Every hero doesn't wear medals. Read this wonderful tribute at
http://www.blogger.com/post-create.g?blogID=8707578
Here are some samples...
“Mr. Cross’ discipline style was an art,” Elsa says. “Some teachers will accept a student sleeping in the back of the class. The fact that he would throw a Kleenex box—it was a sign of respect. You might not have had the respect and self-discipline to allow yourself to be taught, but Mr. Cross demanded that you respect yourself.”
“That Kleenex box represented what he saw in you,” she says. “Literally and metaphorically, it woke you up. "
“People wanted to bring me down, but he saw in me what others wanted to tear out of me, and he validated it.”
Wish I could have reactions like this, but I seldom know the people I've helped.
Monday, June 20, 2005
Saturday, June 18, 2005
A murder juror raps...
This week wound up a trial for a man who killed a fine young police officer, Julie Jacks.
It appears that one of the jurors felt compelled to write a letter to the local e-paper,
Here it is...
"Determining Innocence Or Guilt: There's A 50/50 Chance Of Being Wrong
(While reviewing tapes and pictures of dead bodies, holding back tears for the victim, trying to be strong)
To think that this man's destiny lies in our hands
Trying to get a perspective of both sides, looking at evidence from a stance.
Will our decision bring justice for the victim, for she's no longer here?
Will we make the right decision, this is what I fear.
Trying to stay awake.
How much longer will this take?
Is this man really insane?
I can feel both parties' pain.
Listening to witnesses as they're brought in back
Trying to determine if what they're saying is fiction or fact
We're all in this together. We've become each other's family
Conversing, going out to dinner, enjoying each other's company.
Question remains in the back of my mind. . . When will this come to an end?
But overall happy to know that I've obtained 15 new friends
But we have no other choice but to stick this thing out
And I'm confident in the end we'll make the right decision without a doubt."
It's a good thing we have juries, right? So the collective wisdom of our finest citizens is used to decide the most important questions.
Riiiiight...
A jury trial is like going into McDonald's and giving the first 12 people in line the authority to assign your house, job, and spouse.
Original at
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_68368.asp
It appears that one of the jurors felt compelled to write a letter to the local e-paper,
Here it is...
"Determining Innocence Or Guilt: There's A 50/50 Chance Of Being Wrong
(While reviewing tapes and pictures of dead bodies, holding back tears for the victim, trying to be strong)
To think that this man's destiny lies in our hands
Trying to get a perspective of both sides, looking at evidence from a stance.
Will our decision bring justice for the victim, for she's no longer here?
Will we make the right decision, this is what I fear.
Trying to stay awake.
How much longer will this take?
Is this man really insane?
I can feel both parties' pain.
Listening to witnesses as they're brought in back
Trying to determine if what they're saying is fiction or fact
We're all in this together. We've become each other's family
Conversing, going out to dinner, enjoying each other's company.
Question remains in the back of my mind. . . When will this come to an end?
But overall happy to know that I've obtained 15 new friends
But we have no other choice but to stick this thing out
And I'm confident in the end we'll make the right decision without a doubt."
It's a good thing we have juries, right? So the collective wisdom of our finest citizens is used to decide the most important questions.
Riiiiight...
A jury trial is like going into McDonald's and giving the first 12 people in line the authority to assign your house, job, and spouse.
Original at
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_68368.asp
Waterloo day reflections.
It's once again Waterloo day. Like Normandy and Gettysburg one of those place named anniversaries that help us remember times when good stood up to evil.
Good embodied in thousands of ordinary people who for one day risked and sometimes gave their futures for our tomorrows.
Although it's been almost two centuries, it's not that long ago. There are still people alive today whose lives overlap the very oldest veterans of the war to defeat the Corsican tyrant.
So as you go about your day spare a thought for those sweating, dead, or maimed for us in the wheat that day, and all the others who strove for 23 years against that despotism.
Good embodied in thousands of ordinary people who for one day risked and sometimes gave their futures for our tomorrows.
Although it's been almost two centuries, it's not that long ago. There are still people alive today whose lives overlap the very oldest veterans of the war to defeat the Corsican tyrant.
So as you go about your day spare a thought for those sweating, dead, or maimed for us in the wheat that day, and all the others who strove for 23 years against that despotism.
Monday, June 13, 2005
In the interest of Racial Social Cultural Balance...
A people like us joke.
A man and wife are dining at a restaurant. A gorgeous woman comes in, walks over to the man, gives him a big kiss and says "I can't wait to see you later tonight".
She walks off.
Wife asks, "WHO was THAT?"
"That was my mistress."
"I'm not putting up with that. I want a divorce."
" That's fine. You know if we divorce, there will be no more ski house, no more beach house, no more new car every year, no more furs. But I understand, I'll call the lawyer in the morning and set it up."
They continue with the meal. Because they are people like us A few minutes later their friend Tom walks in, with a beautiful woman on his arm.
The wife asks her husband "Who is that with Tom?"
"That's his mistress."
The wife leans in and whispers,
Click these blue letters for the punch line, plus a bonus illustration by the New York Times!
A man and wife are dining at a restaurant. A gorgeous woman comes in, walks over to the man, gives him a big kiss and says "I can't wait to see you later tonight".
She walks off.
Wife asks, "WHO was THAT?"
"That was my mistress."
"I'm not putting up with that. I want a divorce."
" That's fine. You know if we divorce, there will be no more ski house, no more beach house, no more new car every year, no more furs. But I understand, I'll call the lawyer in the morning and set it up."
They continue with the meal. Because they are people like us A few minutes later their friend Tom walks in, with a beautiful woman on his arm.
The wife asks her husband "Who is that with Tom?"
"That's his mistress."
The wife leans in and whispers,
Click these blue letters for the punch line, plus a bonus illustration by the New York Times!
The wife leans in and whispers,
" Ours is prettier. "
BONUS! Illustration of this joke, from the NEW YORK TIMES!
Sunday, June 12, 2005
African Joke...
3 young men graduate together from a famous university. One is a European, one a South Asian, and one an African.
20 years pass. At their class reunion the 3 learn that each has become a government minister. They arrange for mutual visits.
The first visit is to the European, Minister for Navigation. Instead of going to the capital, the friends meet at a coastal city. They pile into the European's Mercedes and he drives them to the harbour, where they gather on his boat. It's big- 50 feet, with a crew of 3. As they eat the filet mignon, the African says, "Government ministers don't get paid enough to afford a boat like this. How do you do it?"
The European points back toward the harbour. "See that breakwater and those docks?"
Then he points at himself, "Ten Per Cent."
They next visit the South Asian, Minister for Air. They meet at the airport and are driven to the minister's house in 3 chauffered Mercedes. The 20 room house is in a beautiful neighborhood on a high hill with a view of the city. As they eat lobster, the African says, "Government ministers don't get paid enough to afford a place like this. How do you do it?"
The South Asian points out the window. "See that airport where you landed?"
Then he points at himself, "Fifty Per Cent."
Finally the African is the host he's the, Minister for Transport. They meet at the airport where a helicopter is waiting. They pass over nothing but lush virgin jungle for a hundred miles to his estate. The forty room house sits atop a mountain, and there are scores of staff. As the friends snack on caviare, the European says, "Government ministers don't get paid enough to afford a place like this. How do you do it?"
The African points off the verandah across the vast green canopy. "Do you see any highways?"
Then he points at himself, "One Hundred Per Cent."
20 years pass. At their class reunion the 3 learn that each has become a government minister. They arrange for mutual visits.
The first visit is to the European, Minister for Navigation. Instead of going to the capital, the friends meet at a coastal city. They pile into the European's Mercedes and he drives them to the harbour, where they gather on his boat. It's big- 50 feet, with a crew of 3. As they eat the filet mignon, the African says, "Government ministers don't get paid enough to afford a boat like this. How do you do it?"
The European points back toward the harbour. "See that breakwater and those docks?"
Then he points at himself, "Ten Per Cent."
They next visit the South Asian, Minister for Air. They meet at the airport and are driven to the minister's house in 3 chauffered Mercedes. The 20 room house is in a beautiful neighborhood on a high hill with a view of the city. As they eat lobster, the African says, "Government ministers don't get paid enough to afford a place like this. How do you do it?"
The South Asian points out the window. "See that airport where you landed?"
Then he points at himself, "Fifty Per Cent."
Finally the African is the host he's the, Minister for Transport. They meet at the airport where a helicopter is waiting. They pass over nothing but lush virgin jungle for a hundred miles to his estate. The forty room house sits atop a mountain, and there are scores of staff. As the friends snack on caviare, the European says, "Government ministers don't get paid enough to afford a place like this. How do you do it?"
The African points off the verandah across the vast green canopy. "Do you see any highways?"
Then he points at himself, "One Hundred Per Cent."
More African Slaughter, Thanks to the G8 Giveaway...
When relief and make work got started back in the 1930s my hard headed grandfather said, "You get what you pay for. Even if it's only a dollar a day, it will be enough for some people. And since they are wards of the state, all they will do is breed more like them."
So true. And the west is paying for third world tyranny, war, famine, and democide. This latest 50+ billion is only the most recent reward for the Mugabes, Bokassas, and Samuel Does. As long as we keep writing them checks, they will keep using the cash to protect themselves.
As usual, the left seem to think that black men are stupid, and will do what the master thinks is best for the master. NO, Mugabe and Nguema are not fools. They got where they are by being at least as shrewd as anyone on the planet, and a good deal more ruthless than most. They are what they are. It is insane to think that men who have climbed to the top over the corpses of their own compatriots will suddenly renounce their whole personalities because some white men asked them to.
You say you want change, yet you pay for things as they are. That won't work with a child and it certainly won't with a kleptocrat.
The ONLY THING that permits genuine quality of life advancement is economic liberty- the ability of individuals to keep the proceeds of their own labour. Economic liberty is something that a tyrant can never permit, because if Mr. Peasant gets to decide how he sells his crop, then Mr. Dictator doesn't.
Only the most profound wilful ignoring of all history, all life experience, and the torment and death of millions can permit the belief that this will do anything but make things worse.
We get what we pay for. Disease, torture, starvation, death. But it's all happening to dark people far away.
Gordon Brown says that the next infusion of our money "must" go to medecine, schools, and infrastructure.
That means new palaces for the ministers of health, education, and public works!
I am grateful that there was no one to help out European and North American developement through charity. We'd still be living in wattle huts.
So true. And the west is paying for third world tyranny, war, famine, and democide. This latest 50+ billion is only the most recent reward for the Mugabes, Bokassas, and Samuel Does. As long as we keep writing them checks, they will keep using the cash to protect themselves.
As usual, the left seem to think that black men are stupid, and will do what the master thinks is best for the master. NO, Mugabe and Nguema are not fools. They got where they are by being at least as shrewd as anyone on the planet, and a good deal more ruthless than most. They are what they are. It is insane to think that men who have climbed to the top over the corpses of their own compatriots will suddenly renounce their whole personalities because some white men asked them to.
You say you want change, yet you pay for things as they are. That won't work with a child and it certainly won't with a kleptocrat.
The ONLY THING that permits genuine quality of life advancement is economic liberty- the ability of individuals to keep the proceeds of their own labour. Economic liberty is something that a tyrant can never permit, because if Mr. Peasant gets to decide how he sells his crop, then Mr. Dictator doesn't.
Only the most profound wilful ignoring of all history, all life experience, and the torment and death of millions can permit the belief that this will do anything but make things worse.
We get what we pay for. Disease, torture, starvation, death. But it's all happening to dark people far away.
Gordon Brown says that the next infusion of our money "must" go to medecine, schools, and infrastructure.
That means new palaces for the ministers of health, education, and public works!
I am grateful that there was no one to help out European and North American developement through charity. We'd still be living in wattle huts.
Saturday, June 11, 2005
Professional Anti Gun Rights People...
Denise from the Ten Ring posted a list of anti gun types, but she left out the most dangerous- the PROFESSIONAL.
- the person who makes, or hopes to make, a living from pushing anti gun agenda. You'll seldom hear of these consultants, pr experts, and trial lawyers. They are our most dangerous enemies, because they coordinate the others and make them effective. They can't be converted, because their agenda and their livelihood have merged. If they are big in their world- Sarah Brady or Josh Sugarmann- they have become well paid leaders and are in charge of spending large sums of money that depend on their zeal and fund raising skill. If they are foot soldiers, their professional advancement depends on the same things plus office politics- they have to outdo their competitors.
Professionals might have come to their beliefs through one of their other routes, but their professional status makes them very different than your ordinary citizen from any other anti category.
Thaank you, Denise.
http://haloscan.com/tb/denisebill/111783482075489509
- the person who makes, or hopes to make, a living from pushing anti gun agenda. You'll seldom hear of these consultants, pr experts, and trial lawyers. They are our most dangerous enemies, because they coordinate the others and make them effective. They can't be converted, because their agenda and their livelihood have merged. If they are big in their world- Sarah Brady or Josh Sugarmann- they have become well paid leaders and are in charge of spending large sums of money that depend on their zeal and fund raising skill. If they are foot soldiers, their professional advancement depends on the same things plus office politics- they have to outdo their competitors.
Professionals might have come to their beliefs through one of their other routes, but their professional status makes them very different than your ordinary citizen from any other anti category.
Thaank you, Denise.
http://haloscan.com/tb/denisebill/111783482075489509
Friday, June 10, 2005
Tears of the White Man Kill Again...
It looks as though Rhodesia / Zimbabwe is next on the democide list. Who could have predicted it?
I mean, only paying the slightest attention to Mugabe's own words and actions would have given an inkling. Lefties always act so surprised when Lenin or Mao or Pol Pot do EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAY THEY WILL, and exactly what their conduct shows they mean to do.
(One reason why people like Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean and Pat Buchanan are so scary.)
People suggest massive aid, peace keeping intervention, and other costly choices which might alleviate some suffering but ignore the problem.
The problem is the TYRANT.
The U. S., Britain, Denmark, Argentina, or any other advanced country could stop it today. Mugabe is easy to find and cruise missiles are cheap. George Soros, Bob Geldof, Richard Branson, or Bill Gates could probably make it happen.
The west has been crying the tears of the white man so long that it is political suicide to violently intervene in Africa. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Hillary Clinton will remain silent while millions die, but stop it effectively and watch them go ape. Any intervention other than giving money is racist, imperialist, colonialist, eurocentric, or some other third rail term.
They all do look alike to the left- Mugabe, Parks, Brawley, King. Because race really is everything to them and their ideology.
It's strangely similar to the bien-pensants' obsession with the "root causes" of crime- poverty, lack of self esteem, etc.
Just ANYTHING is better than holding an individual they sympathise with personally responsible for what he has chosen to do. That would mean respecting people, accepting that even poor black men make their own decisions and run their own lives. And there are no individuals, only groups and classes.
Some members of groups are responsible of course- Trent Lott is still on the hook for every single word.
Anyway, solving the problem is simple- kill Mugabe and make it clear that the next tyrant will get the same. His successor might need sending off too, but the third man would know the deal and make it work.
But that won't happen. Because he's a black man killing black people in a place far away.
Whether it's Harare or Harlem, nobody important really cares about that.
I mean, only paying the slightest attention to Mugabe's own words and actions would have given an inkling. Lefties always act so surprised when Lenin or Mao or Pol Pot do EXACTLY WHAT THEY SAY THEY WILL, and exactly what their conduct shows they mean to do.
(One reason why people like Hillary Clinton and Howard Dean and Pat Buchanan are so scary.)
People suggest massive aid, peace keeping intervention, and other costly choices which might alleviate some suffering but ignore the problem.
The problem is the TYRANT.
The U. S., Britain, Denmark, Argentina, or any other advanced country could stop it today. Mugabe is easy to find and cruise missiles are cheap. George Soros, Bob Geldof, Richard Branson, or Bill Gates could probably make it happen.
The west has been crying the tears of the white man so long that it is political suicide to violently intervene in Africa. Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and Hillary Clinton will remain silent while millions die, but stop it effectively and watch them go ape. Any intervention other than giving money is racist, imperialist, colonialist, eurocentric, or some other third rail term.
They all do look alike to the left- Mugabe, Parks, Brawley, King. Because race really is everything to them and their ideology.
It's strangely similar to the bien-pensants' obsession with the "root causes" of crime- poverty, lack of self esteem, etc.
Just ANYTHING is better than holding an individual they sympathise with personally responsible for what he has chosen to do. That would mean respecting people, accepting that even poor black men make their own decisions and run their own lives. And there are no individuals, only groups and classes.
Some members of groups are responsible of course- Trent Lott is still on the hook for every single word.
Anyway, solving the problem is simple- kill Mugabe and make it clear that the next tyrant will get the same. His successor might need sending off too, but the third man would know the deal and make it work.
But that won't happen. Because he's a black man killing black people in a place far away.
Whether it's Harare or Harlem, nobody important really cares about that.
Wednesday, June 08, 2005
Orright, read this...
Ben Stein is so honest and directly eloquent.
Some samples-
"...we could live without the stock market, could get on without Hollywood or new cars, but could not last a week without our armed forces and the armed forces could not last a week without the military family. "To most," I said, "the war on terrorism is an abstraction. But there is blood all over this room."
"Yet, they have something the rest of us rarely have: meaning. They know why God put them on earth, why they live and suffer. They never doubt their worth."
Which is why I do what I do, to share that with the protectors. Thank you Mr. Stein.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8261
Some samples-
"...we could live without the stock market, could get on without Hollywood or new cars, but could not last a week without our armed forces and the armed forces could not last a week without the military family. "To most," I said, "the war on terrorism is an abstraction. But there is blood all over this room."
"Yet, they have something the rest of us rarely have: meaning. They know why God put them on earth, why they live and suffer. They never doubt their worth."
Which is why I do what I do, to share that with the protectors. Thank you Mr. Stein.
http://www.spectator.org/dsp_article.asp?art_id=8261
Saturday, May 28, 2005
One Senatewhore gone...
Ford called it quits after the videotape of him taking the pile of money hit the public domain.
2 more to go, so far...
Today's favourite quote- Herron saying that the arrests were
"like the day President Kennedy was shot, like 9/11, a day that scares us and scars us like few other days."
Hmmm, let's see, November 22 and September 11 were days when innocent people were struck down by evil killers. That means that the F.B.I. is Oswald and Osama inside Herron's head. Interesting...
Also why should the arrest of criminals scar and scare you, Mr. Herron?
And what's this "us" stuff? I wasn't taking any bribes, I'm neither scarred nor scared.
The hit hound howls the loudest, but maybe it's the barely missed senatewhore....
2 more to go, so far...
Today's favourite quote- Herron saying that the arrests were
"like the day President Kennedy was shot, like 9/11, a day that scares us and scars us like few other days."
Hmmm, let's see, November 22 and September 11 were days when innocent people were struck down by evil killers. That means that the F.B.I. is Oswald and Osama inside Herron's head. Interesting...
Also why should the arrest of criminals scar and scare you, Mr. Herron?
And what's this "us" stuff? I wasn't taking any bribes, I'm neither scarred nor scared.
The hit hound howls the loudest, but maybe it's the barely missed senatewhore....
Friday, May 27, 2005
God disapproves of catching criminals!
Or at least our Lt. Governor thinks so. Though to be fair, he has often opposed bills protecting Tennesseeans from non Senatewhore criminals, too.
" In a rambling Senate speech and prayer, Lt. Gov. John Wilder said it was "wrong" for undercover agents to bait lawmakers with money. "
"I'm hurt because John is where he is, and Roscoe is where he is and Kathryn is where she is," Wilder said. "It's rough. We're family. Three members of our family are in hell. Why? Because they're legislators."
"I hurt because we have some members that are in serious trouble."
"Money out there was here offered as bait to get someone in jail," he said. "It's wrong. It's not your (God's) way."
The article goes on to say,
"Several lawmakers have criticized authorities for allowing phony bills to be put before lawmakers as part of the sting. Others said undercover agents went too far by offering money as "bait" to trap the indicted lawmakers. "
Via the Commercial Appeal, you have to register-
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_3811633,00.html
There is just no end to the cynicism and hypocrisy, is there?
How DARE they use MONEY to catch CRIMINALS! How DARE the F. B. I. pollute the sacred halls of our capitol with FALSE BILLS!
What do you expect a Senatewhore to do when you offer money- refuse to take it?
News for you, Lt. Governwhore- there's not an F. B. I. agent in the world who can introduce a bill in the Tennessee legislature. If it's a fraudulent bill, a LEGISLATOR introduced it.
The corrupt aren't OUR family, they are CRIMINALS.
" In a rambling Senate speech and prayer, Lt. Gov. John Wilder said it was "wrong" for undercover agents to bait lawmakers with money. "
"I'm hurt because John is where he is, and Roscoe is where he is and Kathryn is where she is," Wilder said. "It's rough. We're family. Three members of our family are in hell. Why? Because they're legislators."
"I hurt because we have some members that are in serious trouble."
"Money out there was here offered as bait to get someone in jail," he said. "It's wrong. It's not your (God's) way."
The article goes on to say,
"Several lawmakers have criticized authorities for allowing phony bills to be put before lawmakers as part of the sting. Others said undercover agents went too far by offering money as "bait" to trap the indicted lawmakers. "
Via the Commercial Appeal, you have to register-
http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/local_news/article/0,1426,MCA_437_3811633,00.html
There is just no end to the cynicism and hypocrisy, is there?
How DARE they use MONEY to catch CRIMINALS! How DARE the F. B. I. pollute the sacred halls of our capitol with FALSE BILLS!
What do you expect a Senatewhore to do when you offer money- refuse to take it?
News for you, Lt. Governwhore- there's not an F. B. I. agent in the world who can introduce a bill in the Tennessee legislature. If it's a fraudulent bill, a LEGISLATOR introduced it.
The corrupt aren't OUR family, they are CRIMINALS.
Poor Senatewhores...
Here's a Fisk of Hamilton County's Democratic Chairman's release. His in quotes, mine not.
"I learned of the indictments against two of our local legislative leaders on Thursday morning, and I am saddened to hear the news of the arrest of Sen. Ward Crutchfield. "
Not sad about Charles Love being arrested? Oh, he's not a Senator, just the black bag man...
"Ward has been an influencial leader in our community, and in our state for over 50 years."
Yes, it's hard to sell non influence.
"The Ward Crutchfield I know is a leader of integrity, fighting for the people of this community."
Then you can relax, because they indicted the one who goes to bat for
corporations from Atlanta who can pay his rate.
"As we learn of the indictments against Ward, and others, I am asking the people of this community to study the facts, to remember that the grand jury only heard evidence from the prosecutor before returning the charges, and that no one indicted has presented facts regarding the indictments."
One... No, a grand jury hears evidence from WITNESSES presented by a
prosecutor.
"In our system of justice, every person charged is presummed innocent until proven guilty. "
Two... Thank you, we had no idea.
"It is important to let the system of justice work, to allow all sides the opportunity to present facts, and to remember that none of the persons indicted are guilty. "
Three... What happened to "presumed" and "proven"? I thought a court decides guilt or innocence?
"It is my hope we avoid talking about these charges without first gathering the facts."
Four... And keep quiet, you out there on the plantation. Hope on.
"This is a difficult time for our community,"
Why? I wasn't bribing him, seems like an honest Senator would be an
improvement. But that's just me.
"our state,"
Because a foul betrayer of our trust has been caught? How does that make
things difficult?
"and for those charged."
WELL I HOPE SO. IT CAN"T POSSIBLY BE DIFFICULT ENOUGH.
"It is my hope that we allow the legal process to find the truth, and that the truth is learned regarding these indictments. "
Five... Because if I keep assuming a distinction between the
indictments and facts / truth, maybe that will stick.
"Until we know more, I would encourage everyone to remember that the charges must be proven in court, and until proven, all charged remain innocent."
Six. Seems like a lot of repetition of presumed innocent until proven guilty, but Democratic leaders seem to believe that their adherents are particularly stupid and ignorant.
"Once I have an opportunity to learn more, I will issue further statements on behalf of the Hamilton County Democratic Party."
Even though I will learn it from the television just like everybody
else. The evidence will be too complicated for you to understand,
but I will explain it for you. Await the next coming of Zardoz.
The message can be found in the original at
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_67515.asp
"I learned of the indictments against two of our local legislative leaders on Thursday morning, and I am saddened to hear the news of the arrest of Sen. Ward Crutchfield. "
Not sad about Charles Love being arrested? Oh, he's not a Senator, just the black bag man...
"Ward has been an influencial leader in our community, and in our state for over 50 years."
Yes, it's hard to sell non influence.
"The Ward Crutchfield I know is a leader of integrity, fighting for the people of this community."
Then you can relax, because they indicted the one who goes to bat for
corporations from Atlanta who can pay his rate.
"As we learn of the indictments against Ward, and others, I am asking the people of this community to study the facts, to remember that the grand jury only heard evidence from the prosecutor before returning the charges, and that no one indicted has presented facts regarding the indictments."
One... No, a grand jury hears evidence from WITNESSES presented by a
prosecutor.
"In our system of justice, every person charged is presummed innocent until proven guilty. "
Two... Thank you, we had no idea.
"It is important to let the system of justice work, to allow all sides the opportunity to present facts, and to remember that none of the persons indicted are guilty. "
Three... What happened to "presumed" and "proven"? I thought a court decides guilt or innocence?
"It is my hope we avoid talking about these charges without first gathering the facts."
Four... And keep quiet, you out there on the plantation. Hope on.
"This is a difficult time for our community,"
Why? I wasn't bribing him, seems like an honest Senator would be an
improvement. But that's just me.
"our state,"
Because a foul betrayer of our trust has been caught? How does that make
things difficult?
"and for those charged."
WELL I HOPE SO. IT CAN"T POSSIBLY BE DIFFICULT ENOUGH.
"It is my hope that we allow the legal process to find the truth, and that the truth is learned regarding these indictments. "
Five... Because if I keep assuming a distinction between the
indictments and facts / truth, maybe that will stick.
"Until we know more, I would encourage everyone to remember that the charges must be proven in court, and until proven, all charged remain innocent."
Six. Seems like a lot of repetition of presumed innocent until proven guilty, but Democratic leaders seem to believe that their adherents are particularly stupid and ignorant.
"Once I have an opportunity to learn more, I will issue further statements on behalf of the Hamilton County Democratic Party."
Even though I will learn it from the television just like everybody
else. The evidence will be too complicated for you to understand,
but I will explain it for you. Await the next coming of Zardoz.
The message can be found in the original at
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_67515.asp
Fallout from the Senatewhores...
John Ford's nephew Harold announced the other day that he was running for U. S. Senate. And Crutchfield's son in law, Bob Corker, is already a candidate for the same post. Wonder what effect this will have on them?
I was musing on how the senatwhores might react to all this, and there are 4 choices.
Deny, deny, deny that lying videotape. Blame the bagmen, secretaries, and the F. B. I. Worked for Alcee Hastings, not for Marion Barry.
Take the medecine, plead, serve the sentence. Honourable, and just not the way of the long time crook and fixer.
Pull the car into the garage and close the door. Coward's way out, so it's a distinct chance.
Or, the most intriguing possibility-
I'd like to think that once upon a time, even these characters were honest. Maybe, realising that their only place in history right now is being led out in chains, one or more of them will decide to select redemption and tell all. Not for a deal, not for a lesser sentence, but out of loyalty to who he once was.
The truth won't set them free, but it might make them able to face themselves.
Never happen, but it's an interesting fantasy.
I'm still infuriated by the leadership response, as is every voter to whom I speak.
Somebody posted on Rep. Campfield's blog that "everyone is hurt" by this.
NO, moral moron, "everyone" is not hurt. Any more than everyone is hurt when a burglar or rapist is caught and imprisoned.
The only ones hurt are the CRIMINALS and their ACCOMPLICES.
The honest legislators, and- try to remember them- the CITIZENS, are HELPED when a nest of thieves is discovered.
Why oh why does no one in a leadership position seem pleased that this happened?
The Governor, the Speaker, the Committee Chairmen, they all act...
hurt...
I was musing on how the senatwhores might react to all this, and there are 4 choices.
Deny, deny, deny that lying videotape. Blame the bagmen, secretaries, and the F. B. I. Worked for Alcee Hastings, not for Marion Barry.
Take the medecine, plead, serve the sentence. Honourable, and just not the way of the long time crook and fixer.
Pull the car into the garage and close the door. Coward's way out, so it's a distinct chance.
Or, the most intriguing possibility-
I'd like to think that once upon a time, even these characters were honest. Maybe, realising that their only place in history right now is being led out in chains, one or more of them will decide to select redemption and tell all. Not for a deal, not for a lesser sentence, but out of loyalty to who he once was.
The truth won't set them free, but it might make them able to face themselves.
Never happen, but it's an interesting fantasy.
I'm still infuriated by the leadership response, as is every voter to whom I speak.
Somebody posted on Rep. Campfield's blog that "everyone is hurt" by this.
NO, moral moron, "everyone" is not hurt. Any more than everyone is hurt when a burglar or rapist is caught and imprisoned.
The only ones hurt are the CRIMINALS and their ACCOMPLICES.
The honest legislators, and- try to remember them- the CITIZENS, are HELPED when a nest of thieves is discovered.
Why oh why does no one in a leadership position seem pleased that this happened?
The Governor, the Speaker, the Committee Chairmen, they all act...
hurt...
Thursday, May 26, 2005
Our Embarassed By The Truth Governor....
Says,
"These individuals under our constitution are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and it is important to remember that in the days ahead. If these charges are proven however, it will be a sad and difficult day for our state. Even the fact of these indictments and arrests are a challenge and a sadness to us all, and cannot help but shake the confidence of the people of Tennessee."
No, Governor, THIS is what you should have said...
"A court will determine their guilt or innocence. But if they are guilty, then their arrests and convictions will be great things for the people of our state. I despise corruption, support any investigation into it, and will do all I can to help root it out from its hiding places. No one who betrays the public trust is, or will be, safe in this state."
Or even
"When the Romans discovered that a public servant was corrupt, they sewed him in a sack with wild animals and threw it in the river. It's a shame that punishment is no longer available."
(Apologies to Brian DePalma.)
Only Campfield seems to think catching criminals is a GOOD THING. The rest of the politicians have forgotten that they work for US, they are OUR SERVANTS, and that THIEVES ARE BAD, even when you work beside them and watch them steal every day.
"These individuals under our constitution are presumed innocent until proven guilty, and it is important to remember that in the days ahead. If these charges are proven however, it will be a sad and difficult day for our state. Even the fact of these indictments and arrests are a challenge and a sadness to us all, and cannot help but shake the confidence of the people of Tennessee."
No, Governor, THIS is what you should have said...
"A court will determine their guilt or innocence. But if they are guilty, then their arrests and convictions will be great things for the people of our state. I despise corruption, support any investigation into it, and will do all I can to help root it out from its hiding places. No one who betrays the public trust is, or will be, safe in this state."
Or even
"When the Romans discovered that a public servant was corrupt, they sewed him in a sack with wild animals and threw it in the river. It's a shame that punishment is no longer available."
(Apologies to Brian DePalma.)
Only Campfield seems to think catching criminals is a GOOD THING. The rest of the politicians have forgotten that they work for US, they are OUR SERVANTS, and that THIEVES ARE BAD, even when you work beside them and watch them steal every day.
Corrupt Legislarors arrested, FINALLY...
For the last few months Tennessee's legislature, a common trough of patronage that would shame Tammany, has been doing its best to avoid passing an ethics bill fomented bu boat rocking boy and girl scouts. The bill, in its final form, basically makes it a misdemeanor for a legislator to ask for and then accept a big handful of cash from a lobbyist in exchange for a written promise to support and vote for a particular bill.
Senator's wives, children, employees, or others can still do it, though.
Today, 4 legislators and a former legislator were arrested fot federal corruption offenses.
When asked if this had implications for ethics legislation, two prominent senators said,
“If you pass you ethics bills in a hurry, you’re reacting to headlines”, and
“We should not have a knee-jerk reaction”.
Turn off those lights! Everything is fine in here in the dark! Nothing to see, move along!
Another senator said, “It’s a sad day for the legislature and the families."
Not for the taxpayers, whose legislators sell the public purse to whoever will pay, no, it's all about US...
Senator's wives, children, employees, or others can still do it, though.
Today, 4 legislators and a former legislator were arrested fot federal corruption offenses.
When asked if this had implications for ethics legislation, two prominent senators said,
“If you pass you ethics bills in a hurry, you’re reacting to headlines”, and
“We should not have a knee-jerk reaction”.
Turn off those lights! Everything is fine in here in the dark! Nothing to see, move along!
Another senator said, “It’s a sad day for the legislature and the families."
Not for the taxpayers, whose legislators sell the public purse to whoever will pay, no, it's all about US...
Wednesday, May 25, 2005
Another brilliant thinker and writer...
Quit reading my tripe and go to
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/
Uncompromising honesty, careful observation, precise writing, and original thought from an embedded reporter in Iraq.
A few samples-
"There are a thousand such details falling likes trees in a forest, but no one is listening for those kinds of sounds."
" Yet, finally, the ultimate decision-maker is the person reading or watching the news. We cannot expect mainstream media to give quality reporting if we accept drive-through service every night. "
" The media is an industry; but their business is not to report news. The industry needs a captive audience to beat the bottom line. The product is advertisement.
This is not a right or wrong. It's just a business concept for moving merchandise, and every profession or industry has one. Doctors, soldiers, preachers, lawyers, journalists: everyone needs to earn a living. Only a reclusive holy man might argue otherwise, but most holy men also expect alms.
There are probably many reasons why violent acts get more attention than do acts of kindness. All of these reasons fit somewhere under the heading of human nature. Any person rummaging around in his or her own head while asking the simple question, "What do I find interesting?" is bound to find a few garish relics. Sex and someone else's bad news will sell. "
" A fanatic who straps a bomb to his chest and walks into a market crowded with women and children, then detonates a bomb that is sometimes laced with rat poison to hamper blood coagulation, is properly called a "mass murderer." There is nothing good to say about mass murderers, nor is there anything good to say about a person who encourages these murders. Calling these human bomb delivery devices "suicide bombers" is simply incorrect. They are murderers. A person or media source defending or explaining away the actions of the murderers supports them. There is no wiggle room.
Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “It’s God’s will.” "
Now, head over there. Before he gets fired for referring to those who are killing Americans as
"the enemy".
http://michaelyon.blogspot.com/
Uncompromising honesty, careful observation, precise writing, and original thought from an embedded reporter in Iraq.
A few samples-
"There are a thousand such details falling likes trees in a forest, but no one is listening for those kinds of sounds."
" Yet, finally, the ultimate decision-maker is the person reading or watching the news. We cannot expect mainstream media to give quality reporting if we accept drive-through service every night. "
" The media is an industry; but their business is not to report news. The industry needs a captive audience to beat the bottom line. The product is advertisement.
This is not a right or wrong. It's just a business concept for moving merchandise, and every profession or industry has one. Doctors, soldiers, preachers, lawyers, journalists: everyone needs to earn a living. Only a reclusive holy man might argue otherwise, but most holy men also expect alms.
There are probably many reasons why violent acts get more attention than do acts of kindness. All of these reasons fit somewhere under the heading of human nature. Any person rummaging around in his or her own head while asking the simple question, "What do I find interesting?" is bound to find a few garish relics. Sex and someone else's bad news will sell. "
" A fanatic who straps a bomb to his chest and walks into a market crowded with women and children, then detonates a bomb that is sometimes laced with rat poison to hamper blood coagulation, is properly called a "mass murderer." There is nothing good to say about mass murderers, nor is there anything good to say about a person who encourages these murders. Calling these human bomb delivery devices "suicide bombers" is simply incorrect. They are murderers. A person or media source defending or explaining away the actions of the murderers supports them. There is no wiggle room.
Calling homicide bombers martyrs is a language offense; words are every bit as powerful as bombs, often more so. Calling murderers “martyrs” is like calling a man "customer" because he stood in line before gunning down a store clerk. There's no need to whisper. I hear the bombs every single day. Not some days, but every day. We're talking about criminals who actually volunteer and plan to deliberately murder and maim innocent people. What reservoir of feelings or sensibilities do we fear to assault by simply calling it so? When murderers describe themselves as "martyrs" it should sound to sensible ears like a rapist saying, “It’s God’s will.” "
Now, head over there. Before he gets fired for referring to those who are killing Americans as
"the enemy".
Wednesday, May 11, 2005
Who needs to be literate?
Dealt with a defendant today, seventeen years old, eleventh grade in school. He couldn't fill out a simple form, defeated by the first question, "YOUR NAME:_____".
His mother confirmed his inability, which she shares. He's not "special" * , he just didn't learn. Nor are these people from an "urban" ** environment. Neither seemed concerned, which got me thinking. Who could bear to be unable to read? What sort of person would willingly go through life illiterate? I'd DEMAND to learn, and I'd find a way to get the ability.
This isn't unusual-
http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0501/18/A07-62025.htm
via
http://www.fredoneverything.net/
But then I thought some more. Why do they need to read? They eat, watch television, drink, fight, and breed. Their needs are met by social workers, police officers, court appointed lawyers, subsidised housing, and taxpayer paid health care providers. If they have a problem they can't manage themselves, a degreed person in the employ of the state will sort it out, even to reading them the forms.
Even the most basic of educational skills is entirely superfluous. What a world we have built.
Translation for those who speak only English and not American leftist euphemism-
* Special- an idiot.
** Urban- negro, syn. inner-city.
His mother confirmed his inability, which she shares. He's not "special" * , he just didn't learn. Nor are these people from an "urban" ** environment. Neither seemed concerned, which got me thinking. Who could bear to be unable to read? What sort of person would willingly go through life illiterate? I'd DEMAND to learn, and I'd find a way to get the ability.
This isn't unusual-
http://www.detnews.com/2005/editorial/0501/18/A07-62025.htm
via
http://www.fredoneverything.net/
But then I thought some more. Why do they need to read? They eat, watch television, drink, fight, and breed. Their needs are met by social workers, police officers, court appointed lawyers, subsidised housing, and taxpayer paid health care providers. If they have a problem they can't manage themselves, a degreed person in the employ of the state will sort it out, even to reading them the forms.
Even the most basic of educational skills is entirely superfluous. What a world we have built.
Translation for those who speak only English and not American leftist euphemism-
* Special- an idiot.
** Urban- negro, syn. inner-city.
Thursday, April 28, 2005
Welcome to America!
It seems as though every time I want to post something on this blog, I read something that makes me feel like I'm wasting a reader's time. Today, it's this-
http://riverfronttimes.com/issues/2005-04-13/news/feature_1.html
If you aren't choked up with pride halfway through reading about Samir, you are not mich of an American. Nor much of an Iraqi, or much of a human being.
I'm a 15th generation American. We hear all the time griping about immigrants, and I'm the first to say if you aren't supporting yourself and obeying the law, go home. But most immigrants come here to be good Americans, and Samir is just an example.
He's a better citizen than I'll ever be. And his is a better story than I'll ever tell.
http://riverfronttimes.com/issues/2005-04-13/news/feature_1.html
If you aren't choked up with pride halfway through reading about Samir, you are not mich of an American. Nor much of an Iraqi, or much of a human being.
I'm a 15th generation American. We hear all the time griping about immigrants, and I'm the first to say if you aren't supporting yourself and obeying the law, go home. But most immigrants come here to be good Americans, and Samir is just an example.
He's a better citizen than I'll ever be. And his is a better story than I'll ever tell.
Tuesday, March 22, 2005
A light bulb over my head about waste...
Government waste, that is. I read a rant- from a legislator, no less- about government waste. Specifically, a heated garage for the legislators to park in With the doors standing open, at 2 A. M., in the winter time. I see tremendous amounts of waste in government.
But then I realised, it's not waste at ALL. It's PATRONAGE, because the money goes to some one, doesn't it? Even if it's just keeping a parking garage at 75 degrees, there's someone who is grateful, because he was paid to install and run that heating system.
It seems obvious, and it ought to be in the forefront of all our minds. Who, whom? as Lenin said.
The legislator's blog is at http://lastcar.blogspot.com/
But then I realised, it's not waste at ALL. It's PATRONAGE, because the money goes to some one, doesn't it? Even if it's just keeping a parking garage at 75 degrees, there's someone who is grateful, because he was paid to install and run that heating system.
It seems obvious, and it ought to be in the forefront of all our minds. Who, whom? as Lenin said.
The legislator's blog is at http://lastcar.blogspot.com/
Tuesday, March 15, 2005
Anothe good story about wogs and skips...
This is why I write so little, there is so much really good stuff out there....
http://jihadpundit.blogspot.com/2005/03/why-blog.html
http://jihadpundit.blogspot.com/2005/03/why-blog.html
The finest thing ever about fostering evil....
Our therapeutic culture fosters and nurtures evil- as my grandfather said, you get what you pay for.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_oh_to_be.html
Dalrymple is brilliant. If you haven't read him, start, and if you aren't familiar with City Journal, go.
http://www.city-journal.org/html/14_4_oh_to_be.html
Dalrymple is brilliant. If you haven't read him, start, and if you aren't familiar with City Journal, go.
I'm back now, hunting reflections first of course....
Back after my last minute hunting trip for the "end" of legal hunting and the beginning of what's next- "illegal", "protest", "legal", or "new" hunting.
The last day with the D&S was amazing- at the end, the foxhounds ran into us and there was a tremendous jam up. And we closed down the White Horse, staying up until midnight and blowing the horn. (That's what the Americans heard- us down in the bar. )
Then the Saturday, what an experience. I particularly enjoyed the reaction to the police officer in the crowd, applause and cheers. We don't forget that the police, and we, are the good guys.
Despite my Rosa Parks outlook, I believe that we are doing the right thing for now, just keeping on "within the law". The time to stand up and get arrested is not yet.
And I still think someone should try going out with a full pack, but muzzled.
The last day with the D&S was amazing- at the end, the foxhounds ran into us and there was a tremendous jam up. And we closed down the White Horse, staying up until midnight and blowing the horn. (That's what the Americans heard- us down in the bar. )
Then the Saturday, what an experience. I particularly enjoyed the reaction to the police officer in the crowd, applause and cheers. We don't forget that the police, and we, are the good guys.
Despite my Rosa Parks outlook, I believe that we are doing the right thing for now, just keeping on "within the law". The time to stand up and get arrested is not yet.
And I still think someone should try going out with a full pack, but muzzled.
Tuesday, February 01, 2005
Fisking the home office advice...
I just had to. My work is in parentheses....
What is the purpose of this statement?
(To keep the voters quiet without our actually having to fix a problem.)
It is a rare and frightening prospect to be confronted by an intruder in your own home.
(No, it's an increasingly ordinary problem and it should be an enraging one.)
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Chief Constables are responding to public concern over the support offered by the law and confusion about householders defending themselves.
( Responding to the media reports of outrage, not to the problem itself which has been growing for some time. )
We want a criminal justice system that reaches fair decisions, has the confidence of law-abiding citizens and encourages them actively to support the police and prosecutors in the fight against crime.
( We know what YOU want- a criminal justice system which protects you. Tough, we are in charge. SUBJECTS, remember?)
Wherever possible you should call the police.
( Although you, the burglars, rapists, killers, the police, and the authors of this statement all know that the police will not arrive until the harm has been done. )
The following summarises the position when you are faced with an intruder in your home, and provides a brief overview of how the police and CPS will deal with any such events.
( You're at the intruders' mercy, and we'll deal with it as we think best with the advantages of safety and hindsight. )
Does the law protect me?
( Only if you only do what we want you to do. )
What is ‘reasonable force’?
(We'll decide that, after you've done whatever you do.)
Anyone can use reasonable force to protect themselves or others, or to carry out an arrest or to prevent crime.
( That's as clear as it gets, folks. )
You are not expected to make fine judgements over the level of force you use in the heat of the moment.
( We'll make the fine judgements afterwards from the aforesaid vantages of safety and hindsight. )
So long as you only do what you honestly and instinctively believe is necessary in the heat of the moment, that would be the strongest evidence of you acting lawfully and in selfdefence.
( If we agree. But you'll notice that we can't be bothered to proofread this and put a space between self and defence. Nor do we understand the correct meaning of instinctively.)
This is still the case if you use something to hand as a weapon.
( As long as it's not a weapon of which we disapprove, ot one which has effects of which we disapprove, or it or its results offend our political, academic, or media masters. And to hand means it had better not look like you thought about this beforehand. If it's a baseball bat, you'd better have a uniform, cleats, and a place on a team roster.)
As a general rule, the more extreme the circumstances and the fear felt, the more force you can lawfully use in self-defence.
( Again, as long as we see it as extreme or your fear as reasonable. You'd better hope you aren't scared by a bunch of 15 year olds. )
Do I have to wait to be attacked?
( You had better. )
No, not if you are in your own home and in fear for yourself or others. In those circumstances the law does not require you to wait to be attacked before using defensive force yourself.
( But you had better be able to convince the aforesaid masters that attack, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE was in the minds of the assailants, I'm sorry, visitors. Good luck with that.)
What if the intruder dies?
( By the time it's all over, you will wish you had instead. )
If you have acted in reasonable self-defence, as described above, and the intruder dies you will still have acted lawfully.
( But we might still criminally prosecute you, and you WILL be sued civilly. Even if no lawyer will take the case, we will pay for one with your tax money. For HIM, not you, of course. Your legal bills will reduce you to penury even if you avoid prison. )
Indeed, there are several such cases where the householder has not been prosecuted.
(Yes, several householders have escaped. We just wanted to bring that up. Not to deter you or anything...)
However, if, for example:
* having knocked someone unconscious, you then decided to further hurt or kill them to punish them; or
* you knew of an intended intruder and set a trap to hurt or to kill them rather than involve the police,
( or someone such as the criminal's lawyer or family will get money if it can convince us you did these things... )
you would be acting with very excessive and gratuitous force and could be prosecuted.
( So much for no fine judgements expected in the heat of the moment. )
What if I chase them as they run off?
( Hope you are slow, and that they don't have friends outside. )
This situation is different as you are no longer acting in self-defence and so the same degree of force may not be reasonable.
( Like we said... )
However, you are still allowed to use reasonable force to recover your property and make a citizen’s arrest.
( We love competition that makes us look bad. )
You should consider your own safety and, for example, whether the police have been called.
( That's for when we beat you up. )
A rugby tackle or a single blow would probably be reasonable.
( Probably... )
Acting out of malice and revenge with the intent of inflicting punishment through injury or death would not.
( Again, the issue here is whether someone can convince us or the media to force us to see it that way... )
Will you believe the intruder rather than me?
( It depends. Are our jobs more threatened by you or by the forces arrayed against you? The richer and better connected you are, the better it looks for you.)
The police weigh all the facts when investigating an incident.
( This includes facts you couldn't know at the time, like the intruder's age, and facts that develop later, like media pressure. )
This includes the fact that the intruder caused the situation to arise in the first place.
( But that's not nearly as important as keeping our bosses and various ethnic pressure groups happy. )
We hope that everyone understands that the police have a duty to investigate incidents involving a death or injury. Things are not always as they seem. On occasions people pretend a burglary has taken place to cover up other crimes such as a fight between drug dealers.
( And of course this is directed at them, they model their conduct on advice like this. Also, we are too stupid and ignorant to tell a drug dealer from an honest citizen.)
How would the police and CPS handle the investigation and treat me?
( You'll find out, won't you? )
In considering these cases Chief Constables and the Director of Public Prosecutions (Head of the CPS) are determined that they must be investigated and reviewed as swiftly and as sympathetically as possible. In some cases, for instance where the facts are very clear, or where less serious injuries are involved, the investigation will be concluded very quickly, without any need for arrest. In more complicated cases, such as where a death or serious injury occurs, more detailed enquiries will be necessary.
( Note that we say SOME CASES might be handled without arrest. Do you feel lucky? )
The police may need to conduct a forensic examination and/or obtain your account of events.
( EVERY NUANCE OF EVERYTHING YOU SAY WILL BE DECONSTRUCTED IN DETAIL THAT WOULD SHAME THE SPANISH INQUISITION OR HARVARD LAW SCHOOL. BETTER GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, and be IDENTICAL the next dozen. )
To ensure such cases are dealt with as swiftly and sympathetically as possible, the police and CPS will take special measures namely:
* An experienced investigator will oversee the case
(if one is available and not too busy); and
* If it goes as far as CPS considering the evidence, the case will be prioritised to ensure a senior lawyer makes a quick
(by our standards)
decision
( always subject to change of course.).
It is a fact that very few householders have ever been prosecuted for actions resulting from the use of force against intruders.
(Just thought you might like another reminder.)
What is the purpose of this statement?
(To keep the voters quiet without our actually having to fix a problem.)
It is a rare and frightening prospect to be confronted by an intruder in your own home.
(No, it's an increasingly ordinary problem and it should be an enraging one.)
The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and Chief Constables are responding to public concern over the support offered by the law and confusion about householders defending themselves.
( Responding to the media reports of outrage, not to the problem itself which has been growing for some time. )
We want a criminal justice system that reaches fair decisions, has the confidence of law-abiding citizens and encourages them actively to support the police and prosecutors in the fight against crime.
( We know what YOU want- a criminal justice system which protects you. Tough, we are in charge. SUBJECTS, remember?)
Wherever possible you should call the police.
( Although you, the burglars, rapists, killers, the police, and the authors of this statement all know that the police will not arrive until the harm has been done. )
The following summarises the position when you are faced with an intruder in your home, and provides a brief overview of how the police and CPS will deal with any such events.
( You're at the intruders' mercy, and we'll deal with it as we think best with the advantages of safety and hindsight. )
Does the law protect me?
( Only if you only do what we want you to do. )
What is ‘reasonable force’?
(We'll decide that, after you've done whatever you do.)
Anyone can use reasonable force to protect themselves or others, or to carry out an arrest or to prevent crime.
( That's as clear as it gets, folks. )
You are not expected to make fine judgements over the level of force you use in the heat of the moment.
( We'll make the fine judgements afterwards from the aforesaid vantages of safety and hindsight. )
So long as you only do what you honestly and instinctively believe is necessary in the heat of the moment, that would be the strongest evidence of you acting lawfully and in selfdefence.
( If we agree. But you'll notice that we can't be bothered to proofread this and put a space between self and defence. Nor do we understand the correct meaning of instinctively.)
This is still the case if you use something to hand as a weapon.
( As long as it's not a weapon of which we disapprove, ot one which has effects of which we disapprove, or it or its results offend our political, academic, or media masters. And to hand means it had better not look like you thought about this beforehand. If it's a baseball bat, you'd better have a uniform, cleats, and a place on a team roster.)
As a general rule, the more extreme the circumstances and the fear felt, the more force you can lawfully use in self-defence.
( Again, as long as we see it as extreme or your fear as reasonable. You'd better hope you aren't scared by a bunch of 15 year olds. )
Do I have to wait to be attacked?
( You had better. )
No, not if you are in your own home and in fear for yourself or others. In those circumstances the law does not require you to wait to be attacked before using defensive force yourself.
( But you had better be able to convince the aforesaid masters that attack, and ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ELSE was in the minds of the assailants, I'm sorry, visitors. Good luck with that.)
What if the intruder dies?
( By the time it's all over, you will wish you had instead. )
If you have acted in reasonable self-defence, as described above, and the intruder dies you will still have acted lawfully.
( But we might still criminally prosecute you, and you WILL be sued civilly. Even if no lawyer will take the case, we will pay for one with your tax money. For HIM, not you, of course. Your legal bills will reduce you to penury even if you avoid prison. )
Indeed, there are several such cases where the householder has not been prosecuted.
(Yes, several householders have escaped. We just wanted to bring that up. Not to deter you or anything...)
However, if, for example:
* having knocked someone unconscious, you then decided to further hurt or kill them to punish them; or
* you knew of an intended intruder and set a trap to hurt or to kill them rather than involve the police,
( or someone such as the criminal's lawyer or family will get money if it can convince us you did these things... )
you would be acting with very excessive and gratuitous force and could be prosecuted.
( So much for no fine judgements expected in the heat of the moment. )
What if I chase them as they run off?
( Hope you are slow, and that they don't have friends outside. )
This situation is different as you are no longer acting in self-defence and so the same degree of force may not be reasonable.
( Like we said... )
However, you are still allowed to use reasonable force to recover your property and make a citizen’s arrest.
( We love competition that makes us look bad. )
You should consider your own safety and, for example, whether the police have been called.
( That's for when we beat you up. )
A rugby tackle or a single blow would probably be reasonable.
( Probably... )
Acting out of malice and revenge with the intent of inflicting punishment through injury or death would not.
( Again, the issue here is whether someone can convince us or the media to force us to see it that way... )
Will you believe the intruder rather than me?
( It depends. Are our jobs more threatened by you or by the forces arrayed against you? The richer and better connected you are, the better it looks for you.)
The police weigh all the facts when investigating an incident.
( This includes facts you couldn't know at the time, like the intruder's age, and facts that develop later, like media pressure. )
This includes the fact that the intruder caused the situation to arise in the first place.
( But that's not nearly as important as keeping our bosses and various ethnic pressure groups happy. )
We hope that everyone understands that the police have a duty to investigate incidents involving a death or injury. Things are not always as they seem. On occasions people pretend a burglary has taken place to cover up other crimes such as a fight between drug dealers.
( And of course this is directed at them, they model their conduct on advice like this. Also, we are too stupid and ignorant to tell a drug dealer from an honest citizen.)
How would the police and CPS handle the investigation and treat me?
( You'll find out, won't you? )
In considering these cases Chief Constables and the Director of Public Prosecutions (Head of the CPS) are determined that they must be investigated and reviewed as swiftly and as sympathetically as possible. In some cases, for instance where the facts are very clear, or where less serious injuries are involved, the investigation will be concluded very quickly, without any need for arrest. In more complicated cases, such as where a death or serious injury occurs, more detailed enquiries will be necessary.
( Note that we say SOME CASES might be handled without arrest. Do you feel lucky? )
The police may need to conduct a forensic examination and/or obtain your account of events.
( EVERY NUANCE OF EVERYTHING YOU SAY WILL BE DECONSTRUCTED IN DETAIL THAT WOULD SHAME THE SPANISH INQUISITION OR HARVARD LAW SCHOOL. BETTER GET IT RIGHT THE FIRST TIME, and be IDENTICAL the next dozen. )
To ensure such cases are dealt with as swiftly and sympathetically as possible, the police and CPS will take special measures namely:
* An experienced investigator will oversee the case
(if one is available and not too busy); and
* If it goes as far as CPS considering the evidence, the case will be prioritised to ensure a senior lawyer makes a quick
(by our standards)
decision
( always subject to change of course.).
It is a fact that very few householders have ever been prosecuted for actions resulting from the use of force against intruders.
(Just thought you might like another reminder.)
Tuesday, January 04, 2005
No Tsunami aid!
The U. S. government seems to think it a matter of honour to force its citizens to render Tsunami aid.
This says it best (long but worth it).
"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way."
"The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a Praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill."
"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them."
"So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddle-bags, and put out. I had been out about a week, and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow, when I asked him if he could give me a chew of tobacco."
"Yes," said he, "such as we make and use in this part of the country; but it may not suit your taste, as you are probably in the habit of using better."
"With that he pulled out of his pocket part of a twist in its natural state, and handed it to me. I took a chew, and handed it back to him. He turned to his plow, and was about to start off. I said to him: "Don't be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted," He replied:
"I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say."
"I began: "Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and---"
"Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again."
"This was a sockdologer. I had been making up my mind that he was one of those churlish fellows who care for nobody but themselves, and take bluntness for independence. I had seen enough of them to know there is a way to reach them, and was satisfied that if I could get him to talk to me I would soon have him straight. But this was entirely a different bundle of sticks. He knew me, had voted for me before, and did not intend to do it again. Something must be the matter; I could not imagine what it was. I had heard of no complaints against me, except that some of the dandies about the village ridiculed some of the wild and foolish things that I too often say and do, and said that I was not enough of a gentleman to go to Congress. I begged him to tell me what was the matter.
"Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest."
"Thank you for that, but you find fault with only one vote. You know the story of Henry Clay, the old huntsman and the rifle; you wouldn't break your gun for one snap."
"No, nor for a dozen. As the story goes, that tack served Mr. Clay's purpose admirably, though it really had nothing to do with the case. I would not break the gun, nor would I discard an honest representative for a mistake in judgment as a mere matter of policy. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."
"I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question."
"No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true!"
"Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with."
"Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!"
"Here was another sockdologer; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:
"Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."
"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution."
"I have given you," continued Crockett, "an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. I said to him:
"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it, than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote, and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot."
"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men--men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
This says it best (long but worth it).
"Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. When we got there I went to work, and I never worked as hard in my life as I did there for several hours. But, in spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made houseless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them, and everybody else seemed to feel the same way."
"The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business, and rushed it through as soon as it could be done. I said everybody felt as I did. That was not quite so; for, though they perhaps sympathized as deeply with the sufferers as I did, there were a few of the members who did not think we had the right to indulge our sympathy or excite our charity at the expense of anybody but ourselves. They opposed the bill, and upon its passage demanded the yeas and nays. There were not enough of them to sustain the call, but many of us wanted our names to appear in favor of what we considered a Praiseworthy measure, and we voted with them to sustain it. So the yeas and nays were recorded, and my name appeared on the journals in favor of the bill."
"The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up, and I thought it was best to let the boys know that I had not forgot them, and that going to Congress had not made me too proud to go to see them."
"So I put a couple of shirts and a few twists of tobacco into my saddle-bags, and put out. I had been out about a week, and had found things going very smoothly, when, riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more of a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly, and was about turning his horse for another furrow, when I asked him if he could give me a chew of tobacco."
"Yes," said he, "such as we make and use in this part of the country; but it may not suit your taste, as you are probably in the habit of using better."
"With that he pulled out of his pocket part of a twist in its natural state, and handed it to me. I took a chew, and handed it back to him. He turned to his plow, and was about to start off. I said to him: "Don't be in such a hurry, my friend; I want to have a little talk with you, and get better acquainted," He replied:
"I am very busy, and have but little time to talk, but if it does not take too long, I will listen to what you have to say."
"I began: "Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and---"
"Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again."
"This was a sockdologer. I had been making up my mind that he was one of those churlish fellows who care for nobody but themselves, and take bluntness for independence. I had seen enough of them to know there is a way to reach them, and was satisfied that if I could get him to talk to me I would soon have him straight. But this was entirely a different bundle of sticks. He knew me, had voted for me before, and did not intend to do it again. Something must be the matter; I could not imagine what it was. I had heard of no complaints against me, except that some of the dandies about the village ridiculed some of the wild and foolish things that I too often say and do, and said that I was not enough of a gentleman to go to Congress. I begged him to tell me what was the matter.
"Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intend by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest."
"Thank you for that, but you find fault with only one vote. You know the story of Henry Clay, the old huntsman and the rifle; you wouldn't break your gun for one snap."
"No, nor for a dozen. As the story goes, that tack served Mr. Clay's purpose admirably, though it really had nothing to do with the case. I would not break the gun, nor would I discard an honest representative for a mistake in judgment as a mere matter of policy. But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is."
"I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any constitutional question."
"No, Colonel, there's no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings of Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some sufferers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true!"
"Certainly it is, and I thought that was the last vote for which anybody in the world would have found fault with."
"Well, Colonel, where do you find in the Constitution any authority to give away the public money in charity!"
"Here was another sockdologer; for, when I began to think about it, I could not remember a thing in the Constitution that authorized it. I found I must take another tack, so I said:
"Well, my friend; I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did."
"It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the Government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can be entrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by a tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the Government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right: to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive, what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose. If twice as many houses had been burned in this county as in Georgetown, neither you nor any other member of Congress would have thought of appropriating a dollar for our relief. There are about two hundred and forty members of Congress. If they had shown their sympathy for the sufferers by contributing each one week's pay, it would have made over $13,000. There are plenty of wealthy men in and around Washington who could have given $20,000 without depriving themselves of even a luxury of life. The Congressmen chose to keep their own money, which, if reports be true, some of them spend not very creditably; and the people about Washington, no doubt, applauded you for relieving them from the necessity of giving by giving what was not yours to give. The people have delegated to Congress, by the Constitution, the power to do certain things. To do these, it is authorized to collect and pay moneys, and for nothing else. Everything beyond this is usurpation, and a violation of the Constitution."
"I have given you," continued Crockett, "an imperfect account of what he said. Long before he was through, I was convinced that I had done wrong. I said to him:
"Well, my friend, you hit the nail upon the head when you said I had not sense enough to understand the Constitution. I intended to be guided by it, and thought I had studied it fully. I have heard many speeches in Congress about the powers of Congress, but what you have said here at your plow has got more hard, sound sense in it, than all the fine speeches I ever heard. If I had ever taken the view of it that you have, I would have put my head into the fire before I would have given that vote, and if you will forgive me and vote for me again, if I ever vote for another unconstitutional law I wish I may be shot."
"Now, sir," concluded Crockett, "you know why I made that speech yesterday. You remember that I proposed to give a week's pay. There are in that House many very wealthy men--men who think nothing of spending a week's pay, or a dozen of them, for a dinner or a wine party when they have something to accomplish by it. Some of those same men made beautiful speeches upon the great debt of gratitude which the country owed the deceased--a debt which could not be paid by money--and the insignificance and worthlessness of money, particularly so insignificant a sum as $10,000, when weighed against the honor of the nation. Yet not one of them responded to my proposition. Money with them is nothing but trash when it is to come out of the people. But it is the one great thing for which most of them are striving, and many of them sacrifice honor, integrity, and justice to obtain it."
Thursday, December 30, 2004
Evermore....
I was at the CWGC in France the other day. The people there had never heard of this, which should be their official story. Or maybe second after The Gardener.
They still find about one a week, year in, decade out.
ALL THE TIME she carried them with her, in a bag
knotted at the neck. She had bayoneted the polythene with a fork, so
that condensation would not gather and begin to rot the frail card. She
knew what happened when you covered seedlings in a flower-pot: damp came
from nowhere to make its sudden climate. This had to be avoided. There
had been so much wet back then, so much rain, churned mud and drowned
horses. She did not mind it for herself. She minded it for them still,
for all of them, back then.
There were three postcards, the last he had sent. The earlier ones
had been divided up, lost perhaps, but she had the last of them, his
final evidence. On the day itself, she would unknot the bag and trace
her eyes over the jerky pencilled address, the formal signature
(initials and surname only), the obedient crossings-out. For many years
she had ached at what the cards did not say; but nowadays she found
something in their official impassivity which seemed proper, even if not
consoling.
Of course she did not need actually to look at
them, any more than she needed the photograph to recall his dark eyes,
sticky-out ears, and the jaunty smile which agreed that the fun would be
all over by Christmas. At any moment she could bring the three pieces
of buff field-service card exactly to mind. The dates: Dec 24, Jan 11,
Jan 17, written in his own hand, and confirmed by the postmark which
added the years: 16, 17, 17. ‘NOTHING is to be written on this side
except the date and signature of the sender. Sentences not required may
be erased. If anything else is added the postcard will be destroyed.’
And then the brutal choices.
I am quite well.
I have been admitted into hospital
sick and am going on well
{ }
wounded and hope to be discharged soon
I am being sent down to the base
letter dated.............
I have received your {telegram................. parcel...................
Letter follows at first opportunity
I have received no letter from you
lately
{
for a long time
He was quite well on each
occasion. He had never been admitted into hospital. He was not being
sent down to the base. He had received a letter of a certain date. A
letter would follow at the first opportunity. He had not received no
letter. All done with thick pencilled crossing-out and a single date.
Then, beside the instruction Signature only, the last signal from her
brother. S. Moss. A large looping S with a circling full stop after it.
Then Moss written without lifting from the card what she always imagined
as a stub of pencil-end studiously licked.
On the other side,
their mother’s name - Mrs Moss, with a grand M and a short stabbing
line beneath the rs - then the address. Another warning down the edge,
this time in smaller letters.
‘The address only to be written on this side. If anything else is added, the postcard will be destroyed.’
But
across the top of her second card, Sammy had written something, and it
had not been destroyed. A neat line of ink without the rough loopiness
of his pencilled signature: ‘50 yds from the Germans. Posted from
Trench.’ In fifty years, one for each underlined yard, she had not come
up with the answer. Why had he written it, why in ink, why had they
allowed it? Sam was a cautious and responsible boy, especially towards
their mother, and he would not have risked a worrying silence. But he
had undeniably written these words. And in ink, too. Was it code for
something else? A premonition of death? Except that Sam was not the sort
to have premonitions. Perhaps it was simply excitement, a desire to
impress. Look how close we are. 50 yds from the Germans. Posted from
Trench.
She was glad he was at Cabaret Rouge, with his own headstone. Found
and identified. Given known and honoured burial. She had a horror of
Thiepval, one which failed to diminish in spite of her dutiful yearly
visits. Thiepval’s lost souls. You had to make the right preparation for
them, for their lostness. So she always began elsewhere, at Caterpillar
Valley, Thistle Dump, Quarry, Blighty Valley, Ulster Tower, Herbécourt.
No Morning Dawns
No Night Returns
But What We Think Of Thee
That was at Herbécourt, a walled enclosure in the middle of fields,
room for a couple of hundred, most of them Australian, but this was a
British lad, the one who owned this inscription. Was it a vice to have
become such a connoisseur of grief? Yet it was true, she had her
favourite cemeteries. Like Blighty Valley and Thistle Dump, both
half-hidden from the road in a fold of valley; or Quarry, a graveyard
looking as if it had been abandoned by its village; or Devonshire, that
tiny, private patch for the Devonshires who died on the first day of the
Somme, who fought to hold that ridge and held it still. You followed
signposts in British racing green, then walked across fields guarded by
wooden martyred Christs to these sanctuaries of orderliness, where
everything was accounted for. Headstones were lined up like dominoes on
edge; beneath them, their owners were present and correct, listed,
tended. Creamy altars proclaimed that THEIR NAME LIVETH FOR EVERMORE.
And so it did, on the graves, in the books, in hearts, in memories.
Each year she wondered if this would be her last visit. Her life no
longer offered up to her the confident plausibility of two decades more,
one decade, five years. Instead, it was now renewed on an annual basis,
like her driving licence. Every April Dr Holling had to certify her fit
for another twelve months behind the wheel. Perhaps she and the Morris
would go kaput on the same day.
Before, it had been the boat
train, the express to Amiens, a local stopper, a bus or two. Since she
had acquired the Morris, she had in theory become freer; and yet her
routine remained almost immutable. She would drive to Dover and take a
night ferry, riding the Channel in the blackout alongside burly
lorry-drivers. It saved money, and meant she was always in France for
daybreak. No Morning Dawns … He must have seen each daybreak and
wondered if that was the date they would put on his stone … Then she
would follow the N43 to St-Omer, to Aire and Lillers, where she usually
took a croissant and thé à l’anglaise. From Lillers the N43 continued to
Béthune, but she flinched from it: south of Béthune was the D937 to
Arras, and there, on a straight stretch where the road did a reminding
elbow, was Brigadier Sir Frank Higginson’s domed portico. You should not
drive past it, even if you intended to return. She had done that once,
early in her ownership of the Morris, skirted Cabaret Rouge in second
gear, and it had seemed the grossest discourtesy to Sammy and those who
lay beside him: no, it’s not your turn yet, just you wait and we’ll be
along. No, that was what the other motorists did.
So instead
she would cut south from Lillers and come into Arras with the D341. From
there, in that thinned triangle whose southern points were Albert and
Péronne, she would begin her solemn
At first, back then, the commonality of grief had helped: wives, mothers, comrades, an array of brass hats, and a bugler amid gassy morning mist which the feeble November sun had failed to burn away. Later, remembering Sam had changed: it became work, continuity; instead of anguish and glory, there was fierce unreasonableness, both about his death and her commemoration of it. During this period, she was hungry for the solitude and the voluptuous selfishness of grief: her Sam, her loss, her mourning, and nobody else’s similar. She admitted as much: there was no shame to it. But now, after half a century, her feelings had simply become part of her. Her grief was a calliper, necessary and supporting; she could not imagine walking without it.
When she had finished with Herbéourt and Devonshire, Thistle Dump and Caterpillar Valley, she would come, always with trepidation, to the great red-brick memorial at Thiepval. An arch of triumph, yes, but of what kind, she wondered: the triumph over death, or the triumph of death? ‘Here are recorded names of officers and men of the British armies who fell on the Somme battlefields July 1915–February 1918 but to whom the fortune of war denied the known and honoured burial given to their comrades in death.’ Thiepval Ridge, Pozières Wood, Albert, Morval, Ginchy, Guillemont, Ancre, Ancre Heights, High Wood, Delville Wood, Bapaume, Bazentin Ridge, Miraumont, Transloy Ridges, Flers-Courcelette. Battle after battle, each accorded its stone laurel wreath, its section of wall: name after name after name, the Missing of the Somme, the official graffiti of death. This monument by Sir Edwin Lutyens revolted her, it always had. She could not bear the thought of these lost men, exploded into unrecognisable pieces, engulfed in the mud-fields, one moment fully there with pack and gaiters, baccy and rations, with their memories and their hopes, their past and their future, crammed into them, and the next moment only a shred of khaki or a sliver of shin-bone to prove they had ever existed. Or worse: some of these names had first been given known and honoured burial, their allotment of ground with their name above it, only for some new battle with its heedless artillery to tear up the temporary graveyard and bring a second, final extermination. Yet each of those scraps of uniform and flesh - whether newly killed or richly decomposed - had been brought back here and reorganised, conscripted into the eternal regiment of the missing, kitted out and made to dress by the right. Something about the way they had vanished and the way they were now reclaimed was more than she could bear: as if an army which had thrown them away so lightly now chose to own them again so gravely. She was not sure whether this was the case. She claimed no understanding of military matters. All she claimed was an understanding of grief.
Her wariness of Thiepval always made her read it with a sceptical, a proof-reader’s eye. She noticed, for instance, that the French translation of the English inscription listed - as the English one did not - the exact number of the Missing. 73,367. That was another reason she did not care to be here, standing in the middle of the arch looking down over the puny Anglo-French cemetery (French crosses to the left, British stones to the right) while the wind drew tears from an averting eye. 73,367: beyond a certain point, the numbers became uncountable and diminishing in effect. The more dead, the less proportionate the pain. 73,367: even she, with all her expertise in grief, could not imagine that.
Perhaps the British realised that the number of the Missing might continue to grow through the years, that no fixed total could be true; perhaps it was not shame, but a kind of sensible poetry which made them decline to specify a figure. And they were right: the numbers had indeed changed. The arch was inaugurated in 1932 by the Prince of Wales, and all the names of all the Missing had been carved upon its surfaces, but still, here and there, out of their proper place, hauled back tardily from oblivion, were a few soldiers enlisted only under the heading of Addenda. She knew all their names by now: Dodds T., Northumberland Fusiliers; Malcolm H. W., The Cameronians; Lennox F. J., Royal Irish Rifles; Lovell F. H. B., Royal Warwickshire Regiment; Orr R., Royal Inniskillins; Forbes R., Cameron Highlanders; Roberts J., Middlesex Regiment; Moxham A., Wiltshire Regiment; Humphries F. J., Middlesex Regiment; Hughes H. W., Worcestershire Regiment; Bateman W. T., Northamptonshire Regiment; Tarling E., The Cameronians; Richards W., Royal Field Artillery; Rollins S., East Lancashire Regiment; Byrne L., Royal Irish Rifles; Gale E. O., East Yorkshire Regiment; Walters J., Royal Fusiliers; Argar D., Royal Field Artillery. No Morning Dawns, No Night Returns …
She felt closest to Rollins S., since he was an East Lancashire; she would always smile at the initials inflicted upon Private Lovell; but it was Malcolm H. W. who used to intrigue her most. Malcolm H. W., or, to give him his full inscription: ‘Malcolm H. W. The Cameronians (Sco. Rif.) served as Wilson H.’ An addendum and a corrigendum all in one. When she had first discovered him, it had pleased her to imagine his story. Was he under age? Did he falsify his name to escape home, to run away from some girl? Was he wanted for a crime, like those fellows who joined the French Foreign Legion? She did not really want an answer, but she liked to dream a little about this man who had first been deprived of his identity and then of his life. These accumulations of loss seemed to exalt him; for a while, faceless and iconic, he had threatened to rival Sammy and Denis as an emblem of the war. In later years she turned against such fancifulness. There was no mystery really. Private H. W. Malcolm becomes H. Wilson. No doubt he was in truth H. Wilson Malcolm, and when he volunteered they wrote the wrong name in the wrong column; then they were unable to change it. That would make sense: man is only a clerical error corrected by death.
She had never cared for the main inscription over the central arch:
AUX ARMEES
FRANCAISE ET
BRITANNIQUE
L’EMPIRE
BRITANNIQUE
RECON-
NAISSANT
FRANCAISE ET
BRITANNIQUE
L’EMPIRE
BRITANNIQUE
RECON-
NAISSANT
Each line was centred, which was correct, but there was altogether too much white space beneath the inscription. She would have inserted ‘less #’ on the galley-proof. And each year she disliked more and more the line-break in the word reconnaissant. There were different schools of thought about this - she had argued with her superiors over the years - but she insisted that breaking a word in the middle of a doubled consonant was a nonsense. You broke a word where the word itself was perforated. Look what this military, architectural or sculptural nincompoop had produced: a fracture which left a separate word, naissant, by mistake. Naissant had nothing to do with reconnaissant, nothing at all; worse, it introduced the notion of birth on to this monument to death. She had written to the War Graves Commission about it, many years ago, and had been assured that the proper procedures had been followed. They told her that!
Nor was she content with EVERMORE. Their name liveth for evermore: here at Thiepval, also at Cabaret Rouge, Caterpillar Valley, Combles Communal Cemetery Extension, and all the larger memorials. It was of course the correct form, or at least the more regular form; but something in her preferred to see it as two words. EVER MORE: it seemed more weighty like this, with an equal bell-toll on each half. In any case, she had a quarrel with the Dictionary about evermore. ‘Always, at all times, constantly, continually’. Yes, it could mean this in the ubiquitous inscription. But she preferred sense 1: ‘For all future time’. Their name liveth for all future time. No morning dawns, no night returns, but what we think of thee. This is what the inscription meant. But the Dictionary had marked sense 1 as ‘Obs. exc. arch.’ Obsolete except archaic. No, oh certainly not, no. And not with a last quotation as recent as 1854. She would have spoken to Mr Rothwell about this, or at least pencilled a looping note on the galley-proof;
but this entry was not being revised, and the letter E had passed
over her desk without an opportunity to make the adjustment.
EVERMORE. She wondered if there was such a thing as collective memory,
something more than the sum of individual memories. If so, was it merely
coterminous, yet in some way richer; or did it last longer? She
wondered if those too young to have original knowledge could be given
memory, could have it grafted on. She thought of this especially at
Thiepval. Though she hated the place, when she saw young families
trailing across the grass towards the redbrick arc-de-triomphe it also
roused in her a wary hopefulness. Christian cathedrals could inspire
religious faith by their vast assertiveness; why then should not
Lutyens’ memorial provoke some response equally beyond the rational?
That reluctant child, whining about the strange food its mother produced
from plastic boxes, might receive memory here. Such an edifice assured
the newest eye of the pre-existence of the profoundest emotions. Grief
and awe lived here; they could be breathed, absorbed. And if so, then
this child might in turn bring its child, and so on, from generation to
generation, EVERMORE. Not just to count the Missing, but to understand
what those from whom they had gone missing knew, and to feel her loss
afresh.
Perhaps this was one reason she had married Denis. Of
course she should never have done so. And in a way she never had, for
there had been no carnal connection: she unwilling, he incapable. It had
lasted two years and his uncomprehending eyes when she delivered him
back were impossible to forget. All she could say in her defence was
that it was the only time she had behaved with such pure selfishness:
she had married him for her own reasons, and discarded him for her own
reasons. Some might say that the rest of her life had been selfish too,
devoted as it was entirely to her own commemorations; but this was a
selfishness that hurt nobody else.
Poor Denis. He was still handsome when he came back, though his
hair grew white on one side and he dribbled. When the fits came on she
knelt on his chest and held his tongue down with a stub of pencil. Every
night he roamed restlessly through his sleep, muttered and roared, fell
silent for a while, and then with parade-ground precision would shout
Hip! hip! hip! When she woke him, he could never remember what had been
happening. He had guilt and pain, but no specific memory of what he felt
guilty about. She knew: Denis had been hit by shrapnel and taken back
down the line to hospital without a farewell to his best pal Jewy Moss,
leaving Sammy to be killed during the next day’s Hun bombardment. After
two years of this marriage, two years of watching Denis vigorously brush
his patch of white hair to make it go away, she had returned him to his
sisters. From now on, she told them, they should look after Denis and
she would look after Sam. The sisters had gazed at her in silent
astonishment. Behind them, in the hall, Denis, his chin wet and his
brown eyes uncomprehending, stood with an awkward patience which implied
that this latest event was nothing special in itself, merely one of a
number of things he failed to grasp, and that there would surely be much
more to come, all down the rest of his life, which would also escape
him.
She had taken the job on the Dictionary a month later.
She worked alone in a damp basement, at a desk across which curled long
sheets of galley-proof. Condensation beaded the window. She was armed
with a brass table-lamp and a pencil which she sharpened until it was
too short to fit in the hand. Her script was large and loose, somewhat
like Sammy’s; she deleted and inserted, just as he had done on his
field-service postcards. Nothing to be written on this side of the
galley-proof. If anything else is added to the galley-proof it will be
destroyed. No, she did not have to worry; she made her marks with
impunity. She spotted colons which were italic instead of roman,
brackets which were square instead of round, inconsistent abbreviations,
misleading cross-references. Occasionally she made suggestions. She
might observe, in looping pencil, that such-and-such a word was in her
opinion vulgar rather than colloquial, or that the sense illustrated was
figurative rather than transferred. She passed on her galley-proofs to
Mr Rothwell, the joint deputy editor, but never enquired whether her
annotations were finally acted upon. Mr Rothwell, a bearded, taciturn
and pacific man, valued her meticulous eye, her sure grasp of the
Dictionary’s conventions, and her willingness to take work home if a
fascicle was shortly going to press. He remarked to himself and to
others that she had a strangely disputatious attitude over words
labelled as obsolete. Often she would propose ?Obs. rather than Obs. as
the correct marking. Perhaps this had something to do with age, Mr
Rothwell thought; younger folk were perhaps more willing to accept that a
word had had its day.
In fact, Mr Rothwell was only five years younger than she; but Miss Moss - as she had become once more after her disposal of Denis - had aged quickly, almost as a matter of will. The years passed and she grew stout, her hair flew a little more wildly away from her clips, and her spectacle lenses became thicker. Her stockings had a dense, antique look to them, and she never took her raincoat to the dry-cleaner. Younger lexicographers entering her office, where a number of back files were stored, wondered if the faint smell of rabbit-hutch came from the walls, the old Dictionary slips, Miss Moss’s raincoat, or Miss Moss herself. None of this mattered to Mr Rothwell, who saw only the precision of her work. Though entitled by the Press to an annual holiday of fifteen working days, she never took more than a single week.
At first this holiday coincided with the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month; Mr Rothwell had the delicacy not to ask for details. In later years, however, she would take her week in other months, late spring or early autumn. When her parents died and she inherited a small amount of money, she surprised Mr Rothwell by arriving for work one day in a small grey Morris with red leather seats. It sported a yellow metal AA badge on the front and a metal GB plate on the back. At the age of fifty-three she had passed her driving-test first time, and manoeuvred her car with a precision bordering on elan.
She always slept in the car. It saved money; but mainly it helped her be alone with herself and Sam. The villages in that thinned triangle south of Arras became accustomed to the sight of an ageing British car the colour of gunmetal drawn up beside the war memorial; inside, an elderly lady wrapped in a travelling-rug would be asleep in the passenger seat. She never locked the car at night, for it seemed impertinent, even disrespectful on her part to feel any fear. She slept while the villages slept, and would wake as a drenched cow on its way to milking softly shouldered a wing of the parked Morris. Every so often she would be invited in by a villager, but she preferred not to accept hospitality. Her behaviour was not regarded as peculiar, and cafés in the region knew to serve her thé à l’anglaise without her having to ask.
After she had finished with Thiepval, with Thistle Dump and Caterpillar Valley, she would drive up through Arras and take the D937 towards Béthune. Ahead lay Vimy, Cabaret Rouge, N.D. de Lorette. But there was always one other visit to be paid first: to Maison Blanche. Such peaceful names they mostly had. But here at Maison Blanche were 40,000 German dead, 40,000 Huns laid out beneath their thin black crosses, a sight as orderly as you would expect from the Huns, though not as splendid as the British graves. She lingered there, reading a few names at random, idly wondering, when she found a date just a little later than the 21st January 1917, if this could be the Hun that had killed her Sammy. Was this the man who squeezed the trigger, fed the machine-gun, blocked his ears as the howitzer roared? And see how short a time he had lasted afterwards: two days, a week, a month or so in the mud before being lined up in known and honoured burial, facing out once more towards her Sammy, though separated now not by barbed-wire and 50 yds but by a few kilometres of asphalt.
She felt no rancour towards these Huns; time had washed from her any anger at the man, the regiment, the Hun army, the nation that had taken Sam’s life. Her resentment was against those who had come later, and whom she refused to dignify with the amicable name of Hun. She hated Hitler’s war for diminishing the memory of the Great War, for allotting it a number, the mere first among two. And she hated the way in which the Great War was held responsible for its successor, as if Sam, Denis and all the East Lancashires who fell were partly the cause of that business. Sam had done what he could - he had served and died - and was punished all too quickly with becoming subservient in memory. Time did not behave rationally. Fifty years back to the Somme; a hundred beyond that to Waterloo; four hundred more to Agincourt, or Azincourt as the French preferred. Yet these distances had now been squeezed closer to one another. She blamed it on 1939-1945.
She knew to keep away from those parts of France where the second war happened, or at least where it was remembered. In the early years of the Morris, she had sometimes made the mistake of imagining herself on holiday, of being a tourist. She might thoughtlessly stop in a lay-by, or be taking a stroll down a back lane in some tranquil, heat-burdened part of the country, when a neat tablet inserted in a dry wall would assault her. It would commemorate Monsieur Un Tel, lâchement assassiné par les Allemands, or tué, or fusillé, and then an insulting modern date: 1943, 1944, 1945. They blocked the view, these deaths and these dates; they demanded attention by their recency. She refused, she refused.
When she stumbled like this upon the second war, she would hurry to the nearest village for consolation. She always knew where to look: next to the church, the mairie, the railway station; at a fork in the road; on a dusty square with cruelly pollarded limes and a few rusting café tables. There she would find her damp-stained memorial with its heroic poilu, grieving widow, triumphant Marianne, rowdy cockerel. Not that the story she read on the plinth needed any sculptural illustration. 67 against 9, 83 against 12, 40 against 5, 27 against 2: here was the eternal corroboration she sought, the historical corrigendum. She would touch the names cut into stone, their gilding washed away on the weather-side. Numbers whose familiar proportion declared the
She would spend the last night at Aix-Noulette (101 to 7); at Souchez (48 to 6), where she remembered Plouvier, Maxime, Sergent, killed on 17th December 1916, the last of his village to die before her Sam; at Carency (19 to 1); at Ablain-Saint-Nazaire (66 to 9), eight of whose male Lherbiers had died, four on the champ d’honneur, three as victimes civiles, one a civil fusillé par l’ennemi. Then, the next morning, cocked with grief, she would set off for Cabaret Rouge while dew was still on the grass. There was consolation in solitude and damp knees. She no longer talked to Sam; everything had been said decades ago. The heart had been expressed, the apologies made, the secrets given. She no longer wept, either; that too had stopped. But the hours she spent with him at Cabaret Rouge were the most vital of her life. They always had been.
The D937 did its reminding elbow at Cabaret Rouge, making sure you slowed out of respect, drawing your attention to Brigadier Sir Frank Higginson’s handsome domed portico, which served as both entrance gate and memorial arch. From the portico, the burial ground dropped away at first, then sloped up again towards the standing cross on which hung not Christ but a metal sword. Symmetrical, amphitheatrical, Cabaret Rouge held 6,676 British soldiers, sailors, Marines and airmen; 732 Canadians; 121 Australians; 42 South Africans; 7 New Zealanders; 2 members of the Royal Guernsey Light Infantry; 1 Indian; 1 member of an unknown unit; and 4 Germans.
It also contained, or more exactly had once had scattered over it, the ashes of Brigadier Sir Frank Higginson, Secretary to the Imperial War Graves Commission, who had died in 1958 at the age of sixty-eight. That showed true loyalty and remembrance. His widow, Lady Violet Lindsley Higginson, had died four years later, and her ashes had been scattered here too. Fortunate Lady Higginson. Why should the wife of a brigadier who, whatever he had done in the Great War, had not died, be allowed such enviable and meritorious burial, and yet the sister of one of those soldiers whom the fortune of war had led to known and honoured burial be denied such comfort? The Commission had twice denied her request, saying that a military cemetery did not receive civilian ashes. The third time she had written they had been less polite, referring her brusquely to their earlier correspondence.
There had been incidents down the years. They had stopped her coming for the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month by refusing her permission to sleep the night beside his grave. They said they did not have camping facilities; they affected to sympathise, but what if everybody else wanted to do the same? She replied that it was quite plain that no one else wanted to do the same but that if they did then such a desire should be respected. However, after some years she ceased to miss the official ceremony: it seemed to her full of people who remembered improperly, impurely.
There had been problems with the planting. The grass at the cemetery was French grass, and it seemed to her of the coarser type, inappropriate for British soldiers to lie beneath. Her campaign over this with the Commission led nowhere. So one spring she took out a small spade and a square yard of English turf kept damp in a plastic bag. After dark she dug out the offending French grass and relaid the softer English turf, patting it into place, then stamping it in. She was pleased with her work, and the next year, as she approached the grave, saw no indication of her mending. But when she knelt, she realised that her work had been undone: the French grass was back again. The same had happened when she had surreptitiously planted her bulbs. Sam liked tulips, yellow ones especially, and one autumn she had pushed half a dozen bulbs into the earth. But the following spring, when she returned, there were only dusty geraniums in front of his stone.
There had also been the desecration. Not so very long ago. Arriving shortly after dawn, she found something on the grass which at first she put down to a dog. But when she saw the same in front of 1685 Private W. A. Andrade 4th Bn. London Regt. R. Fus. 15th March 1915, and in front of 675 Private Leon Emanuel Levy The Cameronians (Sco. Rif.) 16th August 1916 aged 21 And the Soul Returneth to God Who Gave It - Mother, she judged it most unlikely that a dog, or three dogs, had managed to find the only three Jewish graves in the cemetery. She gave the caretaker the rough edge of her tongue. He admitted that such desecration had occurred before, also that paint had been sprayed, but he always tried to arrive before anyone else and remove the signs. She told him that he might be honest but he was clearly idle. She blamed the second war. She tried not to think about it again.
For her, now, the view back to 1917 was uncluttered: the decades were mown grass, and at their end was a row of white headstones, domino-thin. 1358 Private Samuel M. Moss East Lancashire Regt. 21st January 1917, and in the middle the Star of David. Some graves in Cabaret Rouge were anonymous, with no identifying words or symbols; some had inscriptions, regimental badges, Irish harps, springboks, maple leaves, New Zealand ferns. Most had Christian crosses; only three displayed the Star of David. Private Andrade, Private Levy and Private Moss. A British soldier buried beneath the Star of David: she kept her eyes on that. Sam had written from training camp that the fellows chaffed him, but he had always been Jewy Moss at school, and they were good fellows, most of them, as good inside the barracks as outside, anyway. They made the same remarks he’d heard before, but Jewy Moss was a British soldier, good enough to fight and die with his comrades, which is what he had done, and what he was remembered for. She pushed away the second war, which muddled things. He was a British soldier, East Lancashire Regiment, buried at Cabaret Rouge beneath the Star of David.
She wondered when they would plough them up, Herbécourt, Devonshire, Quarry, Blighty Valley, Ulster Tower, Thistle Dump and Caterpillar Valley; Maison Blanche and Cabaret Rouge. They said they never would. This land, she read everywhere, was ‘the free gift of the French people for the perpetual resting place of those of the allied armies who fell…’ and so on. EVERMORE, they said, and she wanted to hear: for all future time. The War Graves Commission, her successive members of parliament, the Foreign Office, the commanding officer of Sammy’s regiment, all told her the same. She didn’t believe them. Soon — in fifty years or so — everyone who had served in the War would be dead; and at some point after that, everyone who had known anyone who had served would also be dead. What if memory-grafting did not work, or the memories themselves were deemed shameful? First, she guessed, those little stone tablets in the back lanes would be chiselled out, since the French and the Germans had officially stopped hating one another years ago, and it would not do for German tourists to be accused of the cowardly assassinations perpetrated by their ancestors. Then the war memorials would come down, with their important statistics. A few might be held to have architectural interest; but some new, cheerful generation would find them morbid, and dream up better things to enliven the villages. And after that it would be time to plough up the cemeteries, to put them back to good agricultural use: they had lain fallow for too long. Priests and politicians would make it all right, and the farmers would get their land back, fertilised with blood and bone. Thiepval might become a listed building, but would they keep Brigadier Sir Frank Higginson’s domed portico? That elbow in the D937 would be declared a traffic hazard; all it needed was a drunken casualty for the road to be made straight again after all these years. Then the great forgetting could begin, the fading into the landscape. The war would be levelled to a couple of museums, a set of demonstration trenches, and a few names, shorthand for pointless sacrifice.
Might there be one last fiery glow of remembering? In her own case, it would not be long before her annual renewals ceased, before the clerical error of her life was corrected; yet even as she pronounced herself an antique, her memories seemed to sharpen. If this happened to the individual, could it not also happen on a national scale? Might there not be, at some point in the first decades of the twenty-first century, one final moment, lit by evening sun, before the whole thing was handed over to the archivists? Might there not be a great looking-back down the mown grass of the decades, might not a gap in the trees discover the curving ranks of slender headstones, white tablets holding up to the eye their bright names and terrifying dates, their harps and springboks, maple leaves and ferns, their Christian crosses and their Stars of David? Then, in the space of a wet blink, the gap in the trees would close and the mown grass disappear, a violent indigo cloud would cover the sun, and history, gross history, daily history, would forget. Is this how it would be?
Wednesday, December 29, 2004
Rosa Parks and the hunting ban....
I was out with the Blencathra the day the ban passed, and in Exford at the White Horse that night. Usually busy, the place was almost empty. I spent the next week hunting on Exmoor, talking to people.
The mood was strange, and I tried to understand it. I believe I have, in an odd way.
I was born in fortunate circumstances in the American South, and I am just old enough to remember the end of overt segregation. Raised in a respectful environment, I didn't really begin to understand prejudice and stereotyping until I moved north. There, I found that as soon as I opened my mouth I was ignorant, bigoted, uneducated, and all the other fantasy attributes of the southerner. So I began to "get it" in a direct and personal way.
And I thought I understood the anger and sense of rejection that segregation caused. Talking to black people like Mr. M, who had served through the war with the Third Army, yet couldn't get a non menial job back home, I imagined how it must feel. But I didn't know.
In Exmoor, I saw that a million people had just been made second class citizens in their own country. Parliament told my hunting friends (and me) that we aren't wanted. Our contributions, our efforts, our way of life are all rejected. Our membership in the very society is revoked unless we stop being ourselves and accept our place.
So now I understand a little better. I understand the pilgrims, and I'll do my best to assist any hunting person who wants to come to the U. S. They will make great Americans. (Really, they are already Americans, they just don't live here yet.)
But I don't understand Rosa Parks.
I would have sneaked into the lot late at night, and blown the bus UP.
The mood was strange, and I tried to understand it. I believe I have, in an odd way.
I was born in fortunate circumstances in the American South, and I am just old enough to remember the end of overt segregation. Raised in a respectful environment, I didn't really begin to understand prejudice and stereotyping until I moved north. There, I found that as soon as I opened my mouth I was ignorant, bigoted, uneducated, and all the other fantasy attributes of the southerner. So I began to "get it" in a direct and personal way.
And I thought I understood the anger and sense of rejection that segregation caused. Talking to black people like Mr. M, who had served through the war with the Third Army, yet couldn't get a non menial job back home, I imagined how it must feel. But I didn't know.
In Exmoor, I saw that a million people had just been made second class citizens in their own country. Parliament told my hunting friends (and me) that we aren't wanted. Our contributions, our efforts, our way of life are all rejected. Our membership in the very society is revoked unless we stop being ourselves and accept our place.
So now I understand a little better. I understand the pilgrims, and I'll do my best to assist any hunting person who wants to come to the U. S. They will make great Americans. (Really, they are already Americans, they just don't live here yet.)
But I don't understand Rosa Parks.
I would have sneaked into the lot late at night, and blown the bus UP.
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