China and the South China Sea

Besides the primaries, the focus of most attention on this country has been on ISIS and its defeat.  We've been preoccupied, largely, with figuring out a way to defeat the terrorist group but also to check Russia's neverending ambitions to establish itself in the Middle East for its cherished warm-water port for its navy.  It's not as if focusing on the primaries or the Middle East is wrong somehow.  Each has a huge impact on the future of the United States.

While our collective attention has been distracted, something very troubling has been going on in the western Pacific. China, in a newfound fit of expansionism compounded by paranoia, has decided to extend what is traditionally held to be territorial water rights well beyond the mostly accepted twelve mile limit.  Below is a map of how China is claiming territorial waters:



A full exposition of how China's engaged in claiming more than its fair share can be found here:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/27/tensions-and-territorial-claims-in-the-south-china-sea-the-guardian-briefing

The troubling aspect of this is that we've given relatively little attention to this matter.  As can be seen from the above map, China is infringing on its neighbors' territories as well as wresting from the international community that which pertains to no nation.  The feckless UN can't and won't do anything to push back China's ambitions.  It's allowing China to create islands in the middle of the ocean and then militarize them.  This is China's version of the Iron Curtain, gaining a buffer zone so to act as a tripwire in the event of an attack.  It also provides jumping-off bases should China wish to absorb any of its neighbors. 

With our preoccupation with the Middle East, the primaries and now the late Justice Scalia's successor, the inscrutable Chinese are making a sea-grab.  Given the proximity to China and the distance from our shores, I'm not sure what we could do about this even if our President weren't as feckless as the UN.  None of the countries in the region can match China's firepower.  Any other country with a navy strong enough to stare down the Chinese is on the other side of the globe, except Russia, who probably titters happily at the thought of our discomfort.

Right now, this is of no consequence to us.  Someday, however, the lack of intestinal fortitude to check the Chinese advance in the sea will come back to haunt the international community.  The rule of law means nothing to them, so taking such a bold step is only a small step for them.

This move bears watching.  It may also bear resolution.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Justice Antonin Scalia

If Supreme Court Justices could have groupies, Justice Antonin Scalia would have had his fair share. I can't recall a time when the death of a Supreme evoked such heightened emotions in Americans, especially among those of us who admired his pugnacious brilliance and indomitable spirit in maintaining the original intent of the Founding Fathers.  Some of that emotion is misguided, as I'll get to in a minute.  But Justice Scalia was an impressive man among a very limited group of impressive people.

Justice Scalia, whether you loved him or hated him, was brilliant.  His brilliance shone through due to his analytical ability, his wordsmithing and his ability to simplify the law down to its most elemental parts.  I've read some of his opinions and have been left slackjawed by the enormity of his intellect. His ability to present his argument, castigate his opponents and do all of it with incredibly intricate language just floored me.

That his two best friends on the Court, Justices Ginsberg and Kagan, speaks volumes.  He often differed with them, yet they were his closest friends on the Court.  As he noted, you hate the position, not the person, something we all too often forget these days.  Illiberal liberals are having great fun at his passing.  Social media, known for bringing out the trolls, is alive with people who are dancing on the Justice's grave.  Cringeworthy posts such as "Please make sure to separate Scalia’s head from his body before burial," "I hope Scalia died from gay sex," and "Don't even try to enforce the inapplicable don't-speak-ill-of-the-dead "rule" for the highly polarizing, deeply consequential Antonin Scalia," are but a couple of examples of the vitriol sent the Justice's way.

Let's not forget:  This man served his country with great distinction.  I wonder how liberals would feel if this kind of rhetoric were expended for one of their own.

Republicans, meanwhile, are beside themselves.  Calls for the President not to follow his constitutional duty and nominate someone to fill Justice Scalia's now-vacant seat on the Court are overreacting.  First, there's no way the POTUS will step aside and allow his successor to make the nomination.  What's more, he won't nominate anyone who would make Republicans happy.  He's going to push for his agenda to be extended long after his term ends.  A Republican president would do no less.  To ask the President to wait eleven months and burden the Court with a less-than-complete line up would be a disservice to the country.

Republican senators, of course, could drag out the confirmation process.  They could reject the President's nominee and push the issue past inauguration.  I'm not sure that's what's best for the country, but as the President has his role to play, so does the Senate.

But doing this is dangerous.  Unless Justice Ginsberg retires early, as has been rumored, or if Justices Thomas or Kennedy do the same, the next president will likely have three nominations to make.  Any damage done by President Obama can be undone by the next president.  What is looking right now as a 5-4 liberal majority could easily become a 6-3 conservative majority in a couple of years.  The hysteria of this president's choice to fill Justice Scalia's seat is unnecessary.  Grandstanding isn't what's needed.  A push to get more Republican senators and to ensure a Republican president is elected is what's needed, not a showdown over one nomination.  If the Republicans do pitch a fit, it might encourage Judge Ginsberg to retire early, which would lower the 6-3 potential conservative majority to 5-4 at best.  And lest we forget, the Warren and Roberts nominations that conservatives so loudly cheered only to rue later on could portend similar outcomes in the future.

Justice Scalia would probably look at all of this with bemusement.  He'd easily pick apart both side's arguments and ask everyone where in the Constitution it says his replacement has to be a conservative.

Then he'd invite Justice Ginsberg out for a drink and laugh the night away.

QDEP Justice Scalia.

You will be sorely missed.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Online Democracy

As any regular reader of this blog knows, my wife Karen is a political junkie.  She thrives in exchanging thoughts with those who oppose her, dealing mostly in facts but occasionally veering into denouncing the party if not its adherents.   She rarely if ever engages in defamatory conduct, at best mildly rebuking someone for an inane comment or, more likely, correcting someone's grammar or syntax that should have been mastered decades ago.

Karen is a very tolerant conservative.  She might object to a point of view, or to a particular post, but she doesn't deal in ad hominem attacks.  Her posts can be testy, to be sure, but she's generally respectful of her opponent.

The same is not true of her opponents.  Unlike Karen, who can make mordant even pithy comments about liberalism, tenets of liberalism or the liberal politicians themselves -- all fair game by any measure -- her liberal opponents know no boundaries.  She's been called shameful -- by an aunt, no less (I completed the estrangement by suggesting that doing such a thing was ignorant and petty; the woman's son, Karen's cousin, got quite pissy with me for calling his mother ignorant and petty.  If the shoe fits, fine, but another aspect of modern-day liberalism is an inability to comprehend simple English), someone suffering from cognitive dissonance and far, far worse. 

There's an old saw in the law that goes something like this:  When the law's on one's side, argue the law.  When the facts are on one's side, argue the facts.  When neither the law nor the facts are on one's side, shout as loudly as one can.

That, in a nutshell, is the playbook of modern liberal discourse.

That such lunatics exist on the conservative side is indisputable.  Every group has its fringe element.  The problem with liberalism -- at least in the United States -- is that the fringe is almost the core element.  Conservatism eschews rabid lunatics, generally, and prefers to dwell in rhetoric, empiricism and debate.  For liberals, debate and rhetoric involves namecalling, belittling of one's opponent, using outdated statistics to buttress a position and generally treating one's opponent as if it's a truculent child in need of a time-out.  The pat on the head is not as benign as it's meant to seem.

There's a very narrow minority within liberalism that can debate without reducing itself to the lowest common denominator within its sect.  The problem is that the Al Sharptons, the Jesse Jacksons, the Harry Reids, the Nancy Pelosis, the Debbie Wasserman-Schultzes and the like appear more often and more loudly.  Ironically, the Hollyweird wing of the sect tries to sound erudite, but that group often lapses into outdated facts and illogical arguments.

Online, the noise coming from liberals mirrors what's seen in the mainstream.  Vicious attacks usually descend upon a person who's not drunk the Kool-Aid of the Left.  No attempt to reason or persuade takes place -- well, no mature attempt anyway -- replaced instead by character assassination and decibels.  That liberals think this is positive discourse is troubling.

Godwin's Law Alert:  When the Nazis rose to power, they effectively silenced their opposition by bullying, incorrect facts and loud sounds -- not to mention outright murder.  The Communists before them used the tactics.  Virtually every discredited political system that rose to power has used underhanded tactics to topple a stronger opponent.  Making transparently false promises, lying about the opponents or their positions and drowning out the opponents has translated into victory for liberals.

Liberalism as a movement -- like communism -- has some very good and recommendable tenets.  Unfortunately, it's been corrupted by the power that it's acquired, thereby transforming it into something almost recognizable.  If that sounds unbelievable, try to square liberalism with the current notion that opposing viewpoints aren't worthy of being aired.  To wit, if one disagrees with abortion, voicing that opinion must be drowned out.

Rahm Emanuel, the mayor of Chicago and a cunning political operative, infamously suggested that no crisis should ever be wasted.  Is that purity of belief?  It's Machiavellian, it's politically astute, but is it what liberalism is all about?

If anyone doubts this, spend some time on Facebook or Twitter and watch the political discussions.  See if they track what I say.  Then ask:  Is one side actually trying to persuade the other?  Is one side trying to cudgel the other into submission?

My wife engages in political debate because for her, it's sport.  But at its core its a very serious matter.  The very existence of our country rests on robust, active debate and exchange of ideas.

Haymakers, bullying and threats are not debate.

Liberalism should be ashamed of its adherents.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Reading

When I was a high schooler looking into colleges, I remember receiving a postcard from St. John's College, a small liberal arts school with campuses in Annapolis and Santa Fe.  Beside the dual campuses, what struck me about St. John's -- a school that I never considered attending -- was the postcard that listed what books students should read by the end of each year in college.  I was intrigued because the list had so many classics that I realized how many books there were that I needed to read yet hadn't even thought about picking up.

So in high school, I picked up such classic authors and Plato and Tolstoy and read them.  Sure, I'm a nerd, but I was also an athlete in high school.  I doubt many of the other guys on the teams were reading what I was reading; only the guys in Math Club or the National Honor Society were reading those books, and there weren't many athletes in either group.  I even bought Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World, which I still have.

This began a lifelong love affair with reading.  I can't claim to read one hundred and fifty books a year like Donald Fehr, formerly the lead attorney for the MLB players' union and now the lead attorney for the NHL players' union, famously claimed (he must be Evelyn Woods' son, since he would seem to have no time to read after all the meetings, document reviews and negotiations in which he was involved).  I guess I'm a voracious reader, since I regularly read when I'm in the bathroom or when I pump gas -- which has elicited a comment or two from other drivers.

But there is so much to read, so little time.  Karen thinks I'm a candidate for a twelve-step program, only she can't find the program in which to enroll me.  She's asked me to get keep only those books that are my friends, only to hear that I consider all my books my friends.  In truth, I do get rid of books.  She doesn't see the utility to keeping books once I read them.  In response, I actually use them as reference, either for things I write or to settle arguments I have.  Some books I keep aside from all the rest simply because they're the best books I've ever read.

I keep an alphabetical (by author) list of all the books I own, the vast majority of which are hardbound.  Pared down after a flood and a couple of moves, the list totals some fifty-eight pages.  After awhile, I also started keeping track of what books I read.  There are those people who enjoy books so much they reread their favorite tomes, sometimes every year.  I don't have the time.  There's allegedly a Supreme Court Justice who loves Jane Austen and rereads her novels every year.  I say there are too many good books out there to spend the time rereading those books I enjoy above all others.  So my list of read books runs on about fifty pages, now with the readings broken down by month and year.  I also kept a list of the books I loaned out to friends; keeping the list is one thing, getting the books back is quite another.

A thumb drive on which I kept the list recently was broken so I had to retype the thing.  Fortunately, I had an old copy of the list printed that allowed me to recreate the list with a lot of typing.  As I typed it, I noticed some interesting things:

The year I read the most books was 2007, when read seventy-nine.  This was in a three year stretch when I read seventy-three (2006), seventy-nine (2007) and then seventy (2008).  I give the credit to the Metra commuter line in Chicago for ferrying me back and forth to work, which is what allowed me to read so much.

After I got out of school, I noticed a decline in the number of classic books I read and an uptick in the number of non-fiction that I read.  I've always tried to blend different genres each month, mixing in military history, Irish history, sports, biographies, travel, Spanish history, contemporary fiction, espionage, law-related books and some classics here and there.  For example, in March, 1993, I read A Life on the Road by Charles Kuralt, Story of the Irish Race by Seamus MacManus and Dr. Zhivago by Boris Pasternak.  I'd try to read certain things at historically significant times, such as Columbus and the Age of Discovery by Zvi Dor-Ner in 1992, the five hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by Columbus.  I read Rome, 1960:  The Olympics That Changed the World by David Maraniss while I was in Italy.  I told you I was a nerd.

I try to start the year off right with good books.  Every January I line up books I think are going to thrill me, and sometimes I get it right.  Other times not so much.  This year, I read Extra Virginity:  The Sublime and Scandalous World of Olive Oil by Tom Mueller and Joe Rochefort's War:  The Odyssey of the Codebreaker Who Outwitted Yamamoto at Midway by Elliot Carlson and Rear Admiral Donald Showers, then read On the Map:  A Mind-Expanding Exploration of How the World Looks by Simon Garfield.  I'm about to finish 13 Hours by Martin Zuckoff and Shirley Jones' autobiography.  So far, it's been a good start.

As I mentioned, I keep track of books that blew me away.  Looking back at my list, I see that some years I get shut out of truly excellent works.  For example, the years 1993, 1994, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2008, 2013 and 2014 were lean years for great books.  Conversely, 2005 and 2010 were good years, each with four top books, but 2012 (of course) had seven great books.

There are a couple of other passages of note.  In 1996, the list becomes scattered after May because of our Mother's death.  I was adrift, and my records reflect that.  I also lost track of the books I read when the thumb drive broke.

Because of all the reading I do there are people who regard me as brilliant.  I'm not brilliant.  What I am is somewhat well-read.  But doing all this reading has made me aware that not only am I not brilliant but that there are so many books out there I have yet to read.  Two that come to mind immediately are The Federalist Papers and Gulliver's Travels.  Every year I say I'm going to read them and every year they get set aside.  I also know that no matter how much I want to read it, I will never read Ulysses.  I just can't get past the first couple of pages.  If I were brilliant, I could read Ulysses.

Reading isn't for everyone, but it should be.  It opens the mind, allows travel vicariously and informs one of things that one didn't know.  Some people listen to audio books (I can't), and even that's better than not reading.

I truly can't imagine a life without reading.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

 

Trump v. Cankles

It's the eve of the Iowa caucuses, the first primaries in the 2016 election cycle, and pundits suggest that the likely party nominees will be Donald Trump for the Republicans and Cankles for the Democrats.  The latter is really nothing more than an extension of the Inevitability Tour, the notion that Cankles destiny is to be the first female president of the United States -- scandals be damned.  Yet the constant drip of emails released by the State Department and the attendant FBI declarations about the sensitivity of the emails released wear away at that inevitability. 

Who among Republican candidates can overtake Trump?  Anything's possible, what with the ever-present media watching and waiting for any missteps, listening for any misstatements, scrounging for any scandals heretofore unknown.  The ever-mercurial Trump could himself decide that he doesn't need this, that the way he can make America great again is by making himself even greater, albeit in his own eyes and those of his doting followers.  Given his present standing in the polls, however, that is as unlikely as it is that Cankles will admit the errors of her ways.

Another of the Republican candidates could catch fire.  Bernie Sanders, the delusional Larry David of politics, could poison enough voters' minds to overtake Cankles.  There could be a cataclysmic event that turns it all around for one or several candidates on both sides.  And the Brits, always so helpful about poking their nose into our politics -- see, The Guardian, 2004 election -- could sway tens, if not hundreds, of potential voters with their advice. 

But at this distance, with all things being otherwise equal, it looks like Trump versus Cankles.

This puts me in a bit of a conundrum.  It is beyond apparent that I loathe Cankles and all for which she waffles.  From her disgusting husband to her pampered daughter to her myriad scandals, there's nothing remotely recommendable about this woman.  As always, I reiterate my disclaimer:  I'm all in favor of a female president, just not Cankles.  Of all the possible female politicians on which to stake history...For crying out loud, Sandra Day O'Connor was an excellent Supreme Court Justice.  Madeleine Albright was stellar as Secretary of State.  Don't inject Nancy Pelosi into this as first female Speaker of the House; that wasn't a position for which the electorate could vote. 

Cankles would be a trainwreck of a President, a veritable dumpster fire from the beginning of her tenure to the end.  She would bring even less to the office than did her predecessor.  She cannot be elected POTUS.

Does that mean Trump is the better alternative?  In a perfect world, no.  He's a showman, a businessman, an egotist and a bully.  He speaks in broad platitudes without providing any specifics.  Although the National Review is turning itself inside out to discredit Trump's claim to being conservative, I don't think there's a true conservative out there -- or at least one that's electable as such.  But Trump irritates as much as he entertains.  I don't care about his beef with Megyn Kelly -- although I had no trouble with the question she asked him that spurred the spat; if people chide President Obama for not appearing on Fox, the same should be true for Trump -- but I do care about his rhetoric, his dismissiveness, his churlish behavior.  I applaud his treatment of the MSM, generally, and I like some of his ideas -- I can find not one position with which to agree with Cankles -- but the thought of him being our representative gives me chills, and not the good kind.

So it boils down to the typical election-year choice:  The lesser of two evils...on steroids.  I'm sickened that I may be in this position, again.  In 2000, I voted for Mr. Bush over Mr. Gore because I was convinced that he didn't believe that he knew everything, as did Mr. Gore.  I was right, but Mr. Bush made mistakes nevertheless.  This time, both prospective candidates believe they have all the answers.  In either case, this points to being less of an inauguration of an elected official and more of a coronation of an extremely conceited individual hell-bent on making history.

If it comes down to it, I will vote for Trump, very reluctantly.  I have no love for the man.  But I don't loathe him to the same extent as I do Cankles.

ABC.  Anyone But Cankles.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

13 Hours

Last weekend, Karen and I saw 13 Hours.  It seems that Hollywood likes to release patriotic movies in the dead of winter, since Lone Survivor and Act of Valor were also released during winter the last couple of years.  For me, the timing is excellent, since I'm not missing anything else to attend the movie.

This movie may have political implications.  Of course, being a product of Hollyweird, the director and the producer had to tread a very fine line, not wanting to upset the washed and coiffed political masses who espouse free speech for everyone...who agrees with them.  I like war movies as a rule, and although this isn't exactly a war movie, believe me, this is nothing short of the Alamo with AK 47's.

Surprisingly, neither Cankles nor President Obama are ever mentioned by name.  Considering the brouhaha over the attack on the consulate in Benghazi, I'm just a little taken aback by this.  Then again, going back to the paragraph preceding this one, self-preservation probably dictated that neither person's name got a reference.  Even so, it's hard to view the movie without thinking about the circus that ensued in the aftermath of the attack.

The movie itself is captivating.  Even when one is aware of the outcome, the events leading up to it, as represented in the movie, hold one's attention.  Surely, some of what's on the screen has been dramatized, but both the director and the men who were on the ground that fateful day swear that the movie is a faithful representation of what occurred on September 11, 2012.

The CIA comes off as elitist and ineffectual.  The ambassador's security detail -- two people -- come off as ineffectual and inept.  The grit and determination of the operators was beyond impressive.  Had the higher-ups listened to the operators, a catastrophe might have been avoided.  That they were attacked by nearly three hundred terrorists and only suffered two losses (Mr. Stevens and Mr. Smith were killed at the ambassador's residence; the operators held off the attackers at the CIA compound), and those after mortars were used, speaks to the professionalism and skill of the operators.  Given that they were in a virtual miasma of tribal warfare, with friend indistinguishable from foe, how the operators were able to navigate without compromising themselves or those whom they were to protect was unbelievable.

When we left the theater, many moviegoers were openly upset about President Obama and Cankles and their involvement in the fiasco.  The movie shows the military as ready, willing and able to come to the assistance of the beleaguered outpost.  Either the administration is wisely being quiet about the movie or it knows that the movie is factually correct.  Cankles can't afford to get embroiled in the debate, her campaign already reeling from myriad scandals. 

But four men are dead because of gross incompetence.  This movie shines a light on that and on the unparalleled bravery that kept the body count from being higher. It's a tribute to their bravery, their sacrifice and their resolution.

Finally, there's a movie that has something to do with the attack on the consulate in Benghazi.

Funny, neither President Obama nor Cankles want to talk about this movie.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles

Television Fails

My wife thinks I'm a television junkie.  I'm not really.  If I could do other things I would, but when one gets home around seven o'clock at night, eats dinner and settles down with the knowledge that the whole sequence begins again at five thirty the next morning, there's really little else to do besides surf the net or read a book.  Of course, during the summer months mowing can be accomplished, but during the late fall, winter and early spring, there isn't much else available to do at home.

(Yes, I know my dear wife would love to utilize that time to make our house a temple to antiseptic pulchritude, but to me that's not relaxation.  Especially when I readily admit I don't share her zeal for the art of cleaning.)

Here, then, are three snarky observations from my indolent time watching television:

Commercials:  Every year around the Super Bowl, the commercials get about as much attention as the event whose airtime they purchased.  Some of these ads are good, and others are bad.  The same holds true throughout the year at much less cost.  Where there are clever ads, I applaud the people who created them.  I can think of a couple in particular, such as this one by Summer's Eve:

Another is from Dayquil:

Then there are dogs.  Burger King is the chief loser in this category, with its scary King mascot popping up obnoxiously throughout the night.  So does Dr. Pepper fail (full disclosure:  I love Dr. Pepper, just not its ads) with its football-themed ads.  Papa John's ads with Peyton Manning are lame.  The question I have is who gets paid real money to come up with this tripe?  The people who came up with the Summer's Eve and Dayquil commercials are brilliant.  Not only are the people who devised the Burger King, Dr. Pepper and Papa John's commercials unimaginative, so are the people who approved the ads.

Hyperbole:  Reality shows are all about hyping normal individuals into something bigger than what they really are.  This is never more true than on reality competition shows.  Karen watches The Voice which, having seen the early days of American Idol and a couple of notable performers from that latter show notwithstanding, can't hold a candle to the former show.  That being said, when the field narrows to the really good singers, the judges are at a loss as to how to compliment the singers who are, in my opinion, pretty good.  But the words amazing, unbelievable, best I've ever heard and the like are thrown around so gratuitously that they lose all meaning.  Sure, there are some superlative performances, but the way the vocabulary-challenged judges pronounce it, every singer at this stage of the competition is the best they've ever heard which, in reality, just isn't possible.  I'm not suggesting a return to the days of acerbic criticism a la Simon Cowell, but this idea that to provide constructive criticism that doesn't lay on the schmaltz is against the rules subtracts from the show.  It also feeds into one of my personal bugaboos of trying to rank artistic performance which, much like beauty, lies in the eyes or ears of the beholder.  For example, as good a singer as this year's winner of The Voice, Jordan Smith, is, his voice wasn't as pleasing to me as some of the other contestants.  Perhaps he sings better, technically, than his competitors.  But I would have chose to listen to some of them over him.

Least-Common Denominator Sitcoms:  The show that prompts this observation is 2 Broke Girls.  I don't watch the show and never have, but the ubiquitous commercials, both on television and on the radio, are hard to avoid.  The show revolves around two comely lasses, played by Beth Behrs and Kat Dennings who, from what I can tell, are waitresses in a restaurant and, judging from the title, are perpetually broke.  The humor is ribald at best, low-brow at worst.  I never watched Married With Children because it appealed to the same sense of humor that is centered on scatology.  Shows that target this audience lose me from the start.  I appreciate cleverness, sly humor, things that make me think.  Hearing about someone not wearing clothing and encouraging me to disrobe (from the radio commercial to which I'm subjected every day in the car) don't make me want to watch the show, no matter how hot the women in the show may be.  Again, as with the commercials that fail, I'm stunned that people are paid to put this slop on television but, given the ratings, admit that there must be an audience for this crap.  That there is an audience for it saddens me, but I like the fact that it frees me up for other things.

Perhaps I really should watch less television.

(c) 2016 The Truxton Spangler Chronicles