sisu

"Roaming freely once again in the wild"

"The first phase of a major plan to release the Arabian Oryx back into the wild began here on Monday with the release of a herd of 29 antelopes" attended by General Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, Crown Prince of Abu Dhabi, according to a March 3 news item at Abu Dhabi's Environment Agency Website. "The project, dubbed as the largest release programme in the region, will see 100 herd of the Arabian Oryx roaming freely once again in the wild." Classified as endangered by the USDI, a number of the dwindling herd had been taken from the wild and brought to the US in 1962, where they "served as the foundation of an international breeding effort and for reintroductions into the wild." (Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi photo)

"Iraq's challenge is to get the liberals to see you like an endangered species," writes blogger Peter Kay in the comments of Iraq the Model's Omar Faydil's latest, urgent, commonsensical PJM post lamenting the Democrats' defeatism on all things Iraq. "I don't pretend to hold 'The Solution' to the dilemma faced by the Iraqis as our Democratic leadership waves the white flag," writes Kay, but:

I will ask, however, that perhaps if the Iraqi people themselves wrote letters to our US congressmen and demonstrated in the streets of Iraq to have the Americans STAY AND HELP, there MAY be a chance that the American public would get a sense that we are wanted in Iraq.

Right now the liberal media has trumpeted the case that no one wants us in Iraq, including the Iraqis.

Liberals, as short-sighted as they are, will fight like crazy for any animal on the endangered species list out of their "compassion."

Iraq's challenge is to get the liberals to see you like an endangered species. You need to appeal to their liberal side. Show them how women's rights are so incredibly abused under Islamic extremism. Give them a cause to rally around. Show them how Iraq will be like Darfur and soon you'll see George Clooney appealing to the President to "stop the slaughter" in Iraq.

As of March 2007, "the Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi’s (EAD) plan to reintroduce the graceful Arabian Oryx (Oryx leucoryx) back into its natural habitats, after 40 years of extinction, is now well underway." (Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi photo)

We love the way Peter Kay's mind works. But let's say Harry and Nancy & Company were to receive a flood of emails and letters from all the Omars in Iraq declaring their support for an allied victory in Iraq. Would it make any difference? Probably not, since liberal "compassion" seems to have a blind spot when it comes to anything that might make George Bush or the United States look good.

Arabian Oryxes grow up. Too bad the Democratic leadership doesn't. (Environment Agency-Abu Dhabi photo)

"The Democrats are listening to the American people"

In the aftermath of a fur-raising encounter with an interloper this morning -- one of the neighborhood cats who made the mistake of entering her territory while she was outside on her tether -- Tiny keeps a watchful eye and ear out for further incursions as she huddles on the backdoor stoop.

"Iraqi spokesman bashes Senate vote on Iraq" goes the Fox News banner this late afternoon. As well he should. "Ronald Reagan is rolling over in his grave, and Osama is smiling," chimes in the cutie Fox Republican spokeswoman -- can't remember her name--  even as her Democratic sparring partner, our own Massachusetts Miracle Mary Anne Marsh, robotically spouts the party line -- she always does -- that impotent calls for withdrawal timetables, guaranteed to be vetoed by the President, show "The Democrats are listening to the American people." Some call it a debate, some call it a travesty. As General Petraeus said a couple of weeks back, "The Washington clock is moving more rapidly than the Baghdad clock." We've yet to see the General's press conference today, following closed-door sessions yesterday with the two houses of Congress. We missed a live broadcast this morning on The Pentagon Channel and haven't managed to figure out how to get a replay. 'Looking forward to catching it on C-Span in the wee hours. Meanwhile, "calls" for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to turn in his gavel -- by the usual suspects on the right side of the aisle, of course, but more earth-shakingly by establishment muckamuck WaPo commentator David Broder, who writes "The Democrats deserve better, and the country needs more, than Harry Reid has offered as Senate majority leader" -- are music to our ears. MIchelle Malkin notes the long-time stalwart of the left-leaning Beltway talking-head community has suddenly been transmogrified by the Nutroots community into the newest member of the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy. Wecome aboard, Mr. Broder.

Update: Speaking of welcome aboard, all things bright and beautiful now boarding Modulator's Friday Ark #136. Not to mention this week's Carnival of the Cats, hosted by "the Maximum Leader of the Feline Theocracy, K T Cat herself."

"Where bones splinter and flesh really does burn"

"I'm able to get more work done with the Brits due to the hefty support they offer. It’s made a tremendous difference," writes Independent war correspondent/blogger Michael Yon, who is currently embedded with British forces in Basra. Chris Muir's Day by Day cartoon from last fall, above, takes off on Michael's periodic snafuish difficulties getting support from some of the Public Affairs folks of our own military.

"Several items of great interest on the web, beginning with my favorite blogger on the Iraq war, Michael Yon," writes NBC Anchor Brian Williams at his blog, The Daily Nightly, retelling a behind-the-scenes anecdote Michael's fans will appreciate:

Frequent viewers know Michael is a Special Forces veteran who is reporting on the war by embedding himself with U.S. units and often writes the story from the warrior's point of view.  I was traveling in Iraq with retired 4-Star General and former U.S. Special Forces Commander Wayne Downing -- who upon realizing that he was talking to Michael Yon (General Downing is a loyal reader of Michael's blog) reacted like meeting a rock star. Michael has made a special package of material available through our blog.

Here's a taste of "Desires of the Human Heart, Part One," which includes more than 100 photographs, many made at a Christian college in downtown Baghdad:

People talk of an Army breaking under the strain, but while there remains a sliver of hope that Iraq might avoid conflagration into full-scale genocide, out here, where bones splinter and flesh really does burn, there is a kind of clarity. And on these empty streets, a practiced eye regards the slivers of hope that are strewn among all the chards of broken glass.

The latest group of professional soldiers I had the honor of accompanying was the 1-4 Cavalry from Fort Riley, Kansas. They opened their doors in Baghdad and wanted me to tell the people at home the good, the bad and the ugly. They didn’t hold back; they provided plenty of all three. In one neighborhood where residents have been subject to a methodical slaughter, our people found an abandoned Christian college that had already proved itself the proverbial island in the storm.

As we wrote in Brian Williams's comments: 

Michael Yon deserves rock-star status! He is a lifeline for those of us who are praying for victory but want to hear the truth -- both good and bad -- of how things are going "over there." Thank you for helping promulgate Michael's heroic effort.

If you agree, be sure to drop a contribution into Michael's tip jar. Question of the day: Is it possible that some of Michael Yon's brave new war journalism is finally brushing off on Brian Williams?

"I actually enjoy going to Logan now"

"Their presence is very soothing," says LA Cardinal Roger Mahony re our own totemic animal, Felis catus. Baby and Tiny above supervise Tuck's latest landscape project, regrading and relaying the bricks on the sideyard drive.

"Never thought I'd say this, but I actually enjoy going to Logan now. The terminals they've renovated so far are becoming destinations in their own right for me," writes blogfriend Be of Bebere in the comments to our previous post:

Coming back home last January, I ran into this installation and was *completely* blown away by it. The soothing sounds combined with the light streaming in through the windows provided such a soothing transition between the nightmarish travel experience (headwinds caused our flight time to be doubled -- from six to nearly 13 hours) and the upcoming day at work.

My ride home was also impressed by the simplicity (and relatively low cost?) of the setup too. We both agreed that this was public art that we were more than happy to fund.

We sent along her kudos to designer Christopher Janney. 'Can't wait till next week when we plan to walk on over there to experience it for ourselves. Goomp had some good things to say about it all in our imail conversation today:

He: Like walking thru a leaf covered trail with the sun shining and the wind stirring the leaves. I told you I don't really know what I am talking about.

We: LOL. No, but who does?

He: But who will admit it?

We: Few. But I think you've got the sense of what I'm saying about the Logan work, as I understand it. It takes you away for a moment from a dull, stressful place to a place that refreshes. I'm remembering again that favorite Thoreau quote.

He: Yes. The forest trail in the sunlight.

We: "The most alive is the wildest. Not yet subdued to man, its presence refreshes him." Cats are a perfect example, little furry oases in the desert of life, except when they stay out too long and make us worry.

He: I couldn't live alone without a cat.

As Los Angeles Cardinal Roger Mahony, companion animal to silver tabbies Raphael and Gabriel, told an MSNBC reporter two years back:

Cats are perfect pets for clergymen “because they are wonderful companions. There is almost a spirituality about them. Their presence is very soothing."

Our only quibble would be with the word "almost." There is definitely a spirituality about them that soothes the savage breast.

Something there is that doesn't love a concrete barrier

"My interest is to try to create an interesting, stimulating, alternative experience," public-space artist Christopher Janney, an architect and jazz musician trained at Princeton and MIT, told a Boston Globe reporter on the occasion of the formal opening this day of his "Rainbow Cove," an architecture-and-music installation just around the bend from Chelsea-by-the-Sea at Boston's Logan Airport. (Barry Chin, Globe Staff Photo)  Check below for our crackpot theory that ties together the controversial Baghdad concrete barriers, Janney's transformative walls of light and sound and our own New England poet laureate Robert Frost's "something there is that doesn't love a wall."

"It is obviously essential that any candidate is 100 percent committed to reducing the CO2 (carbon dioxide) emissions in America by at least 25 percent," pontificated the latest smart person stepping out beyond his area of expertise into the ether of the Global-Warming Church of Eternal Salvation. In this case it was Richard Branson of Virgin Airlines, a brilliant entrepreneur who had already come up with a totally awesome market-driven alternative to bypass someone who calls herself Sheryl Crow's call to swipe one's a** with only one square of TP per "sitting," his "25m climate bid" announced two months back:

Millions of pounds are on offer for the person who comes up with the best way of removing significant amounts of carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson launched the competition today in London alongside former US vice-president Al Gore.

Great idea, and we held our nose as the be-knighted one hitched his star to the bloviating Cigar Store Indian's wagon one more time. We always squirm when we are being condescended to. The human-induced-global-warming meme that has insinuated itself into the hearts and "minds" of the uninformed multitudes is a wonderment. Big lies rule in the short term. Only history, looking back, can pinpoint the truths that lay hidden to contemporaries beneath the spin and din of self-interested rhetoric during real time. One of our all-time favorite Christmas stories was "Why the chimes rang." The wealthy visitors to the babe in a manger with their opulent gifts took credit for the chimes' ringing, but it was actually the humble gift of a poor child that touched God's heart. Mysterious ways happen.

Now for our crackpot theory. Justapose artist Janney's words with those of a Baghdadi engineer who doesn't love a wall:

1. Janney: “The great thing about interactive technologies is they allow people to have a sense of participation in their environment. As an architect, my interest is to help people feel less alienated -- especially in urban situations. Putting interactive environments in cities is a foil really, it’s a way of encouraging total strangers to interact and participate in a more benign social environment.”

2. Ahmed al-Dulaimi, a 41-year-old Iraqi engineer: "This will make the whole district a prison. This is collective punishment on the residents of Azamiyah. They are going to punish all of us because of a few terrorists here and there. We are in our fourth year of occupation and we are seeing the number of blast walls increasing day after day, suffocating the people more and more."

We can't imagine maintaining our sanity -- whassat? -- under the conditions our fellow PJM blogger Omar Fadhil and his bro at Iraq the Model do. Here's his take on walls:

There are definitely downsides that come from surrounding communities with walls, mostly psychological and social. It’s sad to watch the capital of your country become the only city in the world that resembles a compartmentalized fortress where you need tall concrete walls to slightly improve the margin of safety.

But this is war and we can’t afford living in denial of the seriousness of threats. Emotions must not be allowed to disrupt taking practical steps that can save lives. So while I understand where PM Maliki is coming from in his opposition to the wall I have to disagree with him.

Here's our crackpot proposal, as offered in the comments at PJM today:

Has anyone thought of transforming the concrete walls from a soul-deadening barrier into a soul-uplifting light-and-sound "destination," a place that enhances city life by its design? I know it sounds loony, but architect/jazz musician Christopher Janney's "Rainbow Cove" installation at our local Boston Logan Airport got me to thinking.

We're thinking -- outside the box -- in a Richard Branson vs. Sheryl Crow sense. Any takers?

Update: Chris Janney makes our day in this heart-stopping email response:

I think about situations like this a great deal. Creating the RIGHT social/tribal foil for life-supporting (not life-threatening) interaction. It's one thing to make it work in a high-anxiety underground subway, quite another in this condition. First step -- you can't teach someone who isn't willing to learn.

But I am intrigued.  Thanks for making my day.

Dr. Sanity referenced the very thing today with the classic joke about "how many psychiatrists does it take to change a lightbulb? . . . just one . . . but the lightbulb really has to want to change."

The long-lost survival skills that are our species' birthright

"Pope Benedict would like this photo [of a] cat with the dome of St. Peter's as background -- perfect :)" blogs Gerald Augustinus of The Cafeteria is Closed. We're still dreaming of a photo or two of the Holy Father himself cat whispering. Anybody out there know of any?

"There seems to me a sort of broad national diminution of common sense in our country that we don't notice in the day-to-day but that becomes obvious after a story like this," wrote Peggy Noonan in the wake of last week's "school shooting." While everyone with a soapbox -- ourselves included -- had something all-important to read into the entrails, two primal All-American stories rose to the surface after a decent interval:

1. The wounded student, trained in Boy Scout survival techniques, who prevented himself from bleeding to death by tourniqueting his own leg.

2. The beloved, venerable Holocaust survivor professor who put himself between the killer and his own students to save them, even as he lost his own life.

Both were heart-stopping examples of not only the American spirit -- the shining city upon a hill -- but more deeply the long-lost survival skills that are our species' evolutionary birthright:  recognizing danger and acting to avert death -- of oneself and/or those in one's care. As we said in Laura Lee's comments:

I'm thinking that guns or not, we should be requiring our students -- and ourselves -- to take at least one scout-like survival course that attunes them/us to clues in the environment and develops defensive skills. No cell phones allowed!

Then there are our fellow Americans on the left side of the aisle who continue to wonder why we can't all just get along, even as they -- like "Sheik Yousuf Al-Qaradhawi, the Muslim Brotherhood cleric who has gone on the record many times supporting jihad, suicide bombing, and especially the murder of Jews" [via Little Green Footballs] -- attempt to get themselves off the hook by blaming America/George Bush/Israel for all the evil in the world. The Sheik, in a fascinatingly all-about-me Friday sermon aired on Qatar TV, DOES have a way with words:

The thing I detest most is unjustified bloodshed. I even felt great pain at what happened in America. An armed student killed 33 fellow students. What is this? This is the philosophy of violence, the outcome of violent films, the outcome of the violence used by America. America has made force the decisive factor in everything, and it uses its power to force peoples to do as it wishes. [Projection happens.] This philosophy has left its mark. We see in the schools of America . . . Even in high schools and junior high schools, we see youth who kill their fellow students. In that university, we saw that someone killed all those fellow students of his -- and for no comprehensible reason. What is this? It is the philosophy of violence, which was instilled in these people. This philosophy of materialism and permissiveness does not instill in them religion, faith, moral values, compassion, or brotherhood. Instead, it instills in them selfishness and violence, and makes the rifle or the machine-gun rule supreme. This is the philosophy of American civilization, which it bequeaths to its sons.

But even as the forces of darkness close in, a glimmer of light from a most unexpected corner of academia: "One wonders if it might be the seemingly decrepit old Church that will once more guide the fate of the West," writes a strange-new-respect Alex Copulsky of Harvard Political Review, admitting his belated discovery of the Pope who loves cats and Mozart and found common cause with firebrand atheist Oriana Fallaci:

The columnist Andrew Sullivan wrote that Benedict XVI is "immune from reasoned inquiry." He could not have been more wrong. Benedict XVI is best understood as an "Enlightenment Pope" in an era in which reason has few defenders. The Pope is acutely aware of the oppression brought about by irrationality: In his childhood, it was Nazism; until the collapse of the Soviet Union it was Communism; today it is, as he puts it, the "dictatorship of relativism," the rejection of absolute norms, and radical Islam.

I happened to pick up the New York Times Sunday Magazine and found myself totally absorbed in the cover piece about Pope Benedict and his simultaneously deeply religious and utterly secular attempt to position the church to deal with the question of Islam. Pope Benedict has a barbarians-at-the-gate mentality that seems preposterous and alarmist at first, but begins to sound more and more rational.

We've been saying the very same thing re Papa Ratzi for ages, 'course. Nice to see it echoed in both the Times and the Harvard Political Review for a change. Best quotation of the day comes from Christopher Hitchens's must-read City Journal "Jefferson Versus the Muslim Pirates." You're a better man than I am, Rudyard Kipling:

We never pay any-one Dane-geld,
No matter how trifling the cost;
For the end of that game is oppression and shame,
And the nation that plays it is lost!

Honor/shame is where it's at, from the most cut-throat, corrupt Barbary Coast pasha to our own business-as-usual corrupt American Congressmen of today. Arrrgggghhhh!

Breathtaking banality

"I'm nobody. Are you nobody, too?" asked Emily Dickinson rhetorically. Had we been SOMEBODY, we might have said yes to the Manhattan Institute's totally awesome invitation to their seventh annual "Alexander Hamilton Award Dinner" -- Benefactor Table of 10 at $50,000, Single Ticket(s) at $1,000. Invitation lower left. Tiny -- not amused -- upper right.

"I was not surprised but disgusted to hear one of your 'anchors' -- probably an anchorette, but who's counting? -- just say how horrified she was that anyone out here amongst us great unwashed would question Al Gore's Church of Climate Change pronouncements regarding light bulbs, dim or lite," we just commented at one of our fave cable news networks' websites. That would be New England Cable News. How disappointing to see our very best, most professional local media outlet apparently bowing down in dhimmitude without debate before everyday global-warming hysteria. This comes on the tail of the horror we woke up to this morning, with our own Pajamas Media pronouncing -- that's a couple of decibels above announcing -- that they had bought the farm. We were never consulted, but hey. Since we weren't, now we can have our say. Here's what they pronounced:

We are pleased to announce that we have acquired a program and website called One Billion Bulbs. Created by Brian Huyser of Symmetric Technologies in 2006, OBB is focused on educating people [Uh, oh. Educating is uncomfortably close to reeducating, which isn't far removed from propagandizing. Oh, never mind.] on the benefits of changing our old light bulbs to newer more energy efficient ones. In addition, OBB can allow you or your group to register your actions on line. As of April 21, 2007, OBB members have recorded over 45,000 bulbs that have been changed.

Skin crawling happens. When we think of our honorable co-PJM bloggers at Iraq the Model just trying to stay alive day to day, continuing their dentistry practice and dreaming of freedom for themselves and their countrymen, the spectacle of our fellow Americans congratulating themselves for replacing light bulbs is breathtakingly banal. What mortals these fools be. Glenn Reynolds already had the last word on the virtues of compact fluorescent light bulbs months ago when he noted that low-energy bulbs were already making inroads driven by market forces. Whether or not you do this or that to cut down on your energy use, how can an honorable human person wallow in the cheap thrill of bragging about one's CO2 purity? Pride goeth before a fall. Are we ALL politicians now? In our view, it's all too human, a 21st-century, secular version of the venerable human sacrificing of virgins or offering of food you'd rather eat yourself to appease the gods. Akin to the religious indulgences of yore referenced by critics of Sir Albert's own holier-than-thou offering of money for forgiveness a couple of weeks back when it came out that the Gores expended four times more energy than the average citizen per year just to maintain their one-of-many Tennessee homestead.

Beyond feeling good about oneself, has anyone looked into the unintended consequences of the lemming-like rush over the cliff to CFLBs? A few questions come to mind. Has anyone toted up the amount of carbon credits that will cover for all the energy expenditure involved in getting rid of/recycling the old light bulbs and getting the new ones manufactured and delivered to the market and into our politically correct homes? Just asking. PLUS. 99 percent of the light fixtures in our own house -- all custom-specified by Tuck through the years as he lovingly and expertly restored and refashioned the rooms of this 1840s Greek Revival we call home -- aren't adaptable to the lovely new energy-efficient bulbs. Just sayin'.

Update from our latest imail correspondence:

As you allude . . . the "global warming" hysteria is like some weird denial of the real threats going on in the world. Had Cho had a better light bulb, might he have been less troubled? Band-aids on hemorrhages happen. Snowden's secret.

Joseph Heller knew everything, but who's listening?

Update II:  Pajamas Media links.

"Lighten up and get a life"

"It's now been watched nearly 11,000 times on YouTube since being posted seven hours ago," reports USA Today re John McCain's musical triumph, "Bomb Iran." Asked about the attention it's getting, the Senator told AP: "Please, I was talking to some of my old veterans friends . . . My response is, Lighten up and get a life." (Venerable Red Oak frames neighbor's house in the early-morning light of Easter 2006 at Goomp's)

"Lighten up, folks. I mean we are becoming a girly-man nation," Bernard Goldberg tells Steve Doucy this morning in response to the tut-tutting of media blowhards like CNNs Bill Schneider -- who professed shock, shock that a politician would shoot from the hip for a change -- re John McCain's hilarious take-off of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann" to a receptive audience the other day, where the "maverick" presidential wannabe intoned -- in response to a listener's question re when do we "send an air mail message to Tehran" -- "Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran." We could swear Bernie was channeling McCain's and our own opinion sent in earlier to Fox & Friends (we're still waiting for them to read our email on air):

Can we lighten up, please? I laughed out loud with joy at a politician's saying something fun and funny.

Even gravitasoid muckymuck Chris Wallace, interviewed by F&F as a teaser to his weekend show, agreed, recalling something wicked amusing Ronald Reagan had said during a microphone check prior to a broadcast way back when, where the President joked that he had just signed legislation to outlaw the Soviet Union:

"The bombing starts in five minutes."

We totally agree with Brian Kilmeade, who commented:

I think America wants less script, more reality.

That's what's so bad about Obama, whom we had been inclined at first blush to take a shine to. Did you catch his abominable cobbling together of his stump-speech talking points with the Virginia Tech horrors -- "equating the literal killing of humans with verbal coarseness" -- earlier this week? Don't get us wrong re Senator McCain. His utterly disingenuous campaign to muzzle freedom of speech in the name of campaign finance "reform" left a lingering bad taste in our mouth, and the MSM's fawning over his "Straight Talk Express" during the last presidential election cycle made our blood run cold. But we're talking politics, here, and strange bedfellows are where it's at. With apologies to the Beach Boys:

Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran . . .
You got me rockin and a-rollin
Rockin and a-reelin . . .
One more time
You got me rockin and a-rollin
Bomb Iran
Woah

Imus's gratuitous "nappy-headed hos" is one thing, but give us a break. What's wrong with calling Ahmadinejad a spade? Shall we dance?

Update: The cut-and-crawl piranas of MoveOn are already on the case:

At a campaign stop on Wednesday, Sen. John McCain was asked what to do about Iran. His response? He sang "bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran" to the tune of the Beach Boys' "Barbara Ann." Seriously. He says it was a joke, but the bottom line is that it is reckless saber-rattling against Iran at a time when tensions are high. Will you help us counter his message on TV?

War with Iran would be a disaster. The best way to stop this idea in its tracks is to make sure politicians who talk loosely about war pay a political price. We've made an emergency TV ad to call out McCain on his reckless remarks. Click here to watch the ad, and then please donate $25 to get it up on the air.

The root of all evil rears its ugly head. MoveOn insists we toe the party line, or else. Beware of those who cannot laugh in the face of the abyss. As we've blogged here early and often, the forces of darkness -- those who would impose fear societies heavy or lite on us freedom lovers -- are forever waiting just outside the campfire of civilization to move in for the kill. Will the netroots be the end of humor?

Oedipus Ax

When we attended -- and later taught -- Sunday school back in the day, our Unitarian Church in Exeter, New Hampshire was more into revealing the wonders of creation to young minds through the study of animals and plants and such rather than Bible study. We still look to nature -- "the most alive is the wildest," in Thoreau's words -- but now find informal Bible study most revealing as well. Bible Gateway is a great online resource. Tiny, above, in the usual manner of cats, sees things we don't.

"The Jews are the descendants of Isaac, the Arabs are the descendants of Ishmael," writes Jerry Bowyer at TCS, explaining for those of us who studied snowflakes and leaves in Sunday School -- we were brought up Unitarian before it succumbed to the siren song of political correctness -- instead of Scripture, the Biblical source of an ancient wound that festers to this day. The subject is on the front burner today as the words "Ismail Ax" were apparently scrawled in red ink on the arm of school shooter Cho, while the differently spelled but similar "A Ishmael" was entered into the "sender" space on the USPS form the young psychopath filled out when he sent off his "manifesto" to CBS between murdering sprees. The blogosphere is aflutter about what it might all mean, of course. Did Cho have Islamist ties? As an English major, did he see himself as Melville's anchorless Ishmael? At least one blogger suggested an incoherent mix of Ismail, Ishmael, the South Korean flik "Old Boy," video games and whatever. That sounds about right. But as for us chatterers who read into things, we are a mythmaking species, and a mass killing sets our creative juices flowing, each interpreting momentous events through our own template. Back to Bowyer's template, as he recounts the founding of the families:

The story starts with a man named Abraham. He is the father of the Jews, the Muslims and the Christians. He was born in Iraq, the son of a wealthy idol manufacturer. He came to believe that there was only one true God and, according to tradition, took up his ax and destroyed his father's idols. [It's a guy thing.]

Eventually he left Iraq and moved to what is now known as Israel. He had a son with his concubine whom she named Ishmael. The Muslim world prefers the Arabic spelling of the name: Ismail. Eventually Abraham had a son by his rightful wife and named the son Isaac. Ishmael and his mother were disinherited and sent out into what is now Saudi Arabia. Isaac became the heir.

Baby is the true faithful descendant of Sluggo, father of the Chelsea Grays. Above he draws a bead on Tuck's dinner in a bowl.

No wonder the People of the Book are upset. Fathers and sons. Oy, vey. Here's the part of the ancient tale that even we remember:

Eventually, God decided to test Abraham by telling him to kill his son, Isaac. Abraham took up the knife, but God stopped him at the last moment. Isaac lived and eventually became a man of great wealth. Ishmael became a desert warrior chieftain.

So it WAS written, then. But there's more:

In the 7th Century, Muhammad, the founder of Islam, re-wrote the story, claiming that Ismail was the true faithful descendant of Abraham and that it was he, not Isaac, who God told Abraham to sacrifice. Ismail was the one saved. For Muslims, Ismail (not Isaac) was the true 'Son of Sacrifice.' In the original version of the story, Abraham used a knife, in some of the later Muslim versions, he used an Ax.

No wonder those folks can't get along with the sons and daughters of Isaac. Oedipus Ax, anyone?

For shame

We just enjoyed our 800,000th cyberspace visitor this afternoon. By chance, it came via Michelle Malkin's site from someone in Richmond, Virginia. Only 200,000 more visits till we reach the million mark! Our ranking as a Large Mammal in the Ecosystem is either #188 or #192, depending upon your search route. As far as Technorati, we have two rankings, #4773 for http://sisu.typepad.com and #19,838 for http://sisu.typad.com/sisu, which represent a nesting of our blog within a larger entity, reflecting Typepad's blogging architecture. From time to time we've informed Technorati that those two URLs represent the same blog, but nobody's listening. Whine, whine, whine.

The three best things out there today on the psychology of the Virginia Tech "gunman" -- do you despise that term as much as we do? A psychopathic thug is a psychopathic thug -- reinforce our gut feeling that it's all about our own ur blog theme, "The importance of being noticed." The honor-shame continuum and all that. The fact that the VT shooter sent a package of photos, videos and writings -- called by John Gibson and other media types a "manifesto" and now being shamelessly peddled for ratings -- to NBC timestamped during that two-hour lacuna between the two shootings only lends further support to what Dr. Helen and Shrinkwrapped and Mark Steyn wrote earlier today [be sure to read 'em all, start to finish]:

1. Dr. Helen:

The violence-prone individual is more likely to have enduring personality pathology, such as a paranoid, schizoid, narcissistic, or antisocial personality, and a long history of difficult interpersonal relationships. He may ruminate about perceived slights or injustices for months or even years. Because he is often a loner, he has no circle of friends to correct his misinterpretations of other people’s intentions and behaviors . . .

What I am amazed by is that in many school shootings, especially in universities, school authorities and others were told that there were problems or in some cases, the eventual killer had already made threats but no one did anything. The schools deny any responsibility at all in most of these cases although, sometimes they end up being sued for it. But what is money when people's lives are at stake? It's often the case that when the killer finally lashes out, the people who knew him aren't surprised -- they'd been predicting something like this for weeks or months, but no action was taken.

2. ShrinkWrapped:

The expression "to run amok" derives from the Amok Syndrome associated with Malaysian men among whom it was common in the 1800s and into the 1900s.  Amok was a sudden eruption of homicidal violence during which the perpetrator, armed with a Kris (later with guns), would race through the streets in a frenzy, killing any person or animal he came upon.  When the attack burned out and ended, the attacker would commonly be in a state of exhaustion and often amnestic for the attack; not infrequently the attacks would end with the attacker's suicide.

Typically the attack was found to have been preceded by a period of pre-occupation, brooding and depression. Further, there was often an incident that evoked extreme shame in the person preceding the attack. In the Malay Honor-Shame culture, intense shame was incompatible with continued involvement in the community.

In our own experience of such murderous attacks, as in Columbine, or the kinds of workplace incidents that have become all too common, there is almost always an aspect of shame-evoked rage associated with the acts. The two young men who murdered their classmates in Columbine were quite clearly acting out a desire for revenge on their classmates who they felt had belittled and slighted them.

As we said to our imail correspondent earlier this evening, too bad the attacks don't START with the attacker's suicide, but, of course, that would defeat the purpose. It's always all about them. Others are mere props in their monomaniacal fantasies.

3. Mark  Steyn, who brings up the rear with politically-correct academia's facilitation of monomaniacs:

Nonetheless, it’s deeply damaging to portray fit fully formed adults as children who need to be protected. We should be raising them to understand that there will be moments in life when you need to protect yourself — and, in a “horrible” world, there may come moments when you have to choose between protecting yourself or others. It is a poor reflection on us that, in those first critical seconds where one has to make a decision, only an elderly Holocaust survivor, Professor Librescu, understood instinctively the obligation to act.

"Tom cats perceive inviolable barriers -- invisible to us -- surrounding each other's personal space" we noted in the caption to the above photo illustrating our blogpost "Shedding shame and capturing honor" two years back.

Shame vs honor is only a matter of degree, as we wrote in our blogpost "The real issue is, whom do we select as our peers":

The importance of being noticed makes the world go 'round, from al-Queda types who intimidate through cold-blooded murder of innocents to impress their "brothers," to internet hackers who wreak havoc amongst online innocents to impress their own fellow travelers. On the good side, each one of us seeks, through our accomplishments, to earn a place of honor among our peers. The real issue is, whom do we select as our peers.

If not as our peers, we choose the Founding Fathers to give the last word, as cited by David B. Kopel in today's WSJ:

The founder of the University of Virginia, Thomas Jefferson, understood the harms resulting from the type of policy created at Virginia Tech. In his "Commonplace Book," Jefferson copied a passage from Cesare Beccaria, the founder of criminology, which was as true on Monday as it always has been:

"Laws that forbid the carrying of arms . . . disarm only those who are neither inclined nor determined to commit crimes . . . Such laws make things worse for the assaulted and better for the assailants; they serve rather to encourage than to prevent homicides, for an unarmed man may be attacked with greater confidence than an armed man."

Like our fellow citizens who insist on building their homes on flood plains, only to see them swept away during periodic torrential rains like we had here in New England earlier this week, those who blame arms and not human nature for what happened at Blacksburg are deaf and dumb to the lessons of history and natural history.