press integrity
I chatted with Hue Nibley once about the integrity of the press. He spoke of an experience just before the D-day invasion, they took requests from the press as to which units they would like to ride into the invasion with. The invasion was outlined and each group was shown, so that home town or reader base could be catered to. At the end of the briefing they told the gathered civilian newsmen that any leak would cost lives and they trusted them to go back to their hotels and wait for the call of the launch without letting on to their home papers/news services etc. The whole press corps lived up to the trust and there was no leak. The attack was delayed because of bad weather and still no leak. The call went out and the invasion was on, and still no leak. When allied command held a press conference an said the invasion was on, the news broke. Makes you wonder what happen in the 60 years that have intervened. Now we hear the press brake their stories with , having obtained the documents from some other press outlet we feel it out obligation to brake this previously top secret government document that was treasonably obtained and will probably cost lives , but we didn't steel it and we are not the first to make it available soo... blah blah right after this hugely profitable add runs that we surcharge to be played between the brake lead and the story body...
Tuesday, April 26, 2011
A new Aztec religion, based on the delusional conception gathered from cartoons on how to save the world and balance the karma of the morning shows and talking heads...
I have an overwhelming desire to assert my religious rights and start a new religion. First a bit of background.
Reading the federalist papers and other writings of the day to argue the necessity of the first ten amendments it becomes obvious that they were to be applied with the same even tempered hand. One cannot say the first is absolute freedom of the press no matter what and turn and restrict the others to fit ones whims. As an aside it is also clear that the second amendment is to grant that the population is freely armed so that a militia can be raised fully equipped from the general population against all enemies including the government if it becomes necessary. It's the background threat that keeps the ambitions of the "king men" at bay. ( but that is a whole nuther rant)
A new Aztec religion, conked others, cut out and offer beating hart as sacrifice.
If I am wrong about the absolute exercise of the first amendment as it is espoused by the press and their supporters, let me join the happy throng and help push the boundaries they hold so dear and limitless, apply that logic to religion and my free exercise of a religious pageant display of faith and message. It's just religious art and my way of writing my message on the publics conscious that I exercise with a knife on an alter, live for the news to binge in .
I need to go to Florida grab the Koran burner (Paster Terry Jones) and use the same freedom that he uses to endangers troops . If it's his freedom of press/free speech and religion that lets him act out then that same freedom should let me exercise my religion (then will the absolutist say that they hate what I do, but will defend my right to my speech/press/religion as I see it) , and don't get me started on the leak that needs started in wikieleaks founders (Julian Paul Assange) chest. Let the westbroro Baptist protest at that funeral so I can add them to the list.
Manson didn't do it, helter skelter and all, he cased it to happen and our system says it's the same. Should we let Charlie have a net broadcast and TV show and vote and guns, or should we make some reckless endangerment arrests and tell a few people they have pushed the boundary of polite society too far?
If I just use the arguments used to assert the presses absolute rights of speech and apply them to my new religion... what a trash world it would be... I know in some ways it's an argument to absurdity but the problem is that there are at least three examples of how absurd the way of things has gotten and the lives and peace of mind of many have been put at risk by letting them push the limits to absurdity, I might not be able to define it well but I know it when I see it, stop screaming slippery slope at me and clean up these crazies before more problems are created, or tune in to the happy Manson shows latest tweet...
If you look where we are going you will see where we will end up.
I have an overwhelming desire to assert my religious rights and start a new religion. First a bit of background.
Reading the federalist papers and other writings of the day to argue the necessity of the first ten amendments it becomes obvious that they were to be applied with the same even tempered hand. One cannot say the first is absolute freedom of the press no matter what and turn and restrict the others to fit ones whims. As an aside it is also clear that the second amendment is to grant that the population is freely armed so that a militia can be raised fully equipped from the general population against all enemies including the government if it becomes necessary. It's the background threat that keeps the ambitions of the "king men" at bay. ( but that is a whole nuther rant)
A new Aztec religion, conked others, cut out and offer beating hart as sacrifice.
If I am wrong about the absolute exercise of the first amendment as it is espoused by the press and their supporters, let me join the happy throng and help push the boundaries they hold so dear and limitless, apply that logic to religion and my free exercise of a religious pageant display of faith and message. It's just religious art and my way of writing my message on the publics conscious that I exercise with a knife on an alter, live for the news to binge in .
I need to go to Florida grab the Koran burner (Paster Terry Jones) and use the same freedom that he uses to endangers troops . If it's his freedom of press/free speech and religion that lets him act out then that same freedom should let me exercise my religion (then will the absolutist say that they hate what I do, but will defend my right to my speech/press/religion as I see it) , and don't get me started on the leak that needs started in wikieleaks founders (Julian Paul Assange) chest. Let the westbroro Baptist protest at that funeral so I can add them to the list.
Manson didn't do it, helter skelter and all, he cased it to happen and our system says it's the same. Should we let Charlie have a net broadcast and TV show and vote and guns, or should we make some reckless endangerment arrests and tell a few people they have pushed the boundary of polite society too far?
If I just use the arguments used to assert the presses absolute rights of speech and apply them to my new religion... what a trash world it would be... I know in some ways it's an argument to absurdity but the problem is that there are at least three examples of how absurd the way of things has gotten and the lives and peace of mind of many have been put at risk by letting them push the limits to absurdity, I might not be able to define it well but I know it when I see it, stop screaming slippery slope at me and clean up these crazies before more problems are created, or tune in to the happy Manson shows latest tweet...
If you look where we are going you will see where we will end up.
Friday, February 26, 2010
What caused 9/11 persa vs The West
The sad truth of what we did wrong.
There are several ways to tell the story.
Like trying to explain that Sam Houston beat Santa Anna not at San Jacito but in England because Wellington defeated Napoleon not at Waterloo but years earlier on the playing fields of Eaton. This will be only the briefest of stories, with more left out than included and an understanding of rugby would help. In the end I will tell them the way I learned them at my mothers knee. I should note that she learned them as I did, as a child from her father who was also Dr Mylonas.
Grandfather has said in lecture that one of the biggest errors in judging the founding Greeks is our unwillingness to except them at face value. We cling to some Edwardian/Darwinian view that we must be at the peek of everything and it all gets simpler and worse and smaller as we move back in time until we end with stone age workers in caves. An exception we somehow accept that maybe Pythagoras could have invented geometry, and perhaps Aristotle may have laid the basis for all the divisions of modern science, but we balk at the possibility that Greek generals could have developed sophisticated tactics or that Greek historians could count. Okay, so the Golden Age could provide geometry and apply it to demonstrate the earth was a sphere and approximate it's size, but the tactics at Marathon must be luck and Thermopylae could never have been two and a half million held off by three hundred. I'll tell the stories the way Greek children have for generations with pride in the heroes that shaped the future and knew their place in it. Achilles was told that he could stay home and live to a ripe old age and die in peace with his descendents around him or he could go to an almost pointless war against Troy, be critical in the destruction of that civilization, die in glorious battle and be spoken of in awe for all of history. Achilles went to war and his name is still legend. OK so this story started with a conversation on a train. My conductor's son was given an assignment at school that did not sit well. the ,and I hope well meaning, young man's teacher (and this was shortly after 9/11) had assigned the students to write on what we as Americans had done to so offend the Moslem world that they wanted to destroy us. This sat poorly with the family as it implied that it was our fault that mass murders were committed in our skies and streets. I was at the time working on an explanation of the Spartans at Thermopylae for my own son so I explained that the problem started long ago but had a dramatic and pivotal experience in the 492 to 480 BC (and incidentally per Moslem) time frame. The unique social and philosophical activity that was the golden period of Greece. The spin off of the creative maelstrom was pouring out all over the world. Greek math, geometry, science, biology, modal logic every thing from the basis of scientific method to the subjection of religion from poetry and prose through the theater and politics The reaction in the ancient world was mixed as to the new inventions of intellect and culture (then as now). From the envy in Rome that would end in carrying off the remaining teachers to Rome. To the heart of our problem. The Persians were so offended that Greek language, math even the very basis of thinking logic were Greek and displacing Persian way of life all over the world even to intruding into the royal courts. The jealousy of the dominance of Greek culture (and all Western culture today) due to its superior format for progress became a driving force in a movement to dominate Greece and suppress its cultural expansion and influence. One cannot assert that ones culture and religion are dominant if there are bigger and better in the world. When Athens helped the revolts in Asia minor( Turkey to those who do not understand the Greek\Turkey thing) Darius is so affronted that he orders a slave assigned to interrupt him three times at every meal with 'Sir remember the Athenians.' Darius sends his nephew to carry out the kings vengeance with some 200000 soldiers under arms plus entourages. The first Persian army of genocide\culture erasure carefully records its travels as it moves toward Athens, records that come in handy after their failure for the second army's attempt at cultural erasure. The path was well trodden. Not only did it follow well established trade routes but in the first case if we assume only one for one support to warriors the first movement was almost half a million people on the march and the latter approached seven million. Xerxes would have, describing his army of extermination/retribution, his historians state that this number had previously been applied to the size of nations and races but never before to an army. Historians both Persian and other, record the massive movement that drank rivers dry. They made lakes disappear and removed whole cities that were en route. A city of fifty thousand was large by ancient standards but you cannot walk seven million people through/over a city and expect anything to remain . 2500 years later satellite images of the route show the road with its bed cut wide to admit the massive movement.
Two hundred thousand men at arms on the move to Athens, not that her army or citizens were not terrified of there fate but they would not live on if the price were slavery. The plane of Marathon would hold the Persian army encamped at the north eastern side south of a swamp and on the down hill side. The Persians did not have the ideal location, however they had no worries as they out numbered the Athenian army who held the high ground and blocked the passes needed to move south and expunge the offence.Herodotus tells us the Athenian commander Miltiades the younger was well versed in Persian tactics of a strong center and of the lead troops being first to the plunder. The Greek army formed up at dawn every day in a pattern that seemed born for the Persian army. Two wings with reserves that moved together with what appeared to be a weak center. the Persians formed a spear head, best in the center deepest reserves behind them. On the fifth day the bottled up Persians see the Greek army form up. At dawn they do the unthinkable they attacked the Persians, not only attacked, but the charge was at a run. As the wave crashed into the Persians. The strength of the Persians pressed forward and forced its was through the week center the path clear to the now undefended pass and 23 miles to plunder Athens. The army rejoiced looked forward to plundering the city and took off at a spirited pace without looking back at the mop up operation the reserves would engage in whilst they sacked the wealth of Athens in glorious pillage. Had they looked back they would have seen three things happen at once, the wings closed cutting the army in two. a runner, Phidippides by name, was singled to run ahead of the Persians and tell the citizens the plan had worked and to send the reserve troops to guard the port and ignore the pillagers, the third and most dangerous was a special force loosed on the backs of the expectant would be pillagers. Special to the reserves were two groups of troops. The record says they were dressed as Olympic athletes (the games were held as a male only events with the participants nude) made up of men who were fathers of children living in the city. Armed only with a sword and knowing that the safety of their children was in there hands. We are told that as the bulk of the army pushed the Persians into the swamp and slaughter. These reserves comprising two groups of two hundred fell on the backs on the happy hapless spearhead at a run! The desperate fathers caught and killed the ten thousand some pride of Persia, even as the lead messenger, having fought in the initial feint, then discarded his weapons and ran ahead of the would be sackers with news that the plan had worked, then to die of his exertions and go on to join Achilles in Hades and history. When the remnant of the Persian army swung in on the port it found Greek solders on the walls and docks and turned back to home mostly empty and humiliated in defeat. The Greek army left behind drove those who had not panicked into the swamp and death, or into the sea where the navy was missing as it had gone off to assist in the pillaging . death everywhere , Greek death, heroes in glory, and opponents in humiliating slaughter. The swamp, the sea, screaming naked sword wielders running them down and long spears and archers on the formidable docks. It was the Greek way heroes and slaughter. Do I digress and tell you an old wives tale here, as the victorious runners are carried into the city, one of the mothers waiting is given the news, her son died on the field, in reaction she takes her life. a tragedy you say in your non Greek way. In the temple of Athena it is said that those who die as heroes go to Hades and on their first night dine at a table with all the other heroes of Greece, and at this meal they are served their victorious dinner by their mothers. She took her life so as to go to hell and have the honor of serving her son his first dinner there. These are the mothers that bore and raised the free men who stood outnumbered before the whip driven and bounty pulled slaves of Persia. These are the stories shared by the teenagers who would be the men at Thermopylae. Let lady Macbeth cry "Unsex me now that the deed may be done", she had never known a Greek mother; these are the stories shared around the campfires at night in ancient Greece oh that we had run the fields of Marathon.Another caution, Who the gods hate they first drive mad. Possibly had the humiliation not been so overwhelming the revenge planned might not have been so huge. The historians tell us the story my mother passed on as a caution, the gods hearing Xerxes brag of his god like power over so much of the earth sent him dreams of the sweetness of his revenge on the Greeks and so in his hubris revenged themselves by driving him mad so that he would so over play his move that the fated failure would destroy his empire. The stage now set, Persia mounts the largest armed movement fittingly launched with total eclipse of the sun.
If the first army of revenge had been large the second eclipsed it. The slaves of world conquest, elite shock forces and special teams from every culture, every beast ever ridden to war including rhinos, weapon smiths and furriers, cooks and camp followers the total number easily doubling the millions of men under arms. The mad king/god even bringing along a marble throne weighing over a thousand pounds and a pavilion claimed to be the largest the world had seen, a Barnum and Bailey circus over a hundred feet tall and including midgets and other sideshow events to make 'Riply' stand in wonder. Once again the Oracles were consulted and faith exercised by free men. Sparta and Greece could be saved but there was a price, the life of a king and three hundred at arms, a willing Sacrifice ( the old word to make sacred) could hold Persia off until the wooden fence could save their wives and sons. We might need reminded that the Greeks gave us the heavy phalanxes 2 x4 foot shields and a wall of 20 foot lances but she also gave us the Marines and their light attack ships. One force slow to maneuver impossible to defeat head on and the other light and fast trained to sail and fight at sea to swim pull at the ores and to pull bilge plugs and kill another ships crew to leave the sinking\scuttled cargo to drown.
The Oracles play a huge part in the story, revelation from the Gods into the acts of men, I cannot overstress the importance of individual belief and commitment. Sparta's great military might was in the individual commitment to a greater than self reality, the heroes are because they believe in the eternal nature of their actions not just important now but important forever. It is what drives free men to pray and then do great deeds. Leonidas goes to the Oracles to know how to keep alive the torch of freedom and leaves knowing it will cost him his life and he embraces it.
My grandfather took us to Mycenae and stood with us at the Lions Gate and pointed out that a phalanx here could not be flanked and not be defeated, they had built their own pass in which to fight. Imagine what it would be like to arrive at the pass to the gate to face men on the walls and a valley of spear points. There are variations to the Phalanx, depending on where and how it is to be used. In the excavation of the Spartan palace over 20 different shield types are represented, from bucklers used by open field troops to the massive rectangle used in gates and fortifications that legend tells (but not comics or cartoons) were lugged to Thermopylae. The phalanx was a block of solders with heavy shields and lances but that's like saying an American football team is a bunch of guys playing a kids game in plastic armor. This is a rotating mass of highly trained athletes each with special training and skills wielded by brains on the field and off that in its professional field is so far beyond the spectators understanding as to make Invictus a nursery poem ( and then there is football ).The thing moves on whistled commands, a grunt, spears raised, shields raised, the bottom of the shield pushed forward with the knee, the shield drop and the spear thumps to it's resting place, all 300 or so in practiced unison. The beast with a hundred spines advances and the opposition cannot get any closer than a spear length. As the front line tires( about every three min) on single they turn, pass back between the ranks pulling shield and spear to the back, where their personal trainers\servants wait. A drink, sharpen your spear, fresh footwear. Each man spends his time in front then in back and so the mass rotates hour after hour, the opposing troops facing fresh spears without relief there death takes them. One other trick the ever advancing wall of churning spear tips may be pushed. On the whistle, the front line push out the bottom of there shields but do not advance, they grip there spears with both hands and each man behind places his left\shield hand on the right shoulder in front of him. On the next signal they all shove ahead one half step (if ten men push one lance with only 100 lbs each a thousand pounds pushes each spear point), historians talk of stopping chariot charges and all manner of stampeded beasts with this mighty half step. Press forward; this tactic is called the Greek step by the Romans and referred to by Paul admonition to press ever forward
Thermopylae
Herodotus the noted father of Greek history as an science tells us that the Persian army came to the shores of Greece with 2.5 million men at arms plus entourages, over 5 million people and I believe him (not to mention that Xerxes says the same thing when he sets out).
Leonidas calls for 300 volunteers they must be fully qualified solders and fathers of 12 year old plus sons so that when they die their names will live on. "With your shield or on it". My mother said this, smiling to me when I went off on my mission and I held my head high. Today the popular theme is return with honor. but it is the same. The heavy full battle shield of a phalanx is ill suited for but two tasks. Advancing in mass and as a litter. It was viewed as impossible to break formation and run away with one. The shield was a rectangle as wide as a mans shoulders and as high as his armpit a wood frame lashed at the borders with rawhide and covered in bronze. When the politically socially correct time came for Gorgo, his wife to make this simple ascertain of honor above all else she took his knife and cut the ends of the loops of rawhide that were used as handles for a litter and kissed his cheek and said loud enough for history; "Don't come back". Leonidas turned to his assembled men in front of there families and says
"Follow me where I leadfight where I fightkill me if I retreat."
History records the words of a King and Queen who knew what the Gods demanded was followed into battle with only one outcome they all knew it, the Gods knew it and any other explanation is some whining from academia that knows nothing of victory or the Gods. The thespians ask what to send to help and Leonidas asks for pavers and sand. The pass could use good footing and buckets of sand to soak up the coming gore so that they might not slip on the bloodied field.Games and shaved heads: Leonidas had not lead these men in combat personally (at the whistle as it were) and so on the day before the assault the Persian spies report that the Greeks are running foot races throwing the javelin and shaving each others heads, it is a mystery until a Greek is consulted. They compete so that their captain may know each man's abilities and how to set and relive each man, for it is individuals who will make up the team. They shave their heads and faces so that when the fight comes down to bear hands they will offer no hand grip! They intend to cover for one another strength over weakness and fight not only to the last man but bear handed and clean shaven if necessary to the end. The news shakes the slave leader generals of Persia, what manner of men do they face.
When asked to turn over their spears and surrender and be granted the right as Kings under Persia, the reply , according to Plutarch was made "Molon Lebe" being translated into Texan as come and get em. The motto is also inscribed on both the Texas governors boot and the statue at their graveside in Greece. Wickapeada has a nice explanation of the difficulty in translating this two verb statement often mistranslated too literately as come take.
Day One After an offer of terms of surrender is turned down Xerxes has his archers turn loose with a barrage that the Greeks are told will blot out the sun. "Good," replies Leonidas chief "we shall have shade to fight under". The Greek shields provide enough strength being bronze covered to withstand the arrows and enough size to lean back and under, after the barrage the troops reform so quickly that the running Persian troops find only the spear heads of the tightly formed phalanx.The Persians have learned that when facing long spears all you have to do is hang a body on each spear and then rush the line and overcome the spear holders. At the end of the whips Xerxes sends 1,0000 to overwhelm the line, he has to stand on his throne to see over the piled bodies only to see the churning mass of fresh clean spears still standing, support troops take the field to shove the dead over the cliff and into the sea, the tide turns red on the beach the Persians hold, it is the blood of their dead.
Day Two The Persians having tried every kind of slave troop bring out there own professional shock troops, the immortals, masked professional high endurance troops.The mighty troops take the field, they will bring down the Greeks and kill them in their exhaustion. The phalanx churns, ever advancing, ever refreshed never moving out of the pass, fresh shoes, clean pavers, fresh sand. Mortality claims the shock troops and Xerxes rages.
The story includes the betrayal by a drop out/traitor who tells of a mountain goat trail around the pass and the ambush troops set out on a march around. Leonidas tells his men to eat their supplies that night the battle will be over the next day, the words still ring out; "Eat well of mortal food for tomorrow we dine in hell".
Day Three It should be noted that as the army holds the pass Greece is being evacuated and her fields stripped and wells filled in. The army will find no booty to sack or food to pillage. If that were not enough the Athenian fleet with her unheard of marines is joining the fight when the day is over the Persian supply line is cut, her troop transports scuttled and the un landed supplies feed the fish. The order is given, retreat all support troops before the surround happens, so they can fight another day
The split phalanx fight back to back in a holding action.Persian archers are ordered to fire on engaged troops so Spartans can't use their shielding action. There is a huge kill rate of friendly fire. As the falling arrows strike the unprotected backs of the Persian troops and the helmeted and shielded fronts of the Greeks the Persians die three and four to one from their own arrows, but Xerxes finds joy that at last Greeks die. The Greeks fight like this all day without relief, two groups back to back death raining from above
Look at the difference, leaders vs managers Leonidas and Xerxes both send men to their death, but Xerxes sends his at the end of a whip and Leonidas leads his at the intentional sacrifice of his life. The former with no regard for the lives of his troops, the other making sure there are living descendents, one treats his as a means to an end the other as ends in themselves.
Go tell the Spartans,you who pass by,here lay her sonsfaithful to the end.
The gods are appeased by the sacrifice made freely by free men.
The disheartened unsupplied Persian slave army makes it to the far coast only to meet the fresh vengeful host of Greece. The battles crush the Persians, who fight a disheartened retreat back across a stripped land that now does not even offer firewood. Persian leaders broken by the knowledge that there is no fleet to take them home. Persia will never rise again the only two things left are her 12 hour clock and her hate of western civilization.
There are several ways to tell the story.
Like trying to explain that Sam Houston beat Santa Anna not at San Jacito but in England because Wellington defeated Napoleon not at Waterloo but years earlier on the playing fields of Eaton. This will be only the briefest of stories, with more left out than included and an understanding of rugby would help. In the end I will tell them the way I learned them at my mothers knee. I should note that she learned them as I did, as a child from her father who was also Dr Mylonas.
Grandfather has said in lecture that one of the biggest errors in judging the founding Greeks is our unwillingness to except them at face value. We cling to some Edwardian/Darwinian view that we must be at the peek of everything and it all gets simpler and worse and smaller as we move back in time until we end with stone age workers in caves. An exception we somehow accept that maybe Pythagoras could have invented geometry, and perhaps Aristotle may have laid the basis for all the divisions of modern science, but we balk at the possibility that Greek generals could have developed sophisticated tactics or that Greek historians could count. Okay, so the Golden Age could provide geometry and apply it to demonstrate the earth was a sphere and approximate it's size, but the tactics at Marathon must be luck and Thermopylae could never have been two and a half million held off by three hundred. I'll tell the stories the way Greek children have for generations with pride in the heroes that shaped the future and knew their place in it. Achilles was told that he could stay home and live to a ripe old age and die in peace with his descendents around him or he could go to an almost pointless war against Troy, be critical in the destruction of that civilization, die in glorious battle and be spoken of in awe for all of history. Achilles went to war and his name is still legend. OK so this story started with a conversation on a train. My conductor's son was given an assignment at school that did not sit well. the ,and I hope well meaning, young man's teacher (and this was shortly after 9/11) had assigned the students to write on what we as Americans had done to so offend the Moslem world that they wanted to destroy us. This sat poorly with the family as it implied that it was our fault that mass murders were committed in our skies and streets. I was at the time working on an explanation of the Spartans at Thermopylae for my own son so I explained that the problem started long ago but had a dramatic and pivotal experience in the 492 to 480 BC (and incidentally per Moslem) time frame. The unique social and philosophical activity that was the golden period of Greece. The spin off of the creative maelstrom was pouring out all over the world. Greek math, geometry, science, biology, modal logic every thing from the basis of scientific method to the subjection of religion from poetry and prose through the theater and politics The reaction in the ancient world was mixed as to the new inventions of intellect and culture (then as now). From the envy in Rome that would end in carrying off the remaining teachers to Rome. To the heart of our problem. The Persians were so offended that Greek language, math even the very basis of thinking logic were Greek and displacing Persian way of life all over the world even to intruding into the royal courts. The jealousy of the dominance of Greek culture (and all Western culture today) due to its superior format for progress became a driving force in a movement to dominate Greece and suppress its cultural expansion and influence. One cannot assert that ones culture and religion are dominant if there are bigger and better in the world. When Athens helped the revolts in Asia minor( Turkey to those who do not understand the Greek\Turkey thing) Darius is so affronted that he orders a slave assigned to interrupt him three times at every meal with 'Sir remember the Athenians.' Darius sends his nephew to carry out the kings vengeance with some 200000 soldiers under arms plus entourages. The first Persian army of genocide\culture erasure carefully records its travels as it moves toward Athens, records that come in handy after their failure for the second army's attempt at cultural erasure. The path was well trodden. Not only did it follow well established trade routes but in the first case if we assume only one for one support to warriors the first movement was almost half a million people on the march and the latter approached seven million. Xerxes would have, describing his army of extermination/retribution, his historians state that this number had previously been applied to the size of nations and races but never before to an army. Historians both Persian and other, record the massive movement that drank rivers dry. They made lakes disappear and removed whole cities that were en route. A city of fifty thousand was large by ancient standards but you cannot walk seven million people through/over a city and expect anything to remain . 2500 years later satellite images of the route show the road with its bed cut wide to admit the massive movement.
Two hundred thousand men at arms on the move to Athens, not that her army or citizens were not terrified of there fate but they would not live on if the price were slavery. The plane of Marathon would hold the Persian army encamped at the north eastern side south of a swamp and on the down hill side. The Persians did not have the ideal location, however they had no worries as they out numbered the Athenian army who held the high ground and blocked the passes needed to move south and expunge the offence.Herodotus tells us the Athenian commander Miltiades the younger was well versed in Persian tactics of a strong center and of the lead troops being first to the plunder. The Greek army formed up at dawn every day in a pattern that seemed born for the Persian army. Two wings with reserves that moved together with what appeared to be a weak center. the Persians formed a spear head, best in the center deepest reserves behind them. On the fifth day the bottled up Persians see the Greek army form up. At dawn they do the unthinkable they attacked the Persians, not only attacked, but the charge was at a run. As the wave crashed into the Persians. The strength of the Persians pressed forward and forced its was through the week center the path clear to the now undefended pass and 23 miles to plunder Athens. The army rejoiced looked forward to plundering the city and took off at a spirited pace without looking back at the mop up operation the reserves would engage in whilst they sacked the wealth of Athens in glorious pillage. Had they looked back they would have seen three things happen at once, the wings closed cutting the army in two. a runner, Phidippides by name, was singled to run ahead of the Persians and tell the citizens the plan had worked and to send the reserve troops to guard the port and ignore the pillagers, the third and most dangerous was a special force loosed on the backs of the expectant would be pillagers. Special to the reserves were two groups of troops. The record says they were dressed as Olympic athletes (the games were held as a male only events with the participants nude) made up of men who were fathers of children living in the city. Armed only with a sword and knowing that the safety of their children was in there hands. We are told that as the bulk of the army pushed the Persians into the swamp and slaughter. These reserves comprising two groups of two hundred fell on the backs on the happy hapless spearhead at a run! The desperate fathers caught and killed the ten thousand some pride of Persia, even as the lead messenger, having fought in the initial feint, then discarded his weapons and ran ahead of the would be sackers with news that the plan had worked, then to die of his exertions and go on to join Achilles in Hades and history. When the remnant of the Persian army swung in on the port it found Greek solders on the walls and docks and turned back to home mostly empty and humiliated in defeat. The Greek army left behind drove those who had not panicked into the swamp and death, or into the sea where the navy was missing as it had gone off to assist in the pillaging . death everywhere , Greek death, heroes in glory, and opponents in humiliating slaughter. The swamp, the sea, screaming naked sword wielders running them down and long spears and archers on the formidable docks. It was the Greek way heroes and slaughter. Do I digress and tell you an old wives tale here, as the victorious runners are carried into the city, one of the mothers waiting is given the news, her son died on the field, in reaction she takes her life. a tragedy you say in your non Greek way. In the temple of Athena it is said that those who die as heroes go to Hades and on their first night dine at a table with all the other heroes of Greece, and at this meal they are served their victorious dinner by their mothers. She took her life so as to go to hell and have the honor of serving her son his first dinner there. These are the mothers that bore and raised the free men who stood outnumbered before the whip driven and bounty pulled slaves of Persia. These are the stories shared by the teenagers who would be the men at Thermopylae. Let lady Macbeth cry "Unsex me now that the deed may be done", she had never known a Greek mother; these are the stories shared around the campfires at night in ancient Greece oh that we had run the fields of Marathon.Another caution, Who the gods hate they first drive mad. Possibly had the humiliation not been so overwhelming the revenge planned might not have been so huge. The historians tell us the story my mother passed on as a caution, the gods hearing Xerxes brag of his god like power over so much of the earth sent him dreams of the sweetness of his revenge on the Greeks and so in his hubris revenged themselves by driving him mad so that he would so over play his move that the fated failure would destroy his empire. The stage now set, Persia mounts the largest armed movement fittingly launched with total eclipse of the sun.
If the first army of revenge had been large the second eclipsed it. The slaves of world conquest, elite shock forces and special teams from every culture, every beast ever ridden to war including rhinos, weapon smiths and furriers, cooks and camp followers the total number easily doubling the millions of men under arms. The mad king/god even bringing along a marble throne weighing over a thousand pounds and a pavilion claimed to be the largest the world had seen, a Barnum and Bailey circus over a hundred feet tall and including midgets and other sideshow events to make 'Riply' stand in wonder. Once again the Oracles were consulted and faith exercised by free men. Sparta and Greece could be saved but there was a price, the life of a king and three hundred at arms, a willing Sacrifice ( the old word to make sacred) could hold Persia off until the wooden fence could save their wives and sons. We might need reminded that the Greeks gave us the heavy phalanxes 2 x4 foot shields and a wall of 20 foot lances but she also gave us the Marines and their light attack ships. One force slow to maneuver impossible to defeat head on and the other light and fast trained to sail and fight at sea to swim pull at the ores and to pull bilge plugs and kill another ships crew to leave the sinking\scuttled cargo to drown.
The Oracles play a huge part in the story, revelation from the Gods into the acts of men, I cannot overstress the importance of individual belief and commitment. Sparta's great military might was in the individual commitment to a greater than self reality, the heroes are because they believe in the eternal nature of their actions not just important now but important forever. It is what drives free men to pray and then do great deeds. Leonidas goes to the Oracles to know how to keep alive the torch of freedom and leaves knowing it will cost him his life and he embraces it.
My grandfather took us to Mycenae and stood with us at the Lions Gate and pointed out that a phalanx here could not be flanked and not be defeated, they had built their own pass in which to fight. Imagine what it would be like to arrive at the pass to the gate to face men on the walls and a valley of spear points. There are variations to the Phalanx, depending on where and how it is to be used. In the excavation of the Spartan palace over 20 different shield types are represented, from bucklers used by open field troops to the massive rectangle used in gates and fortifications that legend tells (but not comics or cartoons) were lugged to Thermopylae. The phalanx was a block of solders with heavy shields and lances but that's like saying an American football team is a bunch of guys playing a kids game in plastic armor. This is a rotating mass of highly trained athletes each with special training and skills wielded by brains on the field and off that in its professional field is so far beyond the spectators understanding as to make Invictus a nursery poem ( and then there is football ).The thing moves on whistled commands, a grunt, spears raised, shields raised, the bottom of the shield pushed forward with the knee, the shield drop and the spear thumps to it's resting place, all 300 or so in practiced unison. The beast with a hundred spines advances and the opposition cannot get any closer than a spear length. As the front line tires( about every three min) on single they turn, pass back between the ranks pulling shield and spear to the back, where their personal trainers\servants wait. A drink, sharpen your spear, fresh footwear. Each man spends his time in front then in back and so the mass rotates hour after hour, the opposing troops facing fresh spears without relief there death takes them. One other trick the ever advancing wall of churning spear tips may be pushed. On the whistle, the front line push out the bottom of there shields but do not advance, they grip there spears with both hands and each man behind places his left\shield hand on the right shoulder in front of him. On the next signal they all shove ahead one half step (if ten men push one lance with only 100 lbs each a thousand pounds pushes each spear point), historians talk of stopping chariot charges and all manner of stampeded beasts with this mighty half step. Press forward; this tactic is called the Greek step by the Romans and referred to by Paul admonition to press ever forward
Thermopylae
Herodotus the noted father of Greek history as an science tells us that the Persian army came to the shores of Greece with 2.5 million men at arms plus entourages, over 5 million people and I believe him (not to mention that Xerxes says the same thing when he sets out).
Leonidas calls for 300 volunteers they must be fully qualified solders and fathers of 12 year old plus sons so that when they die their names will live on. "With your shield or on it". My mother said this, smiling to me when I went off on my mission and I held my head high. Today the popular theme is return with honor. but it is the same. The heavy full battle shield of a phalanx is ill suited for but two tasks. Advancing in mass and as a litter. It was viewed as impossible to break formation and run away with one. The shield was a rectangle as wide as a mans shoulders and as high as his armpit a wood frame lashed at the borders with rawhide and covered in bronze. When the politically socially correct time came for Gorgo, his wife to make this simple ascertain of honor above all else she took his knife and cut the ends of the loops of rawhide that were used as handles for a litter and kissed his cheek and said loud enough for history; "Don't come back". Leonidas turned to his assembled men in front of there families and says
"Follow me where I leadfight where I fightkill me if I retreat."
History records the words of a King and Queen who knew what the Gods demanded was followed into battle with only one outcome they all knew it, the Gods knew it and any other explanation is some whining from academia that knows nothing of victory or the Gods. The thespians ask what to send to help and Leonidas asks for pavers and sand. The pass could use good footing and buckets of sand to soak up the coming gore so that they might not slip on the bloodied field.Games and shaved heads: Leonidas had not lead these men in combat personally (at the whistle as it were) and so on the day before the assault the Persian spies report that the Greeks are running foot races throwing the javelin and shaving each others heads, it is a mystery until a Greek is consulted. They compete so that their captain may know each man's abilities and how to set and relive each man, for it is individuals who will make up the team. They shave their heads and faces so that when the fight comes down to bear hands they will offer no hand grip! They intend to cover for one another strength over weakness and fight not only to the last man but bear handed and clean shaven if necessary to the end. The news shakes the slave leader generals of Persia, what manner of men do they face.
When asked to turn over their spears and surrender and be granted the right as Kings under Persia, the reply , according to Plutarch was made "Molon Lebe" being translated into Texan as come and get em. The motto is also inscribed on both the Texas governors boot and the statue at their graveside in Greece. Wickapeada has a nice explanation of the difficulty in translating this two verb statement often mistranslated too literately as come take.
Day One After an offer of terms of surrender is turned down Xerxes has his archers turn loose with a barrage that the Greeks are told will blot out the sun. "Good," replies Leonidas chief "we shall have shade to fight under". The Greek shields provide enough strength being bronze covered to withstand the arrows and enough size to lean back and under, after the barrage the troops reform so quickly that the running Persian troops find only the spear heads of the tightly formed phalanx.The Persians have learned that when facing long spears all you have to do is hang a body on each spear and then rush the line and overcome the spear holders. At the end of the whips Xerxes sends 1,0000 to overwhelm the line, he has to stand on his throne to see over the piled bodies only to see the churning mass of fresh clean spears still standing, support troops take the field to shove the dead over the cliff and into the sea, the tide turns red on the beach the Persians hold, it is the blood of their dead.
Day Two The Persians having tried every kind of slave troop bring out there own professional shock troops, the immortals, masked professional high endurance troops.The mighty troops take the field, they will bring down the Greeks and kill them in their exhaustion. The phalanx churns, ever advancing, ever refreshed never moving out of the pass, fresh shoes, clean pavers, fresh sand. Mortality claims the shock troops and Xerxes rages.
The story includes the betrayal by a drop out/traitor who tells of a mountain goat trail around the pass and the ambush troops set out on a march around. Leonidas tells his men to eat their supplies that night the battle will be over the next day, the words still ring out; "Eat well of mortal food for tomorrow we dine in hell".
Day Three It should be noted that as the army holds the pass Greece is being evacuated and her fields stripped and wells filled in. The army will find no booty to sack or food to pillage. If that were not enough the Athenian fleet with her unheard of marines is joining the fight when the day is over the Persian supply line is cut, her troop transports scuttled and the un landed supplies feed the fish. The order is given, retreat all support troops before the surround happens, so they can fight another day
The split phalanx fight back to back in a holding action.Persian archers are ordered to fire on engaged troops so Spartans can't use their shielding action. There is a huge kill rate of friendly fire. As the falling arrows strike the unprotected backs of the Persian troops and the helmeted and shielded fronts of the Greeks the Persians die three and four to one from their own arrows, but Xerxes finds joy that at last Greeks die. The Greeks fight like this all day without relief, two groups back to back death raining from above
Look at the difference, leaders vs managers Leonidas and Xerxes both send men to their death, but Xerxes sends his at the end of a whip and Leonidas leads his at the intentional sacrifice of his life. The former with no regard for the lives of his troops, the other making sure there are living descendents, one treats his as a means to an end the other as ends in themselves.
Go tell the Spartans,you who pass by,here lay her sonsfaithful to the end.
The gods are appeased by the sacrifice made freely by free men.
The disheartened unsupplied Persian slave army makes it to the far coast only to meet the fresh vengeful host of Greece. The battles crush the Persians, who fight a disheartened retreat back across a stripped land that now does not even offer firewood. Persian leaders broken by the knowledge that there is no fleet to take them home. Persia will never rise again the only two things left are her 12 hour clock and her hate of western civilization.
Thursday, October 9, 2008
What did we let go on?
We control the creative beast of industry with regulations requiring responsibility for our actions. We must not rely on the good faith of businessman for they will always answer "nothing personal, just business" as they rape and pillage.
Without law there is no responsibility. If we have removed the penalty what performance do we expect or deserve.
A strong and sharp cinch collar is a gift of obedience to a pet. It is not the rings of giges that business needs , no matter how much they pine for it , rather a collar that permits learning limits and behavior.
As we have not properly spelled out the responsibility and punishments for pillaging our economy , a lesson that should have been obvious from the "Enron" experience, we must pass regulations that make it impossible to profit by that behavior, as we will see in the upcoming dissection of the finical debacle now ongoing, the testimony in and before congress, "Yes I may have made millions on these bad judgments and the company I ran is now in federal receivership but it was just business and I didn’t do anything wrong.
We as a society , in not leashing the beast permitted the wrong and we need to punish those who took the opening not let them hid behind the "only business" excuse, we didn’t let Himmler use it and we should not let wall street.
Without law there is no responsibility. If we have removed the penalty what performance do we expect or deserve.
A strong and sharp cinch collar is a gift of obedience to a pet. It is not the rings of giges that business needs , no matter how much they pine for it , rather a collar that permits learning limits and behavior.
As we have not properly spelled out the responsibility and punishments for pillaging our economy , a lesson that should have been obvious from the "Enron" experience, we must pass regulations that make it impossible to profit by that behavior, as we will see in the upcoming dissection of the finical debacle now ongoing, the testimony in and before congress, "Yes I may have made millions on these bad judgments and the company I ran is now in federal receivership but it was just business and I didn’t do anything wrong.
We as a society , in not leashing the beast permitted the wrong and we need to punish those who took the opening not let them hid behind the "only business" excuse, we didn’t let Himmler use it and we should not let wall street.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
Name Rank and etc a corollary concern
Past note sent out... into the void...
Dear President Bush 3 apr 07
Recent British difficulties in the gulf have highlighted a shortcoming in American policy that you as Commander in Chief can repair. The military still lives under the shadow if not directions of "Name Rank and Serial Number" as portrayed in film and lore. The world situation has changed and increasingly captives of other cultures and governments are being pressured if not tortured into statements they would not otherwise make. The US could make such statements of no value by changing the national policy.
Our policy should be that citizens and personnel of the US may say anything their captives wish to avoid punitive actions that would not be permitted in the US. Further that any statements made by US Citizens not made at home or in a neutral third party setting were considered sheltered under national policy and not to be taken at face value.
The preceding policy would make the "publicity" statements and apologies of captives of no value and provide captives protection from torture through authorized capitulation to demands. You can change this by executive action and help lead the world to similar international agreement thereby providing a measure of personal safety to military personal and other national representives not currently available, both to our citizens and public servants and the rest of the worlds.
You as President and we as a nation can make a difference in the treatment and care of our public representives and servants and those of the world by your making this simple but important policy change. I respectfully request that you/we, Do it now.
Dear President Bush 3 apr 07
Recent British difficulties in the gulf have highlighted a shortcoming in American policy that you as Commander in Chief can repair. The military still lives under the shadow if not directions of "Name Rank and Serial Number" as portrayed in film and lore. The world situation has changed and increasingly captives of other cultures and governments are being pressured if not tortured into statements they would not otherwise make. The US could make such statements of no value by changing the national policy.
Our policy should be that citizens and personnel of the US may say anything their captives wish to avoid punitive actions that would not be permitted in the US. Further that any statements made by US Citizens not made at home or in a neutral third party setting were considered sheltered under national policy and not to be taken at face value.
The preceding policy would make the "publicity" statements and apologies of captives of no value and provide captives protection from torture through authorized capitulation to demands. You can change this by executive action and help lead the world to similar international agreement thereby providing a measure of personal safety to military personal and other national representives not currently available, both to our citizens and public servants and the rest of the worlds.
You as President and we as a nation can make a difference in the treatment and care of our public representives and servants and those of the world by your making this simple but important policy change. I respectfully request that you/we, Do it now.
Torture, not an option
Torture
I torture the mad bomber and now I feel the need to repent.
I should like to have saved this for a book I planned on writing, but the question weighs too heavily and the elections seem to provide leverage, so here it is in all it’s premature glory
I tortured the mad bomber in the effort to serve the greater good and had not thought of it for years and now I regret it, and in that regret feel the need of repentance, and that need fills me with the commitment that the act was wrong. I bent my deontology over double to accomplish the task, but such is the flexibility of logic and rhetoric. I know that by feeling the moral duty to repent: recognize, acknowledge, restore, forsake, That what I did was wrong, thank you Boyd K Packer and Mrs Bock.
"There is something reassuring about standing for something, and knowing what we stand for. For Men or women who are true to themselves and to the virtues and standards they have personally adopted, it is not difficult to be true to others. Those who are committed to, and have patterned their lives after, a Higher Power need not rely on public opinion, which is often blatantly skewed." (Hinkley, standing for something.)
Bob Hines Sr MTO Seattle, on treatment of fellow workers told us "don’t say or do at work what you would not want repeated to your wife with your minister present. At another time he said if you would not want your mother treated that way, don’t do it.
Emerson and Thoreau and jail what doing in, what doing out ... the ends never justifies the means
Kant on never treat as a means always as and end only.
I will not deny my own humanity and Torture the mad bomber again, and feel an obligation to help others feel the same.
In the agony of tragedy we felt and feel first the impulse to seek revenge, we need to have the convection of belief to hold to the right standards
"An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind" Gandhi
a law of last resort, the maximum penalty extended to Those unrepentant and uncooperative, unwilling to participate, not a standard for life and friendship.
I repent and forgive not for any other but for me... Nibly "in this the angles envy man, to repent and to forgive."
Enlightened self interest repent and forgive for me not because they deserve it but as act of contrition before God because I want and need it.
I will not Torture nor tolerate it in my name.
Don’t quibble with the issue
if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, and lines it’s chicks up in need little rows it’s a DUCK!
Like porn, I might not be able to give a good definition but "I know it when I see It"
so leave my mother alone
a communist will Torture you to sine a note saying that you have not been tortured ( seven years in hanoi)
Nibley " I did not want to interrogate prisoners, no matter how being the threats used, there was something morally repugnant to it all"
It’s a moral question, and for me it ends with could I get a temple recommend if I tortured people for a living?... NO
If I can’t do it and keep my hands clean and my temple recommend current , I will not do it.
Congress needs to hold hearings on if we have ever gotten any true timely usable information from torture, if not it should be banned as unless and a waste of money as well as immoral and outside both the national moral standard, international agreements and our sovereign law
If we let them do it as punishment or reprisal, or ship prisoners off somewhere else and let someone else torture them we are no better than if we had done it ourselves.
We need , for our own sake and morality, to be above board and above question, we don’t do it , approve of it and we don’t proxy out the work... it’s like the story of the wagon transport company and the driver interview about who can run the narrow road on the hill the best and each tries to one up the others , tell the last interview who says, don’t know how close but I can rub the wheels on the safe inside the whole way, and he go t the job.
We need to run a protest with the pictures of mothers of supreme court justices, pres, senators, congress, CIA head "Not to my mother"
I torture the mad bomber and now I feel the need to repent.
I should like to have saved this for a book I planned on writing, but the question weighs too heavily and the elections seem to provide leverage, so here it is in all it’s premature glory
I tortured the mad bomber in the effort to serve the greater good and had not thought of it for years and now I regret it, and in that regret feel the need of repentance, and that need fills me with the commitment that the act was wrong. I bent my deontology over double to accomplish the task, but such is the flexibility of logic and rhetoric. I know that by feeling the moral duty to repent: recognize, acknowledge, restore, forsake, That what I did was wrong, thank you Boyd K Packer and Mrs Bock.
"There is something reassuring about standing for something, and knowing what we stand for. For Men or women who are true to themselves and to the virtues and standards they have personally adopted, it is not difficult to be true to others. Those who are committed to, and have patterned their lives after, a Higher Power need not rely on public opinion, which is often blatantly skewed." (Hinkley, standing for something.)
Bob Hines Sr MTO Seattle, on treatment of fellow workers told us "don’t say or do at work what you would not want repeated to your wife with your minister present. At another time he said if you would not want your mother treated that way, don’t do it.
Emerson and Thoreau and jail what doing in, what doing out ... the ends never justifies the means
Kant on never treat as a means always as and end only.
I will not deny my own humanity and Torture the mad bomber again, and feel an obligation to help others feel the same.
In the agony of tragedy we felt and feel first the impulse to seek revenge, we need to have the convection of belief to hold to the right standards
"An eye for an eye, making the whole world blind" Gandhi
a law of last resort, the maximum penalty extended to Those unrepentant and uncooperative, unwilling to participate, not a standard for life and friendship.
I repent and forgive not for any other but for me... Nibly "in this the angles envy man, to repent and to forgive."
Enlightened self interest repent and forgive for me not because they deserve it but as act of contrition before God because I want and need it.
I will not Torture nor tolerate it in my name.
Don’t quibble with the issue
if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck and swims like a duck, and lines it’s chicks up in need little rows it’s a DUCK!
Like porn, I might not be able to give a good definition but "I know it when I see It"
so leave my mother alone
a communist will Torture you to sine a note saying that you have not been tortured ( seven years in hanoi)
Nibley " I did not want to interrogate prisoners, no matter how being the threats used, there was something morally repugnant to it all"
It’s a moral question, and for me it ends with could I get a temple recommend if I tortured people for a living?... NO
If I can’t do it and keep my hands clean and my temple recommend current , I will not do it.
Congress needs to hold hearings on if we have ever gotten any true timely usable information from torture, if not it should be banned as unless and a waste of money as well as immoral and outside both the national moral standard, international agreements and our sovereign law
If we let them do it as punishment or reprisal, or ship prisoners off somewhere else and let someone else torture them we are no better than if we had done it ourselves.
We need , for our own sake and morality, to be above board and above question, we don’t do it , approve of it and we don’t proxy out the work... it’s like the story of the wagon transport company and the driver interview about who can run the narrow road on the hill the best and each tries to one up the others , tell the last interview who says, don’t know how close but I can rub the wheels on the safe inside the whole way, and he go t the job.
We need to run a protest with the pictures of mothers of supreme court justices, pres, senators, congress, CIA head "Not to my mother"
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