My Sunday Sermon

A girl I love married an astute man, and I sometimes discuss government with him, mostly in an effort to cleanse him of a few notions which I find insufficiently anti-statist.

When ever I think of him and of government in the same paragraph, I am heartened,  even though he still insists it is good that taxpayers underwrite athletic stadiums. That is because, in a fit of disgust at theocratic politicians, a disgust I share, he once remarked loudly that these guys do not comprehend that "a government is not a religion."

Leading us to this morning's text.

Which opens thusly:

Whereas, Almighty God hath created the mind free; that all attempts to influence it by temporal punishments or burthens, or by civil incapacitations tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness...


Out of rhetorical compassion, I  omit the remainder of my written harangue this Sabbath. 

Transition

The first substantial fire of the season dances in the wood burner. This annual milestone marks the first day of the year when I begin consuming wood faster than I cut and split it.

If a man can put aside thoughts of approaching continental winter at 43 north,  this is a fine time. A few sticks of maple raise the Camp J quarters  to near 80 degrees, even with a couple of  windows open to the fresh air.  Altogether pleasant.

There will come a day when the  body revolts at the brute labor of wood, and I will join the fossil-fuel world.  I will miss the subtle hint of wood smoke. It is one of the great atavistic delights.

You can quit worrying about your credit card debts.  His Obamaness rides to the rescue, another czar in tow.  

Elizabeth Warren will organize a new consumer protection bureau to shield  Americans who can't read contracts from  the wrath of credit card companies who wish to have debts repaid.

We are cheered to observe that she is a Harvard professor, hence prefectly qualified to function within the Ministry of Plenty.
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We fired our guns and the Commies kept acomin'...

November, 1950, on the road to Chosin Reservoir, Marine Lieutenant James Stemple's Able Company holds a position against the Chinese Communists.* The Chicoms charge.

"We thought they were on drugs, the way they kept coming at us. I shot this one charging soldier four times in the chest and saw the white padding fly out the back of his jacket,  but he didn't drop until he had thrown his grenade. Our little carbine didn't have  nearly the stopping power of the M-1 rifle. A direct hit with an M-1 round would knock anybody on his ass.  Still,  four carbine rounds. Kept coming. "

Th  lieutenant might be a hard sell for the 5.56 crowd today. I know, the modern service round isn't to be compared to the  Mr. Pistol carbine ammunition, but some fellows' experience just makes it hard for them to buy into the zen of less as more.

Lunch time reading, so no link.  Russ, Martin.  Breakout, The  Chosin Reservoir Campaign, Penguin, New York, 1999. pp. 40-41.


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*By this time even MacArthur's intelligence section was willing to admit the Chinese were in the war.