.380 America

Saudi King blows off Obama | Power Line:

The .380 is a 9mm "Kurz", German for "short". "Short" is what our current odiferous leader and increasingly America is relative to respect on the world stage.

The last two years of the Bush administration the media spent nearly 100% of it's time abusing W, and one of things they LOVED to focus on was any sort of comment, snub, allusion by some other power in the world to how bad W was.

BO was to fix all that -- he got a Nobel Prize just for being elected after all.

Actual results? Oh, Iran gave our merchant ship back last week, damned nice of them considering what doormats we are now!

In early April, the Russians intercepted a US plane in a manner that we said was "unsafe" -- we have "protested". I can almost hear Vlad saying "How is that reset goin for ya Barry?". Kerry is over there licking some boots this week apparently.

Mr. Kerry’s visit is likely to be seen in Moscow as evidence of the U.S.’s inability to deal with problems in Iran, Syria and Ukraine without Russian cooperation

This is really old news ... here is a WaPo from last fall .. but it is WAY older and more common than that. The fact of dominance hierarchy is wired into nearly all species on the planet -- humans didn't miss those genes, and when we band together to form nations, the stakes go up. In old business meetings it was sometimes called "butt sniffing" in honor of dogs working out the hierarchy, and while our consciousness brains may like to lie to us about it, our snake brains know who the likely alpha male / females are in every room we are in. Your ancestors lives depended on it every moment of every day in the tribe -- it's a base feature of the homosapiens model.

So like in the alternate universe old Star Trek, when the alpha takes a powder, everyone moves up one! Oh happy day! ... at least unless you are not some old dog " stuck in the "US is exceptional" past ?

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Depression '16, Seven States Decide

Depressing reminder: The 2016 election will be decided by seven states — and Florida is an absolute must-win « Hot Air:

We can talk about how much we don't believe that Jeb Bush is the answer (and I don't), but unless either he or Rubio are on the ticket, Republicans really aren't taking a "conservative" approach to 2106. It is quite easy to see why political realists give Jeb a strong look.

"The Party" (D) has firmly locked up the blue states listed on the linked map since '92 (with a little caveat for NM that doesn't really matter). That means 247 electoral votes bought and paid for by unions, public employees, welfare minorities, and the "elite" ... that need to lock down just one more state and the US Presidential branch will be theirs for the foreseeable future.

The red states are less certain ... in '92 and '96 having Billy Clinton on the ticket put states like MO and TN in the D column ... as well as of course AK ... but let's go with the map, 206 likely R, with a lot less paths to 270 for the R, none of which include losing FL.

Walker - Rubio or Walker - Martinez look like good potential tickets to me. Shake WI out of the blue camp, do all you can to swing FL, and hopefully that will be enough. I don't want a Senator with no executive experience at the top of the ticket -- I don't like Jeb much at all, but I like him FAR better than Hillary. If it MUST be a choice between Rubio at the top or Jeb, I hold my nose and pick Jeb. President is NOT a job for someone with no executive experience -- if BO hasn't proved that sufficiently then there was nothing AT ALL good about his disastrous presidency!

It is a LONG way until November of 2016, but as this chart shows, and I have pointed out in this Blog a lot of times, TP is very close to getting a lock on one branch of Government -- the WH, which means they will shortly lock the 2nd -- the SCOTUS,

"Pragmatics must take precedence over elegance (and lots of other stuff), for nature can not be fooled".

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Free Speech For Me, Hate Speech For Thee

Free Speech vs. Hate Speech - NYTimes.com:



Over years of thinking and experience, I've come down to "Consistency is not an issue" as being the core of "liberal" thought. We could go on a VERY long and boring list of cases of this --

• "How important are budget deficits"? Compare media and liberal attitudes on deficits from W to BO. 
• How serious are US attacks on various foreign groups and US military casualties? Over twice as many US troops for example have died in Afghanistan under BO than under W -- you are forgiven for not knowing, it simply is no issue at all!  
• The US economy at best grew .2 in the 1Q of 2015, and may well have contracted when all the figures get adjusted. If you want to use the MooseTracks way-back machine, you can see how much better the economy was in '05 with the media not paying notice. 

We will only do a "boring 3". Back to the topic of "what does no consistency mean"?



For one big thing, it means UNequal treatment under the law. The "progressive" income tax tells you that --  different rates to different people based on level of income. We see it in the IRS -- let's allow groups that agree with our political viewpoint to be tax exempt, and not allow those that have differing views to have the same status. Oh, while we are at it, maybe we ought to audit a few of the people on the donor lists of those "wrong thinking groups"!



In the linked article we see it with "free speech". Want to have a tax supported art exhibit with a crucifix in urine? or possibly the Virgin Mary with elephant dung? Not a problem ... and CERTAINLY not "hate speech"!



A picture of Mohammad? The NYTs labels this "hate speech" ... and THAT is not allowed!!



Which brings us to that not so subtle core of "liberalism" -- Consistency is NOT an issue! Since it is not an issue, it is perfectly reasonable -- and even prudent, to have one set of laws, rules, freedoms, etc for those that follow "liberal" orthodoxy, and a different set of rules for those that do not!



The current "Progressive States of America" has a state religion called "progressivism", and those that are not members of this religion are subject to the usual treatment of "heretics" down through history.



There is nothing new under the sun.



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Rule of Law or Violence

EXCLUSIVE–Pamela Geller Calls Out Cowardly Conservatives, Says She'll Organize Another Free Speech Event in Near Future **FULL IMAGE GALLERY** - Breitbart:



The purpose of the rule of law is to allow human interaction with a minimum of violence. Under the rule of law, EVERYONE complies with the SAME law in the same way. The US Constitution used to have this principle, it was called "equal protection".



But, POWER is always in conflict with the law, so it was decided that taxation ought to be applied unequally, or "progressively" -- meaning those who made more should not pay more only because they paid the same percentage on a greater amount, they ought to pay a greater percentage! No more equal protection!



Once the floodgate was broken, equal protection simply went away. All affirmative action laws explicitly break equal protection, our taxes and regulatory codes are now BASED on UNequal application of favors, kickbacks, penalties, etc based on location, sex, race,  level of production, etc, etc. -- ultimately, based on political POWER as opposed to LAW.



When LAW rules, then violence is reduced. The state has the sword as decreed by God, but the population with the exception of a few actual criminals obeys the law, so violence is at a minimum.



Remove law and honesty also disappears. Everyone inherently sees the corruption of unequal treatment -- even those that vote for it. They know that they are trying to take advantage of others to gain advantage for themselves (or see it as "payback"),  therefore "get what you can, cheat if you have to, everyone else is doing it too" becomes the zeitgeist of the society. Corruption invades all aspects of life.



Without rule of law, the rioter, or in the case of Islam, the terrorist gains power. Which naturally begets more riots, more terrorism -- more violence. The state wants to maintain control of course, so it also increases in violence. Because all has now become corrupt and violence is increasing, the state adds more and more power -- and more and more enforcement, which tends to lead to still more violence and corruption.



We can see that the US is a long way down this death spiral. A large number of people now respect the threat of violence from Islam, and seek to silence those that may offend the violent Muslim. Violence, power and threats are what are respected -- might is right! Morality, kindness, Christian values are not. Those were respected in the old world of "rule of law", but no more.



So, since Christians abhor violence, they may be coerced to bake cakes for gay "weddings", but since Muslims would likely become violent if such force was applied to them, they are exempted. The modern leftist state has far more in common with Islam than with Christianity -- Christianity and Judaism are religions of law.



Islam and leftism are religions of the sword -- where POWER is the only morality.



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Abolish Bedtime Stories, Then Families

The Telos of Liberalism: Your Children’s Bedtime Stories | Power Line:

Western Civilization was based on a Judeo-Christian morality that was remarkably close to "common sense" or "natural law" relative to what works and what doesn't. Lifetime marriage between a man and a woman responsible for raising children, sanctions against murder, stealing, covetousness,  greed, adultery, fornication, respect for parents and authority, etc.

The left doesn't think much of such morality and gets even more incensed when they find that following such morality has better outcomes than "doing what feels good". They get very ticked when what the espouse has negative results, and what they look down their nose at has positive results.

WE CAN'T HAVE THAT!!

So what is a "liberal" to do? -- obviously, they need to stamp out things like bedtime stories (which seem to be especially egregious at providing advantage), or possibly even stamp out the family! Seems obvious if you think like a "liberal" -- meaning that things you like need to be subsidized, things you don't need to be illegal!

This is not a new conclusion -- the USSR did all it could to remove kids from the home at younger and younger ages and have them raised by the state -- ditto National Socialist Germany, Red China, Cuba, and of course modern Europe and the US in their own ways.

Mandatory non-parochial public education with no subsidies for parochial even though it consistently outperforms public on standardized tests is one way. If the results look bad, the key is to outlaw the standards and certainly the successful alternatives! Putting children into earlier and earlier state control "head start", "pre-school", etc is the current push from the left.

Our country may be becoming less free every day in regard to individuals  ability to define marriage or the life of the unborn as they see fit, and certainly in deciding what to do with the money they make, but it is VERY free as to social scientists deciding on the proper ways in which "family" or what is or is not allowed in "family" may be administered. We do indeed live in a "brave new world".

One way philosophers might think about solving the social justice problem would be by simply abolishing the family. If the family is this source of unfairness in society then it looks plausible to think that if we abolished the family there would be a more level playing field.’ 

‘What we realised we needed was a way of thinking about what it was we wanted to allow parents to do for their children, and what it was that we didn’t need to allow parents to do for their children, if allowing those activities would create unfairnesses for other people’s children’. . . 

‘The evidence shows that the difference between those who get bedtime stories and those who don’t—the difference in their life chances—is bigger than the difference between those who get elite private schooling and those that don’t,’ he says.

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Income Mobllity, Where You Grew Up

The Best and Worst Places to Grow Up: How Your Area Compares - NYTimes.com:



Follow the link to the article and hopefully your browser works as well as mine did to allow you to interactively see the big and little picture of income mobility in the US by county. I'd recommend going off and playing with that a little first.



Back now? Good ... if you followed my advice, you went over, focused on either where you were born or where you live now (likely both), hopefully also got the bigger picture as well and then came back. Humans focus on themselves -- both Jesus (love your neighbor as YOURSELF) and Adam Smith (make self-interest work for all) were right!



The light blue on the chart is "no data" ... the dark blue is really good, the green is good. The red is really bad, the orange bad, yellow is average.



When you look at the chart, it looks like the upper Midwest and the eastern slopes of the central Rockies got splotched with blue and green, while both coasts and the south get a lot of red, orange and yellow. It would be great to have some other such charts so we would run off and do correlation games -- note, while that is fun, it DOES NOT show causality, the "why" ... but it might give us some hints.



But I'll do some conjecture anyway -- it is always fun to let our biases run wild.

1. It isn't "red vs blue" counties. We have seen those charts too many times with essentially the whole country being red except for the very center of urban areas and a few larger counties in MN, CO, CA, VT, etc. So scratch the easy one. 
2. Cold weather / long winters jump to mind. When it is cold from November - March, and maybe only June-July-August being really "summer", there is just more time to hit the books when young and to work hard later in life. 
3. Immigrant heritage. If you did a correlation of Scandinavian / German heritage with those charts what would you see? In the current world it is popular to say "we are all the same" -- certainly the chart shows that we are not the same relative to income mobility. Might culture matter? Dangerous thought I know. 
4. Low population density effects? I'm guessing the big swath of light blue down the middle would be blue / green if there was enough data. Higher population density means "more things to do" -- mass kinds of things, entertainment kinds of things. Low density means that you have to come up with your own things to pass the time (innovation)-- maybe with a tiny group of often life-long friends (outlook / attitude).  
5. All the stuff I haven't thought of ... and this is likely the longest and most important list. My biases lead me down certain paths just like everyone else. Maybe the "reasons" are too complex to tease out -- I tend to not believe that, but it is possible. 

I find these things of interest. Actual data that MIGHT be actionable if we were really so inclined. 

Can ANYONE look at that chart and believe that a FEDERAL program bent on treating everyone the same has ANY prospects of being successful? I sure don't. 

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Jews Offer No Apology for Holocaust

Event organizer offers no apology after thwarted attack in Texas - The Washington Post:

The "Southern Poverty Law Center", a very popular leftist organization with The Party (D),  has the ORGANIZER of the Texas cartoon event on their "list of extremists" and the linked article focuses on those who would practice freedom of speech as being the problem as opposed to those who would murder in the name of Islam.

Note that the "Southern Poverty Law Center" ALSO finds many CHRISTIAN groups to be "extremist" -- those opposed to abortion, gay "marriage" and things like crucifixes in jars of urine as art. You know EXTREMISTS!

Lincoln, JFK, RFK and MLK all did things to "incite" their attackers -- Lincoln defeated the Confederacy, JFK was too anti-communist for Oswald, RFK was not pro-Arab enough for Sirhan Sirhan, and well, MLK was black ... reason enough for a lot of Southern Democrats in the '60s. It is even possible that women dressing too provocatively is a trigger for SOME rapists -- but when we were a nation of LAWS as opposed to men, it was considered very bad form to "blame the victim".

It still is if the "victim" just knocked over a convenience store and is charging an officer as in Micheal Brown. The left still likes that cake -- when they like it. They just want to both eat it and like it -- it is sort of like intellectual deficit spending.

How could it get so that Christians are singled out for attacks, fines and harassment by  law enforcement for their beliefs on abortion or gay "marriage", while even direct violence against someone exercising their Constitutional right of free speech is blamed for the attack vs the attackers?

Step by step, the same way that tyranny always replaces freedom.

If you listen to NPR, you now know that "intelligent, reasonable people" don't "provoke" Islamists.

 Before the Jews were rounded up in Germany, "intelligent, reasonable people" stayed away from Jews and looked the other way if Jews were being harassed -- "they had it coming". It doesn't happen "overnight", but over the past 6 years it has been accelerating here very rapidly.

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Treating People as Livestock

Race, Politics and Lies - Thomas Sowell:

A great one by Sowell. He makes a point that is obvious, but hard to see because of the "boiling frog" effect of our constantly living in the media pot.

When the recorded fatal shooting of a fleeing man in South Carolina brought instant condemnation by whites and blacks alike, and by the most conservative as well as the most liberal commentators, that moment of mutual understanding was very fleeting, as if mutual understanding were something to be avoided, as a threat to a vision of "us against them" that was more popular.

Everyone agreed that shooting a fleeing back man in the back was wrong. Oh, never mind -- the narrative is that whites are racist, can't have THIS story hanging around!

So we move on to Baltimore ... while ignoring the truth of what has happened to black communities over the past 50 years:

You cannot take any people, of any color, and exempt them from the requirements of civilization — including work, behavioral standards, personal responsibility and all the other basic things that the clever intelligentsia disdain — without ruinous consequences to them and to society at large. 

Non-judgmental subsidies of counterproductive lifestyles are treating people as if they were livestock, to be fed and tended by others in a welfare state — and yet expecting them to develop as human beings have developed when facing the challenges of life themselves. 

One key fact that keeps getting ignored is that the poverty rate among black married couples has been in single digits every year since 1994. Behavior matters and facts matter, more than the prevailing social visions or political empires built on those visions.

Incentives and sanctions matter. The results of policies like those that have been used with blacks in America are universal , treat people like livestock and eventually they begin to act like livestock.

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Maple Syrup Miracle Drug!

http://www.wsj.com/articles/maple-syrup-new-way-to-fight-antibiotic-resistant-bacteria-1430746010?mod=trending_now_1

This is old news to people that grew up in places like Vermont or northern Wisconsin. Fresh maple syrup is the all-purpose spring tonic! Go out to the sugar bush as it comes fresh and hot off the evaporator, get a nice scoop of vanilla ice cream and cover it liberally with the nectar of the spring, and you are CURED!

Of anything ... even the long dark cold months of a winter that seemed to never go away.

 Not hard to believe that it cures a few little bacteria as well!

Outing Iron Man

http://www.theimaginativeconservative.org/2015/05/robert-downey-and-the-problem-of-political-intolerance.html

I had heard that Robert Downy Jr left an interview that became "creepy" relative to his drug use history. I had not heard that he had said:

“you can’t go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal.”

I HAD heard that Mel Gibson helped him beat his addiction, and that he remains friends with Gibson -- something not particularly allowable in Hollywood.

The point of the article is that Hollywood, increasingly that nation and even the world (the weird interview was in England) continues to become increasingly intolerant of ANY divergence from 100% liberal orthodoxy. The "Thou Shalt Nots" of the politically correct left get more stringent every day.

The article isn't badly written -- although focuses a bit too much on how the author "really doesn't care" about Downy. Worthy of at least a scan.

The blog doesn't look too bad either ... may have to poke around there a bit.

Gallipoli 100, History, Humanity, Churchill

Gallipoli, 100 Years On | Power Line:

First the "basic story" -- The British attacked Turkey at the Gallipoli Peninsula on April 25, 1915. Over 8 futile months 252,000 allied lives were lost before they gave up. Churchill has sacked from his position as First Lord of the Admiralty in May as a new coalition government was formed. The event came to be known as "Churchill's Folly".

I read the section on the Dardanelles Strategy in the "The Last Lion: Visions of Glory" (the first book) last night -- so now, "The Rest of the Story".

First point -- when you are a bigger than life figure that talks a great game like Churchill, you make all sorts of enemies and when there is a chance to blame you for something, you likely get blamed. The flip side is that if the proper moment arises in history, you may also get credit for something huge that will also be the result of many other events than just you -- Lincoln freeing the slaves, TJR building the Panama Canal, FDR ending the depression, Churchill winning WWII, Kennedy getting us to the moon, Reagan defeating the USSR.

The likely story is that on March 19th, had Admiral De Robeck continued the very successful attack of the previous day, the naval force would have succeeded in opening the both straits and taking Constantinople.

The previous day, the French battleship Bouvet hit a mine and sank quickly with the crew of 600 being lost. Three British battleships were also damaged by mines. These losses caused De Robeck to break of the attack and the strategy converted to land attack which was out of Churchill's purview and under the command of Lord Kitchener, in charge of land forces.

It turns out that the ships that hit the mines hit the same string of 20 mines that had been placed close to the shore on the eastern side. They could have been easily avoided or swept. The Turkish forces were certain they were defeated -- Constantinople was being evacuated. Instead, the attack was halted and 34 year old Mustafa Kemal was given given credit for defeating the mighty Royal Navy and five weeks to prepare to battle and defeat allied forces, allowing him to become the legendary "Ataturk". 

Had De Robeck succeeded, WWI would likely have been over in less than a year, saving more than a million lives, and the shape of Eastern Europe relative to Christian / Muslim and Russian influence would have been MUCH different.  It is likely one of those moments in history of great leverage. But part of that seeming leverage is of course the fact that we can postulate on what MIGHT have happened to our hearts content, but there is no way to actually KNOW that. It is maddening -- it is what God surely knows, but we cannot see. 

As one reads a detailed account like the Churchill  bio, the people involved are fleshed out. Churchill thought he had a good relationship with the Sea Lord, Jackie Fisher, but it was likely a mistake to appoint the old man to the position. He had a love/hate relationship with Winston and was at too advanced an age for the responsibility -- he resigned in May in protest over the Gallipoli campaign which brought down the Government and Winston was sacrificed, losing his position as First Lord of the Admiralty. 

Churchill also had history with Lord Kitchener which likely contributed to troops not being part of the March plan. Then there is Prime Minister, Herbert Henry Asquith, who had a long running affair with young Venetia Stanley, a woman 35 years his junior to whom he often wrote three times a day and was hugely emotionally attached to. She broke off the affair and suddenly eloped in the midst of the Fisher resignation and political crisis, leaving Asquith a basket case. They tended to keep their love letters in those days -- over 500 from Asquith to Stanley for example. 

Looking at history in the manner that our public schools choose to teach it, it appears as a dry collection of somewhat ordered and tidy events. It appears that a "good government", or "experts" could just get their heads together and make things run "smoothly". It sometimes even appears to be a "story" -- to have some sort of a "narrative". 

All this is illusion.  From our perspective it is at best a  Rube Goldberg jumbled mass of conflicting ideas, personalities, foibles, visions, hallucinations and events, splashed on a cosmic palette by a God whose ways nor plan is possible for us to fathom. Some of us believe his plan is one of hope and truth, while others deny that there is any plan at all -- as said best by Shakespeare: 

Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

 

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Murder, Morals, Popularity

Scalia’s quip about gay-marriage protester stirs bias debate - San Francisco Chronicle:

If we assume there is no God, therefore no Natural Law (the idea of right and wrong written on the hearts of man), and thousands of years of tradition can be invalidated in a period of less than a couple decades, then how do we arrive at any concept of morality?

The current view is "we take a vote" -- what is "moral" is what a majority on at least a national, if not world level says is moral. Smaller sub-units like States have been declared to have no rights to restrict abortion for example, and we are fast headed to say the same for gay "marriage".

As seen recently in Indiana, as well as other states, not only may a State not hold a different moral position than the national body, an individual may increasingly not hold such a position if it impacts their actions, as in,  they will not bake a cake for a gay "wedding".

To date, we can't prevent an individual from holding a moral position in the privacy of their own thoughts, but no doubt many would like to find a way!

Under the definition that "morality" is "whatever is popular", does not morality cease to exist as a concept? Formerly, morality was a higher standard -- ultimately going back to God, but assumed by nearly all to be wired into our very nature. As Scalia has said and is quoted  in the above article in a couple different ways:

Laws, Scalia wrote, can be validly based on “moral disapproval of homosexual conduct,” like other statutes expressing disapproval of “murder, for example, or polygamy, or cruelty to animals.” 

Dissenting from a 2003 ruling that struck down criminal laws against gay sex, Scalia said a state should be allowed to criminalize sexual behavior that their citizens consider “immoral and unacceptable,” such as “fornication, bigamy, adultery, adult incest, bestiality and obscenity.”

One of the popular things said against anyone opposing gay "marriage" was "How does it hurt you?".

For one thing, it changes the entire definition of marriage -- a lifetime committed relationship between a man and a woman. That is what the word marriage meant. Although we have apparently legalized it, I'm not even certain what the form of a bi-sexual "marriage" is -- I can guess, I just don't want to think about it. So we actually don't know what the word "marriage" now means.

Murder in most forms is currently unpopular, not "immoral", because we have demonstrated that we no longer recognize that word in our society.

Abortion is the killing of a very vulnerable person, and not only is it legal, we are increasingly required to fund it via our tax dollars because that is the popular will. It is not only legal, it is subsidized.

We are a nation that no longer respects standards based on God, the Constitution, History, Tradition, etc. Our standard is only what is popular -- and if it is popular, increasingly you MUST agree!

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Space To Destroy

The Baltimore Mayor made her comment "It's a very delicate balancing act because while we try to make sure that they were protected from the cars and the other things that were going on, we also gave those who wished to destroy space to do that as well, and we work very hard to keep that balance and to put ourselves in the best position to de-escalate."

She later said it was a "mis-speak" -- she meant "space to DEMONSTRATE". I'm guessing that may well be unfortunate but correct. It is an interesting choice of wrong word -- it is hard to imagine the media letting an R get away with it.

BO however doesn't seem to have any trouble with words. Both in Baltimore and with Iran he seems to be very willing to give "space for destruction". His position in both places seems to be that both Iran and the rioters are justified in their grievances, so it is legitimate for them to do some destruction until their demands are met. 

In both cases, he is 100% for meeting their demands!

Onion, Gravity, Wrong On Many Levels

http://www.theonion.com/video/the-onion-reviews-gravity-34083

I don't condone this movie review, and intellectually find it wrong in a number of ways. Mental illness is a very real and serious problem and it VERY RARELY results in dangerous and violent behavior on the part of those that suffer it.

This review treats a serious subject in a slapstick and incorrect fashion, carrying on a stereotype that is damaging to those facing  a real problem.

... So, why would I post it!

Because I am human, and humans carry the unexplained penchant for HUMOR!

Humor is WRONG -- it is "immature", it is "expensive" -- someone has a fall, embarrassment, ... something that is "an their expense" ... or a group's expense, etc.

There are times that I believe humor will save us from liberals, and there are times that I think that liberals will snuff it out and replace it's joy with smugness. It hangs in the balance as "progressives" gain force.

In the ultimate advanced "progressive" world there can be no humor -- because we will all be fully educated, all fully compassionate to any even pantomimed misfortune of others, fully accepting of cultural differences that in today's "less than fully progressed" world can strike a funny bone -- just a small step away from a racist, sexist, ageist, etc bone ... in the realm of not perfectly processed and "progressed" liberalism.

Or you could just forget all that and enjoy the video -- because you might be human too, and to be a not fully "progressed" human is to still have a sense of humor! ... inappropriate though it may be

Tom Crean Book, South Pole Pub

Tom Crean: Unsung Hero of the Scott and Shackleton Antarctic Expeditions: Michael Smith: 9780898868708: Amazon.com: Books:

I finished the linked book and enjoyed it very much.

On our trip to the Dingle peninsula in Ireland we visited the South Pole Pub in Annascaul where I had a pint of Crean's Irish Lager and bought the glass.

Crean made three voyages to Antarctica.

1. The Discovery with both Scott and Shackleton. 
2. The Terra Nova voyage with Scott in which Scott lost the race to the South Pole to the Norwegian, Amundsen and then lost his life on the return from the pole along with his team of four. 
3. The Endurance with Shackleton, where the ship was crushed in the ice of the Weddell Sea and through many feats of great risk, skill and luck, all hands returned! 

The book "Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage" is in my opinion the greatest true adventure tale ever told. It is in one of the two greatest "successful failures" in history, the other being Apollo 13. Although on the human endurance front, the length of time, the isolation, and the self-reliance to get out on their own, Endurance stands alone. The ship was named with such foresight it defies belief! 

If you are only going to read one book about the golden age of arctic exploration, read Endurance, but if you are reading two, this one has a lot to suggest it (especially if you have any plans to go to Ireland!). It gives you an overview of that time when people thought of exploring the poles in the same way as we thought of exploring the Moon in the '60s. It gives you an overview of the British being stuck to the "man hauling" technique while the Norwegians used dogs and skis and accomplished much more with much less loss of life. 

The item I enjoyed the most that I think I had heard hinted at somewhere, but I don't recall being covered in "Endurance", relates to the crossing of South Georgia Island by Shackleton, Crean, and Frank Worsley (the greatest navigator in the history of the world). The route that they took was not crossed again until 1955 by a group of explorers with full gear over a week of time. Given the fact that Shackleton, Crean and Worsley had no tents, so were forced to do it before they fell asleep and died of exposure, comparisons are questionable.

The highly interesting aspect of the crossing is that each of the men, interviewed separately in later years with no communication with each other, each said that "there was something odd about the journey ... multiple times I was certain there were four of us". For the believer, an explanation is pretty easy -- it is very hard to imagine everyone surviving the Endurance voyage without divine intervention. But as always, it COULD be explained by "skill, luck, great personal strength and will, ... or possibly space aliens". Those that are certain there is no divine intervention tend to find space aliens more likely.

That was my FAVORITE part -- it is far from the only great part. Crean has a number of exploits including a solo 18 hour 35 mile hike when food had run out and the men could no longer move that saved the lives of Edward Evans and Bill Lashly. Evans went on to become an Admiral in the Royal Navy and never forgot Tom Crean.

The best way to get some perspective on these guys is to think of them as the astronauts of the day. Humans always had heroes for 1000s of years -- real heroes. Soldiers, explorers, musicians, artists, etc.  The polar explorers were major heroes of 100 years ago. Those of us alive in the '60s knew what it was to have special heroes in the astronauts.

Given a lot of the response to "American Sniper" perhaps at least in N America and Europe, the astronauts  might be the last heroes before we "progress" to a world of "equality of result"?

Tom Crean had very few if any equals in polar exploration. I rather enjoy a world of actual diversity -- of gifts, skill, result, thought and a million more aspects. Perhaps I was born too late. 

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