Orville Bierkle’s War Diary

Somehow it seems I haven’t posted a direct link to Sergeant Orville A. Bierkle’s Korean War diary here — thought I had, but can’t find any such post. So here is the link. If I can figure out how to upload the PDF file here, I’ll do that too.

The war diary, provided by the sergeant’s daughter, gives provenance to his remarkable revolver, showing conclusively that it was used by him in the battle of the Chosin Reservoir, and that he brought it back with him to the United States, where it eventually made its way to me. And most importantly, don’t forget to read the thread.

Posted in Have Gun, Will Travel, Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | Leave a comment

Sokath, His Eyes Opened

This Monmouth poll yesterday deserved to receive more attention than it did:

Majority believe ‘deep state’ manipulates U.S. policies. “The majority of the country believes a group of unelected government and military officials secretly manipulate national policy, according to a Monmouth Poll released Monday….”

Let’s understand what is going on here: the overwhelming majority of the American people, having lived through half a century of declines in faith in virtually every American institution – the Congress, the courts, the cops, the church, the media, the National Football League – now believe that one of the most important institutions we have to protect us, the security and intelligence forces that are supposed to ward off threats, have now been turned against them. And not even one out of five Americans believes this invasion of privacy is usually justified – instead, they believe not just that they are being monitored, and not only do they believe this practice is near-constant, but they also belive that this monitoring is typically baseless and unnecessary.

–Ben Domenech, in this morning’s Transom newsletter. Emphasis mine.

Posted in The Government is Not Your Friend | 1 Comment

L’Estro Armonico (and, tangentially, Gene Simmons)

Nowadays you can find even obscure pieces of classical music but a click away on YouTube (such as the Wolf’s Glen scene from Weber’s Der Freischuetz, I mean, that’s amazing really).   In the past, music majors such as my high-school choir teacher and Juilliard alum David Pool would have to dig through a Schwann catalog to find vinyl pressings or tapes of obscure-but-required pieces for their studies, generally recorded by equally obscure ensembles.

Pool used to joke that as a result of all this, he and and his Juilliard classmate Charles Emerson Winchester III had between them the most extensive collection of recorded works by the Chamber Society of Lower East Cleveland.

For my part, as a starving young student I amassed my trove of classical records by signing up repeatedly for Columbia House and Musical Heritage Society “introductory memberships” (“9 albums for 1 cent”), which taught me valuable life lessons about reading the fine print and how to outscam the scammers.

Happily, I also encountered all sorts of relatively obscure treasures, and Vivaldi’s L’Estro Armonico performed by I Solisti Veneti became my favorite. The other day on YouTube I found this version I may decide I like even better. An excellent listen, and a great introduction to the joys of classical music for the novice or any metalhead — especially with the bass cranked through the roof.

The Red Priest was a genius and a notorious musical icon of his day, composing for royalty, delighting in crossdressing genderplay in his operas, and maintaining the sort of lifestyle that got him, a man of the cloth, barred from entering a city because of his sexcapades. Were he alive today, one suspects an interview with him would sound an awful lot like this.

That's a Mona Lisa smile if I ever saw one

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers, Kewel! | Leave a comment

There Shall Be No Darkness

Twelve years ago I cited James Blish’s “There Shall Be No Darkness” as the best werewolf short fiction bar none, but unlike the quite unrelated Lovecraftian tale “Than Curse The Darkness,” I couldn’t find TSBND online to post or excerpt here.

Now that’s changed. Full text at the link; the story begins at page 6. I’ve excerpted the first third of the novella in images below the fold, as well, to whet your appetite.

I love everything about this story: the drawing-room mystery in the donjon-like Scottish manor house, melting the Mexican silver into slugs in a kitchen crucible, the “American T-47” automatic rifles, obviously M-16 analogues (circa 1952, mind) — or perhaps they were meant to be the AK-47, “discovered” by the West in ’53. And of course the delightful endocrinology angle. The miracle of the internet means single movements of obscure pieces like “the Wolf’s Glen scene from von Weber’s Der Freischuetz” can enhance the mood, and references such as “that panel on the Isenheim Altar that showed the Temptation of St. Anthony” can be, well, referenced. It is the thinking man’s werewolf story.

And of course, the tale can also be enjoyed as a parable with all sorts of meaning in the light of the global cultural, political, or institutional destabilization of your choice. I like thinking of the character Foote as representing the cranky artiste types found in each century; sensitive to the zeitgeist, they presciently warn the elites of the coming danger, but are no more than impotent voyeurs as events progress and it all comes crashing down anyway.

A few nights ago, with the wind howling in a rare California thunder-and-hailstorm, I decided to reread TSBND in front of a roaring fire, with a glass of Ardbeg Uigeadail and a nice Davidoff cigar. The addition of von Weber’s weird piece made for a spooky backdrop indeed; happily my Kit Gun’s still snug in its case somewhere nearby.

Enjoy.

Continue reading

Posted in Enjoy the Decline, Friday Fiction, Have Gun, Will Travel | Leave a comment

Still Enjoying the Decline

Just a reminder of what I’m about nowadays; the sentiment’s still quite the same as when I quoted this Irish fellow.

As he seems to have taken his own advice and is off doing better things with his life than blogging, I’ll take the liberty to paste the entirety for reference as this thing accelerates.

You Fucking People Make Me Sick

So it be a damp enough day in de local boozer with the telly on and nigh on every cunt is that little bit langers. It’s a family gathering of sorts. Just a couple of pints and whatnot. So yeah, everybody is chatting away about this and that and ruggers and then, quick as a flash, the Cyprus thing comes up on the news. First I’ve heard of it. So I put my whiskey down. I edge towards the box and listen in to get the jist of what is going on. Turns out there is a fucking “tax” on deposits. I’m shocked, clearly. Clearly, these German cunts aint all sunshine and gravy en aw. So, amidst the fact that the EU did something more reminiscent of Soviet fucking Russia just there, the fact that Putin and friends are bleedin fuming away because Cyprus is a dirty moolah Russian oligarch sex party, and the simple, brutal point that if this is happening in Cyprus, it can happen here, I look around and try to get a reaction. Not a damn thing. Barely a whimper. Like I be saying, langers, just langers like. Lads and laddies get back to it thereafter, and suddenly I’m pounding back shots like no one’s business.

Later on, they have a feature on your one, eh, whats her name? The good looking lassie who is hitting the wall and married to Prince William of Beta? Yeah, well she got her heel stuck in an iron grate in this St Patrick’s Day presentation thing, and there was this big curfuffle and it was all amusing and shit. Every fiend in the pub got a good laugh out of it and the coldness set in. You fucking cunts. You blatantly ignore, the fact that a dubious organization went into another FUCKING COUNTRY’S SET OF BANKS, and skimmed the cream off of the top. Then some lassie gets her stiletto caught up and it is epic lozzlzlzlzlzlzlzlzlols for the whole family. Seeya later ye daft gobshites! All you sniveling lefties are more concerned with a bunch of lassies winning the grand slam. Bread and circuses? Corn and porn ken, corn and porn.

I look around. It’s nine o clock and this middle aged beure starts dancing, shaking her shaggy butt to Owner of a Lonely Heart. She’s pissed, and her children are averting their gaze big fucken style. I’ve been the right old barking up the wrong tree fella when it comes to saying that a lot of Irish people deserve what they got post housing bubble, and no no fucken know. Fuck you. You deserved it. And you know why you deserved it? You deserved it because when I was in a pub two days ago, it was more fucken important to watch some manjawed floozie embarrass herself and her children, and The Voice, the fucken VOICE, an Irish singalong competition with some Chernobly faced slapper, is more important than deposits being seized, people’s fucken money being stolen. But we must sees whod be fucking winning on the telly, roysh? Fuck me. Because this is huge fucking shit, huuuuuge fucken shite, life affirming lets come together right now in sweet harmony level we’d be chatting about. This is fuckin life ken. Choose life ken. It’s so hard to comprehend, to look up a fucking book for five fucking minutes and read the notes yourself, therefore reaching a logical conclusion. Jesus. It’s so hard, wah wah de fucken wah. Derpidy derpa derp. Yous all moan, and whinge and fucking piss around like no one’s business. About how the government should do this and Enda Kenny should do that and it is sad too see. But hehe, it’s really fucking funny too. So then some afterspecials party comes in. We leave. Me mam makes an interesting quip about the decline of culture. It’s hilarious. There is no culture. Reallys. How, utterly,fucking sad is it is that so called high end Irish culture is reading novels from privileged fucking faggots like Emma D and Colm Toibin who had their nice little cushy MA in English and stayed in their little D4 tower while writing their shitty fucken lesbian fiction and it’s courageous, so fucking courageous. Award! Award! Photo Photo! Aww. The privileged are killing me ken. You’re putting my fucking cousin on medication, a soon to be co dependent mess, because he got in a fight in school? There’s a reason that fucking Fight Club is the most important movie of the past 50 years ken. Go on, try and figure it out. It’s fucking extreme value theory and covariance matrices multiplied by set theory. It’s a gargantuan mindfuck. That one in particular is evil and in particular gets to me. Pure evil. And all you phenomenology lads “truth is relative” blah blah blah. No, fuck you. Evil is wretched. It exists, as clear as fucking day. It is the sad, the good gone awry, the fifty year old feminist, the videogame playing virgin. That, is evil.

This country has been infected. It’s been infected with the same nonsense that seem to be pirulating everywhere else. So, here is what I’m going to do. I’m going to get myself a nice comfy chair. I’m going to buy some cigars and drag some lassie back here. I’m going to watch all of you motherfuckers run the lemmings off of this cliff, and I’m in contact with all sorts. Ivory tower D4 cunts, you will formicate left right and centre ken, uhhh, we didn’t see this happen duhhhhhhhhhhhhhh, and it will be the funniest shit ever as Ireland gets cleared for a intergalactic motorway. This will be so much fun.

I told yous. STEM nerds having a tough time with women, I sent you fucking links to Roissy and the Roosh V forum and you talked shit behind my fucking back in order to get off with a lassie. You were fat and you asked for help and I sent you links to Chaos and Pain, Marks Daily Apple and loaned you a copy of Good Calories Baad Calories. And you still had the gall to moan and whinge and whine. Oh yeahhh man, Obama, a lazy entitled shit who never worked a day in his life, bread and circuses bread and circuses, free market, nah it’s all fucking nonsense. Vote him in. All this complain about the church holdin kids during de 70s and then you decide to vote in a children’s referendum that puts them as guineas to the state. My grandfather broke his fucking back burying dead bodies, in the hope his family, his lassie, his kids, would be worth something. And what the fuck do we have now? This degenerate culture where everything is a fucking shamrock atop of a house of cards. My family is big, really big. Feminism, you see the antagonism everywhere. When people you know are the embodiment of fucking death, then it gets a great deal darker. The cousin of yours who is gettin married to a woman eight years his senior? Everyone says it’s all gravy. But real life and statistics and down syndrome and miscarriages beg to differ. But they love each other. Newspeak. Marriage is not marriage.

You all fucking deserve what you get. You, me, we are not part of it. We are Ralph and it be getting to Lord of the Flies shit. I am going to tear my way through wine lassie and song like the last days of Rome and I am going to speak honestly, bluntly from now on. I hate lying. Not the asperery fucktard anymore, but if you ask me about race, and women, and economics, I’m going to be blunt with you. You’ll laugh when I tell you about ideological subversion, about pantheism and Christianity not being bullshit, about fat people, about the fact that Colm Toibin cannot write for turkey.

Last one left up, turn the light off.

Posted in Armageddon, By Ourselves, For Ourselves, Enjoy the Decline | 4 Comments

Within living memory we had a fairly uniform standard of living

I’d sort of intuitively remembered experiencing this, perhaps from my own observations while moving across the country as a kid more than most military brats:

Today, the story of America is largely the story of two economies — rural and urban. It was not always this way. The antitrust movement of the 1940s not only targeted giant firms, but was also an attempt to weaken regional centers that had amassed too much power. This largely worked and, by the mid 1970s, there was a fairly uniform American standard of living — being middle class in the Mideast was pretty much the same as middle class in New England. However, in the 1980s, many of the policies that helped ensure this balance between regions was neglected or reversed.

Emphasis mine. I’d not seen that concept (rising inequality, yadda yadda) stated quite that way before.

The quote’s from this very interesting article on Jonathan Tepper’s blog; hat tip to Arnold Kling for pointing him out.

Posted in The Economic Way of Thinking | 1 Comment

RIP Stephen Hawking

Steve Hsu has a nice post about Hawking, with good links to Roger Penrose’s obit and some reminiscences of Hsu’s personal encounters with the great man and his staff. (How many people can say they’ve carried Stephen Hawking?)

Hsu recalls the late-80s Hawking postulate about radiation being emitted from black holes — which would seem impossible by definition. I never knew the physics but remember very well reading an essay in a Baen sf and popular-science anthology (titled, I think, “BLACK HOLES!”) and the remarkable essay within citing Hawking for the statement (delivered, I am sure, with his wicked grin) that his theory meant Cthulhu was as likely to emerge from a black hole as anything else. Which almost made me switch my major (I was at UC Berkeley at the time) from Poli Sci and History to Astronomy. Almost.

RIP, Mr. Hawking, it was a thrill to have experience these decades of existence knowing  you were in them.

Posted in Heroes, Comrades and Brothers | 2 Comments

Everybody’s a MacGyver

MacGyver

If a lazy MacGyver just uses a gun, is a gun the lazy man’s MacGyver?

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And We’re Back!

As a quasi-test of my ability to embed stuff after almost a year’s absence, here’s a link on Twitter to David Hines’ awesome running list, followed by the video links to the ones I liked. The Gael was played at our wedding, but most of the rest are either new to me or were lost to memory, like that glorious one from “Thief” and the stirring “John Adams” title. (“The Legend of Dar” reminds me of my current background-music fave, which to leave the offseason NFL RedZone on the tube all day at high volume.) Enjoy.

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The Navy will be Trump’s Pearl Harbor

Stephen Hsu observes:

The strategic importance of the South China Sea and artificial islands constructed there is primarily to the ability of the US to cut off the flow of oil to PRC. The islands may enable PRC to gain dominance in the region and make US submarine operations much more difficult. US reaction to these assets is not driven by “international law” or fishing or oil rights, or even the desire to keep shipping lanes open. What is at stake is the US capability to cut off oil flow, a non-nuclear but highly threatening card it has (until now?) had at its disposal to play against China.

He also notes the vulnerability of the USN surface fleet to missile emplacements; modern missiles are to carriers as WWII carriers were to WWII battleships: the decisive vs. the obsolete.

Assume that’s so. How would Trump react to a Spratly or Paracel-based missile salvo sinking a carrier or a carrier group? Like FDR after Pearl. Decisive escalation. I predict we’d go nuclear immediately, and win. Which would suck, because it seems China is doing lots of the ballsy, Uber-like disruption in the sciences discussed here.

Trump wants a bigger Navy, for all the right reasons, but one side effect will be more targets tempting the Chinese to make a very bad mistake.

 

 

 

Posted in DWWFB, Life in the Atomic Age | 2 Comments