Category: History

Winning The War On Terror

terrorismWe can win the War on Terror but, quite honestly, I don’t think we have the stomach for it yet.  Remember, we live in a society were mere discussion can send us scurrying for our “safe space.”   A society that issues warnings on innocuous television programs and needs trigger words to alert us to the possibility of distasteful conversation.  We live in a society where the most heinous crime of all is offending someone.  Personally, I think we’re quite content to battle evil with flowers and teddy bears and candlelight vigils in some sort of sad celebration of a moral victory.  It’s ’cause we believe moral victories are the bestest ones and that the institutions which guarantee us the leisure to celebrate them (or whatever) are unassailable.  These are adolescent assumptions and they’re wrong.  So until we grow up and deal with terrorism like adults, the body counts are going to mount.  But what the hell — maybe somebody’s listening.

First of all, this is the 21st century.  The military tactics of the 20th century don’t work anymore and  there is no longer any gallantry, glory or noblesse oblige in war.  It’s only nasty, brutal and mean.  Know this.  If you want the moral high ground, don’t fight in the first place.

Secondly, the Enlightenment is a European concept.  Like it or don’t, over 80% of the world has no cultural memory of it.  We believe that the rule of law, personal liberty, tolerance and representative democracy are universal truths.  They’re not.  They’re the luxuries of a successful society.  Strive as we might for these ideals, the real truth is the majority of the people on this planet don’t give a rat’s ass for them — if they understand them in the first place.  Thinking that jihadists and their buddies are one ballot box away from playing nice is naive stupidity.

So — What is to be done?
We have to bring all of our military, economic, technological, creative and industrial power to bear on this, people!  We need to put the jihadists in our crosshairs and take the fight to them and their friends.

One — Eldridge Cleaver said “There is no more neutrality in the world. You either have to be part of the solution, or you’re going to be part of the problem.”  We need to remember this — always — and make certain the rest of the world understands it.

Two — Cut off the cash.  Terrorism is an expensive proposition, and the last time I looked, ISIS wasn’t holding any bake sales to finance it.  Their money is coming from somewhere — idiot donors, misguided do-gooders, Iranian Ayatollahs, out-and-out petro-corruption?  Who cares?  We need to bankrupt the donors, whoever they are.  We need to make supporting jihad a luxury nobody can afford.

Three — Disrupt their communication.  Anonymous’ declaration of war against ISIS is a good start, but we need to shut everything down.  We have an abundance of basement-dwelling hackers in the West who would be more than happy to create chaos across the ISIS Internet.  Turn them loose!  They’ll probably do it for free — and sit back and watch Paris Hilton’s Sex Tape popping up on laptops and Smart phones all over the Middle East.

Four — Destroy their recruitment.  We need to make fun of these people.  We need to mock them without mercy.  We need SNL skits, YouTube videos, Amy Schumer, Jimmy Fallon, Ricky Gervais and a lot of other standup comics.  We need to have our creative people change the romantic guerilla fighter image (a la Che Guevara) into something that looks and acts like Norville “Shaggy” Rogers from Scooby-doo.  Terrorism is a young person’s game, and the one thing young people hate above all else is looking ridiculous.  Trust me!  If we make the jihadists look like a bunch of bumbling clowns, it will literally destroy their recruitment.

Five — Get serious.  No more hand wringing and navel gazing.  We need to bring the fight to the jihadists — today.  The French are doing it!  Advocating violence against any group, including Christians, crusaders, Jews, secularists and infidels is a hate crime.  Anybody promoting jihad should be arrested immediately.  We have enough complicated laws (and shyster lawyers) to keep the ones who survive tangled up behind bars for years — we should do it.  And BTW, if they resist, martyrdom is the coward’s way out — accommodate them.

Six — Don’t get impatient.  That means no boots on the ground.  Unless we’re willing to occupy vast sections of the Middle East for a couple of hundred years while we build the institutions, the education and the attitudes of a liberal democracy — no boots on the ground.  Arm and train anyone who opposes these murderers, but no boots on the ground.  Bomb anything bigger than a shopping cart any place jihadists claim as home turf, but no boots on the ground.

And finally:

Living well is the best revenge.  We need to enjoy life.  We need to drink and eat and dance and sing and kiss and laugh and do all the things our privileged society allows us to do.  We’re not hiding in a hole in the middle of the desert; they are.

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9 Simple Rules For Ghosts

ghostsWhether you believe in ghosts or not, you have to admit that there are all kinds of things in this world that we simply can’t explain.  They exist outside our accepted knowledge and they defy our know-it-all science — without apology.  I have a friend who says and believes, “It’s all a pack of rubbish. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”  Still, I know of one place in particular she avoids, because, she says, “I just don’t like the feel of that place.”  If nothing else, that’s what ghosts are: a feeling.  And that’s the problem: even after thousands of sightings over hundreds of years, and some pretty thorough investigation, there is still no hard evidence to prove (or disprove) the existence of ghosts.

However, if we rustle through the stacks of eyewitness reports, from the last several hundred years, we find some amazing similarities.  Ghosts seem to adhere to a few simple rules.  These rules are not etched in stone like the markings on a tomb, but, in general, all ghosts tend to behave in a strikingly similar way.

Rule #1 – Ghosts appear at night.  There are very few ghostly sightings in the bright morning or afternoon sun.  They don’t seem to like it.  I’ve been told that twilight is a relatively good time to see ghosts, but by far the best time for ghost-watching is between midnight and 2 A.M. — the so-called “witching hour.”

Rule #2 – Ghosts have little or no colour.  In general, ghosts appear to be black and white or grey.  When they do have colour, it’s usually a washed-out tint like a flimsy transparency.

Rule #3 – Ghosts are cold.  More accurately, they are accompanied by cold.  It is almost universally agreed that whenever ghosts appear, there is a noticeable chill in the air.

Rule #4 – Ghosts don’t like to be touched.  They will, on occasion, touch people but there are very few accounts of people touching ghosts (and getting away with it.)

Rule #5 – Ghosts inhabit buildings.  They prefer places that have some history to them.  There are cases of ghosts showing up in new houses but not very often.  Generally they live (exist?) in older buildings or in places close to old buildings.

Rule #6 – Ghosts don’t like an audience.  They prefer to appear before one or two people at a time.  And they tend to disappear just as quickly if more people come to investigate.  Interestingly enough, even though nearly every West End theatre in London has a ghost or two in its repertoire (Drury Lane has three, I think), none has ever appeared before an entire audience.

Rule #7 – Normally (if that’s the right term) ghosts stick to familiar surroundings.  They like the places they knew when they were alive, and they don’t travel well.  There are reports of people seeing the same ghost in the same place several times over the course of a couple of hundred years.  The major exception to this rule is Anne Boleyn, the beheaded wife of Henry VIII.  They say that her spirit haunts Hampton Court Palace (where she was a bride) Brickling Hall (her family home) and the Tower of London (where she met her violent end.)  Ghosts may indeed be singular apparitions, but apparently there’s no “rule” that says they can’t be in two places at once.  After all, why not?

Oddly, these last two rules are different from the first seven. These “rules” have changed over the years.

Rule #8 – In the past, ghosts did not usually speak, apart from howling, shrieking or crying.  When they did speak, it was either to lament their fate or issue a dire warning.  There were very few documented cases of ghostly talk before about 1960.  However, since then, ghosts have gotten more and more conversational, and here in the 21st century, they’ve become downright chatty.  There doesn’t seem to be any explanation for this change in ghostly behaviour.

Rule #9 – Also, over the last fifty years or so, ghosts have gotten much more benevolent: the howling hauntings of the 19th and early 20th centuries have given way to a kinder, gentler ghost population.  In most cases, there is no blood-cold horror associated with ghosts anymore, even though, on the whole, the existence of a ghost is still tied to some kind of trauma during the ghost’s life — an unhappiness, a violent death or a strong emotion, like love.

At the risk of stereotyping the inhabitants of the Spirit World, these 9 simple rules are a good guideline for ghost watching; however, they don’t always apply.  Ghosts have appeared in open fields in broad daylight.  They’ve singed people’s hair.  They’ve showed up in bold tartans and shocking-pink tutus.  They’ve played cards and laughed and even walked their ghostly dogs.   But the next time you’re home alone after midnight and catch a gray shadow out of the corner of your eye, or feel a sudden chill, you might want to look into the history of your house.  You might not be as alone as you think.

Halloween: A History

halloweenI’m totally into Hallowe’en.  It’s right up there with Christmas, St Paddy’s Day and the Summer Solstice.  (I think I was a Druid in a past life.)  Unfortunately, idiots have taken over the celebration and they’re ruining it.  Every year, the minute the calendar says October, our 5,000 channel television universe turns into a butcher shop and it’s wall-to-wall Horror Movie gore until the bloodlust finally abates November 1st.  What a bunch of crap!

Here’s the deal.

Michael Myers, Freddy Krueger, what’s-his-name with the hockey mask and anybody else with a chainsaw, pickaxe or pointy stick have nothing to do with Hallowe’en.  These guys and their horrible movies were invented by Hollywood to cash in on the universal need for teenage boys to get close to teenage girls — who, BTW, are looking for an excuse to let them.  That’s where horror movies came from — not from Hallowe’en.  Hallowe’en was never about half-naked young women and dumbass young men getting their entrails splattered from here to Main Street.  Nor was it about the lunatics, maniacs and psychopaths who stalk them.  These are all modern creations of the film industry.

Historically, this is what Hallowe’en is all about.

Hallowe’en actually started out as a quasi-religious holiday.  Back in the day, when pagans ruled the world and Christianity was a fairly new religion, the battle for the collective souls of the European multitudes was waged without mercy.  Religious marketing was at its cutthroat best.  The early Christians weren’t stupid, and they hijacked a lot of pagan traditions and incorporated them into their rituals to ease the masses into accepting Jesus as their personal Saviour.  In those days, pagans (and most Christians) believed that unsatisfied souls walked the night, and they could, on occasion, mete out some pretty mean-spirited retribution on the living — if they saw fit.  The church decided that November 1st, Hallowmas, a day that already honoured the saints, would be a good opportunity for people to pray for the souls of the recently dead.  This would aid the tormented on their journey to heaven — and, more importantly, keep them away from the God-fearing living.  Since midnight masses were de rigueur in those days, the church services took place at night or on All Hallows’ Eve.  (Sound familiar?  Hallowe’en?)  However, the nouveaux Christians of the day weren’t above hedging their bets — just in case this Jesus thing didn’t work out.  On their way to church, they wore cloaks, masks and even costumes – to disguise themselves from the ghosts who were hanging around the cemetery, waiting for prayers of deliverance.  In addition, some of the poorer members of the parish would accept coins or food from the wealthier patrons to add their prayers for the dear departed.  That’s it: the time, the place, the costumes, the tricks and the treats.  There’s a lot more to it, but for bare bones, you can take this history to the bank.

Notice!  There were no chainsaws, axes, heavy mallets or ball peen hammers.  There were no knives, swords, machetes, garden forks, shovels or soup spoons.  Nobody got stabbed, jabbed, poked or prodded.  Nobody got torn limb from limb, dismembered or even bruised.   It wasn’t a bloodbath, or even a slight rinse.  Originally, and for over a thousand years of its history, Hallowe’en was spooky, creepy, perhaps even a little frightening, but murder and blood soaked mayhem were never on the agenda.  It’s only recently that it’s been turned into a month-long multi-channel Splatterfest.  And for my money that’s a total corruption of a perfectly good festival.

Friday:  How to Write a Horror Movie