A Mind Always Free

It is difficult to encapsulate the meaning of the life of Alexander Solzhenitsyn upon his death last Sunday. His prose revealed to an ignorant world the horrors of the systematic oppression imposed by the Communists in the Soviet Union. He consistently and convincingly argued for the inherent and basic rights of all people and appropriately faulted every standing political system for its respective failures or weakness. Perhaps most importantly he demonstrated the power of the individual to resist and outlive the monster of terror and slavery.

Yankee Scribble has a few brief words about Solzhenitsyn, which you might find interesting, as well as links to various media commentary on the man. I would like to add these two...

1978 Commencement Address at Harvard
Excerpt: "A decline in courage may be the most striking feature which an outside observer notices in the West in our days. The Western world has lost its civil courage, both as a whole and separately, in each country, each government, each political party, and, of course, in the United Nations. Such a decline in courage is particularly noticeable among the ruling groups and the intellectual elite, causing an impression of loss of courage by the entire society... Should one point out that from ancient times declining courage has been considered the beginning of the end?"

1970 Nobel Prize Speech

Returning to Europe

Radovan Karadzic is a Serbian war criminal, who has been on the lamb for 13 years. Now, he is being brought to justice. (Well, he's being turned over to the Hague, so we'll see how much justice is actually done.) The relevant and significant facts of his arrest are that he was finally arrested by a courageous new government in Serbia, which is staking its political future on more democracy, atoning for past atrocities committed by the likes of Karadzic, and working toward EU membership. This is amazing in the place that gave Balkanization its name, is historically aligned with Russia, and has strong nationalist attitudes. Even when Communist Tito was running the joint, Serbian nationalism was a tapped as a source of power and control more so than international Marxism.

Read about the fascinating feats of diplomacy that helped bring all this about here.

The slow march out of the darkness of Communism and post-communist extremist nationalism for the nations of East Europe is a story that people in the West should be more familiar with. Not just because it has led to the sacrifice of NATO blood and treasure (and reputation), but because it presages some of the conflicts that the nations of the Mideast will encounter soon. Also, a pro-Europe Serbia is probably pissing off the Kremlin, and that never leads to anything good.

Decisive Days

Early June saw a conspicuous number decisive events during World War Two. The Battle of Midway transpired over June 4-6, 1942. It's easy for us in the later generations to forget just how vitally important, both strategically and morale-wise, this victory was for the Americans. At the time, the US Pacific Fleet was still reeling from the Pearl Harbor attack, the evacuation of the Philippines and the fall of Corregidor, and the stalemate at the Battle of the Coral Sea, where the aircraft carrier Lexington was sunk. However, with miracle code-breaking efforts from Naval Intelligence, the Americans learned of the impending Japanese invasion of Midway. The early warning allowed the US carriers Enterprise, Hornet, and Yorktown to surprise the Japanese fleet. American planes destroyed all four of the Japanese carriers (Akagi, Kaga, Hiryu, and Soryu) present at the battle, which represented a loss of over half of the Rising Sun's carrier strength. Just consider, 6 months after Pearl Harbor, the Americans had gained the advantage in the Pacific with a single battle. The totality of the campaign is striking and full of amazing feats, on both sides. For instance, the Yorktown was only able to participate in the battle due to the unbelievable efforts of the dock yard repair crews, who returned the carrier to fighting trim in just 72 hours after she limped into Pearl Harbor following crippling damage at Coral Sea. Yorktown was not so lucky a second time, however, and she sank from significant bomb and torpedo damage at Midway. Remind me to tell you about a gentleman I know who is a veteran of the battle.

Ballista highly recommends the 1976 film Midway starring Charlton Heston, Glenn Ford, Henry Fonda, Robert Mitchum, Pat Morita (Mr. Miagi) and many more famous faces. It's a very accurate portrayal of the events before and during the campaign.

Of course, June 6, 1944 was D-Day, Operation Overlord, the Invasion of Normandy by Allied forces. Ballista will leave it to others to comment on what has been appropriately called the Longest Day.

For the Aesthetic

Treat yourself. Five centuries of female portraits in 3 minutes.


Beautiful... amazing... and technically cool production.

Ballista was tempted to title this post "The Changing Face of Beauty." But if you pay close attention to the images, you'll notice that that statement is quite inaccurate. Some might say that this is the product of a Western bias. However, as a student of art, Ballista thinks it reflects an inherent, universal love of symmetry and perspective. To be sure, whatever it is, it is what keeps us looking at these portraits and discussing them century after century.

Thanks, Alex.

Look out, it's...

GODZILLA!



Update: Oooh, it gets better!

Here Come the Men in Robes

Who is the least-threatening, most peaceful person on the face of the planet today?




Let Ballista put it another way... who do you think you could poke in the chest over and over again yet they would never do anything about it?




Ballista's vote is for the Dalai Lama. (And no, Ballista does not fantasize about poking his holiness in the chest repeatedly.)

Next question. Who could possibly want to hurt the Dalai Lama? Aside from the communist regime in China, of course.



Think about it...




Yes, al-Qaeda.

Those wacky fundamentalists have reportedly set their gun sites on the biggest Buddhist of them all. (He'd still have that title in Ballista's mind even if the Taliban (b/f/f of al-Qaeda) hadn't blown the ancient Buddha statues to smithereens.) This should reveal once and for all that these extremists are not the enemies of just Western civilization, but civilization period.