Cultural Gadfly

When you look upon your wayward world
The wilderness your will has woven,
In what wonder will you wander?
What sacrifice of sacrament and sanity…
To circumstance and satiety,
For the same-song sound and a sepulcher
Of one with wily Wormwood.
Did you accede in your agony,
Become the antipodes of action and ardor
And level lofty Life
Into a languid, lacquered lozenge
A pill of pernicious proportions,
A toxic token to be taken
And if fortunate, forgotten.
Perhaps in yearning youth,
Perhaps in rational rebellion you roamed,
Subjectively free, objectively frozen.
The manner of your mentor matters much…
Did you dance a jig with Darwin,
Or a grave Galapagos gavotte?
Did you kneel, of nights, to Nietzsche,
Enjoying toying just so
With inebriated inconsequentiality.
In the oh-so modern milling
Did Mills mire your mind in mud?
Or, so blinded by Blake’s bleakness
Blur the line ‘tween bud and beast?
Or meandered, just a mile, with Master Marx
(That madly misunderstood monarchist),
And so seduced, perused the muse
Of commune’s kith and kin.
Perhaps you planed the playing fields
Of soft and soul-sick society
But in the crematory of crass-cash capital
(While anarchists and angels all ate ash)
A newborn,nameless, nebulous numbness
Rose, writhing from the rot.
A toxic tyranny of train-of-thought
That bent the brain to bed
The tongue-tied twisting trick or treat
Of inane and insane intercourse
Between mindless media and man
And binds the mind to a mausoleum
Of our own mocking making.
Where once we wondered,
Now Faith has fallen, a faceless fatality
And so dread and dust and dearth of worth
Scour and devour our one-time wealth…
That war-worn weave of wood
That Blood and Bone and Book bought
And gave the godless ghosts the gift
Of preaching their own pyre.

Or perhaps, was your poison personal?
Did part-way prayers of parity
Obscure, or make couture manure
Of a fake-faith façade
Of pseudo-songs and psalms of self
Loudly lauding Lord, but love-less lie…
Simper, sullen every Sunday,
Slave grave craven to the Raven
As you span the other six.

Do these threads of thirsty thought
Bring home humanity to hated heart?
Do the songs of submerged springtide
Raise your reason or your rage?
When the dawn comes dark and darker
When the nascent nightmare gnaws
And thaws the glacier guilt has built,
When the fateful fantasy of fools
Has fissured flesh from fact,
You must pick with penance pending
Which Pied Piper you will pay.

These here entombed in echoes,
In the unveiled violence of verse
They are but Azrael’s advantage,
The feeble fireflies of flawed philosophy,
The Evil etched on Eden’s end.

Categories: Politics \\ Tags: Antipodes, Frederick Nietzsche, John Stuart Mills, Karl Marx, William Blake

I again come before you, gentlemen, with the alacrity of someone who has neglected his civic duty in the pursuit of vainer things. But without further prostrations or protestations, allow me to present the History of the Day.

In Roman affairs, on this day in 421, Constantius III became co-emperor of the Western Empire. Honorius was his cohort, but after much shadow play during the 410’s, Flavius Constantius ruled for only 7 months before dying in September of 421.

On this day in 1587, Mary Stuart, better known to the world as Mary, Queen of Scots, was executed by order of Elizabeth I at Fotheringay Castle in Northamptonshire. She was charged with high treason for attempting to assasinate Elizabeth. She was implicated in three different plots to do so, but controversy exists to this day as to the utility of executing her, as she had been imprisoned for 18 years in England prior to her execution.

On February 8th, 1692, a certain doctor in Salem, Massachusetts, suggested that two misguided young girls, daughters of the local minister, might be bewitched. This, of course, kicked off the furor that was to become the Salem Witch Trials, although the trials spread from Salem Village to Salem Town, Andover, and Ipswitch. During the course of these trials, 14 women and 5 men were hanged for witchcraft. Another man was crushed to death for refusing to enter a plea. The stones were an attempt to force him to plead one way or another, but I suppose the poor man decided to take his chance with the stones.

Today also marks the second and final day of the Battle of Eylau in 1807. Napoleon faced the combined forces of Austria and Russia over the frozen fields of East Prussia (now part of Russia) near the modern town of Bagrationovsk. In a bloody two day battle, the “Grande Armee” ended with possesion of the field, tho little else. Each side suffered between ten and fifteen thousand casualties, altho some estimates put the figure at closer to 25,000 per side. It was the first time Napoleon had not clearly won the field, and it would take another battle (Friedland, 4 months later) before Alexander I of Russia sued for peace.

Another battle to brighten the day: that of Port Arthur in 1904, where our vodka-drinking friends once more took a beating. It was the initial battle of the Russo-Japanese war and although inconclusive, it shook the confidence of every Russian, from Tsar Nicholas on down. The war exposed facts that would be ignored to the Romanov’s downfall: that the military was weak and the government corrupt. It also, of course, was the global coming out party of the Japanese Empire, whose military had been modernized over the previous 50 years by military advisors from, among other places, the U.S. In a moment eerily indicative of things to come, Japan kicked off this war with a surprise night attack, using torpedoes fired from destroyers. 37 years later and thousands of miles from the Manchurian port, they used the same tactic, only using planes instead of ships.

I will close with two birthdays. The first is that of one William Tecumseh Sherman, whose involvement in todays post might have been suspected by the title. The second birthday (actually it was yesterday), and more palatable to those readers living south of the Mason Dixon, is that of Sir Thomas More, Saint and Martyr (1478-1535).

Until next time, this is Nicephoras Phocas, signing off.

Categories: Culture, Education, Military \\ Tags: East Prussia, Grande Armee, High Treason, Mary Queen Of Scots, Queen Of Scots, Salem Witch Trials

I know this isn’t supposed to be a news repost site, but this was the first thing I saw when I turned on the computer a few minutes ago. Enjoy…

And all this time I never knew my ACOG was made by Trijicon/Umbranox and blessed by the KJV.

-Nicephoras

Categories: Politics

Most of you are by now used to my format of historical minutiae, and today will not disappoint those of you who enjoy said scribblings (that is, Fabius and El Cid). But I must demand first a moment of silence for the demise of the glorious Green and Gold, who did not go silently into the night, but gave us an epic game worthy of the ages. If the better team had won, I would not be so melancholy today! But I will not lambaste the good Commissioner and his loyal band of (VERY) well paid referees here.

Today will be of special interest to Fabius, and as his Byzantine proclivities are well known, I need not elaborate further. It is the birthday of Emperor Theodosius “The Great” (347 AD), the man who built the walls that kept Bulgar and Turk at bay for over a thousand years. It is also the anniversary of the death of Emperor Staurakios (in a monastery after being forced to abdicate) in 812 AD. Ironically it is also the day his successor, Michael I Rhangabes died 32 years later, also in a monastery, also after being forced to abdicate, a favor he had given to Staurakios himself. And it is the anniversary of the death of Constantine IX Monomachos, who had one of the more eventful reigns in Byzantine history. Upon his death on January 11th, 1055, his sister-in-law Theadora was named co-empress with his widow Zoe.

On this day in 1879 a little known conflict erupted in South Africa, a tiff between the British and the Zulu empires. It lasted less than 7 months, but was one of the bloodiest in Africa’s history. Fans of the unparalleled war film “Zulu” will appreciate this, but probably few others. (Future entry on January 22nd for Isandlwana and Rorke’s Drift).

To close this brief segment, here is a shout-out to those fellow fans of the “Modern Warfare” games, or maybe just Special Forces in general. On this day in 1915, Robert Blair “Paddy” Mayne was born. Although he is a Northern Irishman and therefore enemy of my blood and creed, I give him his dues: He was a highly decorated veteran of WWII and the co-founder of the Special Air Service. So those of you who populate that den of iniquity on the banks of the Potomac, when you turn on your XBOX and kill digital terrorists as “Soap” McTavish, raise a glass to “Paddy” Mayne.

Til next time, this is Nicephoras Phocas, signing off.

Categories: Culture, Military

I had thought, what with finals hanging o’er my head and Christmas looming on the horizon, that I was done with posts for the year. But today is a great day in history,  so today shall be remembered in the annals of a little known blog hovering on the insignificant edges of a minor cyperspace galaxy. Herodotus would be proud.

First of all, a happy birthday to Ludwig van Beethoven, Jane Austen, Catherine of Aragon, Refridgerator Perry and Eowyn…I mean, Miranda Otto. In more sobering news, on December 16th, 1980, the world lost that fast food visionary, Harland Sanders, better known, of course, as “The Colonel”. I can truthfully and thankfully say I have never partaken of the South’s favorite franchise.

But on to the sound of guns, steel, and world politics, my comrades! On this day in 1653, Oliver Cromwell was named Lord Protector of the Commonwealth of England, Scotland, and Ireland. What ever else he may have been, he will never be forgiven, in my mind, for the atrocities he committed in Ireland. ( Fabius, think Cromwell vs Michael Collins for future Greatest Generals clash.)

This is also the anniversary of the first tea party, on that cold night in Boston harbor when “Indians” gleefully dumped tons of tea into the icy harbor. This may well be the first known usage of iced tea. As a political protest beverage, it certainly gained traction.

For those fans of the fabulous film “Zulu” out there, today is the anniversary of a similar incident. On December 16th, 1838, 470 Dutch settlers (called Afrikaaners or Trekkers) led by Andries Pretorius defeated a force of some 10 to 15 thousand Zulus at a ford on the Ncome River. The battle was so brutal that it became called the Battle of Blood River (which is, by the way, the COOLEST freaking battle name in history), due to the Zulu corpses staining the water with blood. 3000 Zulu warriors died, and only three of the Trekkers were wounded, making it one of the most lopsided battles in history.Following a similar defeat the next month, the Zulu King Dingane had his general strangled for high treason.

Today also marks the start of the Battle of the Bulge in December of 1944. Three German columns acting under complete radio silence surprised and surrounded Allied forces in the Ardennes forest in northern France. It was the single bloodiest battle of the war for America, with almost 90,000 casualties, incuding 19,000 dead.

And now I must depart, as my daughter is trying to write this by pounding on the keyboard as I rapidly try to delete her gibberish and save my document before she deletes it.

Until next time, this is Nicephoras Phocas, signing off.

Categories: Politics

I post this in the hopes that some of you will read this in that marvelous semi-comatose state that follows the traditional feast of the day. The history of the day was far to fun to pass up, especially considering that it was this exact day in 1789 that President Washington suggested the observance of a National Thanksgiving Day, although the official holiday did not become law, as it were, until 1941, also on this day, and ironically, the last time many Americans would be thankful for many years. 11 days after this bill was made law, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

This next bit of history goes out to Fabius and Romulus; on this day in 43 BC, Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus, Marcus Aemelius Lepidus, and Marcus Antonius formed the Second Triumvirate. We all know how long that lasted, and how it turned out.

For those of you out there who root for the Fighting Irish, it was on this day in 1842 that the University of Notre Dame was founded. It is also the day on which Howard Carter and Lord Carnarvon entered the tomb of the Pharaoh Tutankhamen, the first people to do so in 3000 years. On November 26th, 1917, the NHL was formed. On this day in 1944, a V2 rocket hit a Woolworth’s on New High Street in London and killed 168 shoppers, becoming the first recorded casualties of Black Friday (as a shopping event, that is.)

Today also marks the birthday of one of the 20th century’s most reviled and notorious criminals, Although many of you may not have heard of him. Bruno Hauptman was executed via electric chair in 1936 for the abduction and murder of Charles Augustus Lindbergh III, the infant son of Anne Morrow Lindbergh and Charles Lindbergh. Yes, that Lindbergh.

I will end this day with a salute to my comrades in uniform, even if the man I am to salute is in the Air Force. On this day in 1968, (then) Captain James Phillip Fleming rescued 6 Green Beret’s who were pinned down and surrounded by VietCong. He did this in miraculous and courageous fashion, repeated subjecting himself and his gunship directly to enemy fire, andfinally managing to rescue the stranded squad. He was awarded the Medal of Honor in 1970.

So all my friends out there reading this, I wish you were here, or I was there. Have a glorious day of thanks, and pour a libation for “kind friends and companions.”

Until next time, this is Nicephoras Phocas, signing off.

Categories: Politics

I am back to my old line, the History of Today. I hadn’t planned on doing one today, but when I reviewed the events, they were far to delectable to pass up.  There will be several frogs, saints, and kings, a Nobel prize, and an anal fistula (and no, the last two are not a reference to the President).

On this day in 1626, after 120 years of construction, St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome was officially finished and consecrated, 1300 years to the day after the original St. Peter’s was consecrated in 326. A side note to my Catholic pride, however, is a sad one. Much of the stone in St. Peter’s was taken from the Coliseum on the orders of Pope Nicholas V.

In disturbing history, on this day in 1686, Dr. Charles Francois Felix operated on King Louis XIV’s anal fistula…after practicing this procedure on several peasants who had no such condition.  I have no idea who decided to harbor that little piece of trivia through the centuries and set it lose, but it does make for a charming tale.

In other froggy news, on November 18th, 1809, 3 French frigates under Commodore Jaques Hamelin attacked and captured 3 British merchantmen near Mauritius. The French considered this a great victory and Hamelin to be one of their most daring naval officers, not a hard claim considering the caliber of  Pierre Charles Jean Baptiste Silvestre de Villaneuve, and other such mouthfuls. To put such a victory in perspective, imagine a modern destroyer going up against an oil tanker. Gee, I wonder who is gonna win this nailbiter!

In literary news, today in 1926, George Bernard Shaw (most famous as author of “Pygmalion”, or as we are more familiar with it, “My Fair Lady”) turned down his cash reward for receiving the Nobel Prize. He said ” I can forgive Alfred Nobel for inventing dynamite, but only a fiend in human form could have invented the Nobel Prize.” Sentiments which I must echo, considering it’s most recent recipient.

On this day in 1978, Jim Jones and 909 of his followers committed mass suicide at the Peoples Temple Agricultural Project, more commonly known as Jonestown. The cult known as the People’s Temple had drawn the attention of the US government (despite the fact that Jonestown was in Guyana), and sent Congressman Leo Joseph Ryan to investigate. He was murdered by Temple member Larry Layton while attempting to escort escaped members of the commune to safety. Upon receiving the news, a detachment of the Guyanese Army was dispatched to Jonestown, but upon arriving, found all members of said commune dead from cyanide poisoning. Leo Ryan is the only Congressman in US History to die in the line of duty.

To end on a happier note, today in 1905, Prince Carl of Denmark and Iceland (born Christian Frederik Carl Georg Valdemar Axel)  became Norway’s King Haakon VII. He was an enormously popular monarch, the first Norway proper had had in many centuries, a fact he honored by taking an old Norse name as his royal title. He ruled for 51 years, dying in 1957. He is probably best known as being the backbone of Norway’s resistance to the Nazis in WWII. Despite his own brother’s example in Denmark, he refused to be a Nazi puppet, and defied Hitler’s ultimatum. In his subsequent flight to England, he was protected by a ad hoc bodygaurd of Norway’s equivalent of the NRA. So here’s to Haakon!

‘Til next time, this is Nicephoras Phocas, signing off.

Categories: Politics

I have previously promised my fellow Gadflies updates on my skirmishes with the Wisconsin Public College educators. Most of the professors so far have been relatively harmless, with the science professors of course taking evolution as established fact, not theory. There is, as Fabius is now painfully aware, one glaring exception to that rule: my History 176 (America before 1877) professor. To give you an example, let me give you some quotes from her class last night:

“There were three major clashes in Texas’s bid for independence: The Alamo, Goliad, and San Jacinto. The first two were utter routs of the Americans, but at San Jacinto, Sam Houston got his revenge, slaughtering 600 Mexicans.”

That was our coverage of one of the most famous last stands in history, a “rout of the Americans”.

And this, on Napoleon: ” His failure to take Russia in 1812 was a devastating blow for Europe and Humanity”

But she really went to town on post-Colombian New World expansion, calling all Europeans guilty of genocide in Latin America, reading statistics from Howard Zinn on the apparently hundreds of millions of natives we slaughtered in our first few decades in the Americas. She did mention the “few hundred” human sacrifices of the Aztecs over the centuries in passing.

She despises Andrew Jackson, calls Jefferson the biggest hypocrite and most racist of them all, says the American Revolution was basically a massive land grab (colonial aristocracy vs loyalist aristocracy) and an attempt to funnel the radical tendencies of the populace away from the likes of Jefferson, Adams, and Franklin.

The War of 1812 was provoked by the likes of Clay and Calhoun, not the British foreign policy and trade restrictions. And the Battle of New Orleans was an illegal massacre of British troops after the war was over.

You get the idea.

And Fabius, who in the hell dreamed up the name “The Republic of Fredonia”?

Categories: Culture, Education, Political Philosophy

I would be very remiss indeed in my duties as one of the Few and Proud if I did not commemorate this most momentous of days for the  Marine Corps. On this day in 1775, the Continental Congress established the “Continental Marines” as a landing support force for the one-month old Continental Navy. Captain Samuel Nicholas was the first commandant, and the entire Marine Corps consisted of  just two battalions. There are 243,000 today. So Semper Fidelis, gents. May the Corps live forever.

Onto my usual historical spiel, today is the birthday of the tremendously funny Neil Gaiman (1960), and  also the incomparably talented Ennio Morricone (1928), the composer who is best known for his soundtracks to “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly” and “The Mission”. With somewhat less enthusiasm, I must also mention it is the birthday of that most troublesome of priests, Martin Luther.

On to a subject Horatius and Fabius  (and probably El Cid) will greet with much glee! It is the birthday of one Mikhail Timofeevich Kalashnikov (1919), a man whose contributions to warfare are still with us today. the “Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947″ or AK-47, was one of the first true assault rifles (being proceeded by the Italian Cei-Rigotti and the German Sturmgewehr44), and since its adoption by the Red Army in 1949, has become one of the most widely used weapons in the world. It is amazingly inexpensive and durable, and will fire under extreme conditions. You can literally throw a handfull of mud and sand into the breach and still fire it.

On a cultural note, this is also the day when, in 1871, Henry Morton Stanley located his missing compatriot near Lake Tanganyika in Africa and greeted him “Dr. Livingstone, I presume?”

Again for Fabius, it was on this day in 1865 that Major Henry Wirz, superintendant of the infamous prison camp at Andersonville, Georgia, was executed at 1 First Street, Northeast, Washington D.C., which is now the home of the Supreme Court. He was the only man to be tried and executed for war crimes in the Civil War, charged with the negligence in the deaths of 13,00 Union prisoners. In defense of Fabius’ beloved Confederacy,he was a Swiss citizen. In a truly bizarre note to end the day, Wirz’s trial was made into a movie in 1970 called “The Andersonville Trial”, directed by George C. Scott and starring …William Shatner. Wow.

In school notes, I was able to trace my Zinn-disciple-revisionist history professor’s pedigree back to her previous place of employment….drumroll please…BERKELEY. Big surprise.

And as for the upcoming clash at Lambeau, I kindly request that if Dallas wins, Horatius will please sit on Fabius. For a good long while.

Till next time, this is Nicephoras Phocas.

Categories: Politics

With the smell of dead leaves and baked corn syrup in the air, Halloween is here! I am sure most of you reading this are familiar with the basic history of Halloween, starting with the ancient Celts and  progressing, as with most things, through Rome and Christianity and on to us.

Samhain was the traditional Celtic New Year, celebrated around November 1st. The tribes would gather at bonfires, make burnt offerings to the Celtic deities ( gifts of crops, livestock, and occasionally human slaves or prisoners of war), and dress up in animal skins. The Celts believed that on this night, the line between the worlds of the living and the dead came perilously close together, and the spirits of the dead would roam free. Many families would even put plates of food and jars of wine outside their homes to placate any spirits meandering in their general direction. As a footnote to this, there is a official medical condition called samhainophobia, which refers to an individual having an intense, and abnormal fear of Halloween.

After the Romans conquered most of the Celtic lands, several Roman holidays began to be incorporated into the traditions, at least by those living in the larger cities and therefore more in contact with Roman culture. Feralia was the Roman festival of the dead, celebrated in what is now late October.  Another festival was that of Pomona, the goddess of fruit-trees, whose sympol was the apple, to whom we may or may not owe the “bobbing for apples” tradition. The final step was made by Pope Boniface IV, who declared November 1st “All Saints Day” in the 9th century.

In other theological news, this was the day, in 1517, that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Theses to the door of Wittenberg Castle Church. And in similarly depressing Roman history, Romulus Augustus is crowned Emperor in 475. He would be the last ruler of the Western Empire.

In the literary world, Arthur Conan Doyle’s ” Adventures of Sherlock Holmes”   was first published in 1892.

Harry Houdini died today in 1926 of a burst appendix. The man who could escape anything was killed by escaping food. I love irony.

In military affairs, today marks the resignation of Winfield Scott as Commander of the United Sates Army in 1861, the election of Benito Mussolini as the youngest Premier in Italian history (1922), the start of the Algerian War of Indepence (1954) in which the French would once again lose, and the date of what has been called “the last successful cavalry charge in history”. On October 31st, 1917, two regiments of Australian Light Horse charged Turkish forces at the Battle of Beersheba (in Palestine). Flinging themselves headlong into machine-gun fire, supported by nothing but their own rifles, the ANZAC’s swept through the defenders and captured the town of Beersheba while sustaining relatively light casualties.

In the ” I really don’t give a crap” column, today is also Vanilla Ice’s birthday. On the other hand, it is also the birthday of Peter Jackson, Basil Lidell Hart ( whose incomparable book “Strategy” is still a textbook in many military academies), and John Keats.

And I will close with this; it is also the 149th anniversary of the death of Lord Thomas Cochrane, 10th Earl of Dundonald. He was one of Britain’s most brilliant naval commanders in the Napoleonic Wars, wreaking so much havoc on French shipping that he was given the nickname of ” Le Loup des Mers” (the Sea Wolf) by the French public. However, in 1814 he was convicted of fraud on the Stock Exchange and dismissed from the Royal Navy. He then served with great distinction in the navies of Chile, Brazil, and Greece during their respective bids for autonomy. In 1832 he was reinstated as an Admiral in the Royal Navy, and died in 1860 carrying the titles of Admiral of the Red ( equivalent to Fleet Admiral today) and Rear Admiral of the United Kingdom. But possibly his most enduring mark was made on the world of historical fiction, where he served as the chief inspiration behind C.S. Forester’s Horatio Hornblower and Patrick O’Brien’s Jack Aubrey.

Until next time, this is Nicephoras, signing off.

Categories: Culture, Literature, Military, Religion