Category Archives: Military Matters

"New Normal"?, 47, Activism, Antiwar activism, Arts: Blogging, Bible Study, Black & White & Other Colors, Carolina & the World, Current Affairs, DEI, Fire This Time, Hard-Core Quaker, Heroes, Iraq, Military Matters, NATO, New Cold Wars, North Carolina, Personal, Project 2025, Pushback, Quaker History, Quakers, Racism, Selma & Civil Rights, Signs of the Times, Sweden, Finland, NATO & Nukes, To Save Democracy, Ukraine, War & Peace, Zelenskyy

A Shadow on the Daffodils: Preaching from the Big Book of Nobody

17 Comments
Daffs, going wild again.

 

This past First Day (Quaker talk for Sunday) I Zoomed into worship in my Friends meeting, the one out in the farmland of Flyover County, North By-God Carolina, where I missed one of my favorite annual scenes there: the appearance in the back 40 of a big unruly spread of wild daffodils. But I did hear a stirring message.

No one among the elders knows when or by whom the daffodils came. Their location, out behind the community building we fondly call The Hut, isn’t visible from the road, so passersby mostly miss the spread, too bad for them. Continue reading A Shadow on the Daffodils: Preaching from the Big Book of Nobody →

"New Normal"?, 47, Black & White & Other Colors, Crusade, Current Affairs, DEI, History, LGBTQ & Gender, Military Matters, Other War Notes, Project 2025, Pushback, Racism, Signs of the Times, Ukraine, Women & Girls

Shot Down & Sunk: Pete Hegseth’s “American Crusade” Bags its First High-Ranking Victims: A General, an Admiral, — and Black History Month

4 Comments

 

If Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth should fall off the wagon and be dragged off the public stage to rehab, his Pentagon tenure, however brief or long, will surely be remembered for one thing; or maybe two.

The second would be turning into the answer to a question of the sort that haunts a generation, to wit: “Who lost Ukraine?”

During his maiden visit in mid-February to U.S. bases in Europe, he seemed to be auditioning to head the  honor guard that salutes Vladimir Putin’s victorious entry into the rubble of Kyiv. He acted ready to serve it up on the faux silver platter of MAGA incompetent, arrogant indifference. That would surely be one for the record– and textbooks, fodder for many poignant Banksy wall murals.

But I digress. That is one possible landmark, and (hopefully) the less likely one. Continue reading Shot Down & Sunk: Pete Hegseth’s “American Crusade” Bags its First High-Ranking Victims: A General, an Admiral, — and Black History Month →

47, Censorship, Colleges & Education, Cross-Generational Issues, Current Affairs, Families, Libraries & Archives, Military Matters, Project 2025, Pushback, Schools/Education, Signs of the Times, Trans, Trump

Military Schoolkids: Kiss These Books Goodbye! – Hegseth /Trump Censorship Starts

Leave a comment

The DOD “guidance” memo was blunt:

”Identity Months Dead at DOD.” 

Besides banning Black History Month observances in the military, Hegseth/Trump is now pressing their anti-DEI extermination mission by purging the shelves of Defense Department schools, which  67, 000 elementary & secondary students attend at 160 locations worldwide. (One of them was me, a long time ago.) The goal is, in the words of a presidential executive order (EO): “Ending Radical Indoctrination in K-12 Schooling.” Continue reading Military Schoolkids: Kiss These Books Goodbye! – Hegseth /Trump Censorship Starts →

“New Normal”, 47, Conservative Perspectives, Crusade, Current Affairs, Death & Dying, DEI, Election 2024, MAGA, Military Matters, Minority Rule, Signs of the Times, Trump, War & Peace, War Notes

Pete Hegseth The Crusader Reveals the Two Truly-Madly-Deeply Lethal Loves of His Life

3 Comments

In official statements, Pete Hegseth calls the first one, “Lethality.”

Usually it’s a dry, abstract word. A term that’s launched a thousand PowerPoint slide shows. It’s ideal for air-conditioned classrooms, lit by rows of long tubular fluorescent bulbs. Under the lights, as it is repeated, rows of men in uniform listen, many taking notes, or (if it’s shortly after lunch, struggleto keep their eyes open).

Or at a crowded congressional hearing. “If you’re confirmed as Secretary of Defense,” asked a U. S. Senator, “what would be your mission, Mr. Hegseth?”

It’s the first  significant noun he emits (after, of course, the name Trump), in a crisply-memorized litany:

“He, like me, wants a Pentagon laser-focused on lethality, meritocracy, war-fighting, accountability and readiness.”

Continue reading Pete Hegseth The Crusader Reveals the Two Truly-Madly-Deeply Lethal Loves of His Life →

“New Normal”, Arabs, Carolina & the World, Current Affairs, Death & Dying, Families, Fire This Time, Gaza, Genocide, Islam & Muslims, Israel, Jews & Judaism, LGBTQ & Gender, Military Matters, Religious Issues & Conflicts, Remember . . ., Signs of the Times, Terror and Terrorism, War Notes, Women & Girls

The Shadow at the Pride Festival

3 Comments

A year ago last Saturday, the Friends Meeting I’m part of took a big step, for us: we rented a booth at the Alamance Pride Festival, held in a large park in downtown Burlington NC.

The Spring booth, with a blogger on duty at the table.

Outwardly, our booth was not particularly eye-catching. Amid the fluttering of a thousand floating rainbows, the yellow table banner we made for it is about as gaudy as we get. Spring Friends Meeting has been what many call an “affirming” congregation for more than a dozen years, and we’ve paid our share of dues for that. But we didn’t do it for publicity, and we haven’t done much of what many others call evangelism, which we’d  rather name “outreach.” We have  lots of opinions about things, but are  mostly quiet about them.

Maybe too quiet. Spring has been gathering for Quaker worship in southern Alamance County for 251 years, but we soon found out in the booth that hardly anyone we talked to knew we were there.  Which meant that Pride was a great opportunity for our outreach aspirations, but it also brought home the suspicion that maybe we had been a bit too ready to “hide our lamp under a bushel,” for much of those two-and-a-half centuries, which is something the gospel says not to do. There’s a false modesty which at bottom is mostly a mix of snobbery and pride.
Continue reading The Shadow at the Pride Festival →