, he hugged her, which I had never seen before. It was a terrible, terrible day, how terrible it was I had no way to know at nine years old.

What I remember from that day is that the black bus drivers in New York City, which I was about to leave, kept their headlights on.

Iran Delenda Est?

This piece by Niall Ferguson is a chilling "what if" about the Gulf War of 2007.

His notion is that if Iran's President Ahmadinejad is not stopped, a nuclear exchange between Iran and Israel and ensuing war are real prospects. And condidering the burgeoning alliance between Venezuela's mad Hugo Chávez and Iran, the introduction of hostile nuclear weapons into this hemisphere is not excluded.

Chilling. And the Senate gabbles about disgruntled old-school-tie Princeton alumni.

Patric the Cat

As a courtesy to readers of Nancy's blog, herewith two portraits of the redoubtable Patric, the cat:And here is a posturing idiot posing as a cat on British television.

Georgie, We Hardly Knew Ya!

This post and the videos it links to shows the Scottish rogue George Galloway making a fool of himself in a nonpolitical way, as opposed to his political follies of the past.

What will the Bolshies who sponsored his speaking tour say now? I don't think Lenin or Trotsky groveled in public and pretended to be kittens. What was the line about history repeating itself as farce?

The name of George's political party is . . . Respect!

Bloggers On the House Leadership Contest

I've joined in this appeal over at NZ Bear.

An Appeal from Center-Right Bloggers

We are bloggers with boatloads of opinions, and none of us come close to agreeing with any other one of us all of the time. But we do agree on this: The new leadership in the House of Representatives needs to be thoroughly and transparently free of the taint of the Jack Abramoff scandals, and beyond that, of undue influence of K Street.

We are not naive about lobbying, and we know it can and has in fact advanced crucial issues and has often served to inform rather than simply influence Members.

But we are certain that the public is disgusted with excess and with privilege. We hope the Hastert-Dreier effort leads to sweeping reforms including the end of subsidized travel and other obvious influence operations. Just as importantly, we call for major changes to increase openness, transparency and accountability in Congressional operations and in the appropriations process.

As for the Republican leadership elections, we hope to see more candidates who will support these goals, and we therefore welcome the entry of Congressman John Shadegg to the race for Majority Leader. We hope every Congressman who is committed to ethical and transparent conduct supports a reform agenda and a reform candidate. And we hope all would-be members of the leadership make themselves available to new media to answer questions now and on a regular basis in the future.


Signed,

N.Z. Bear, The Truth Laid Bear
Hugh Hewitt, HughHewitt.com
Glenn Reynolds, Instapundit.com
Kevin Aylward, Wizbang!
La Shawn Barber, La Shawn Barber's Corner
Lorie Byrd, Polipundit
Jeff Goldstein, Protein Wisdom
John Hawkins, Right Wing News
John Hinderaker, Power Line
Jon Henke / McQ / Dale Franks, QandO
James Joyner, Outside The Beltway
Mike Krempasky, Redstate.org
Michelle Malkin, MichelleMalkin.com
Ed Morrissey, Captain's Quarters
Scott Ott, Scrappleface
John Donovan / Bill Tuttle, Castle Argghhh!!!

Bloviating Fools

Senator Leahy buries his face in his hands as Slow Joe Biden natters on.

Won't anyone tell these fools to shut the f*** up?

And Slow Joe thinks he's running for what? President?

At First, I Thought This Was a Parody

Here.

Next: Teddy Kennedy and Jean Jacques Cousteau: kindred spirits.

Remind me not to send my kids to Pomona.

No Ignoramus

No politics, religion or philosophy tonight.

For complicated reasons, I flashed on that daffy duo, Flanders & Swann, and their revue, At the Drop of a Hat.

My kid sister used to be able to (and no doubt still can) warble:

We don't ask much for wages, we only want fair shares
So cut down all the stages and stick up all the fares.
If tickets cost a pound a piece
Why should you make a fuss?
It's worth it just to ride inside
That 30-foot-long by 10-foot-wide
Inside that monarch of the road,
Observer of the Highway Code,
That big six-wheeler scarlet-painted London transport diesel-engined 97-horsepower, 97-horsepower omnibus.

I remember stuff like that, but unlike my brilliant sister, not completely, and rarely in order. The green monster is sitting on my shoulder.

And who can forget The Hippopotamus Song:

A bold hippopotamus was standing one day
On the banks of the cool Shalimar
He gazed at the bottom as he peacefully lay
By the light of the evening star
Away on the hilltop sat combing her hair
His fair hippopotami maid
The hippopotamus was no ignoramus
And sang her this sweet serenade

Chorus:
Mud, mud, glorious mud
Nothing quite like it for cooling the blood
So follow me follow, down to the hollow
And there let me wallow in glorious mud

The fair hippopotama he aimed to entice
From her seat on that hilltop above
As she hadn't got a ma to give her advice
Came tiptoeing down to her love
Like thunder the forest re-echoed the sound
Of the song that they sang when they met
His inamorata adjusted her garter
And lifted her voice in duet

Chorus

Now answer the comprehension questions here. Pencils ready!

After that, they sang it in Russian.

Enough for now. I'm having some Madeira with my gnu.

Abramoff, Gambling and Public Policy

I know, we could make a fortune, but where can we have the game?

The Biltmore garage wants a grand
But we ain't got a grand on hand.
And they now got a lock on the door
To the gym at P.S. 84.
There's the stock room behind the McCloskey's bar.
But Mrs. McCloskey ain't a good scout.
And things being how they are
The back of the police station is out!

--The Oldest Established, from Guys and Dolls

Jack Abramoff has plead guilty, and many are quaking in their boots.

Chickens have a way of coming home to roost. Some of it's just plain corruption, and some of it is due to the Republicans having become the party of government. As Lord Acton said, "Power tends to corrupt; and absolute power corrupts absolutely."

It would be naïve to think that any brand of conservative ideology (to the extent Congressmen have an ideology other than "Me, me, me!") would prevent the GOP from becoming just as corrupt as the Other Party is when it has power. Just witness the history of Republican Orange County, California, where I live.

More to the point is the fact that Abramoff's machinations largely involved legalized gambling, in this case that bizarrely vouchsafed to Indian tribes. Over a generation or two, we have seen legalized gambling spread from church social halls and Las Vegas to most of the country. When California had its lottery initiative, and I was briefly a budding politician, I was asked to support the initiative. To the surprise of my political consultants, I refused.

Instinctively, I felt then, and feel now, that although nothing's wrong with a penny ante social poker game, legalizing large-scale gambling is a mistake.

I'm not sure why serious Protestants condemn gambling, and Catholics sponsor it, and although I acknowledge that lotteries, at least, are a tax that lays heavier on the willing poor than on the rich, I haven't really analyzed these arguments.

I have two points to explain my feeling. The first is that large-scale gambling somehow lowers the moral tone of society. A neon sign flashing "Casino" doesn't make me feel warm or fuzzy. It makes me feel we have all lowered ourselves. This reaction is more a feeling than an idea, and perhaps it's really some form of snobbism. I don't know.

The second point is that large-scale gambling seems to invite corruption. Large pots of money lying around, that can be increased markedly by a few short cuts, don't bring out the best in people. Rather they attract the sleazy, especially when the government gives the casinos monopoly or oligopoly power. In addition to the house percentage, there are monopoly rents to be had. So it's no surprise that an Abramoff became involved in the politics of gambling and will drag many others with him.

Prohibition seemed to increase the corrruption that surrounded alcohol production and marketing, and its repeal reined it in. I suspect that same might be true of drugs. Legalization of alcohol has, and of drugs would, bring other evils in their train, such as an increase in addiction and the pain it causes the addicted and those around them. But it seems to have reduced the involvement of the mob, perhaps because the degree of monopoly rents available, in most states, is small, when every corner grocery can sell the stuff.

Gambling, corporate though it sometimes is, seems not to shed its ganster connections just because it's legal. Turn over the rock, and you'll see the creatures scurrying to and fro.

Because it would take a nationwide revival of some kind to reduce or eliminate legalized gambling, this set of thoughts is mere rumination rather than a policy proposal. But it's part of the human tragicomedy, and so worth thinking about. Becker and Posner, where are you?

Rest In Peace, Miners

Horrible. Our heart goes out to the families.

I hope when I'm dead,
And the ages shall roll,
My body will blacken
And turn into coal.
I'll look from the door
Of my heavenly home,
And pity the miner,
A-diggin' my bones.

--Merle Travis.

2006 Thematic Apperception Test No. 1

What is going on in this photo?

Your answer will tell us a lot about your psychological makeup.

It's Joe Wilson and his outed spy wife Valerie Plame.

And what's going on here, anyhow?

HT: Just One Minute.