Gettysburg, Stephen W Sears

https://www.amazon.com/Gettysburg-Stephen-W-Sears/dp/039556476X/ref=tmm_hrd_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

I read this book before and during the trip out to Gettysburg and DC. What a marvelous opportunity for education; to be able to read an excellent book, and then take in the sights of the actual battlefield, having the history and geography come to life in that special way. If I had such an opportunity as a youth, I may well have been a historian today ... or who knows what else. We have a desperate need to find ways to leverage our computer and video technology as well as travel to improve the quality of education. How sad that for all the advances since since the Civil War, the most common method of education is STILL to put a bunch of kids in a room with a teacher. Other than the dress and the quality of the building, they may as well be in Civil War Times. Maybe it was better then? Only the children of the North had to deal with "Union Teachers" ;-).

The book is very well written and focuses mostly on the actual events leading up to, during, and immediately after the battle. Lee and his army were very confident after whipping the Yankees at Chancellorsville, but it appears that the loss of Stonewall Jackson may have been more grave than they realized. They came north to beat the Union on their own turf and turn public opinion against the Republicans and the war. Some things really do stay the same.

As a business person, one of the items that jumps out are the managerial, political and logistical problems of a war effort the size of two 80-100K armies maneuvering, being supplied, planning, communicating and acting. Naturally there are vast differences in style between generals, and all of them make mistakes. Even "St Lincoln" seemed to be unable to understand the difficulties involved. I had not remembered that Hooker was replaced with Meade 3 days before the fighting began on July 1, 1863. Jeb Stuart set off to "ride around Hooker's army" and ended up having a new general named while he was riding.

The issue of Jeb Stuart and the missing cavalry is a topic made well known during the book, but never fully made clear what really caused it. It is clear that Stuart picked up a Union wagon train that slowed up down, and just seemed to run into a lot of bad luck, but the fact that he was not there to provide intelligence and screen the movements of the Rebels was a critical factor in Lee's poor showing.

At least in this battle, not dealing with Stuart being missing was one of the many areas in which Lee seemed to lack the flexibility to adapt to the situation that he found himself in. Lee is considered almost a God in the south, and Pickett is often blamed for the failure of the charge, but it is clear in this book that the primary responsibility rests squarely with Lee. Had Longstreet's advice been taken and the Confederates flanked Meade and got on high ground between Gettysburg and Washington, Meade would have been forced to attack, and the Democrats would have most likely had their day.

Gettysburg is the point where rifled gun barrels and precision cannon fire made defense of a position a real advantage. We can see today where air power makes staying stationary pretty much suicidal. Prior to Gettysburg, the inaccuracy and difficulty in reloading of the smooth bore musket gave the advantage to the rapid charge. The movie characters like "Outlaw Josie Wales" give some idea of the technique -- 4, 6, or even more loaded pistols on a brave horseman charging into the line and killing numbers at close range, then galloping behind the lines to cover, reloading, and killing more -- including unarmed supply workers, horses, etc.

Massed infantry with cartridge rifled barrel firearms and coordinated cannon fire turned the infantry and cavalry charge into a slaughter.

Over 50K soldiers died in 3 days of fighting at Gettysburg. With all that people have in this country today, most can't think of anything worth dying for, yet Muslims living in a culture that is the antithesis of what the left calls "good" are willing to die either individually or in large groups. The soldiers from the South died to preserve a way of life--a way of life that included slavery to be sure, but also honor, tradition and the right of states to exert political control greater than the federal government. We ALL paid a high price for the South's loss.

The main factor that aligns Lincoln with modern Republican ideas is "principal over popularity". He was forced to make a decision between conflicting principles--the value of the freedom of the Southerners to govern themselves, vs the huge loss of individual freedom caused by slavery. The Democrats were of course the party of "the easy way", the way of public opinion. As political opportunists they picked up the pieces of the civil war and presided over the "little slavery" of blacks in the south under Jim Crow for 100 years.

It is a book that I will long remember having walked the streets of Gettysburg and toured Little Round Top, The Wheat-field, The Peach Orchard, Cemetery Hill and stared at The High Water Mark. I hope to have more opportunity to mix book and maybe even classroom study with other areas of the world. The Panama Canal and parts of Europe are a couple that leap to mind.

Your God Is Too Small

I finished the subject book by J B Phillips before our trip and failed to blog on it. It is a book I would highly recommend to Christian and Non-Christian alike. As the title would lead you to believe it goes through a number of "models" that humans have to visualize God, and why each is inadequate. Naturally, they all MUST be hugely inadequate. Our finite physical brains hold very little information about even this physical universe, let alone anything close to enough to somehow fully perceive an infinite God that is beyond the material.

A whole series of models including resident policeman, parental hangover, grand old man, meek-and-mild, absolute perfection, pale Galilean, etc are covered. All are well done, but given my fundamentalist youth, I especially liked "Absolute Perfection" with the discussion of Christ saying "Be ye perfect". Ever met any perfect Christians? I liked this section; "The modern high-pressure Christian of certain circles would like to impose perfection of one hundred percent as a set of rules to be immediately enforced, instead of as a shining ideal to be faithfully pursued. His short cut, in effect, makes the unimaginative satisfied before he ought to be and drives the imaginative to despair."

Many fundamentalists make Christianity a game of on-upmanship on rules. "I don't listen to rock music" ... "Well, I don't watch TV" ... "I read my bible an hour every day". Does God appreciate our efforts? Certainly, to the extent that they are efforts of response and we don't believe that we have improved our position because of them, but do them out of simple love. I like to think of our efforts as artwork done by a 3-year old for their parent. Nothing could be loved more, but nothing is farther from actual valuable art. So too the "sins" of the 3-year old -- the only ones that make us jump out of our skin are the ones like dashing away into traffic that could harm them. Naturally, like all nice little human models, mine is as childish as any other, and probably worse.

The bottom line is that those in the most danger are those that are sure they have arrived. Jesus attacked the Pharisees with the most bitter scorn. The "arrived / correct / certain" religious, atheist, or some other stripe, are "the rich man" and in grave danger. "...it is a mistake to think that Pharisaism disappeared after the death of Christ. The danger of such a system, and the reason that Christ attacked it so violently, is that its values are artificial. The proud and correct feel "right with God" just when they are not, and the sensitive humble man feels hopeless and overburdened for the wrong reasons."

I appreciated the end of the book, but it is hard to summarize. I liked this section: "Now if it is true that God is both Truth and Love it will readily be seen that the greatest sins will be unreality, hypocrisy, deceit, lying, or whatever else we choose to call sins against truth, and self-love, which makes fellowship with other people and their proper treatment impossible. Forgiveness must then consist in a restoration to Reality, i.e. Truth and Love."

My "youthful religious scars" were of the "if you aren't good enough, then you can't REALLY be a Christian, so get ready to burn" kind, so those passages spoke to me. The book goes after people in the "once saved always saved" ditch as well ... find someone that grew up Unitarian if you want that review!

The book is a small book, only 140 pages, and very readable. It is certain to "expand your God". I am often struck that a major part of wisdom is the recognition of what we don't know. Ignorance is often far too confident.

Franken Support

The left and MSM decries "big money in politics"-when the money comes from business. They applaud it when it comes from actors, and even lawyers to a significant degree. A leading hallmark of the left is that consistency is not an issue, yet it is always possible to predict the position that a person of the left will hold. Why?

clipped from www.cnn.com Al Franken's Senate campaign gets off to big start POSTED: 5:36 a.m. EDT, April 14, 2007 WASHINGTON (AP) -- Scores of actors, writers, producers and others from the entertainment industry have contributed to Al Franken's Senate campaign, helping the Minnesota Democrat get off to a strong fundraising start. Franken, a former "Saturday Night Live" star who hopes to take on GOP Sen. Norm Coleman next year, raised the maximum $4,600 from actors such as Tom Hanks, Paul Newman, Jason Alexander and Larry David, according to a campaign finance report filed Friday.

A Giving Comparison

To CNN's credit they actually reported this-late on a Friday evening. My prediction is that it will get VERY little coverage, as Al Gore's contributions for 1997 got VERY little coverage of his $359 in contributions for a year. My guess is there were the numbers reversed, there would be a lot more coverage in both cases. There is now a book out that shows what pretty much any thinking person knows; Conservatives give much more to charity in all forms (not just Churches) and volunteer more to boot.

Why? Because people that believe that there is more to life than just the here and now invest in education, savings, time with their children and a whole host of other worthwhile causes including charities. People that believe that the system is corrupt, there is no such thing as real truth, life is unfair and others have too much and ought to do more tend to live for today and not invest in anything beyond the immediate. These "investment decisions" tend to hold over virtually all parts of their lives and shapes their character until it becomes pretty obvious who is in which camp.

My guess would be that Al Gore was not embarrassed by the small amount he gave, and George Bush is not particularly proud of the amount he gave. The MSM finds the amounts to be "out of character", but actually they are directly IN character. If Gore has any beliefs at all, he certainly must believe that the important "giving" is in all his public work. He sees control of individuals by the state and the increased removal of money from them by force as "good". Bush sees individual responsibility and decisions about both the making and the dispersal of financial assets as being important for both the individual and the nation. The results show up in a stark dollar contrast here, but the real differences in character are always much more evident to those not blinded by the MSM mind control.

Does this mean that conservatives are "better"? Unfortunately not in any meaningful way--they are human too. Recognizing that you have cancer doesn't cure the cancer. I saw some ministry folder the other day that said "Jesus loves porn stars". After a couple second brain flip, I realized, yes, of course he does, and all other humans living in every sort of brokenness there is besides, even me. The most spiritual, loving, humble and thoughtful conservative Christian has no concept of the degree of distance between themselves and God--the gulf that God spanned on Easter.

However, as I get ready to head to the health club, recognition IS a fairly useful thing. The realization that life is more than feeling good, and what seems important often isn't gives a fairly huge potential for doing better on average. Just like keeping fit though, it is never going to be easy or guaranteed in any way. You are just far more likely to make the right kinds of investments if you are aware of your state and the state of the rest of mankind.

Link to Clipmark

WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Bush and the first lady paid $186,378 in federal taxes on their income of $765,801 for last year. Vice President Dick Cheney and his wife made twice as much and paid the tax man about $50,000 more than they owed.

---

The president and Mrs. Bush contributed $78,100 to churches and charitable organizations, including the volunteer fire department in Crawford, Texas, where they own a ranch, according to their tax return, released Friday by the White House.

clipped from www.cnn.com Gores' Charitable Giving Raises Some Eyebrows WASHINGTON (AllPolitics, April 15) -- In a 34-page 1997 federal tax return, Vice President Al Gore and wife Tipper reported giving $353 to charity, an amount much lower than donations the family has made in previous tax cycles. That figure is less than one-tenth the typical contribution amount for someone with the Gores' adjusted gross income of $197,729. That fact has caused some bewilderment in philanthropic circles because of the vice president's "good guy" image as an advocate for public service and social causes, the Los Angeles Times reported Wednesday.

First They Came for the Political Shock Jocks

The title is paraphrase the old poem that originally referred to the Nazis; "First they came for the Communists". Of course, like a lot of "left legend", the Nazis coming for the communists doesn't really somehow mean that the Nazi's were "right wing" or "conservative", it means that they were an authoritarian socialist (National Socialist ...) group that was going to war with the communists on their eastern front. They also came for religious leaders other than the Jews that opposed them, and the left certainly doesn't ascribe any moral authority to religion because the Nazis came for them too.

Like all other humans, it is pretty easy to not give your enemies enough credit. Just one of the places that the left will need to use the chisel when they finally remove God from the public square is around the top of the Jefferson Memorial: "I have sworn upon the alter of God, eternal hostility against every form of tyranny over the mind of man.". I need to read a Jefferson biography, I suspect that back in those days, even though there were a lot of fights between Federalists(modern Republicans) and the Republicans(modern Democrats) the fall to the left was so early that those Republicans would find todays Republicans to be positively leftist, and be unsure what a modern Democrat even was. Come to think of it, in that they would most likely have a lot in common with a modern Democrat, but I digress.

Do I like, approve of, respect, etc Don Imus? No, absolutely not. He should have never been on the radio / TV in the first place. As part of the destruction of meaning, the left uses the clever ruse that "pornography = sexually explicit material". Actually the constant removal of symbolic meaning; destroying all forms of "covering or distance" (as in keeping private life private, formal communication, honor, standards), respect for position or proffession and a host of other areas too numerous to mention is really far more damaging than mere sex. The Imus stock and trade has been belittling public figures of all stripes and both political parties. Yes, he has generally been much more generally a friend of the left than the right, but he made his living saying very outrageus things about people. BTW, he was a HUGE and obvious supporter of Harold Ford Junior, there is NO ISSUE that the guy is a racist in any way shape or form.

So what does this have to do with not giving my enemies enough credit? In allowing Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson the power to remove Imus, we set a precedent. The precedent is WAY different from the Dixie Chicks. Their public decided that they didn't want to listen to them for awhile after they spouted off about Bush. There was a lot of discourse about how the Dixie Chicks was a "Free Speech Issue", but in fact, the Dixie Chicks were just a marketing issue. There was no equivalent of Sharton/Jackson out working to take them down ... you can't name a single person "leading a charge", because there wasn't one.

If Imus had lost his program because ratings dropped and the station said they were taking him off the air, then I'd say "great"--over this comment or thousands of others over the years. It is a horrible statement of our "culture" (really lack thereof) that he or Howard Stern are even ON the air at all. BUT, in taking Imus out, the target was chosen wisely. Imus has effectively "no friends"--he has been enough of an equal opportunity abuser that nobody on either side is standing up for him. The left finds it "chilling" when people don't want to have their TAX DOLLARS go to support a crucifix in urine or the Virgin Mary covered with elephant dung. Rush Limbaugh and Fox News being on the air are also chilling to the left as are the Ten Commandments in a public place, or the Easter Bunny at the city building up in the cities.

We hear a lot about the "Facist Theocracy" that we are either living in, or on the verge of depending on which lefty one talks to. What does one call it when Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson decide who gets to be on the air?

Late Leopard

My iMac 24" will have to wait until at least October --at which time I'll have to be checking to see if they are due for a hardware technology boost. Oh well, much better to have it right.

clipped from www.appleinsider.com Apple delays Leopard release until October Apple Inc. on Thursday conceded that it will be unable to release its next generation operating system in June as previously planned and now says it anticipates launching the software in October.

DC to Home

We finished our MN -> Gettysburg -> DC -> Air and Space at Dulles -> Raleigh NC -> Air Force Museum at Dayton OH -> Rockford -> MN jaunt. Little over 3K Miles, watched the 2000 Chev Suburban roll over 100K at Gettysburg. I like to see the country by road, it gives a lot better flavor.

Much like government anywhere, DC looks to be in great shape. Lots of big stone buildings with inefficient thermal and space designs. Big pillars, lots of windows. Governments way of tell the rest of us "we don't have any competition and we don't have to make a profit ... if you cut our funds, we will just do things like let give soldiers sub-standard pay, but we will stay in our lifetime union jobs with full benefits when you retire ... and complain that the rest of you don't pay enough taxes".

It was a lot of fun to take in all the "free" airplane museums to see Apollo 11, Space Shuttle Enterprise, the X-1 that broke the speed of sound, the Spirit of St Louis, the original Wright Flyer, the Concorde, a B-36, the 707 that was Air Force One from '60 - like '90, the only remaining XB-70, 2 different X-15s, a B-52, a B-1 ... and too many other cool planes to mention. Yes, it costs a lot of money to keep all that running, but hardly enough to be a footnote in a 2.7 Trillion budget of which 1.7 Trillion are entitlement spending.

Oh well, it is tax weekend, we certainly do way more than our part in paying for all of it, so we might as well get a little enjoyment out of it once in awhile. The Raleigh NC area seems to be going gangbusters ... lots of businesses going up, new roads, houses. It reminded me of Austin Texas when I used to go down there. Surprise surprise, both TX and NC are low tax business friendly places. MN just elected a bunch of Democrats and thinks that a lot more taxes are the way to improve the state. In three short months they have turned a billion dollar surplus into a 1.5 billion "deficit" that simply MUST be "taken care of" by the "wealthy". My youngest has 3 more years of HS; we may be tax slaves, but last I checked we aren't INDENTURED ... we may just have to move out and let the fine people of MN do some more study on how economics works in our absence.

We returned to cold and now snowy MN that is on it's way to the coldest April on record. The name change from "Global Warming " to "Climate Change" seems to have been a required marketing change. Now this cold weather can be blamed on the awful carbon producers as well!

Delusional Connections

If only corporate corruption was as localized and disconnected as global terror, we could avoid the cost of Sarbannes - Oxley when an Enron is discovered. We need to run studies on how global terrorists can all seek "death to America" but yet maintain solid firewalls proving a negative beyond a shadow of a doubt. The only other negative so proven is "there are no intelligent Republicans".

clipped from www.washingtonpost.com Cheney Sticks to His Delusions By Dan Froomkin Special to washingtonpost.com Friday, April 6, 2007; 1:20 PM Faced with overwhelming evidence to the contrary, even President Bush has backed off his earlier inflammatory assertions about links between al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein. But Vice President Cheney yesterday, in an interview with right-wing talk radio host Rush Limbaugh, continued to stick to his delusional guns.

Free Press Democrat Style

"Free Speech" means "whatever Democrats approve of". I generally don't think very much of Don Imus, but I think less of Al Sharpton and Jessie Jackson deciding who gets to say what, and who gets to be offended when. If they were REALLY offended by "Ho", then all the Hip-Hop stations are going to be closed tomorrow.

clipped from www.cnn.com Imus to appear on Sharpton's radio show POSTED: 4:30 a.m. EDT, April 9, 2007 NEW YORK (AP) -- Don Imus will appear on the Rev. Al Sharpton's radio show on Monday, five days after Imus made racially charged comments on his own show about the Rutgers women's basketball team, Sharpton and MSNBC announced Sunday. "That's some nappy-headed hos there, I'm going to tell you that," Imus said. "If he has a right to use that platform to insult and degrade, then we have a moral obligation to picket NBC and to protest," Jackson said. "If he can violate us in that platform in the name of free speech, we'll be picketing NBC in the name of free speech."

DC to Raleigh

We have completed the Gettysburg and Washington DC portion of the trip and made it down to Raleigh North Carolina to visit the old friend that introduced my wife and I. We are checked in at a Residence Inn; very nice digs for a couple nights before we sprint for home.

The weather the last few days in DC was in the 70's, sunny, really summer for us folks from MN. Looking at the temperatures back home with below freezing highs makes me realize that it could be a bit of a chill when we get back. We saw "all the sites", for those interested see if you can access some pictures here.

Some Notes:

• I could spend a couple more days at Gettysburg. I'd like to read a couple more battle books as well as review the Burns series. There are an amazing number of monuments and battle scenes. I need to do some full Blogs on the subject, but the Civil War, and thus "The High Water Mark" at Gettysburg bring some fundamental issues to bear. What does "freedom" mean? Was the South free? We have only two political parties that we need to map the sum total of our ideas to at any time. Should we have 3? (potential for House/Senate/Executive to be split). More? What were the main idea mappings prior to the Civil War? After? How many switches between then and today? What are the key ideas today? At the time of the Civil War, MANY people felt those ideas were worth dying for ... to the tune of over 50K men in three days alone, and 600K over the course of the war.
  
• It is very hard to do DC without a TON of walking. Huge space, the Washington Monument is one of those things like the Saturn V that was bigger than I expected.
  
• There is a certain depression about the city. Thousands and thousands of faceless union bureaucrats in 100s of generally fortress like buildings going about their union protected tasks day in and day out with next to no chance for anything creative to happen. There are elements of this in any large organization, certainly including corporations, but the market creates a lot more real diversity in those environments than exists in DC.
• The changing of the guard at the Tomb of the Unknown was way more moving that I expected. It drives home the thought that the universe is designed. The forces of the left and chaos would LOVE to corrupt the transcendent honor present in the military. HOWEVER, no matter how much the left may wish to escape the idea of transcendence and "powers beyond reason", they know that their pursuit of "if it feels good, do it" relies on protection from others that might find their soft outlook to be an invitation to end the chaotic party desired by the left. The soldier will not give his life for meaninglessness, so the military holds to order, command, honor, tradition, duty ... all the thoughts that the left hates. They hate the military, yet they dare not destroy it. Checkmate.
  
• But at the Vietnam Memorial, we see the "High Water Mark" of the left in the World to date (and say a little prayer that we don't return). Just names and dates ... no battles, no locations, no meaning. The personal names, but no divsions, branches of service, etc. War as just a meaningless individual loss, and loss only. Contrast this to WWII, with the theatres of combat, the states and the battles, but NO individual names. The CAUSE was greater than the individual ... the lives were given for something greater than one person. The stars represent the sacrifice and show the magnitude, but they were ALL Americans. That was more important than their name.
  
• I was struck by the paintings, statuary, and inscriptions in the Capitol and the Memorials or how much work needs to be done with chisel or covering to remove "God" from Jefferson, Lincoln and the host of quotations around the city. Worse for the forces of the left, the profiles listed around the chamber in the house would seem to give many of those members pause were they to look at many of their works: Justinian, Moses, Pope Innocent III, Lycurgus, Napoleon, etc. It seems that at least at the time of the construction of the Capitol there was the distinct idea that positioning the nation in the stream of western civilization, including of course Christianity, was a VERY good idea. The American mind had not yet closed, and it was well understood that ideas do indeed have consequences.
  
• I could spend a lot more time at both the Smithsonian Air and Space Museums. I sure enjoyed the time I did get to spend.
  

Enough for now. In general, DC isn't what I would call a "great city" in the NYC, San Francisco, London, or even Chicago sense. It seems to be too "sterile and segregated". Maybe I'm not giving it a fair shake due to only a couple of days there, but I've not even spent that amount of time in London. Scarcely more in Chicago, and only a few days more in NYC and San Fran.

God and Science

An uplifting little gift for the Easter season. I'm always willing to look at both sides, but I'm looking forward to reading his book a lot more than "The God Delusion" and "The End of Faith". I HOPE that he bears a lot less hatred and false certainty than the other two authors. From just the synopsis, it looks like it may be a very worthy work. I never really mind reading "the other side", and often there are some interesting points, but it is often a bit sad to be exposed to the level of hopelessness there.

clipped from www.cnn.com Collins: Why this scientist believes in God POSTED: 6:15 p.m. EDT, April 4, 2007 Editor's note: Francis S. Collins, M.D., Ph.D., is the director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. His most recent book is "The Language of God: A Scientist Presents Evidence for Belief." ROCKVILLE, Maryland (CNN) -- I am a scientist and a believer, and I find no conflict between those world views. As the director of the Human Genome Project, I have led a consortium of scientists to read out the 3.1 billion letters of the human genome, our own DNA instruction book. As a believer, I see DNA, the information molecule of all living things, as God's language, and the elegance and complexity of our own bodies and the rest of nature as a reflection of God's plan. As the British writer G.K. Chesterton famously remarked, "Atheism is the most daring of all dogmas, for it is the assertion of a universal negative."

To Gettysburg

We left on the Spring Break journey yesterday and made it to Toledo Ohio by 9 or so without a lot of difficulty. Chicago was slow as we expected it to be, but only actually fully stopped for 10min or so.

Today we started out at 8ish and realized that we were going through Cleavland, and with our 15 year old classic rock fan along, I decided that we would take a look at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. LOTs of guitars, the ZZ Top Eliminator car, a TON of "rock outfits", lots of historical Buddy Holly and Beatles stuff. It would have been a "miss" in my book, but the young rock fan is really into the groups, the history, you name it, so it was a "win" for him and that counts for something. I'm sure he may think we have spent just a tiny bit too much time at the few of the rest of the sites we see on the trip.

We drove the tollway over to US 30, and came through some beautiful mountains via Chambersburg. I've been reading "Gettysburg" by Steven W Sears in my times not driving and in the evenings. An excellent book that is a very readable tale that shows you what is happening on both sides. In many ways of course, the times are quite different, but in others, not so much. One of the big reasons that Lee was on the attack was to help the Democrats gain power by turning public opinion against the war. If he could have been successful at Gettysburg, there is every reason to believe that public opinion would have moved even more against the war, and the Democrats would have been able to make "a political deal" with the South on the issue of slavery. Nothing familiar with today on that front I guess.

The Brutal Facts

Having lived through the Vietnam / Watergate / Carter years, I'm always intrigued with the segment of our population that finds those to be "the best of times". Defeat in Vietnam, discrediting of the Presidency and as a result of both, the US at a low ebb. Millions killed in Cambodia. The USSR on the advance around the globe and finally hostages in Iran while we stood by, so inept that our weak attempt at rescue crashed and burned in the desert with nothing accomplished but more national despair. Turn off the Christmas lights, the best days of America were behind us. Somewhere in those later years of the '70's I made the personal decision that "despair was not an option", and in the intervening years have been blessed with the grace to learn to focus on values and principles vs dollars and feelings.

Unlike what an atheist might assume however, seeking a higher focus actually increases interest in understanding what kind of general mechanisms drive the daily minutia. One example is a connection of a small fact studied about the Korean War and the MSM story today.

In the Korean War, US POWs suffered the highest casualty rate in our history (38%), yet they were not physically tortured, starved or directly abused. The North Koreans used the tactics of:

• Informing
• Self-criticism
• Breaking loyalty to leadership and country
• Withholding all positive emotional support

They did what the MSM and Democrats have since July of '03. Most things have been covered in this Blog already, but a short re-cap:

1. The "Bush lied" ... either in the case of the Niger yellowcake, the Plame affair or the WMD. Hearings and legal proceedings have been held on all of the above showing there to be no "lies", but the constant claiming as to lying has had an affect on all, and has convinced most.
2. Katrina - Local authorities react horribly, leaving 500 buses standing to be flooded rather than using for evacuation. The Governor refuses to allow Federal troops to come in and Bush courageously makes the greatest ACTUAL breech of the Constitution of his Presidency by putting them in there without a request from the Governor. Katrina was the turning point; the MSM realizes that they can successfully create what they want if they act in the proper concert with Democrats.
3. Bush makes the greatest easily avoidable self-inflicted mistake of his Presidency in the Meyers appointment. Democrats have no fixed values or principles, so they still mostly supported Clinton when he did NAFTA and Welfare Reform, even though were they to be principled, they woudl be against them. Conversely, Bush lost a lot of Conservatives when he did Perscription Drug and cost himself a huge amount of political capital with all conservatives. He gained nothing from Democrats since politics count for more than actual help for people that they claim to want help for. Miers was a critical point where Bush lost a huge amount of credibility. It was a political miscalculation that could really not be recovered.
4. The Libby / Wilson / Plame fabrication. The Democrats and MSM manufacture a story that has no content. The tie in of Bob Woodward of Watergate fame makes one wonder about "currents in the force". Repetition is the KEY, and over the long haul, the basic makeup of humanity tends to make 60-80% of people somewhat susceptible.
5. Iraq, the economy, gas prices, surveillance fears, ... etc. NEVER allow positive stories for more than a moment so that it can be said "oh, we reported it". Build a constant view of mistrust of everything possible except Democrats. John Murtha being a spokesman against the war when he is ON TAPE from the early '80s clearly considering taking a $50K bribe, and not ruling it out, while the MSM keeps it completely quiet. It ONLY shows up as the incoming speaker of the House nominates him for Majority Leader, and it is COMPLETELY forgotten the second that he fails to get that role. Fortunately having a guy with a history of interest in bribes and another caught with $90K in bribes in his freezer is NOT a "culture of corruption". (to the MSM, D's don't have that)

The list could go on, it is a daily activity. Our MSM, the Democrats and the North Korean POW camps have remarkably similar methods. Apparently the objective of those methods in at least the case of the MSM and Democrats is a return to the impotent America of the late '70s. I suppose the idea is that if we are all in despair we will vote for them to take care of us. We were fortunate through that valley that in terms of history we paid a relatively low price for losing our way and were blessed with Ronald Reagan to turn us around.

The nasty thing about democracy is that we are assumed to be self-governing. The number of "great leaders" is very limited, and every great leader comes with the potential for danger as well as the potential for blessing. The BEST approach is if we can look beyond the manufactured MSM view and react to reality--where although the facts may be brutal, we can ALWAYS have faith in the ultimate outcome.

Feinstein Resigns

Don't get your hopes up, only from a committee. It will be interesting to see if the MSM picks this up at all. I'm sure that they would treat a well-known Republican Senator exactly the same!

clipped from www.metroactive.com Feinstein Resigns Senator exits MILCON following Metro exposé, vet-care scandal SEN. Dianne Feinstein has resigned from the Military Construction Appropriations subcommittee. As previously and extensively reviewed in these pages, Feinstein was chairperson and ranking member of MILCON for six years, during which time she had a conflict of interest due to her husband Richard C. Blum's ownership of two major defense contractors, who were awarded billions of dollars for military construction projects approved by Feinstein.

Good To Great

I read this Jim Collins book a while back, but re-read as part of my recent class at work. It is a book that can apply to personal life, school, church, or any organization as well as to a business.

While one can take this book as a "cookbook", it is clear that just because you do all the things here, there is no guarantee you will build a great company ... just as following a recipe doesn't guarantee a great dining experience. These elements are just things that can increase the odds of making that leap. Following these ideas is like buying a lottery ticket to greatness.

The main ideas are:

1. CREATE Level 5 Leadership from within - A leader that "blends extreme personal humility with intense professional will" for the team/business, not for themselves. Darwin Smith of Kimberly-Clark paper and the decision to "Sell the Mills", a historical profit center of the business, and take on Procter&Gamble in the consumer paper products industry is a great example. Note; level 5 leadership at the team, area, organization, site, division can make a HUGE difference even without having it at the top, although the top can have a huge influence.
   
2. First Who - Then What - If you have the right people, you can do pretty much anything, and if you have the wrong people, you can do very little but manage the wrong people. The phrase "get the right people on the bus" is brought up a lot. Have a "strong and deep team" rather than a "genius with a thousand helpers model". Put your best people on your best opportunities, not your biggest problems. You want people who will argue and debate furiously, but line up once the decision is made regardless of personal interest (level 5 followership?).
   
3. Confront the Brutal Facts, yet never lose faith -This certainly applies to life as well as work.

   The core concept is "The Stockdale Paradox". James Stockwell was the highest ranking US officer imprisoned in North Korea from '65-'73. He said: "I never lost faith in the end of the story. I never doubted not only that I would get out, but also that I would prevail in the end and turn the experience into the defining even of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not trade". He was asked who it was that gave up, and he responded "Oh, that's easy, the optimists". The reason was that they always set some deadline like "we will be out by Christmas", and then "we will be out by Easter", and eventually they died of a broken heart.

   "You must never confuse faith that you will prevail in the end--which you can never afford to lose, with the discipline to confront the most brutal facts of your current reality, whatever that might be."

   From Collins:"Life is unfair--sometimes to our advantage, sometimes to our disadvantage. We will all experience disappointments and crushing events somewhere along the way, setbacks for which there is no "reason", no one to blame. It might be disease; it might be injury;it might be an accident;it might be losing a loved one;it might be getting swept away in a political shake-up;it might be getting shot down over Vietnam and thrown into a POW camp for eight years. What separates people, Stockdale taught me, is not te presence or absence of difficulty, but how they deal with the inevitable difficulties of life."

   There must be a climate in which there is a DRIVE to get and face the truth the key principals for that listed were.
   

   1. Lead with questions, not answers
   2. Engage in dialog and debate, not coercion
   3. Conduct autopsies without blame
   4. Build "red flag mechanisms" to information into information that can't be ignored.
   
   
4. Hedgehog concept - Foxes pursue many ends at the same time and see the world in all it's complexity. Hedgehogs simplify the complex world into a single, simple organizing idea or principle that guides everything.
   
   1. What can we be the best in the world at?
   
   
   2. What drives our economic engine?
   
   
   3. What are we deeply passionate about?
   
   
5. A Culture of Discipline - "Most companies build their bureaucratic rules to manage the small percentage of the wrong people on the bus". Freedom and Responsibility in a framework -- the example of the air traffic control system and FAA rules, but the ultimate responsibility with the pilot. Start a "stop doing list". "Most of us lead busy but undisciplined lives. We have ever-expanding 'to do' lists, trying to build momentum by doing, doing, doing--and doing more. And it rarely works. Those who built the good-to-great companies, however, made as much use of "stop doing" lists as "to do" lists."
6. Technology Accelerators - Only technology that fits with the hedgehog concept is used. Technology by itself is never the cause of either greatness or decline.
7. Flywheel and the Doom Loop -- It is the practice that counts, not the big game.
   1. Level 5 leader steps forward with hedgehog concept that organization buys.
   2. right people on the bus, wrong people off
   3. make some key successes ... SUCCEED ... even if it is made up a bit!
   4. more people line up when they see the results
   5. REPEAT - REFINE - REPEAT - REFINE ....