If someone were to select the most forgotten and God-forsaken theater of the Second World War, he would unhesitatingly point to the Burmese theater, assuming he even knew it existed. In this obscure country, hard-pressed and dreadfully neglected British forces fought a tenacious campaign against the Japanese that deserves to be far better known. The general who led the fighting there must rank as one of the least appreciated commanders of the war: William Slim.
The stories of forgotten weapons make for interesting reading. One such weapon was Britain’s “De Lisle carbine,” which remains one of the more obscure small arms stories of the Second World War. It is perhaps the most quiet weapon ever produced. Very few of them were made, and its full service record will probably never be fully known. But it does have an interesting story behind it and deserves more recognition than it has received.
Columnist Andrew Bacevich recently wrote an article for the Dallas Morning New entitled “Why America’s All Volunteer Force Fails To Win Wars.” The article makes the point that something is seriously wrong with the US military. While most of the article is couched in politically-correct innuendo and a studied avoidance of the real problems, it at least has the merit of pointing out the obvious. And this is that the military has sold out the martial virtues, and replaced them with something else.
[To read the rest of the article, click here.]
I interview Ace Johnson, the co-founder of the knife manufacturing company Delta2Alpha, about his recent extended trip to Tasmania. Great experiences and adventure…with a 18 mile march to the airport thrown in for good measure.
Here’s something for you to start (or end) your week with. I hope it speaks to you.
It resonates with me, and celebrates some of the themes of Fortress of the Mind.
I had the good fortune recently to speak with James Seehafer, the founder of the artistic school known as massurrealism. A fellow New Englander, Seehafer studied at Parsons School Of Design. He then began exhibiting his paintings in the northeast, including Boston and New York City (specifically in the Lower East Side). His work was received favorably in New York, and his paintings were displayed alongside the works of Jean Michel Basquiat and Keith Haring. In 2005 he relocated to Berlin, Germany to continue working in photography and paint. As James began to use more mass media elements in his work–including photography, video, and advertising–he coined the term massurrealism in the early 1990s. The term was a necessary and accurate one, since no existing coinage adequately described the type of art he was producing. Continue reading
Happy Thanksgiving! I hope the next few days will be a time for reflection and relaxation.
And thanks for joining us in our next lecture on Stoic Paradoxes. In this lecture, we discuss some of the most critical doctrines in Stoic ethics:
The Sufi order called Qadiri was founded by Abdul Qadir Gilani Al Amoli (1077–1166). He was born at Nif, which lies to the south of the Caspian Sea. The Qadiriyya Order is a large one and has many adherents in the Islamic world.
There is a teaching story that I came across recently that reminded me of some of the stories told by the Stoics. It stands for the idea that the right thing must be done for the right reason; and that actions without pure motives remain worthless.
I have adapted this story from Indries Shah’s The Way of the Sufi.
A peasant once planted come vines out of a desire to create something beautiful and produce something of worth. But the vines he planted were the type of vine that only bore fruit after many years.
I often get questions on book recommendations. People will ask me, “What book do you recommend for learning about XYZ historical event?”
Or they will say, “What book do you recommend for learning about XYZ philosophy?”
Or whatever.
And this is fine. I always am happy to give my opinion. I like to discuss, to critique, and to analyze, because this is how the forward movement of knowledge works.
I’m not a big Sherlock Holmes fan. Some of the stories are amusing, but I never really warmed to the character. (I do like Arthur Conan Doyle’s science fiction and suspense stories, but that’s a separate conversation).
Anyway, about Sherlock Holmes. He used to have a saying that “Passion was the enemy of precision.” And it can be, certainly.
But other things are enemies of precision, too. One of them is more insidious than passion. It is delusion.
What is delusion?
Delusion is the failure or inability to see the reality that is before our eyes. Delusion is the blocking out of information that does not conform to our pre-existing beliefs.
Delusion is all to common. It can be a killer.
Quintus Curtius 
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