Unca Darrell

MAY 28 / Remembering

UNCA D's street has twenty-two houses on it. Today fourteen have flags in the front yard.

These are good neighbors and good citizens, doing the thing we are obligated to do: remembering those honored men and women in our nation's military who have sacrificed their lives for this wonderful country, America.

And equally for men, women, and children in the nations our armies have liberated and protected -- nations too often marked by crosses and other grave markers of young Americans who never returned home.

Why? What is it to us?  

It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth. (Emphasis added)

Though this day is about fallen heroes, not those who remember them, still it must be said: Well done Fawn Creek Drive. Well done, indeed. 

Now, on to November and that new birth of freedom.

MAY 27 / Back atcha

UNCA D is getting hits galore today from this righteous, but ancient, blog post by . . .

MAY 24 / A defense of Christianity and Western Civilization from . . .

. . . Mitt Romney, addressing graduates of Liberty University:

[Your] values will not always be the object of public admiration. In fact, the more you live your beliefs, the more you will endure . . .

MAY 22 / If you want to offend friends in the cultural left . . .

. . . start a conversation about Western Civilization that is neither ironic ("nice idea; we should try it") nor critical ("source of the world's misery") nor nonjudgmental ("China: just as good as us").

Such conversations rarely occur, of course, because those who disdain the civilization that forms the basis of their prosperity and security are obnoxiously loud, while those who recognize the superiority -- not the perfection; the superiority -- of Western Civilization have been taught to keep quiet about their eccentric, politically incorrect belief. 

Well. This very conversation starts in earnest at 7:00 p.m. tonight . . .

 

MAY 17 / Suit up and get in the game

WHEN I board an airplane these days, all the middle-aged men are dressed like me -- when I was an 8-year-old. They're in shorts and T-shirts. And it's not just on airplanes. It's in business offices, teachers' lounges, and churches. The priest is still wearing a cassock, but . . . 

MAY 11 / Anarchists angry with corporate America

THAT'S WHO tried to blow up a bridge near Cleveland, according to a May 2 Associated Press story on page A3 of the Houston Chronicle.

But who, exactly, are these angry and barbaric anarchists? Four of five, it turns out, were associated with the thuggish . . . 

FEBRUARY 29 / Style, usage, journalism

Fact-Checking a Benighted NYT Columnist

Although it is unlikely that Thomas Jefferson ever read the writings of [Roger] Williams when he was formalizing the separation of church and state in the Constitution, he was, nonetheless, influenced by him . . . . (Joe Nocera, "A Revolutionary Idea," New York Times, February 24, 2012)

Thomas Jefferson did not write, much less . . .

FEBRUARY 14 / Seven takeaways from . . .

 

 

 

. . . the Humble I.S.D. Rodeo and Livestock Show last weekend:

 

 

  

 

JANUARY 18 / Is America in decline?

FOR MORE than two centuries, even before the formation of the United States, the answer has been no. To ask the question was a fool's errand. Despite recession and depression, despite wars and rumors of war, despite bad presidents and worse legislators and judges, despite it all, the longer trajectory was ever upward. Choose your own measure. Material prosperity. Life expectacy. International power. Better prospects for women and racial minorities. Up, up, up.

But is that still true?

JANUARY 12 / Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art in . . .

. . . Bentonville, Arkansas, is well worth the trip. 

 More images . . .