The Army Times recently published a post discussing some comments by Army Chief of Staff Mark Milley on current popular myths about war. I liked his comments very much, and I take them as my starting point in this article. More than anything else, we should see his remarks as a warning. The United States has not faced a military adversary worthy of the name since Vietnam, perhaps not even since China and North Korea in the early 1950s.
At the beginning of this month I bought the special director’s cut of the Michael Mann film Collateral. I don’t usually buy movies, having learned from past experience that it makes more sense to rent them. But every rule should have exceptions; and it is a good thing to collect those movies that transport you to a specific place or mood. And when you recall the mood, you revisit certain pleasurable sensations. There is just something about the way Collateral is shot, the way it glimmers, that gives it a cool but intense patina.
I recently picked up an interesting cookbook at a used book sale: George L. Thomson’s Traditional Irish Recipes. Thomson apparently traveled all over the country to select the most traditional representations of the nation’s cuisine. Hearty and relatively straightforward in preparation, many of these recipes make great additions to your kitchen arsenal. I’ve decided to present a few of them here. The average person may find it difficult to obtain traditional Irish ingredients like eel, cockles, nettle tops, and carragheen moss, so I’ve made an effort to pick recipes that are likely to be more practical. I’ve prepared each of these dishes and can tell you that they are very good.
When you are faced with a serious problem or issue, you need to spring into action to deal with it. Anyone who “sleeps on his rights,” and thinks the problem will go away by ignoring it, is in for a rude awakening. The “dirtbag shuffle” never works in the real world. Legal rights, once constructively waived, can be very difficult to reassert later. This is the basis of the legal theory of laches.
A central tenet of Theodore Roosevelt’s leadership was the idea that no one should be above the law. He was deeply troubled by excessive concentrations of wealth in the hands of a few; such a situation was, he knew, inimical to the interests of a democratic republic. He did not begrudge a man his wealth fairly earned, but he believed that the accumulation of vast treasure should not come at the expense of the public good. The super-rich could not plunder at will and, at the same time, expect the public to operate under a different set of rules. What especially galled Roosevelt was the arrogant way that the “captains of industry” of his day expected to reap all the benefits of the American economic system while feeling bound by no reciprocal duties to it.
One of the apparent corollaries of the maxim that “character determines fate” is that character is static and unchangeable. In the majority of cases this is undoubtedly true; but this truth should not be used as a license for us to lie supinely on our backs and let the swerve of the atoms in the void determine our future. As volitional beings, we must act. Forward movement is one of the imperatives of masculine virtue. The negative personality takes refuge in the apparent indifference of the universe; but the active man, the healthy man, is too busy with his own affairs to fret over such exculpatory abstractions. Each of us is responsible for his own fate. Having accepted this, we will now ask how character can be modified to suit the will.
By 1810 Napoleon was the master of continental Europe. He had been unable to force the British to accept an accommodation, but nevertheless remained confident that his “Continental System” would bring the recalcitrant islanders to heel. The system, in effect a massive blockade, forbade European merchants from having any economic intercourse with Britain. Prussia and Austria had been forced to accept the system in 1807 and 1809, and Napoleon was determined to make the Russians accept it as well.
We have earlier stated that anecdotes often reveal more about a man’s thinking and character than might a long recounting of his deeds. About Abraham Lincoln many stories have been told, some no doubt apocryphal, others not. I will present here a few true anecdotes that most readers are not likely to be familiar with; they shed revelatory light on Lincoln’s character, and how his leadership gifts were powerful in their own understated way.
Fakhr al-Din al-Razi (1149–1210) was a Persian theologian and philosopher whose fecundity was only surpassed by his depth of understanding of various disciplines. He is credited with over one hundred works, although it is likely that this number was considerably higher. Learned in astronomy, philosophy, theology, chemistry, and a variety of other subjects, he was also said to have been a man of great humanity and understanding. His inclinations were rationalist and scientific; for this reason he found more to his liking in the natural sciences than in airy theological speculations.
Quintus Curtius 
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