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August 31, 2005

QUEST

I read this story of the quest to appropriate a white cross from Cindy Sheehan's circus. It sounds like things have gotten a little more complicated in Crawford since a few weeks ago when Mrs. Sims' friend uprooted CPT Sims' cross; I guess the police are involved now in order to keep the peace at the peace protest. I love the irony in that one.

But something in this blog post really caught my eye:

Once the details were taken care of, we were given a tour of Camp Reality. There is one father who is trying to raise money to get a bronze statue (of the rifle, boots, and helmet) placed in the hometown of each fallen soldier.

Has anyone heard anything else about this idea? I think it's a beautiful goal, and I'd be interested in donating and advertising this fundraiser. Any chance any of you know more about this man? Google wasn't much help.

Posted by: Sarah at 05:17 AM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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1 http://www.lesttheybeforgotten.com/ I read about it at the live blogger from NRO online a few days ago. http://buzz.nationalreview.com/074337.asp Turning in my thesis tomorrow...mad scramble doing footnotes now.

Posted by: CaliValleyGirl at August 31, 2005 07:36 AM (IZ+n/)

2 A soldier's monument is his achievement. My monument is a South Korea brilliantly alive while North Korea stays dark. Feather Merchant monuments ususally ring hollow.

Posted by: Walter E. Wallis at August 31, 2005 03:22 PM (ss8Gt)

3 I think that this is the basic idea for the memorial: http://www.largeart.com/War_Memorial.asp http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-05-25-memorials-cover_x.htm I do think it would be nice if we could create that sort of memorial in each fallen soldier's town. It would be good to honor the fallen and pay respects without the constant childish bickering that the right and left are constantly engaged in. That said, that article really read like the ramblings of an anti-rational partisan. Promoting the underlying delusion/dishonesty that the protesters are blaming the troops for what the administration has done has completely separated them from reality. The most ironic bit is that the anti-war 'protesters' call themselves 'Camp Reality.' The left has their own problems with namecalling and dishonest rhetoric, which isn't helping either. This quote was a gem too: "The Right, for the most part, doesn't protest- we're not angry all the time." It's almost as if they don't see that the pundits aer constantly playing on people's fear and anger, drumming up their emotions and clouding understanding. But I'd like to think that nobody on could really be that stupid.

Posted by: Mr. Silly at August 31, 2005 07:55 PM (y7lmo)

4 I don't understand why someone would want others to die for a lie just because one of their own family members died for a lie. Is this a new kind of pathology?

Posted by: ken at September 03, 2005 08:18 PM (SNQLw)

5 ken: Perhaps the error lies in an assumption you're making. Think hard and take a guess.

Posted by: Patrick Chester at September 04, 2005 06:22 AM (74cXW)

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August 25, 2005

AMERICAN DREAM

My husbandÂ’s roommate in college came to the US from Poland. He was going to try to make his fortune in New York City, but there was a better deal for flights to Chicago at that time. He left with only the money in his pocket to make a new life for himself. He worked three part-time jobs while he was at college with us; I honestly canÂ’t remember ever seeing him sleep in the entire time IÂ’ve known him. I remember laughing when he finally saved enough to buy a piece of crap car on eBay, and my husband still sometimes brings up the moneysaving kitchen tips he learned from his roommate.

I talked to him this morning, and I canÂ’t erase the huge grin from my face. He has a good job in the cellphone industry now, heÂ’s working on his MBA, and he just bought his second house, one for him to live in and another to Â“rent out and build some equity.Â” I laughingly told him that heÂ’s finally living the American Dream; he replied that he is doing so well that heÂ’s actually getting fat. I am so happy for him.

I need to check on our other friend, a Bulgarian who I swear wore the same shirt and pants every day when I first met him. HeÂ’s just finishing up his internship in med school.

What a wonderful country ours is.

Posted by: Sarah at 02:10 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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There is neither happiness nor misery in the world; there is only the comparison of one state with another, nothing more. He who has felt the deepest grief is best able to experience supreme happiness. We must have felt what it is to die, Morrel, that we may appreciate the enjoyments of living.
--The Count of Monte Cristo--

While our troops go out to defend our country, it is incumbent upon us to make the country worth defending.
--Deskmerc--

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Contrary to what you've just seen, war is neither glamorous nor fun. There are no winners, only losers. There are no good wars, with the following exceptions: The American Revolution, WWII, and the Star Wars Trilogy.
--Bart Simpson--

If you want to be a peacemaker, you've gotta learn to kick ass.
--Sheriff of East Houston, Superman II--

Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion. You just leave a lot of useless noisy baggage behind.
--Jed Babbin--

Dante once said that the hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in a period of moral crisis maintain their neutrality.
--President John F. Kennedy--

War is a bloody, killing business. You've got to spill their blood, or they will spill yours.
--General Patton--

We've gotta keep our heads until this peace craze blows over.
--Full Metal Jacket--

Those who threaten us and kill innocents around the world do not need to be treated more sensitively. They need to be destroyed.
--Dick Cheney--

The Flag has to come first if freedom is to survive.
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The purpose of diplomacy isn't to make us feel good about Eurocentric diplomatic skills, and having countries from the axis of chocolate tie our shoelaces together does nothing to advance our infantry.
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I just don't care about the criticism I receive every day, because I know the cause I defend is right.
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It's days like this when we're reminded that freedom isn't free.
--Chaplain Jacob--

Bumper stickers aren't going to accomplish some of the missions this country is going to face.
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The success of multilateralism is measured not merely by following a process, but by achieving results.
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Live and act within the limit of your knowledge and keep expanding it to the limit of your life.
--John Galt--

First, go buy a six pack and swig it all down. Then, watch Ace Ventura. And after that, buy a Hard Rock Cafe shirt and come talk to me. You really need to lighten up, man.
--Sminklemeyer--

You've got to kill people, and when you've killed enough they stop fighting
--General Curtis Lemay--

If we wish to be free, if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending, if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained -- we must fight!
--Patrick Henry--

America has never been united by blood or birth or soil. We are bound by ideals that move us beyond our backgrounds, lift us above our interests and teach us what it means to be citizens. Every child must be taught these principles. Every citizen must uphold them. And every immigrant, by embracing these ideals, makes our country more, not less, American.
--President George W. Bush--

are usually just cheerleading sessions, full of sound and fury and signifying nothing but a soothing reduction in blood pressure brought about by the narcotic high of being agreed with.
--Bill Whittle

War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things. The decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth war is much worse. The person who has nothing for which he is willing to fight, nothing which is more important than his own personal safety, is a miserable creature and has no chance of being free unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill--

We are determined that before the sun sets on this terrible struggle, our flag will be recognized throughout the world as a symbol of freedom on the one hand and of overwhelming force on the other.
--General George Marshall--

We can continue to try and clean up the gutters all over the world and spend all of our resources looking at just the dirty spots and trying to make them clean. Or we can lift our eyes up and look into the skies and move forward in an evolutionary way.
--Buzz Aldrin--

America is the greatest, freest and most decent society in existence. It is an oasis of goodness in a desert of cynicism and barbarism. This country, once an experiment unique in the world, is now the last best hope for the world.
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Recent anti-Israel protests remind us again of our era's peculiar alliance: the most violent, intolerant, militantly religious movement in modern times has the peace movement on its side.
--James Lileks--

As a wise man once said: we will pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe, in order to assure the survival and the success of liberty. Unless the price is too high, the burden too great, the hardship too hard, the friend acts disproportionately, and the foe fights back. In which case, we need a timetable.
--James Lileks--

I am not willing to kill a man so that he will agree with my faith, but I am prepared to kill a man so that he cannot force my compatriots to submit to his.
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You can say what you want about President Bush; but the truth is that he can take a punch. The man has taken a swift kick in the crotch for breakfast every day for 6 years and he keeps getting up with a smile in his heart and a sense of swift determination to see the job through to the best of his abilties.
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Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protected, and handed on for them to do the same, or one day we will spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it was once like in the United States where men were free.
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America is rather like life. You can usually find in it what you look for. It will probably be interesting, and it is sure to be large.
--E.M. Forster--

Do not fear the enemy, for your enemy can only take your life. It is far better that you fear the media, for they will steal your HONOR. That awful power, the public opinion of a nation, is created in America by a horde of ignorant, self-complacent simpletons who failed at ditching and shoemaking and fetched up in journalism on their way to the poorhouse.
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The Enlightenment was followed by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic wars, which touched every European state, sparked vicious guerrilla conflicts across the Continent and killed millions. Then, things really turned ugly after the invention of soccer.
--Iowahawk--

Every time I meet an Iraqi Army Soldier or Policeman that I haven't met before, I shake his hand and thank him for his service. Many times I am thanked for being here and helping his country. I always tell them that free people help each other and that those that truly value freedom help those seeking it no matter the cost.
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Right, left - the terms are useless nowadays anyway. There are statists, and there are individualists. There are pessimists, and optimists. There are people who look backwards and trust in the West, and those who look forward and trust in The World. Those are the continuums that seem to matter the most right now.
--Lileks--

The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.
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A man or a nation is not placed upon this earth to do merely what is pleasant and what is profitable. It is often called upon to carry out what is both unpleasant and unprofitable, but if it is obviously right it is mere shirking not to undertake it.
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A man who has nothing which he cares about more than he does about his personal safety is a miserable creature who has no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the existing of better men than himself.
--John Stuart Mill--

After the attacks on September 11, 2001, most of the sheep, that is, most citizens in America said, "Thank God I wasn't on one of those planes." The sheepdogs, the warriors, said, "Dear God, I wish I could have been on one of those planes. Maybe I could have made a difference."
--Dave Grossman--

At heart Iâ€™m a cowboy; my attitude is if theyâ€™re not going to stand up and fight for what they believe in then they can go pound sand.
--Bill Whittle--

A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship.
--Alexander Tyler--

By that time a village half-wit could see what generations of professors had pretended not to notice.
--Atlas Shrugged--

I kept asking Clarence why our world seemed to be collapsing and everything seemed so shitty. And he'd say, "That's the way it goes, but don't forget, it goes the other way too."
--Alabama Worley--

So Bush is history, and we have a new president who promises to heal the planet, and yet the jihadists donâ€™t seem to have got the Obama message that there are no enemies, just friends we havenâ€™t yet held talks without preconditions with.
--Mark Steyn--

"I had started alone in this journey called life, people started gathering up on the way, and the caravan got bigger everyday."
--Urdu couplet

The book and the sword are the two things that control the world. We either gonna control them through knowledge and influence their minds, or we gonna bring the sword and take their heads off.
--RZA--

It's a daily game of public Frogger, hopping frantically to avoid being crushed under the weight of your own narcissism, banality, and plain old stupidity.
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There are more instances of the abridgment of freedoms of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations.
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It is in the heat of emotion that good people must remember to stand on principle.
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Please show this to the president and ask him to remember the wishes of the forgotten man, that is, the one who dared to vote against him. We expect to be tramped on but we do wish the stepping would be a little less hard.
--from a letter to Eleanor Roosevelt--

The world economy depends every day on some engineer, farmer, architect, radiator shop owner, truck driver or plumber getting up at 5AM, going to work, toiling hard, and producing real wealth so that an array of bureaucrats, regulators, and redistributors can manage the proper allotment of much of the natural largess produced.
--VDH--

Parents are often so busy with the physical rearing of children that they miss the glory of parenthood, just as the grandeur of the trees is lost when raking leaves.
--Marcelene Cox--