The Bosque Boys

New Year's Eve my wife and I went to dinner and a move. (Our 29th wedding anniversary) We saw National Treasure: Book of Secrets.

It is an enjoyable movie, a thrill ride of clues and places and treasure. If you liked the first National Treasure, you probably will like this one. Since the movie depends on twists and turns and breakneck speed, I will try not to provide any spoilers. I do, however, want to comment on the hero, the Nicolas Cage character Franklin Gates.

In many ways, he is an old-fashioned hero. He is determined to defend his family honor by proving the innocence of a maligned ancestor. He is loyal to his father and his friends. With the exception of "necessary" deceptions to sneak into places not open to the public, he is an honest man. And he keeps his word, even to the villain of the movie. Not to mention that Gates is brave, resourceful, and determined. And, he loves his country in an old fashioned way. He is that rare thing from Hollywood, a character you would be a better person for imitating.

But, here is the new-fashioned part. In the beginning of the movie we learn that Franklin Gates has been living with Abigail Chase, the curator he met in the first movie. And that she has kicked him out and changed the locks. Not surprisingly for the old-fashioned tone of the movie, man gets woman back by the end. But, instead of a marriage proposal, she tells him he can move back in.

I guess I should just be grateful that we have a hero to emulate in most ways.

1. Next year, unless I'm on really good meds, I may destroy store speakers playing Christmas music in October. Market Capitalism has won. Christmas, one of the old and important Christian festivals, in honor of the birth of the Messiah, fully human and fully divine, has been taken over by his archenemy Mammon.

2. I am noticing more and more people celebrating Christmas away from "home" in any sense: resorts, cruises, etc. Christmas started off being a festival of the churches and streets, then in 19th century America was moved into the homes, and now is being moved into entertainment venues. I guess since we now produce so little in the home--at Christmas buying all our candy and cookies and fruitcake and gifts--it is no surprise if we choose to purchase a holiday experience.

3. The weather this year gave more Americans a White Christmas. (Bring on the Al Gore jokes.) One cold winter does not disprove Global Warming. Watch the averages over the years, especially the average lows. Of course the earth's temperature has fluctuated throughout the history of the planet. That is not the issue. The issue is: is human activity affecting planetary temperatures along with natural factors? I am not aware of any scientist who questions the model--Carbon Dioxide helps to retain heat in the atmosphere. And, I do not know anyone who credibly doubts that humans have poured increasing amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since industrialization started. So, have we put enough CO2 into the air to affect temperatures? That is the question. And since this is our only planet, let's be careful with it and err on the side of caution. In a century or so, saying "oops" could be a very bad thing.

4. I watched several Christmas specials this year, including some I had not seen before such as the movies The Polar Express and Elf. "You've got to believe!" In what? The "spirit of Christmas"? What is that? When Christmas is separated from the Christian Holy Day of Christ's birth, then what is there to be merry about?

If I Were the King of the Sports World--(to the tune of If I Were the King of the Forest).

Major League Baseball:

[1] Random, unannounced, year-round drug tests on all players, majors and minors; one full season suspension for a failed test, lifetime ban for two positive tests; draft penalties for franchises with more than two players testing positive in a year. I might need to break the Players Union to do this, but so be it.

[2] The Major-League season goes to 154 regular season games. The world series must be over before October 20. The season may not start any earlier than it does now. Figure it out.

[3] All stadiums must be natural grass by 2020. Figure it out.

[4] All bats must be wooden, till the end of time.

[5] No designated hitter, ever again.

[6] Salary caps per team, to be negotiated. Hiring a Free Agent will require a cash payment to the former team.

[7] Each team must play at least 40 day games at home per regular season.

[8] Each major-league team must have a bleacher section seating at least 300 priced at no more than $5 per ticket.

[9] Each team must provide adequate security, including arrests by uniformed officers of serious troublemakers. One arrest results in a ban the rest of the season. The second arrest bans the offender from stadium for two consecurive full-seasons after the season in which the offense occurs. Three strikes and the ban is lifetime.

[10] All World-Series games will be day games.

The summer of '75 I listened a lot to the band Spirit. I am not sure why. In the '70s I was even more into jazz than I am now, and I remain a huge fan. But, a friend turned me on to Spirit, a band described in enotes as

Beginning in one of the most fertile periods of American rock music, Spirit created some of the most memorable music of the past three decades, outlasting many pop music trends along the way. With its eclectic musical mix of rock, jazz, blues, and folk influences, Spirit was one of the premier West Coast rock bands to emerge during the late 60s. Although the band never reached superstar status, it has maintained a dedicated following. Spirit's musical activities came to a premature and tragic end with the accidental death of leader and guitarist Randy California in 1997.

One of the reasons they "never achieved superstar status" was a management decision to send them on a tour of radio stations instead of to play Woodstock.

Some clips from YouTube, listening to them I have '70s flashbacks:

Fresh Garbage one of their earliest songs, and Taurus

1984

Nature's Way

Mr. Skin

Spirit: The Video History, Part 1

On Saturday night The University of Missouri Tigers will play The University of Oklahoma Sooners for the football championship of the Big 12. Missouri comes in ranked number 1 in the nation, coached by Gary Pinkel.

This is what he had to say this week about the Sooners. From The Columbia Missourian.

"Our players and staff have tremendous respect for Oklahoma,” Missouri coach Gary Pinkel said during Monday’s teleconference. “You have to. They’re a first-class program. They’re well coached. They recruit well. And they’re accomplished. That being said, that’s also great motivation to play your best game. So I think that (our) focus and intensity is directly because of the great football team that they are, the great program they are.” Pinkel also knows that Oklahoma has the upper hand in playing big-stakes games. “Oklahoma has been in the national championship, and they’ve been through all those experiences,” Pinkel said. “This is just another game for them.”

Here is an observation from Don Borst of Fox Sports: You know what we like about Missouri's Gary Pinkel? That he doesn't overshadow his players the way so many other successful coaches do. Yes, he's in some ways a vanilla guy, but his teams have never played like that.

And from Mike DeArmond of the Kansas City Star: Two Saturdays past, with fewer than 5 minutes left in Missouri’s blowout victory at Colorado, Tigers starting quarterback Chase Daniel stood on the sideline, watching Gary Pinkel squirm. Missouri wasn’t about to lose a game it led 48-10. The Tigers had the football on the Colorado 3. But Daniel looked at a coach who seemed to be in agony as reserve MU tailback Derrick Washington slashed into the end zone for a touchdown. “Man, Chase,” Pinkel said. “I feel really bad about even scoring 55.” “Coach,” Daniel responded. “We’re running the football (almost) every down. We can’t just take a knee.” The thing was, Pinkel almost would have preferred he’d ordered that ploy. While he again went out of his way Monday not to criticize Kansas for hanging 76 points on Nebraska or Nebraska burying Kansas State with 73 points … Pinkel said he had friends in the coaching profession who did that. Well, Gary Pinkel can’t ever see himself doing that. “I’m just telling you what I believe,” Pinkel said. “I believe we’re not here to humiliate coaches and opposing players.”

And if I read the tables on the latest NCAA graduation-rate data correctly, the entering Missouri freshmen football players of 2000-01 (the latest group for which data is available) had a 65% graduation rate. The rate for all MU students in that cohort was 69%. Pinkel came to Missouri in 2001, so this class was under his leadership beginning their second year. The Missouri football program's graduation rate is right at the national average for D-1 programs. Their Saturday night opponent, the Sooners, have a 44% football graduation rate. (Baylor has an 84% football graduation rate., The University of Texas 44%, and Texas A&M 62%)

Working through the difficult years of life demonstrates and develops character. Pinkel has had some tough times while at Mizzou, but has persevered.

If Missouri is ever stupid enough to fire Pinkel, I hope Baylor can get him.

Here is his official biography from the University of Missouri website.

Both Farmer and I have a soft-spot for the Rocky movies and for Sylvester Stallone. As we have pointed out, the theme of redemption figures strongly in the Rocky series.

See this excellent review of Rocky Balboa by Farmer, which contains this paragraph on the original Rocky movie:

But this is a story of redemption. The opening shot frames the story under a giant wall painting of Jesus, who stares down upon a fight matching a hulking Rocky, sleep-walking through another bout, on the way to his twenty-first career loss, against a less-gifted opponent, Spider Rico. But Rico makes a mistake. In control of the fight, he intentionally and gratuitously head-butts our hero, which brings Rocky alive to quickly pummel the offender into a stupor.

I wrote about Stallone's recent return to the Roman Catholicism of his upbringing in this post. The opening paragraph: Sylvester Stallone is reaching out to the churches to publicize his new movie. As he does this he is sharing his story of faith and redemption. A report and response to a conference call with Stallone here from Focus on the Family. Link from Drudge.

Now comes word that another Stallone character, John Rambo, may be seeking his own redemption. The Daily Mail (UK) summarizes the upcoming Rambo movie thusly.

In the latest instalment, Rambo finds himself recruited by a group of Christian human rights missionaries to protect them against pirates, during a humanitarian aid delivery to the persecuted Karen people of Burma. After some of the missionaries are taken prisoner by sadistic Burmese soldiers, Rambo gets a second impossible job: to assemble a team of mercenaries to rescue the surviving relief workers

Story here. I look forward to Farmer's review of this movie when it comes out. We'll see if John Rambo finds peace.

In our recent discussion of Cormac McCarthy, Bosque Boys reader(s) "Bob and Merrill" expressed reservations about calling No Country for Old Men "literature."

I have not read McCarthy--but I can tell you that Shelby Foote was a big fan. Of course, the brilliant Foote was also a huge fan of William Faulkner, which I am not, and a big fan of Marcel Proust, whom McCarthy reportedly detests.

Literature is subjective, to say the least...

One item on which we can hopefully all agree, however, is that Stephen King, while entertaining at times, ranks well short of the greats of American letters.

But you wouldn't know that from listening to him.

From TIME Magazine this week (which Drudge posted yesterday), King explains why he is more valuable and relevant than Britney Spears:

"Britney Spears and Lindsay Lohan aren't cultural. They aren't political. They're economic only in the mildest sense of the word."

"Britney Spears is just trailer trash. That's all. I mean, I don't mean to be pejorative. But you observe her behavior for the past five years and you say, here's a lady who can't take care of her kids, she can't take care of herself, she has no retirement fund, everything that she gets runs right through her hands.

"And yet, you know and I know that if you go to those sites that tell you what the most blogged-about things on the Internet are, it's Britney, it's Lindsay."

TIME interjects: "[but] Britney Spears...[is] still fairly young. When you were young, fame sort of screwed you up a bit, didn't it?"

King again: "The difference is that Britney is now famous for being famous. Her sales have gone down with almost every album, bigger and bigger jumps, so that nobody really cares about her music anymore. They care about the tabloid headlines and whether or not she's wearing panties. I mean, is this an issue that the American public needs to turn its brainpower on? Britney Spears' lingerie, or lack thereof?"

Does Stephen King have himself confused with William Shakespeare?

For the entire tragically self-important and self-deluded exchange, view here.

The movie, No Country for Old Men is based on the Cormac McCarthy novel of the same title. I confess I have not yet read him, but make a premature New Year's Resolution to do so. He perhaps is the current most important American novelist. (yeah, I know, that title doesn't mean as much as it did) Biography here. Harold Bloom regards him as one of America's most important contemporary writers.

McCarthy's novels look unflinchingly at human evil and violence, but not in ways that glorify these things. So say the critics.

His latest novel is The Road, and I recommend this review, by the consistently good James Vanden Bosch.

Other movies made out of Cormac McCarthy novels-- All the Pretty Horses, as well as Blood Meridian and The Road, both in production.

This past Saturday afternoon, November 17, about 100 members of our community gathered in the warm fall Oklahoma sunshine to dedicate the new Veterans' Park on the north edge of town, at the highway intersection.

Led by the Chamber of Commerce, and involving other organizations, our town of Apache chose to observe the Oklahoma Centennial by building a new park in honor of our veterans. The county brought in fill dirt to create a circle perhaps 40 feet in diameter at the level of the highway. A contractor poured concrete, then memorial bricks were laid to form the surface, each containing the name of a veteran with dates of service. A stone memorial was placed in the center, inscribed with the names of 30 sons of our town, and the surrounding countryside, who either died in service, or were POWs. The population of Apache is less than 2000.

The first name is that of CPL Roy L. Rinker, U.S. Army, World War 1, Died of Wounds Oct. 5, 1918. The most recent death inscribed is that of CPL Joshua J. Ware, U.S. Marine Corps, War on Terrorism, Killed in Action Nov. 16, 2005. (I posted about his funeral here.) Also on the stone, LT Pascal C. Poolaw, Sr., U.S. Army, Vietnam War, Killed in Action Nov. 7, 1967. He remains the most decorated Native American to have served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Among the POWs, SSG Bruce W. Klinekole, U.S. Army, World War II, POW Apr 9, 1942 to Sep 1, 1945. He survived the Bataan Death March and was liberated from a Japanese prison camp in Manchuria. A complete list of names is below the fold.

A week or two before the dedication volunteers spent most of a Saturday laying sod, planting bushes and trees, erecting two flagpoles, and installing lights.

We gathered on the 17th as an Army brass quintet from Ft. Sill played. A welcome was given, a prayer offered, the National Anthem sung, guests introduced, participating organizations recognized, and the history of the project related. Then Lanny Asepermy, a member of the Comanche Indian Veterans' Association and retired Army Sergeant Major, read the names of those on the monument. As he does whenever he speaks on behalf of veterans, Lanny said: "Only two defining forces have offered to die for you--one is Jesus Christ for your soul. The other is the American soldier for your freedom." A gun salute was fired, and taps played. Two state legislators and a National Guard Brigadier General spoke briefly. Then we adjourned to the Community Center for refreshments.

As I sat in the crowd, two voices ran through my mind. I heard Merle sing in his voice at once common and profound:

We don't our burn draft cards down on Main Street
'Cause we like living right and being free

I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee
A place where even squares can have a ball
We still wave Old Glory down by the court house
And white lightning's still the biggest thrill of all

And I heard words from another November day, at another dedication; words delivered in a high-pitched voice that carried the sound of Kentucky in it, spoken on a ridge in south-central Pennslvania decades before I was born.

Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal. Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation or any nation so conceived and so dedicated can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field as a final resting-place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this. But in a larger sense, we cannot dedicate, we cannot consecrate, we cannot hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead who struggled here have consecrated it far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living rather to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us--that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion--that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain, that this nation under God shall have a new birth of freedom, and that government of the people, by the people, for the people shall not perish from the earth.

May God grant us strength so to resolve in our generation.

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Josef Pieper, the Thomist philospher and professor at the University of Munster, wrote

As we all know, under [the conditions of tyranny] no one dares to trust anyone else. Candid communication dries up; and there arises that special kind of unhealthy wordlessness which is not silence so much as muteness. This is what happens to human intercourse under the peculiar pressures of dictatorship. Under conditions of freedom, however, human beings speak uninhibitedly to one another. How illuminating this contrast is! For in the face of it, we suddenly become aware of the degree of human closeness, mutual affirmation, communion, that resides in the simple fact that people listen to each other.

Every healthy community puts some boundaries on free speech: no incitement to riot or shouting of fire where there is none. Such restrictions are not tyranny, rather they are the protection of liberty against anarchy. Similarly healthy communities have protections against libel, and requirements for truth, such as in court proceedings. Again, these are not hinderances but aids to ordered liberty. Communities may even hold some words and phrases to be slanderous in and of themselves, offensive to human dignity, and not to be used, such as the N word. Again, restrictions such as this are not tyrannical, but safeguards of true liberty, for their use historically has been to restrict the freedom of those so termed.

But, for healthy community to flourish, as Dr. Pieper points out, people must be free to speak and willing to listen. Conversely, an unhealthy muteness replaces genuine community when under tyranny people are afraid to speak. I think he here specifically refers to our own testimony to events, experiences, perceptions, and especially to ideas.

Of the many bad effects the tyranny of "political correctness" brings, I think the worst is the destruction of human community as we lapse into unhealthy wordlessness over certain issues. Farmer recently pointed out the Cost of Free Speech. What he meant, of course, were the consequences of raising forbidden perceptions and ideas: censure, career damage, labelling. Because of these consequences, most simply do not speak about certain things, becoming mute. And certainly those who are "enlightened" will not listen to another human being if forbidden perceptions or ideas are spoken. Human community is destroyed. Trust is lost.