Time (and Love) We Have Wasted on the Way

Listen to the lyrics closely and play it about 6 times in a row. There's some wisdom in here, and it's a good tune besides, with the well-known three-part harmonies of Crosby, Stills and Nash.

It's the kind of song that all adults can appreciate on some level, with the benefit of hindsight and experience and all the things we wish we had done differently, way back when.

Back in the 90s I remember playing the cassette with this song on it, and playing this song on repeat,  over, and over, and over again ... something about it just hit me hard. Regrets, we've all got 'em, but we have to be careful not to let them run our lives. It's tricky sometimes.

Here's a live version:

The Vogues - "You're the One"

Enjoying this song lately. A lot.

Old guy makes joke about women talking too much, gets fired

A few months ago, some old guy billionaire who sits on Uber's board had the temerity to make a joke about women during a board meeting.

Of course, he was forced to resign.

Because of course he was.

Earlier in the day at an Uber staff meeting to discuss the company’s culture, Arianna Huffington, another board member, talked about how one woman on a board often leads to more women joining a board.

“Actually, what it shows is that it’s much more likely to be more talking,” Mr. Bonderman responded.

LOL!

Ok, yes, it was a little offensive to those who like to take offense to every damn thing under the Sun.

But a) it was a joke, and b) jokes are rude sometimes, because c) that's what makes them funny, and d) people make jokes like this about men ALL the time, and e) men laugh at those jokes too, because f) men often make those same jokes at their expense.

Of course, lots of people are pissed now. Althouse has a typical reaction.

"Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy."

Click on over to Blackfive and read about the heroic life of one Darrell “Shifty” Powers, a genuine WWII hero who died in June 2009 to almost no fanfare or recognition of any kind.

Darrell “Shifty” Powers, 1944

He served in Easy Company, 101st Airborne Division as a paratrooper, along with Major Dick Winters and the other guys from the 101st featured in “Band of Brothers”. An excellent series, by the way, and if you’ve never seen it, it’s well worth watching. You feel like you know these guys after it’s done.

He landed at Normandy on D-Day. He jumped at Arnhem in Operation Market Garden. He fought in the Battle of the Bulge.

But when he died recently, the media yawned. They don’t have time for men like him any more. They create other types of “heroes” that we’re expected to worship, built on image and appearance and never having done an honest day’s work in their lives. Polar opposites, in other words, of a man like Shifty Powers.

There’s a great story embedded in an email at the Backfive post, some of which I’ve copied here:

I met Shifty in the Philadelphia airport several years ago. I didn’t know who he was at the time. I just saw an elderly gentleman having trouble reading his ticket. I offered to help, assured him that he was at the right gate, and noticed the “Screaming Eagle”, the symbol of the 101st Airborne, on his hat.

Making conversation, I asked him if he’d been in the 101st Airborne or if his son was serving. He said quietly that he had been in the 101st. I thanked him for his service, then asked him when he served, and how many jumps he made.

Quietly and humbly, he said “Well, I guess I signed up in 1941 or so, and was in until sometime in 1945 . . . ” at which point my heart skipped.

At that point, again, very humbly, he said “I made the 5 training jumps at Toccoa, and then jumped into Normandy . . . . do you know where Normandy is?” At this point my heart stopped.

I told him yes, I know exactly where Normandy was, and I know what D-Day was. At that point he said “I also made a second jump into Holland, into Arnhem.” I was standing with a genuine war hero . . . . and then I realized that it was June, just after the anniversary of D-Day.

I asked Shifty if he was on his way back from France, and he said “Yes. And it’s real sad because these days so few of the guys are left, and those that are, lots of them can’t make the trip.” My heart was in my throat and I didn’t know what to say.

I helped Shifty get onto the plane and then realized he was back in Coach, while I was in First Class. I sent the flight attendant back to get him and said that I wanted to switch seats. When Shifty came forward, I got up out of the seat and told him I wanted him to have it, that I’d take his in coach.

He said “No, son, you enjoy that seat. Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy.” His eyes were filling up as he said it. And mine are brimming up now as I write this.

Mine too, as I read it.

2009

Real heroes are humble, and always deflect attempts to label them as such. In fact, that seems to be a pretty reliable way to separate real heroes from the loudmouth types who crave publicity about their alleged wartime medals and heroism, but are nearly always lying about all of it.

And all these WWII vets ask is that we remember. That’s all. Just remember.

Because remembering is a form of honor. The cheapest form of honor, in terms of the price we have to pay, but still a form of honor.

“Just knowing that there are still some who remember what we did and still care is enough to make an old man very happy.”

Oh, but he was more than just an old man. He was a symbol of a time when attitudes were different, when people accepted epic responsibilities at terribly young ages so that we could be free today.

Are we thankful enough? You tell me.

I’ll remember, and I’ll teach my kids to remember, and I’ll ask family and friends to remember. It is the very least, the absolute least, we can do.

May he rest in peace.

(original from July 2009 at my old website: Darrel "Shifty" Powers, R.I.P.)

More: https://warfarehistorynetwork.com/2019/01/08/darrell-shifty-powers-easy-companys-sharpshooter/

Merry Christmas from 1968 and Apollo 8

I visited American Digest this Christmas morning, because I knew Gerard would have several good posts about Christmas and the entire Christmas season, and Lo and Behold he has the same exact Christmas Eve Apollo 8 video that our pastor played for us last night during church services.

Our pastor's message was that even though the year 1968 was so divisive, violent, and chaotic, the Apollo 8 mission at Christmas united the country, and the world, and “saved” 1968.

Hard to argue with that, and in any case I won’t try, because I loved Christmas Eve 1968. It is probably my warmest Christmas memory.

I was nine years old, and everything that happens when you're nine years old remains very vivid forever, so that's part of it. But that Apollo 8 mission at Christmas time, when mankind launched a space mission to orbit the moon -- and then come back safely -- was absolutely riveting. It's hard to imagine today how amazing this was back in 1968.

It made Christmas 1968 even more amazing and filled with wonder than it already is every other year. 

Have a great Christmas, all!

Hollywood No Longer Understands Heroism

So The Oscars happened a few weeks ago, and once again, I didn't watch. Not only that, I didn't care one way or the other.

Hollywood lost me years ago. And they've done nothing to repair that relationship. In fact, they've made it much, much worse.

Not many people know this, but Hollywood used to be filled with patriotic guys who actually fought in real wars. For example, James Stewart, who flew flew bombing missions over Nazi-occupied Europe, and earned the Distinguished Flying Cross and the Croix de Guerre, among other medals. Imagine that, an actor and a military hero.

Brig. Gen. Stewart risked his life, quite willingly, to fight against Nazis and for freedom, while today a useful idiot like Sean Penn risks nothing while he kisses up to a corrupt dictator like Hugo Chavez. Do we have to wonder what James Stewart might have thought about that? No we do not.

No Hollywood studio boss during WWII or Korea would have dared to make any kind of anti-military movie that painted soldiers as bloodthirsty baby-murderers. They didn't believe that, and they knew the market would reject it completely. The country was engaged, along with much of the free world, in a fight for survival, and made great sacrifices for that fight. It was not a pose to impress others, like much of what passes for anti-war sentiment among the Hollywood left today.

Today's Hollywood wouldn't even know what to do with a real man like James Stewart, because today’s Hollywood doesn't write that role, doesn’t make that movie, and doesn't cater to that demographic.

In fact, today's Hollywood despises all of that, and actively works against it.

Today's Hollywood is quite happy to make movies with feminized male characters who wouldn’t know how to fire a weapon or ride a horse if their lives depended on it. They don't even talk like men any more. But they know how to use their cool new iPhone to find the nearest Starbucks.

I don’t think most people realize it, but we have had something stolen from us over the last 50 years: the connection between movies and heroism, duty, and honor.

That connection, in large part, was purposefully destroyed by Hollywood starting in the late-1960s with a constant stream of depressing, narcissistic, counter-cultural movies. Which was, amazingly enough, right around the time of the breakup of the old studio system. Suddenly, celebrating heroism, duty, and honor became oh-so-very-passe.

You can see it for yourself: just read through the plot descriptions of the movies on Turner Classic Movies every week, and then compare that with the dreary crap that Hollywood has put out over the last 15-20 years, or the depressing, narcissistic movies put out before that. It’s stunning, really, to see the complete about-face in movies from just the early 60s to the early 70s: from, say, “The Longest Day” to “Dog Day Afternoon”, featuring a criminal as protagonist.

This is a comment about the focus of these movies, and the types of heroes they portray, not the quality of them. Lots of very good movies were made after the mid-60s, particularly in the 70s. But the focus of these movies, the lessons they reinforced, the heroes they highlighted, were completely different from what came before. It was not subtle, it was striking.

Today, Hollywood complains about losing customers, yet continues to churn out more of this same derivative, boring crap filled with anti-military, anti-family, anti-Christian, anti-America messages.

Newsflash:  out here in flyover country supporting the troops is not just a pose, and it's plainly obvious that the movie-going audience, rather than leaving Hollywood, feels instead that Hollywood has left them. And with good reason.

The ugly truth for Hollywood is that we would come back if you would stop putting out crappy movies that hector us into feeling bad about ourselves, our society, and our country. I like movies, and I would go see some of them, but I absolutely will not subject myself or my family to propaganda explicitly intended to flip every traditional cultural norm on its head.

Obviously, somebody within the Hollywood power structure has thought about this too, somebody with the power to make the movies they want to make and tell the stories they want to tell. It's not some revolutionary new idea — and they’re in the business to make money, right? To make movies that put asses in the seats, and sell tickets? You would think.

But maybe not. Maybe Hollywood is really about shaping attitudes, and is willing to lose money on movie after movie in order to re-shape American attitudes about our military and about what Hollywood really thinks about the country that allows it to say whatever it wants. A freedom they enjoy, in part, because of two things about America they hate: our military and our Constitution. 

Feel the irony. Hollywood likes irony. It makes them feel clever and superior.

(An updated version of something I wrote in July 2010)