Guard Dog

OK, this is going to be a bit of a rant. But bear with me please. It was rolling around in my mind on the way home yesterday. As many of you know I have studied the American Civil War at length. I am pretty ambivalent about removing the confederate markers from public places. I really don't see the aesthetic value of statues in every park. Just a matter of taste I guess. Plus statues of people in places they have no connection to makes no sense to me. Lee & Davis in New Orleans? Why? I don't see moving or just removing them as erasing history in and of itself. Although that may be the intention. I'd draw the line when it comes to removing them from Gettysburg, Shiloh Battlefield, places like that as some are now calling for. Now you ARE erasing history. As big a sin as erasing history is revising it to suit modern mores. And that has been going on with the CSA since around the beginning of the 20th Century when all these statues started being placed. I am of course, referring to the "Lost Cause" narrative. That the South was engaged in a virtuous struggle against a northern tyrant bent on taking their State's Rights. It begins with the statement "The war wasn't really about slavery". It's an appealing notion and one I was once partial to myself I'm sorry to admit. But even a little bit of reading and learning about what led up to South Carolina seceding and why it all happened will disabuse any rational person of the notion it was not about slavery. It was. Not because they were evil people who enjoyed oppressing other people. It was about money. Industrial scale agriculture before the industrial revolution. Slavery was a means to an economic end they would not consider parting with so yes, it was about slavery. As pernicious as the lost cause narrative is, a new one has emerged that is equally harmful. Again it involves the failure to understand the context of events by applying modern mores to people from the past. In yesterday's Washington Post editorial they stated the memorials were "part of an ideological campaign whose goals were to glorify men and women who betrayed the United States". The problem with that is the United States in 1861 was a very different thing than it is in 2017. There was no "national identity". People did not consider themselves citizens of the United States, they were citizens of THEIR state. When Virginia seceded Lee would have considered himself a traitor had he not taken command of the Virginia military forces. Had Virginia not seceded he may have actually taken Lincoln's offer of command of the Union army. In those days even the army itself was not a national institution but rather a collection of units raised and supplied by the states. The United States became the country we recognize today in the years following the war. Partially because of the war and partially because of the railroad. As people became more mobile and no longer lived and died in the same states their parents did the "national identity" began to form. Calling the people who fought for the CSA "traitors" is wrong. They were the people of their time dealing with circumstances beyond their control. Historical events should not be revised to suit modern mores. It should be remembered as it happened in the context it happened. To be honest I don't see the point in memorializing the political leaders of the CSA. I don't think they deserve it. Memorializing to soldiers who were not fighting for slavery, rather defending their homes from an invading force is appropriate when placed in appropriate places. Cemeteries, battlefields, etc. That the cause the fought and died for was immoral, evil even is a tragedy. But it was not one of their making. There is a great line in Shakespeare's Henry V: "Now if those men do not die well it will be a black matter for the king that led them to it" That's why I don't think we should see statues of Jeff Davis, Alexander Stephens, or folks like that. Just my $.02

You have been posting here for a long time.... but this.... this is your best share yet!

Heading home today. It's raining pretty hard today and looks like it will be for the next few days.

I read George W Bush's memoir and I believe he really thought there was a little American, pining away for a republican democracy inside every Iraqi just waiting to get out. He really believed that these different ethnic groups who have hated each other for reasons not one of them remember since before the time of the Renaissance would just work together and form an egalitarian western style republic if we just got rid of Hussien. He never reckoned the fact that Iraq as a nation state was only ever held together at gunpoint. First by the British and their chosen leader Faisal, then by the army general whose name I forget, then Huissen and the Baathists. The moment the threat of being shot dead for stepping out of line was removed all these groups who hated each other started going their own way. We should have left that mess well enough alone. It was stable, predictable, and a counterweight to Iran prior to the invasion. Now it's none of those things. At the very least they should have divided it into three different countries. If Iraq did nothing else it proved the wisdom of the non-interventionist foreign policy school of thought. But so did Vietnam. That lesson wasn't learned either.

The solution to the whole problem is to ban statues. This whole fuss is over a statue of Robert E. Lee (who would be pesonally horrified by who is defending him and how). So let's just take them all down everywhere except battlefields, memorial sites, and parks and places like that where they are appropriate. And let's start with this one: That is creepy as HELL! I'm not convinced it's not coming alive at night and killing people.

You know how noboby pays attention to what the folks in Poland have to say? Maybe we should:

Giancarlo Stanton is on a tear. 6 straight games with at least on dinger and now 44 for the year: http://m.mlb.com/news/article/248631262/marlins-giancarlo-stanton-hits-44th-home-run/?topicId=27118122

I fished all morning and wached Sunny chase baitfish in the shallows all afternoon. That dog goes through life with all the care and subtelty of a category 5 hurricane. I caught two bonefish off the old pier in Ullmore Cove. Or maybe it was one. It looked awfully familiar. You're not allowed to keep those so I put it back. I caught a sheepshead later, big enough to keep but since it was the only one I put it back. He's lucky. One more and they would be in the pan right now. Now just relaxing, reading e-mail and drinking a fine 9 year old bourbon from a coffee cup.

Good morning from Apalachicola

https://youtu.be/NtYSuKIljKE

Too many response options. Bethesda would never do that.

323,000,000 people in the US going about their lives taking care of their families, being decent to each other, and just living and we're all judged by the actions of a few hundred jackasses in Virginia. Nice.

Personally, I find drinking premium whiskey from a paper cup while watching the sun set on the ocean will drive the Mean S.O.B out of anyone.

The Democrats and Republicans are both 'big tent' parties and are supposed to accommodate a whole range of ideas and not a specific platform as European parties usually do. They're called parties, yes, but they aren't 'parties' in the European sense. Well put. The same could be said of the other political parties in the US, even though they are much smaller than D & R. There are few single issue parties here.

You beat me to it! I was going to say a lot of the time before Bonds was half way to first the ball was six rows deep.

I haven't been paying much attention the shenanigans in Virginia the past few days. Personally I think the problem is the folks in the white nationalist crowd and the whatever-was-counter-protesting crowd should all get a few cases of beer and go fishing together. I think they would find out they don't actually hate each other after all. Just a thought.

I took this about 10 minutes ago. The sun has been down about 1/2 hour. It is beautiful here. I'm at Gulf State Park in Alabama. This is the second time I've stayed here. Sunny played in the gulf all day. She is pooped. All I did today was sit on the beach, drink lots of iced tea and thre Sunny's favorite rope toy. Tomorrow we're heading east on 292 to Perdido Key, then on US 98 to Pensacola, Panama City, Santa Rosa Island and finally Bald Point State Park in Apalachicola FL to finally do some fishing. I made this one smaller, the other took a full minute to upload!

Good morning from Gulf Islands National Seashore east of Mobile.

Congrats and best wishies TN. She better treat you right... and vice versa!

The only proper use for the term "locked and loaded" is in reference to a magazine fed rifle with a full magazine and a round in the chamber ready to fire. It was first used in reference to the M1 Garand rifle in WW2 and works with the M-14, M-16, & M-4. It could refer to a semi-auto pistol too I guess but I've never heard it used for that. Any of the use of the expression, trying to sound tough, or bad-ass or in a state or readiness is in error. And a little infantile too.

I'm leaving for a much put off vacation myself. I was supposed to go back in May but events great and terrible have interfered. Heading down to Gulf Islands national park in Mississippi for a few days then maybe east to Apalachicola.

Grom & Ben's post remind me why I don't go to the movies and seldom watch them on TV. Oh, and speaking on whitewashing and cultural appropriation, this was an actual thing: John Wayne actually played Genghis Khan!

I can hardly fault you there!

If you have an Amazon Kindle (or the app) and have signed up for Kindle Unlimited you can read this one for free: It has a "Planescape" thing going. I'm not a big fan of fantasy writing because with a few notable exceptions it's so unoriginal. This one does not really buck that trend but it's better than most I've tried to choke down. And it is free, so there's that.