Quotulatiousness

October 29, 2019

Greenland to USA, Australia to war, and French Colonies to…? – WW2 – OOTF 004

Filed under: Africa, Australia, Europe, France, History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 06:00

World War Two
Published 27 Oct 2019

In another edition of our Q&A format, Indy answers some questions about Greenland after the German occupation of Denmark, the state of Australia and the fate of the French Colonies.

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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Research by: Rune Vaever Hartvig
Edited by: Mikołaj Cackowski
Map animations: Eastory

Colorisations by Norman Stewart and Julius Jääskeläinen https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/

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Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

Sources:
IWM: H 10569, A 1524, CM 64

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

World War Two
3 days ago
We get a ton of questions about the war on a daily basis. A lot of them are already answered in the YouTube comments to you all directly, but because some questions are very interesting indeed, we like to showcase some of them on the channel. Because the YouTube comments are hard to navigate, we have made a section on our forum where you can submit questions to be covered in Out of the Foxholes. You can do that here: https://community.timeghost.tv/c/Out-of-the-Foxholes-Qs

Cheers,
The TimeGhost team

October 28, 2019

Inducing cognitive dissonance at Harvard

Filed under: Education, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 05:00

At Samizdata, Niall Kilmartin explains some of the unintended consequences of Harvard’s consciously racist admission policies:

Harvard University Memorial Church.
Photo by Crimson400 via Wikimedia Commons.

1) Harvard invites students to attend a university – one of the halls of academia. By presenting itself as elite, it invites its students to think that academic ability, academic ways of thinking, are hallmarks (the hallmarks!) of an elite.

2) Having implied the importance of academic talent in overt and subtle ways, Harvard creates an artificial racial reality: it selects its asian-american students to average 140 Scholastic Aptitude Test points more that its white-american students. It selects its white-american students to average 130 SAT points more than its hispanic-american students. And it selects its african-american students to average 180 SAT points less than its hispanics, 310 SAT points less than its whites and 450 SAT points less than its asians.*

Thus Harvard gives members of each of these easily-distinguishable racial groups the routine experience of encountering a consistent, marked discrepancy between their group and other groups in precisely the area that the whole essence of being at Harvard implies is important, not just for gaining some academic degree but for being worthy to decide on politics, social mores, life in general. Day by day, the experience of being at Harvard teaches its students that, in the quality that matters, asians are typically superior, whites are typically normal, hispanics are typically inferior and blacks even more so. Harvard is a university – a pillar of academia, a place that implies academic is everything – and they chose the racial mix of their students to incarnate academic racial inequality.

3) Harvard also teaches that it is the most appalling sin, unspeakably evil and harshly-punished even when the evidence is slight or non-existent, for any student ever to refer in the slightest, most micro, most indirect way to this routinely-experienced reality that Harvard admissions has created. Students must not in any way betray that they have noticed any aspect or even distant side-effect of the artificial reality Harvard has created for them – and this of course compounds the artificiality of the Harvard reality.

So my question is: what does this experience in fact teach Harvard students?

The demonstrated need for “Clean Teen” fiction in the YA section

Filed under: Books, Politics, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

You don’t need to be a Bible-thumping traditionalist to be alarmed at what publishers are pushing into the Young Adult fiction market for teenagers and older pre-teens. There are themes and content choices that many parents would be unwilling to allow younger readers to encounter, but the criticisms are falling on deaf ears, as Megan Fox shows:

It’s tough to find a book for pre-teens and teens without graphic sex and violence. The “Young Adult” section, which is marketed to kids from nine to seventeen, is full of stuff most parents would not want their children reading about. Because of it, sites like Common Sense Media, where you can see what kind of content is in the books before you let your kid read them, are very popular with parents. Parents and kids rate the books according to how much violence, sex, drug use, mature themes, and the like are in them. Librarians and the American Library Association are staunchly opposed to anyone categorizing books by content and liken it to censorship. They’re out of their minds. On one hand, they tell parents, “It’s up to you to direct your child’s reading,” but they offer no help in actually doing that by their refusal to mark books that contain adult content. And now that some websites are answering parents’ calls for innocent plotlines by offering “Clean Teen” selections, SJW authors, who think every child should have the sexual knowledge of Caligula, have their panties in a twist about it.

“If they’re named ‘Clean Teen’ novels what are the rest called? ‘Unwashed Teen’ ‘Trash Teen’ ‘Didn’t shower after soccer practice Teen’ ‘Say three Hail Mary’s in confessional Teen?'” said Zorri Cordova, a supposed author.

The far-left weirdos are never satisfied to corrupt their own children, they want your kids too. The American Library Association loves to take potshots at Common Sense Media. “These days, Common Sense Media’s initiatives contain a less than subtle paternalism based on the conviction that its values should control children’s learning experiences,” wrote Joyce Johnston on the ALA’s Intellectual Freedom Blog. They have no problem, however, controlling children’s learning experiences with their far-left values. For a laughable example, check out ALA’s LGBT initiatives.

Publisher’s Weekly wrote about this topic.

    Kendra Levin at Simon & Schuster Books for Young Readers observes that “the meaning of ‘clean teen’ can depend on the context, but within publishing houses, I think it’s most often used to describe a buffer zone between middle grade and mature YA — books specifically geared toward the younger end of the teen spectrum. You could also call this young teen and 12-and-up YA, as opposed to 14 and up.

This suggests that 14-year-olds are ready for the Roman orgies and coke parties that are depicted in the majority of YA fiction these days (and yes, I’ve read them). I don’t know what planet these people are living on, but it’s starting to get to me. What is wrong with Little House on the Prairie? Oh yeah, Laura Ingalls Wilder has been branded a racist.

October 27, 2019

Freedom of speech under threat (again)

Filed under: Law, Liberty, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 03:00

In The Atlantic, Ken White strongly urges pro-free-speech advocates to avoid using some arguments that have been bandied around recently:

What speech should be protected by the First Amendment is open to debate. Americans can, and should, argue about what the law ought to be. That’s what free people do. But while we’re all entitled to our own opinions, we’re not entitled to our own facts, even in 2019. In fact, the First Amendment is broad, robust, aggressively and consistently protected by the Supreme Court, and not subject to the many exceptions and qualifications that commentators seek to graft upon it. The majority of contemptible, bigoted speech is protected.

If you’ve read op-eds about free speech in America, or listened to talking heads on the news, you’ve almost certainly encountered empty, misleading, or simply false tropes about the First Amendment. Those tired tropes are barriers to serious discussions about free speech. Any useful discussion of what the law should be must be informed by an accurate view of what the law is.

Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr.
Photo by Harris & Ewing via Wikimedia Commons.


[…]

“This speech isn’t protected, because you can’t shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater.”

This line, though ubiquitous, is just another way to convey that “not all speech is protected by the First Amendment.” As an argument, it is just as useless.

But the phrase is not just empty. It’s also a historically ignorant way to convey the point. It dates back to a 1919 Supreme Court decision allowing the imprisonment of Charles Schenck for urging resistance to the draft in World War I. Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote that the “most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic.” This decision led to a series of cases broadly endorsing the government’s ability to suppress speech that questioned official policy. But for more than half a century Schenck has unequivocally and universally been acknowledged as bad law.

Holmes himself repented of the decision — though he continued to indulge his taste for pithy phrases with lines like “Three generations of imbeciles are enough” to justify forcible government sterilization of the handicapped.

So when you smugly drop “You can’t shout ‘Fire!’ in a crowded theater” in a First Amendment debate, you’re misquoting an empty rhetorical device uttered by a career totalitarian in a long-overturned case about jailing draft protesters. This is not persuasive or helpful.

October 25, 2019

The World Takes Advantage of American Isolationism | BETWEEN TWO WARS | 1933 part 3 of 3

Filed under: History, Japan, Military, Pacific, USA — Tags: , , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 24 Oct 2019

America is very unprepared for rising tensions in the Pacific and in Europe. US President Franklin Roosevelt tries his best to re-arm the American Army and Navy, but the isolationist opposition is a fierce obstacle.

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Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Joram Appel
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Rune Vaever Hartvig, Sietse Kenter and Joram Appel
Edited by: Daniel Weiss
Sound design: Marek Kaminski

Picture colorizations by: Norman Stewart, Julius Jääskeläinen, Daniel Weiss and Joram Appel

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
1 day ago (edited)
This episode is very much about the global ramifications of the US’s foreign policy. American inaction and isolationism left room for other nations to develop imperialist ambitions. There are of course a lot of other factors that influenced the rise of expansionist and militarist governments in Europe and East-Asia, many of which are explained in our other Between Two Wars episodes. In no way does this video have any connection to current-day events or our opinion on them. This is what happened, our future episodes will be about what followed. We’re historians and that’s all we want to do here.
Cheers,
Joram

Civil servants tend to be of the left … this should be no surprise to anyone

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Government, Politics, USA — Tags: , — Nicholas @ 03:00

Arthur Chrenkoff on the political tendencies of people who work for the government:

The western front of the United States Capitol.
Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

You could believe the whole “protect[ing] the interests… of the American people” shtick if after all this time and the incalculable amount of energy and effort expended on bringing down the President, all those patriotic public servants have been able to show something – anything – for it. So instead of disinterested paragons of civic virtue, it increasingly looks like the federal bureaucracy is full of hard core progressives and liberals who can’t stomach a non-Democrat usurper who doesn’t share their values, ideas and objectives.

It’s not a shocking revelation that public service is overwhelmingly staffed by left-of-centre people. Government work attracts the left the same way that private sector and military attract the right. The left believes in the power of government to affect change and implement its vision. Even the spooks are no different. A couple of years ago I wrote briefly about the myth that the intelligence community is a hive of shady right-wing types. In reality, the CIA – just like the Department of Education – has always been a liberal institution. That so many people believe that the intelligence community is some sort of a vast-right wing conspiracy instead of another part of the liberal establishment, is a testament to the narrative power of the far-left, for whom indeed anyone to the right of selves is right wing, including everyone from John F Kennedy to Hillary Clinton.

Most public servants can be professional enough to work under any government, even if they would clearly prefer that government to be of the left – forever. But others can’t stomach working for people whom they believe not merely wrong but positively evil. The honourable thing to do in such circumstances, of course, is to resign; if you can’t in good conscience work to implement policies you strenuously object to, you should make room for someone who can. But why quit your often lucrative job and watch from the sidelines as the country is in your opinion going to hell in a hand basket, when you can stay on and try to sabotage the government and save the world? Thus you can convince yourself you are protecting the people, even if in reality it’s the people who voted in your new, unsavoury masters. It’s easy if you try; like so many others in the recent past you can argue that the people did not in fact elect the government, which is therefore illegitimate, or you can default to the standard left-wing position that the people don’t know what’s good for them, so their democratic choice as expressed at the ballot box has no decisive meaning. We know what’s best for everyone, hence taking a different position is equated to “the war on… expertise”.

It’s an interesting, if of course also self-serving theory, that public servants don’t work for the government of the day, but for “the people”. As Cottle’s logic demonstrates, it gives you a licence to essentially do whatever you want instead of what your political bosses tell you. The problem, as I mentioned above, is that “the people” don’t vote for bureaucrats, they vote for their elected representatives, based on which policy program they like best – or hate least. Seeing that we – still – live in a democracy, the people are given the opportunity to judge their politicians every few years. If they consider that their interests have been negatively affected by the executive’s excesses, they will vote somebody else in. The problem is that the progressives only like the people if the people agree with them. By and large, however, the people can’t be trusted; like children or mentally handicapped they need someone – like the government, or if the government is in hostile hands, the public service – to look after them. It’s the unspoken technocratic mantra and it justifies the existence of an in loco parentis state, deep or otherwise.

QotD: Command and control in the US military

Filed under: Military, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

A book excerpt in Foreign Policy caught my eye. It is by Thomas E Ricks, a long time critic of the US military’s leadership, and it is about the US Army’s failed command and control (C²) system which has been adopted, holus bolus, by Canada. I’m guessing that the article was written for American military officers because it is full of the bafflegab and jargon that is characteristic of their system ~ never use a short, simple, English word when a long, fancy one, with French or, preferably, German roots will do.

The crux of the author’s complaint is that military commanders have been relegated to the status of administrators and managers because the US Army is all about process and seems to care too little about results. The author complains, with reason, that headquarters, from battalion to the highest levels, have gotten larger and larger and more and more complex but appear to actually accomplish less and less. I think the same complaints can be, validly, made about Canada.

It is not surprising that Canada, like Australia, Britain, Chile and Denmark, has adapted at least some of the US military’s system ~ the USA has, after all, the most powerful military in the world. They must be doing something right, right?

Actually, since about 1950s, the US military has been distinguished by blunders and defeats at least as often as we have seen periodic displays of operational prowess: Viet Nam, Bay of Pigs, the failed hostage rescue in Iran, the invasion of Grenada, the second Iraq War all come to mind. The American military legacy has even spawned American satirical films about (constantly failing) American military command. That’s something I though only the Brits could do.

Ted Campbell, “Military command and control”, Ted Campbell’s Point of View, 2017-09-16.

October 24, 2019

QotD: “Binders full of women”

Filed under: Media, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Which brings me to another Mitt Romney debate comment that received similar mockery and self-flattering giggling. During the second presidential debate in 2012, Romney was asked about pay equity. In the course of his answer, he said:

    I had the chance to pull together a cabinet, and all the applicants seemed to be men … I went to a number of women’s groups and said, “Can you help us find folks?” and they brought us whole binders full of women.

Now, I’ll happily grant that the phrase “binders full of women” is an awkward one. It sounds like the menus they bring out on Jeffrey Epstein’s plane when Bill Clinton and Harvey Weinstein settle in for a weekend getaway.

But here’s the thing: What Romney did was exactly what feminist groups insist elected politicians should do. He saw that there were “too many” men in the applicant pool, so he reached out to some feminist groups and asked for help. Some feminist groups reached out to him — and he listened to them, too. And then he hired more women.

The monster!

Here’s Jon Stewart mocking him for it. Here’s Ronan Farrow. And here’s Bill Maher, a man who must be sweating like a hooker in church over Hollywood’s post-Weinstein zero-tolerance for piggishness toward women.

Jonah Goldberg, “Binders Full of Asininity”, National Review, 2017-10-13.

October 23, 2019

The Guns of John Pedersen

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 10 Apr 2015

Sold for:
$34,500 (Pedersen Device)
Failed to sell (Model 10 shotgun)
(Model 12 in a later auction)
$1,610 (Model 14 carbine, with one other rifle)
(Military Ithaca 37 in a later auction)
$2,588 (Remington 51 pistol with one other pistol)
(Irwin-Pedersen M1 Carbine in a later auction)
$16,100 (Vickers-Pedersen rifle)
$74,750 (Pedersen GY rifle)

John Pedersen was one of the more prolific and successful gun designers in American history, having even been described by John Moses Browning as “the greatest gun designer in the world”. And yet, many people only know about Pedersen from his unsuccessful toggle-locked rifle or his WWI Pedersen Device that never saw action. In truth, Pedersen’s work included a number of very successful sporting rifles and shotguns that many shooters would still recognize today. While looking through the guns at Rock Island on my most recent trip there, I realized that they had examples of virtually every one of Pedersen’s guns — so I figured I should do an overview of the man’s work.

October 20, 2019

USA enters WW2 in 1940?! – WW2 – 060 – October 19, 1940

Filed under: Britain, Germany, History, Italy, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

World War Two
Published 19 Oct 2019

The World War seems to get bigger and bigger as Italy plans to invade Greece and the USA takes a stance.

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Written and Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Produced and Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Indy Neidell
Edited by: Iryna Dulka
Map animations: Eastory

Colorisations by Norman Stewart and Julius Jääskeläinen https://www.facebook.com/JJcolorization/

Eastory’s channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCEly…
Archive by Screenocean/Reuters https://www.screenocean.com.

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

October 18, 2019

The State of the US is Depressing | BETWEEN 2 WARS I 1933 Part 2 of 3

Filed under: Economics, History, USA — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 04:00

TimeGhost History
Published 17 Oct 2019

The American economy is in a state of despair. Mass unemployment and poverty sweep the lands. In 1933, a new President is elected, promising to change things for the better. His name is Franklin D. Roosevelt.

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Subscribe to our World War Two series: https://www.youtube.com/c/worldwartwo…

Hosted by: Indy Neidell
Written by: Francis van Berkel and Spartacus Olsson
Directed by: Spartacus Olsson and Astrid Deinhard
Executive Producers: Bodo Rittenauer, Astrid Deinhard, Indy Neidell, Spartacus Olsson
Creative Producer: Joram Appel
Post-Production Director: Wieke Kapteijns
Research by: Francis van Berkel
Edited by: Wieke Kapteijns
Sound design: Marek Kaminski

Colorized pictures by Norman Steward, Daniel Weiss and Joram Appel.

Sources:

A TimeGhost chronological documentary produced by OnLion Entertainment GmbH.

From the comments:

TimeGhost History
12 minutes ago (edited)
If you’re new here, you might not be familiar with Indy Neidell and his other work. Not only are we doing “Between Two Wars”, on the events and years leading up to World War Two (of which this video is a part), also we’re covering World War Two in realtime week-by-week, exactly 79 years after it all happened. We have now entered the second year of the war. If you haven’t already, check out the World War Two Channel for what maybe one day will become the most complete account of The Second World War: https://www.youtube.com/c/worldwartwo

Cheers,
Joram

October 17, 2019

American Eagle Lugers

Filed under: Germany, History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published on 1 Dec 2014
Dissent This
Sold for $14,950 (9mm fat barrel) and $9,775 (7.65mm test trials).

Many people are aware of the .45 caliber Lugers made for US military field trials — but far fewer people realize that Lugers were both tested by the US military and sold commercially several years prior to the .45 tests.

In 1900, the US military put several hundred 7.65mm Luger pistols into field trials with both infantry and cavalry units. These pistols were marked with a large and elaborate American eagle crest, in an attempt by DWM to enhance the gun’s appeal to Americans. A similar tactic was used in production of Lugers for Swiss sale, with a large Swiss cross (and it worked well).

After complaints about the small caliber of the early 1900 Lugers, DWM developed the 9mm Parabellum cartridge, and attempted to sell them commercially in the US (and elsewhere). A small batch were also purchased for further military testing.

http://www.forgottenweapons.com

Theme music by Dylan Benson – http://dbproductioncompany.webs.com

QotD: IKEA humans

Filed under: Education, Politics, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

Therefore, to be precise, the class of people of whom I am speaking are “cosmopolitan” neither in the idealized nor in the demonized sense of the word. They neither bridge deep social differences in search of the best in human experience, nor debase themselves with exotic foreign pleasures. Rather, they have no concept of foreignness at all, because they have no native traditions against which to compare. Indeed, the very idea of a life shaped by inherited custom is alien to our young couple. When Jennifer and Jason try to choose a restaurant for dinner, one of them invariably complains, “I don’t want Italian, because I had Italian last night.” It does not occur to them that in Italy, most people have Italian every night. For Jennifer and Jason, cuisines, musical styles, meditative practices, and other long-developed customs are not threads in a comprehensive or enduring way of life, but accessories like cheap sunglasses, to be casually picked up and discarded from day to day. Unmoored, undefined, and unaware of any other way of being, Jennifer and Jason are no one. They are the living equivalents of the particle board that makes up the IKEA dressers and IKEA nightstands next to their IKEA beds. In short, they are IKEA humans.

Samuel Biagetti, “The IKEA Humans: The Social Base of Contemporary Liberalism”, Jacobite, 2017-09-13.

October 16, 2019

M3 Halftrack: Strength & Weaknesses (featuring Chieftain)

Filed under: History, Military, USA, WW2 — Tags: , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Military History not Visualized
Published on 4 Sep 2019

Sponsored by World of Tanks! Register here ► https://tanks.ly/2zrfzsF to receive a T-127 Premium Tank, 500 Gold and 7 days Premium access with the code TANKTASTIC. Applicable to new users only.

In this video Nicholas “The Chieftain” Moran and I talk about strength & weaknesses of the M3 Halftrack, we also compare it to the German Sdkfz 251 Halftrack.

Special thanks to WW2 Armor for helping with the interview and providing an excellent backdrop, be sure to check out their sites here:

WW2 Armor Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChM-…
WW2 Armor Homepage: http://ww2armor.org/

Chieftain’s Channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCp4j…

D-Day Ohio: https://www.ddayohio.us/

https://www.militracks.nl

https://www.oorlogsmuseum.nl/en/home/

Thank you to vonKickass for helping with the thumbnail.

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» SOURCES «

von Senger und Etterlin, F. M.: Die Panzergrenadiere. Geschichte und Gestalt der mechanisierten Infanterie 1930-1960. J. F. Lehmans Verlag: 1961, München.
amazon.de (affiliate): https://amzn.to/2KNTB9J

Chamberlain, Peter; Doyle, Hilary: Encyclopedia of German Tanks of World War Two. Revised Edition. Arms & Armour: London, UK, 1999.
amazon.com (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2Zz2ZlD
amazon.de (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/343naf5

Spielberger, Walter; Doyle, Hilary Lous, Jentz, Thomas L.: Halbkettenfahrzeuge des deutschen Heeres
amazon.de (affiliate): https://amzn.to/2KDFrpP
Spielberger: Halftracked Vehicles of the German Army 1909-1945 (Spielberger German Armor and Military Vehicle)
amazon.com (affiliate): https://amzn.to/2IeHwdr

Doyle, David: The Complete Guide to German Armored Vehicles. Skyhorse Publishing: New York, USA, 2019.
amazon.com (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/34dIEWS
amazon.de (affiliate link): https://amzn.to/2HvrytC

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As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.

Als Amazon-Partner verdiene ich an qualifizierten Käufen.

Come for the interesting profile of the M3, stay for the amusing asides on modelling trains and AFVs.

QotD: Childhood fears of nuclear armageddon

Filed under: History, Humour, Quotations, USA — Tags: , , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

When I was a kid I was terrified of the End of the World. Kids heard things; older kids who’d read that ridiculous end-times tract, The Late Great Planet Earth said it foretold a struggle between the “bear” and the “eagle” and we all knew what that meant. One summer at Bible Camp I asked one of the pastors if this bear-eagle end-of-the-world stuff was true, and he said “we know not the day or the time.” You know, I thought, but you just won’t tell us.

It was 1968. On the night before the last day of camp, a counselor named Charlie Brown interrupted our sunset meeting by the shores of White Bear Lake to tell us the news: Russia had launched their missiles and they would destroy America before the night was out. It was time to get right with God.

Silence; crickets; small sobs. I’m sure no one thought much about Jesus right then. We thought about Mom and Dad and Spot and our room, where we really, really wanted to be right now, with the familiar smell of the goldfish bowl, and —

Charlie Brown guided us through some prayers. We all said Amen, and I’m sure for some it was the least heartfelt Amen we’d ever said. Then Charlie Brown said he had made up the story. Russia hadn’t launched the missiles. But what if they had? Were we right with Jesus?

Back at the barracks we were quiet and unnerved. No one wanted to go to sleep. No one wanted to talk, either. Finally John Larson, the bunkhouse bully, broke the silence. He was the mean kid. He was the one who tormented me at home, and had bothered me at camp. Nelson Muntz without the charm. John Larson expressed his simple wish to stab Charlie Brown in the stomach.

A dozen little Lutheran campers nodded in the dark: ya sure, you betcha.

James Lileks, The Bleat, 2003-09-11.

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