The Road...

The Road goes ever on and on
Down from the door where it began.
Now far ahead the Road has gone,
And I must follow, if I can,
Pursuing it with eager feet,
Until it joins some larger way
Where many paths and errands meet.
And whither then? I cannot say.

--Frodo Baggins in Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Late last night, I ended a 10-hour drive. The rain and mist made the drive challenging. The lack of traffic on the lonely country roads, and the darkness of the late hour, made the drive boring.

Now I am back into my studies at Tech U. Two weeks, and three significant projects to finish in those two weeks.

A longer interruption ahead

The past two days proved to be very effective as a mini-vacation. It was a shame that no whitetailed deer joined me at my location in Copper Country State Forest. Otherwise, I would be bragging about my first successful hunting trip...

All hope is not lost. I might be able to continue hunting for part of the weekend, and part of next week, before I settle into a round of family celebrations of Thanksgiving.

The deer-hunting was complicated by the weather. A sudden cold snap changed all the deer movement patterns. Bait-piles were found which had been left untouched for three days, after promising signs of activity earlier in the month. To make things worse, the first day of hunting season was followed by a day with heavy snowfall.

Well, heavy in the sense that most Americans would think of as heavy. Between six and eight inches of snow overnight, with another 4 inches during the next day. In this part of Michigan, it was the first snow that had accumulated anything more than a dusting on the ground. We'll see many more 6-inch to 12-inch days of snow, if last winter was any indication.

But a heavy snowfall like that causes the deer to retreat to their dens until the snow stops, and then move rapidly to areas with more available food.
one is lowered.

After Thanksgiving Break, I might be able to return to a more regular posting schedule. However, at the moment i can only say that I'm too busy with stuff to finish before break starts. My studies can't be delayed much further than they already have been.

I'm Off...

I am taking something of an irregular vacation over the next few days--I'm going on a deer-hunting trip. The reason I am doing this in the middle of the week?

The State Department of Natural Resources has declared the 15th of November as the opening day of the firearm deer season. And missing opening day is...well, missing opening day. It's just not something a hunter wants to miss.

At least, not this hunter.

When I return, I hope to be able to say that I bagged my first white-tail deer.

Quick Thoughts

I wasn't able to catch up with the details of the recent bombings in Jordan. There are indications that Al-Qaeda has gone one step too far in their quest to dominate world politics. (hat tip: neo-neocon.)

Admittedly, the intersection of millions of personal opinions referred to as "The Arab Street" is not uniformly against these terrorists. But in my thoughts, I wonder if Zarqawi has managed to do the equivalent of Ceaser marching his army across the Rubicon river.

Consider these details:

• A bombing in a nation that is not an active battlefield in the Global War on Islamist Terrorism
• A bombing that hurts Arabs and Muslims as well as foreigners enjoying the hospitality of the nation. (Hospitality is very important in tribal/desert cultures, and is still important to Arabs who live in modern cities.)
  
• A bombing that is immediately claimed by Al-Qaeda's number-one man in Iraq
• A response to criticism that claims the victims were collaborators with American/Jewish plots to undermine the True Faith. (A tip of the hat to Donald Sensing for the link.)

It all sums up to trouble for Al Qaeda affiliates in the Middle East. Unlike Julius Caeser crossing the Rubicon, they aren't moving from a position of strength to a position of greater strength in an ongoing civil war. They have just attacked a nominally-neutral party, and caused many others to wonder who is next on the list of "collaborators with Israel and America".

This is the kind of trouble that Al Qaeda would not be in if America had not pursued their friends and collaborators in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Book Review: There's something about Tess

My reading habits changed a little bit since the school year started. I now read for relaxation, in small snatches of time. During the summer, I had been able to devote large chunks of time to a book.

This book is one of a set of classic literature given to me early in the year.

Title: Tess of the D'Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy

Plot Elements: lost nobility, rural simplisme, lost virginity, illegitimate children, social opprobrium, dairy-farming, love, loss, double-standards, twists of fate, sudden death, manipulation, murder, and justice.

Characters:

• The central character is a sweet young woman known as Tess Durbeyfield. Her strenghts of character also play the role of fatal weaknesses--she is quick to take blame for bad things that happen to her, regardless of the outside forces involved. She is prone to trust people, whether they are actually trustworthy or not.
• Two men dominate the story. One is Alex, a self-centered cad of a man who has assumed the ancient family-name of the D'Urbervilles under suspicious conditions. Alex seems to be a character whose weakness is also his strength: he is known as a womanizer, but he forms a special fixation upon Tess. That fixation makes him kind to her, but also makes him demand intimacy that Tess is not willing to give. He uses all of the forces at his disposal to win her, and manages to do so--twice. Both times, persuasiveness and deceit play a role, but in different ways.
• The other man is the strangely-named Angel Clare, son of a minister. Angel is something of a free-thinker, but he is also bound to concepts of social honor and familial acceptance. Further, he could not be the gentleman he is without a core of strict morality in the center of his conscience. Family honor and that strict morality complicate his relationship with Tess, especially after he marries her.
• Other characters hang in the background of the story. In the shadowy background is the Norman family of the D'Urbervilles, who had several noble knights among them. More palpable is the Durbeyfield family, long since shorn of title, property, and proper family name. Tess's father is an insensitive man who is proud of his ancestry, but a little too partial to alcohol. Tess's mother is a gossipy farming-woman raising a houseful of children.
• All the supporting characters are well-drawn. Each fills a role in the story--from the milking-maids to the farm-owners, from the townspeople to Rev. and Mrs. Clare, all are given believable personalities and behavior.
  

Re-read potential:

• moderate. It is a story about morality, culture, human nature, and people rising above their expected position in life. The story-telling is done quite well, the characters are believable, and even the intrusion of coincidence into the expected course of the story is well-done.

My final thoughts about the story is this: Thomas Hardy was writing to criticize the social mores of his day. The story happens the way it does because the woman of 18th-Century England had more to lose socially by having a child out of wedlock than a man did in fathering such a child. He also thoroughly explores the tension between strict legality and human behavior in courtship and marriage.

Hardy subtly draws the readers eye to the Romantic ideals, but never outright claims that love should triumph over law and social custom. He lets the reader decide.

I have long assumed that modern American attitudes towards the same questions are extreme in the opposite direction--that modern Americans would not let many laws or customs get in the way of love, or lust, or feelings, in matters of sexual behavior. The flight from any kind of cultural consensus that would limit personal choices puts social approval onto certain impulses. Those impulses will too-easily lead people to treat other people as tools of pleasure, rather than as people.

Tess of the D'Urbervills shows the possible inhumanity of the opposite approach, and warns the moralist not to lose sight of the humanity of the sinner.

Response to events in France

In the wake of the recurring arson and civil unrest in dozens of cities in France, many people have taken a view that is full of schaudenfraude.

It is hard to pity a nation that has a record of aiding and abetting Saddam Hussein in his effort to milk dollars for his palaces and weapons projects out of a corrupt Oil-For-Food Program. It is hard to feel sorrow for the travails of a nation that seems to have turned a blind eye to the need for international cooperation in the Global War on Islamist Terrorism.

Especially when these troubles have been decades in the making, having to do with social pressures, exclusion of immigrant families from society and employment, and exclusion of native-born immigrant children from the common social life of France.

Perhaps the most noble response to these events has been provided by the Discoshaman, blogging at Le Sabot Post-Moderne.

His analogy is to the fall of Rome. Along the way, he reminds us that France has contributed many great things to the Western world, and we ought to mourn the fading days of that great culture.

As with ancient Rome, one of the great lights of civilization is being put out as we watch. Replacing it is a culture which is without question one of the most violent and medieval on the planet. A culture which demolishes sculpture rather than creating it, bans literature rather than writing it, and is the source of nearly every military conflict ongoing in the world today.

Admittedly, the strains of Muslim culture in France are probably different from the strains which were found in Afghanistan. But there is too much room for common cause between Islam in the French ghettos and Islam in the heart of the Middle East.

This is a sad year in the history of the world.

Will historians one day lament the loss of the art treasures of the Louvre, the way they lament the destruction of the library at Alexandria?

I wonder. And I am saddened by the possibility.

The Dog That Didn't Bite

There's a classic Sherlock Holmes story in which the detective deduces who the criminal was by the fact that a watchdog didn't bark.

In Australia recently, a (metaphorical) rabid dog was trapped by authorities, and became the dog that didn't bite.

A group of suspected terrorists was rounded up by police in Australia yesterday. Reputedly following months of surveillance and use of new counterterror legislation, the arrests may have averted an imminent attack.

(Hat tip: Tim Blair and Tom Paine.)

Rumors are running rampant that a London-style attack on a train or subway system was in the works.

Whatever the stage of the planning was, a terror ring was broken up before a major assault. That, by itself, is good news.

Congratulations are in order for all the men who kept surveillance, followed leads, sorted and analyzed information, and diligently worked to bring the arrests about. Congratulatons also to the brave officers of the law who carried out the arrests. And I would be remiss not to mention the elected leaders who put these policies in place and supported the investigation while it was going on. They played an important part also.

Good on ye, mates!

Day of Rest

Over the weekend, I took an opportunity to pursue a day of rest.

It wasn't very restful in the physical sense. I spent five hours hiking through a section of woods, returning to a vehicle, driving to another location, and doing more hiking.

It was restful in the sense that it got my mind off of school-work and impending Master's Degree presentations.

Along the way, I learned a good deal about the wildlife in the forest I was hiking through.

The ostensible purpose of the trip was to collaborate with five other gentleman in their quest to set up hunting blinds and bait-piles for the upcoming deer season. And we did succeed in that pursuit.

Before a hunter can set up a blind, he must be reasonably sure that the location is one that the prey will pass by regularly. With that in mind, the more experienced members of the party looked for deer-food, water, signs of eating, deer droppings, and deer hoof-prints. Most of these things were pointed out as signs of hope. At one site, we saw a deer fading into the woods as we approached the area.

At another location, members of the party pointed out wolf-prints on the ground. Icame to the sobering realization that wolves are fully capable of hunting humans as well as deer, raccons, and rabbits. Most game wardens say that North American wolves rarely attack humans. However, as one of my fellow-hunters said, "It's the capability that I'm worried about." And the fact that wolves have been protected from hunting for generations, and thus have little fear of humans.

We also paid some attention to setting up blinds. A good hunting blind must be in an area where the prey is known to pass regularly. It must also allow the hunter to see the prey, while making it hard for the prey to discern the hunter. Another requirement is that it not appear to be something foreign to the hunting area. Lastly, it is easiest to construct a blind if building material doesn't have to be transported on foot from the nearest road.

With that in mind, we used fallen branches to construct blinds around existing trees. We also used cuttings from hemlock trees (the only evergreens nearby) to disguise the blind. The tree-trunk, the branches, and the green cuttings were chosen and placed to break up the outline of the hunter.

We also spent some time spreading bait around along known deer-paths near the blinds, and using blaze-orange ribbons to mark the location of the bait pile and the blinds. Corn, apples, and pumpkins were our bait of choice.

I am now looking forward to the 15th of November, when the firearm deer season starts. It is a shame that I won't be able to spend more than two days hunting, due to schoolwork.

Note from Paris...

Blogger Fishkite claims that he has a note from a friend of the family in Paris.

That note gives lots of information about the riots. They appear to spring from Arab ghettos in Paris, but the actual rioters are often French-born.

Other tantalizing information has appeared at the Belmont Club. These disturbances are not your typical riots. Most of the destructive deeds are done by small groups of violent young men who quickly melt away from the scene, leaving police and fire crews a mess to clean up but no mob to disperse.

Are the rioters using cell phones and digital communications to orchestrate such attacks? If so, are these riots or a low-level war of attrition against the civil services and police authority of the French government?

UPDATE: now things are turning ugly.

Notice that the policeman were hit with buckshot, not 7.62mm rounds. It's much easier for someone to claim that the pump-action shotgun in his closet is for hunting, rather than saying that a Kalashnikov rifle is for hunting.

I don't know how much bird-hunting (or deer-hunting) is done by shotgun in France. However, buckshot must have been available to the shooters.

These events look more like low-level terrorism for effect than high-level terrorism for publicity. These rioters/terrorists want specific events to happen, probably events that are in the realm of the possible.

It's just that these events were not in the realm of the probable until cars and buildings were burned, and police were harrassed.

Not Paris...

For the pedantic, the recent riots in France aren't really riots in Paris. They're in the suburbs of Paris. That doesn't mean that things aren't bad. The merde has struck the ventilateur, if you'll pardon my French.

But those aren't the only occasions of rioting in Europe by disaffected Muslim immigrants.

On the last day of October, a blogger from Denmark posted this, about violence in the cities of Denmark. That blog, the Viking Observer, has lots of articles about threats of terror in Denmark, as well as violence by Muslims.

In Denmark, the local Muslim population was incensed by a cartoon about Mohammed. Trouble has been brewing there for weeks.

The bloggers at Brussels Journal have been watching such developments for some time.

Many bloggers have pointed to the writings of a British doctor named Theodore Dalrymple. He wrote a disturbing essay two years ago about his regular visits to France, and the troubles he observed among the immigrant population there. It is long and enthralling, and full of details which support the thesis that the un-assimilated immigrants in France will be a source of trouble for that country.

The doctor's diagnosis was accurate. He didn't say much about treatment, and said even less about a cure.

As usual, I have also been able to depend on Wretchard at the Belmont Club to give clearly delineated news and commentary about the situation. His original post is here, the follow-up is here.

Things don't look good for France, and they don't look too promising for Denmark either. For the moment, this is just a French problem or a Danish problem.

However, this could, in the space of a year or two, become a European problem.

Its a Riot

The City of Lights is burning?

News agencies around the world have been giving reports of rioting in Paris for about a week. An unfortunate incident seems to have sparked the violent deeds: a pair of young men electrocuted themselves unintentionally while fleeing police officers. No Rodney King beating here, this was an apparent unfortunate accident. Is there any rhyme or reason to the violence, besides the Muslim background of the rioters?

But, as neo-neocon notes, Paris has been attempting to deal with unemployable, unproductive foreigners for years. The foreigners, primarily Muslims from Africa, have been isolated into ghetto-like apartment complexes at the edge of the City. Lawlessness and resentment has become endemic among the population of those buildings. Until recently, a blind eye has been turned to this problem by the police agencies.

When the police began a harsh crackdown on these long-neglected locales, the residents of the ghettos did not respond well.

The death of the two young men provided a catalyst for the latent resentment to blossom into full-blown rioting. A tragic accident involving two young men trying to hide in a electrical-power substation has blossomed into violence on par with--perhaps worse than--any urban riot in America's recent history.

This doesn't carry the flavor of an orchestrated terrorist assault. It is perhaps more serious business though. These troubles aren't caused by a small band of renegades trying to overthrow a government or change government policy.

No, this has every appearance of long, deep-seated resentment and anger held by a million (or two or three million?) aliens, unwelcome residents on the edges of society in Paris.

Pacifying this insurrection will require cold-blooded murder of thousands and harsh authoritarian treatment of the rest. Or it will require a new way of life in France, in which an embittered and angry minority of foreign extraction dictates to the rest of the nation.

What will the result be? Time will tell.

Historical Events

In a return to blog-coverage of great historical events, today I journey back 488 years to the year 1517.

In the city of Wittenburg (in what is now Germany), a priest and doctor of theology had been troubled by the practices of the Catholic Church. He had preached several sermons warning about misuse of doctrine of indulgences.

The contemporary villagers paid little heed when Herr Doktor Luther nailed a long list of Latin statements to the door of the church on the 31st of October.

Some University students saw the 95 theses that Luther had posted. After a little translation work, a copy of the theses was taken to a printer, who published them everywhere--in German.

Luther was not the first priest to challenge the Church over its teachings, or to translate the Scriptures into the vulgar language. For example, during the 1200's an Englishman named Jon Wycliffe had translated large sections of the Scriptures into English, and sent preachers all over the English countryside.

However, Luther's attempts at reform had an advantage over earlier attempts. Luther could print Bibles in German. His ideas could spread across the center of Europe faster than the agents of the Pope could combat or contain them. Luther found that he had ignited a controversy which resulted in his expulsion from the Catholic Church.

The movement of reform--which later became a seperate branch of Christianity in Europe--was part of the upheaval that swept across Europe during the 1500's.

The world-shattering changes presaged by the 95 theses are hard to envision today. Modern people pay much less heed to the all-encompassing claims of religion, let alone the all-encompassing claims of competing religious authorities.

Yet our indifference owes something to the courage of men like Luther. After the decades of dispute, the century of battle, and an eventual admission that war could not make Europe Catholic (or Protestant), the people of Europe developed new ways of looking at such questions. By this time, the earliest European settlers in the Americas--mostly outcasts from such religious struggles--had begun settling into a similar response to religious disputes.

Whether those wars were morally good, evil, or neutral, we cannot avoid the legacy that they left behind. We also do not want to forget the passionate quest for truth which spawned those wars.

Another revealing IT mistake

It is probably well-known at this point that the new nominatee to the United States Supreme Court is Samuel Alito, a man with much more of a public record than Harriet Miers.

Sometime today, an email began circulating around Capitol Hill containing a claim that Alito has Mafia connections.

I have not had time to track down the document itself, or the allegations in it. (If the trial was hung due to incompetent prosecution, we have to ask if Alito was the only prosecutor involved in the case. Also, with Mafia-related cases, we have to check for jury intimidation, payoffs, and witnesses disappearing. All of those can confound the best prosecutor.)

This story was contained in an anonymous Microsoft Word document.

However, the apparently-anonymous document which contained the charges was written on a copy of MS Word which was licensed to the DNC. It was apparently edited by several people rather high up on the DNC Table of Organization. (Hat Tip: Cap'n Ed.)

Just like the doctored UN documents last week, this was information that was encoded in the file by Microsoft Word. It was easily accessible by anyone who knew where to look for it.

If these charges were serious or credible, the DNC should have been willing to release it to the press on an official press-release. If they weren't, it becomes less clear why these charges were dealt with by people so important to the DNC, and then released under an anonymous cover.

As it stands, the DNC is now connected with a scurrilous rumor that is less than 12 hours old. Because of Microsoft Word, and a few geeks who pay attention to details.

Microsoft: Experts ruining official cover for inept political hacks.