Category Archives: War Commentary

History, Media Criticism, Philosophy, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Zoroastrianism

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The Kurds are converting from Islam to it in disgust.

Gee, it’s almost as though the see a problem with the religion they were born to.

This is good news, I think. Zoroastrians have been disappearing, particularly in Iran, and I think the world could use a lot more of them. Traditionally, they’ve never caused much trouble. It’s probably one of the most tolerant religions, historically.

Education, History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society, Technology and Society, War Commentary

Ancient Warfare

39 Comments

…in northern Europe.

I’m always amused by things like this:

Before the 1990s, “for a long time we didn’t really believe in war in prehistory,” DAI’s Hansen says. The grave goods were explained as prestige objects or symbols of power rather than actual weapons. “Most people thought ancient society was peaceful, and that Bronze Age males were concerned with trading and so on,” says Helle Vandkilde, an archaeologist at Aarhus University in Denmark. “Very few talked about warfare.”

Because they bought into Rousseau’s “noble savage” BS.

I suspect there’s still a lot more that we don’t know about human history than we do.

Business, Political Commentary, Technology and Society, War Commentary

TSA Pre-Check

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I’ve been getting randomly assigned it on my boarding passes for years, but I’d never understood why. For instance, I got it on my flight back from IAD this week, but not on my flight out from LAX. So here’s the story, sort of.

Anyway, they say it’s going to end, so if I want to get it, I have to actually sign up and pay the 85 bucks. So I decided to finally do it. I have to go to LAX with my passport and fingers on Monday morning to complete the process.

History, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Social Commentary, War Commentary

Molenbeek: A Culture Of Denial

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An analysis from a cultural anthropologist who lived there:

It is nearly impossible to explain to an outsider, but Belgium is a country of six governments, Brussels a city with 19 mayors. These many administrative posts are not filled with competent people. Security services are fragmented and tend to compete with one another. The lack of a strong, central authority may be one of the many quirks of this sometimes charmingly dysfunctional country, but just as it resulted in many botched trials — notably of the Brabant Killers, or “Nijvel Gang” who committed a series of violent raids between 1982 and 1985, and the Dutroux scandal in 1995, to name just two — it also creates the perfect breeding ground for potential terrorists.

But the most important factor is Belgium’s culture of denial. The country’s political debate has been dominated by a complacent progressive elite that firmly believes society can be designed and planned. Observers who point to unpleasant truths such as the high incidence of crime among Moroccan youth and violent tendencies in radical Islam are accused of being propagandists of the extreme-right, and are subsequently ignored and ostracized.

The debate is paralyzed by a paternalistic discourse in which radical Muslim youths are seen, above all, as victims of social and economic exclusion. They in turn internalize this frame of reference, of course, because it arouses sympathy and frees them from taking responsibility for their actions. The former Socialist mayor Philippe Moureax, who governed Molenbeek from 1992 to 2012 as his private fiefdom, perfected this culture of denial and is to a large extent responsible for the current state of affairs in the neighborhood.

I think that Belgium has outlived whatever usefulness it may have ever had. Time to give just it back to Holland and France.

[Saturday-morning update]

It’s not just Molenbeek. “Belgium, my country, is in denial.”

[Bumped]