The latest with the Foxes:
-We made yellow curry (almost) from scratch last night. Next time, we're using "light" coconut milk because we felt like human twinkies afterwards.
-On Friday, I subbed the terror of all classrooms: JUNIOR HIGH P.E. I am not a yeller, but I had to do a lot of yelling that day. No, thank you.
-In the garden, our arugula and spinach have bolted, meaning that it's gotten too hot for them and they are done for the year. In their place, we are preparing to plant some zucchini.
-Last night, I finished Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture, about the unique cultural elements of Western warfare that has made it the dominant civilization in the world. This quote from the last chapter really struck me:
"Fewer Americans - soldier and civilian alike - are voting than ever before. Most have not a clue about the nature of their own military or its historic relationship with its government and citizenry. The rise of a huge federal government and global corporations has reduced the number of Americans who work as autonomous individuals, either as family farmers, small businesspeople, or owners of local shops. Freedom for many means an absence of responsibility, while the culture of the mall, video, and Internet seem to breed uniformity and complacence, rather than rationalism, individualism, and initiative. Will the West always, then, possess persons of the type who fought at Midway, or citizens who rowed for their freedom at Salamis, or young men who rushed to reform their battered legions in the aftermath of Cannae?"
He goes on to answer "Yes" but only as long as the Western institutions of free citizenry, individualism, and constant audit continue to exist.
His final paragraph:
"Western civilization has given mankind the only economic system that works, a rationalist tradition that alone allows us material and technological progress, the sole political structure that ensures the freedom of the individual, a system of ethics and a religion that brings out the best in humankind - and the most lethal practice of arms conceivable. Let us hope that we at last understand this legacy. It is a weighty and sometimes ominous heritage that we must neither deny nor feel ashamed about - but insist that our deadly manner of war serves, rather than buries, our civilization."
-We made yellow curry (almost) from scratch last night. Next time, we're using "light" coconut milk because we felt like human twinkies afterwards.
-On Friday, I subbed the terror of all classrooms: JUNIOR HIGH P.E. I am not a yeller, but I had to do a lot of yelling that day. No, thank you.
-In the garden, our arugula and spinach have bolted, meaning that it's gotten too hot for them and they are done for the year. In their place, we are preparing to plant some zucchini.
-Last night, I finished Victor Davis Hanson's Carnage and Culture, about the unique cultural elements of Western warfare that has made it the dominant civilization in the world. This quote from the last chapter really struck me:
"Fewer Americans - soldier and civilian alike - are voting than ever before. Most have not a clue about the nature of their own military or its historic relationship with its government and citizenry. The rise of a huge federal government and global corporations has reduced the number of Americans who work as autonomous individuals, either as family farmers, small businesspeople, or owners of local shops. Freedom for many means an absence of responsibility, while the culture of the mall, video, and Internet seem to breed uniformity and complacence, rather than rationalism, individualism, and initiative. Will the West always, then, possess persons of the type who fought at Midway, or citizens who rowed for their freedom at Salamis, or young men who rushed to reform their battered legions in the aftermath of Cannae?"
He goes on to answer "Yes" but only as long as the Western institutions of free citizenry, individualism, and constant audit continue to exist.
His final paragraph:
"Western civilization has given mankind the only economic system that works, a rationalist tradition that alone allows us material and technological progress, the sole political structure that ensures the freedom of the individual, a system of ethics and a religion that brings out the best in humankind - and the most lethal practice of arms conceivable. Let us hope that we at last understand this legacy. It is a weighty and sometimes ominous heritage that we must neither deny nor feel ashamed about - but insist that our deadly manner of war serves, rather than buries, our civilization."
5/24/2010 10:18:00 AM
|
|
0
comments
0 Response to "The Haps"
Post a Comment