The Coward Reveals Himself

W. Mark Felt, you dirtbag. He didn't get the job he wanted, so he saw fit to visit the specter of the Watergate era upon the United States of America.

Mr. Felt, I have nothing but contempt for you and your motives.

Tip of the Executor hat to Laurin Manning. At least, I think it was she who posted it.

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Several New Destinations

The TC&P Ry. Co., in the interest of serving the public, has announced several new destinations for the electronic traveler:

-The Sheila Variations. Sheila makes list for a variety of reasons, but a single post nails it: She reads Robert Conquest on J.V. Stalin at 0300, and likes it. Hiiiiiiiiiighball.

-No Such Blog. The series on Pan Am is reason enough to make a station stop. Plus, NSB connects us to...

-The LaurinLine. Not to be confused with the Springmaid Line. This particular publication is run by a pleasant-seeming young woman who hails from South Carolina, out of Darlington County. Or maybe that's Dahlintun, unless I'm mixing my South Boston with South Carolina in terms of accents.

Post of note: "Pirate Keyboard"

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Pan Am Article Series

The first airline that I can accurately recall hearing of was Pan American World Airways. I can't say why, because my place of residence has never been close to Pan Am service, even after their acquisition of National Airlines in the early 1980s.

The first toy airplane that I can remember is, likewise, a Pan Am Boeing 747-100 (or -200), purchased when my family went to Washington, D.C., for a visit. I was never a passenger on a Pan Am flight, but it's remained one of my favorite airlines my entire life.¹ Reading about Juan T. Trippe, the founder and autocrat of PAA for decades, has only served to interest me more in the once-great aviation giant.

As a less historically minded friend of mine once said, "Your sad devotion to these ancient transportation companies hasn't helped you conjur up their stolen market share, or given you clairvoyance enough to reignite public interest in---"

I found his lack of faith disturbing. Ahem.

Jollies aside, I've found something worth noting, and it's a tribute to the power of the individualist publisher who writes what he will, in the hopes that someone somewhere will read it and find it interesting.

Comes now No Such Blog, which has a series of short articles on various topics of Pan Am history. I suggest starting at the very beginning (a very good place to start) with the article on Pan Am's genesis.²

They're interesting articles, and I enjoyed reading them all. That I was almost late for an appointment as a result is a testament to their quality. The best one, from a "ooh, secret files" sense is about the loss of the Hawaii Clipper. It's tantalizing enough to be potentially accurate.

You've got to love the secret history---hijacking or no---of the United States and her government in the years prior to World War II. It's compelling stuff.

NB: Pan Am lives. Yes, that's right. In 2005, the Pan Am Clipper Connection serves routes on the East Coast. A bit of delicious irony: The Clipper Connection is operated by Boston-Maine Airways. Why do I care and why is this notable? Because the owner of it all is one Timothy Mellon, who happens to be the head honcho of Guilford Transportation Industries. GTI operates the Guilford Rail System, of which the Boston & Maine Railroad is a component. That's synergy, friends and neighbors.

To wit, GTI/GRS has painted approximately 250 Boston & Maine/Maine Central boxcars in a Pan Am livery, doing so some time in March 2005. If you've got the July 2005 issue of Trains, turn to page 13. As is usual, GTI/GRS hasn't commented upon the project. Getting information out of them is apparently like pulling teeth from a baleen whale.

¹ If you care, the others are Cathay Pacific Airways, the British Overseas Airways Corporation, Virgin Atlantic Airways, and Delta Air Lines. If Eastern hadn't been a direct competitor to the Pennsylvania Railroad's Northeast Corridor passenger service (i.e. the Morning/Afternoon Congressional and the Senator), then perhaps I'd like them as well. I've had a passing interest in the Soviet airline, Aeroflot, as well for a couple of years. I vaguely remember thinking that they were funny because they wrote what looked like "A3POCPAOT" on the side of their planes. Our dreaded enemy, unable to spell their airline's name. At the time, nobody told me that there was such a thing as the Cyrillic alphabet.

² As sung by the delightfully beautiful and oh-so-British Julie Andrews. The only time I've ever stood slack-jawed in a Disney Store was when they had Mary Poppins on, and she'd just arrived on screen. Talk about an arresting beauty! The girl I was in the store with came back by, figured out what was going on, and snapped, "Another pale-skinned, blue-eyed blond with a British accent. You're so predictable!"

Credit for this find is split evenly; Sheila O'Malley posted comments at The Llama Butchers; going to her site gave me this bit of direction.

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Late Day Diversion

This is amusing. Nobody does seem to know her name. That being said, it's always fun to have a reassuring face at the Yahoo! mail login.

Instead of wasting time (with your friends at Tosche Station?) with Dan Rather and other people, why not find out who she is? Might be a good professional boost.

UPDATE: The Hatemongers' Quarterly has a similar viewpoint.

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Another Rail Blog

Through the good graces of Technorati, I've found another railblog:

RipTrack "deals with Railroad Track Engineering, Design and Construction. Not only should Professional Railroad Track Engineers find something of interest here, but also those whose tax dollars are being spent for all of thsoe new Light Rail and Commuter Rail Projects".

The postings are somewhat sparse, but I would like to point out that which caught my eye:

-Posting of an interview with former Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) man and Rock Island Railroad president/CEO John Ingram

The Rock (more properly the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Railroad) probably stands as the most visible victim of the absolute mess the Federal Government had made of railroad regulation in the post-World War II period. (The Penn Central died of a variety of wounds, some of which were self-inflicted; blame for that mess can be spread to the government and everyone else involved as well.) Suffice it to say that the Rock Island and the Union Pacific started merger talks in 1960. The Interstate Commerce Commission approved the merger in 1974. There are of course a lot of factors in this, I'm sure, but fourteen years is a long time. Ultimately, the UP lost interest in the by-then deteriorated CRI&P, so the Rock was left to rot. See here for documentation.

The Ingram interview was interesting to me above and beyond the Rock Island---of which I am not particularly enamored---because Mr. Ingram hints at some of the talk of railroad nationalization, something that was kicked about in the 1970s as the Penn Central collapsed and the Consolidated Rail Corporation loomed on the horizon.

Interesting stuff. RipTrack makes list.

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The Case for the Sith

In the spirit of Jonathan V. Last's most excellent "Case for the Empire", I offer the following two articles, written by a fellow named Sir George, over at the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler:

We Are Sith

We Are Sith - Part II

If you're the sensitive sort, be careful. In the grand tradition of the Rottweiler, these posts are kinda sorta laced with some profanity action. But never mind that. I found this through a comment by a fellow named Duncan Avatar over at Rusty Shackleford's Jawa Report.

NB: I've recently been asked why I'm so bloody cheerful about claiming affinity with the clearly established bad guys of the Star Wars universe. I can only say this: "It's a question of preferable caricature. Andrew Sullivan tries to imply that we're some sort of latter day Torquemadas, running around trying to make the sequel to The Pit and the Pendulum. Various others constantly try to make us out as being descended straight from the Nuremberg rallies of the 1930s, itching to build Auschwitz South at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

When pre-destined to be the agents of evil in the American political landscape and given a choice in costuming and weaponry between a) Roman Catholic frocks and the rosary, b) feldgrau and gas chambers, or c) black robes, black cloaks, and lightsabers, well, I'll choose "C" every single time. It's much more fun to cruise about in an Executor-class Star Destroyer as opposed to the Bismarck or one of Phillip II's treasure galleons. Since we're damned to be the villains of this narrative, then I might as well enjoy myself.

Shane Falco was wrong: Chicks don't dig scars. Chicks dig Dark Jedi.

Tip of the Executor hat to Steve the Llama Butcher.

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The Chillin' Manifesto

The Coalition of the Chillin' has its manifesto out; I just forgot to make a public note of it.

Here is the entire thing. I don't claim to have influenced the drafter of the manifesto, but the primary considerations that influenced me were represented in the final document. For posterity and intellectual vanity's sake, they're reproduced below:

- the Republicans may want the filibuster preserved somewhere down the line;
- the media and the Democrats would have clubbed us to death if we went nuclear, and we don't want a repeat of the '98 midterms;

I was thinking more of the 1995 government shutdown, but whatever works. At any rate, we shall see how this develops. As "Albert Einstein" says in the introductory movie to Westwood's Command and Conquer: Red Alert, "Time will tell. Sooner or later, time will tell."

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The Last Lightsaber Quiz Post

OK, so in the interests of creating efficiencies and doing things in one Tarkin-ish swift stroke, results from various lightsaber-based quizzes at Quizilla. If sites other than Quizilla prove fruitful, there may be additional posts.

You have earned the blue lightsaber. You are
skilled in the ways of the Jedi, and the Force
is strong with you. You have a mind of your
own, and sometimes do things your own way, but
always for the good. You are looked up to by
the young and are strongly respected for your
decisions.

Which Star Wars Lightsaber Should You Have?

You wield a red lightsaber.

Star Wars: What colour lightsaber should you wield?

Red. This color is usually held by ones who follow
the Dark Side and usually called a Sith Saber.
If you are in the Jedi Council with a saber
like this, I suggest you hide it as best you can
for it often shows you are a Sith.

What Color is your lightsaber?

Blue

What Color Lightsaber Are You?

You are Blue!
You are cunning and brave. Yet you use all
resources in your power to promote peace as the
outcome of any fight. Similar Jedi include
Luke Skywalker and Obi Wan Kenobi.

What colour lightsaber do you use?

FINAL SCORE: 3 red, 3 blue. Note to self: Stay away from overly-friendly politicians who claim a persecution complex that only I can help resolve. Actually, that would keep me from ever responding to any direct mail fundraising efforts, as well. That works. Now to figure out what to do with that last banner, if not to resize it.

Upon reflection, red and blue seem to be the predominant colors of my Red Sox hat as well. Yee haw.

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Not Something You See Every Day

This, from robotech.com:

In honor of the United Nations' 60th anniversary this year, the United Nations (UN) will debut a special Public Service Announcement (PSA) at MIP TV 2005. The 60-second spot, produced by Harmony Gold, is part of a broader effort to increase awareness of the work of the UN during this special period culminating with the 60th opening session of the UN General Assembly in the Fall.

All grumbling about the UN aside, this PSA is something I'll be taking a look at when I can get it downloaded.

"[The UN] feel[s] this is a unique way of contributing to the UN's message of peace at a time when the world really needs it", said Harmony Gold (owners of the Robotech franchise) Chairman & CEO Frank Agrama. Somewhere in there is Irony with a capital I. Being lectured on peace by the wardens of a series where approximately six to seven billion people are slaughtered in a few seconds and a thirty-year interstellar war pretty much blowtorches Earth is going to be interesting.

On the other hand, the Robotech franchise (or more properly, the early Macross line) has an odd relationship with the UN, as does other mecha-centric anime from the late 1970s and early 1980s. A common thread running through the backdrop of several series is the unification of Earth's government, be it under the "Earth Federation" of Mobile Suit Gundam or the United Earth Government/United Earth Defense Council of Robotech. Something that you're likely to see pop on a not-intermittent basis is the phrase "UN SPACY".

What does that mean, you ask? I had to learn it from a Gundam type, who made it pretty simple:

U.S. Navy
U.N. Spacy

It's a contraction of sorts, for United Nations Space Navy. A lot of Gundam stuff for the Earth Federation sports this decoration, especially that by Kunio Okawara. More or less enthusiasm for the UN (or its general concept) and (in the case of the early Gundam series) a deep loathing of militarism would appear to be a common thread in a lot of the late 1970s/early 1980s stuff I tended to watch. One can understand both of them, because Japanese people were writing the scripts. I suppose these folks weren't too happy about having been hit with atomic bombs, and they were likewise unhappy with the glorification of the military, which I suppose led to the militarist party of Tojo et al being put into power. That, of course, wound up in 1945 with two wee little events in the skies over a pair of Japanese cities. Why Japanese nationals would be inclined to like the idea of a singular global government is beyond me, but then again, I'm in Virginia, which is close to half a world away from Japan, in more ways than one.¹

Go figure. I've got a frame of this thing downloaded, and it appears that the initial characters are going to be something I've not seen before, apparently from this Shadow Chronicles project that's supposed to be the latest entry in the Robotech universe. Me, I'll stick with the Macross Saga, 'cause it has Lisa Hayes.

¹ On the other hand, the Gundam universe seemed to establish, at least indirectly, that the Earth Federation wasn't exactly the nicest government either, at least by objective standards. Forced deportations from Earth were reportedly a facet of its social policy.

UPDATE: I've now seen the ad. Here goes:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

TITLE CARD: "ROBOTECH salutes the work and people of the United Nations on its 60th anniversary".

We see a seemingly ethereal woman drift down from the heavens while your average anime fighter PILOT stares up, goggle-eyed. He is standing next to a Veritech Alpha fighter in Guardian configuration.

PILOT: Ariel! This world is not safe for you. Many humans will still have to be convinced that we can all live together in peace.

ARIEL: Peace. It's amazing how beautiful this world can be when it is at peace.

PILOT: Yes, and how violent it is when it is at war.

As these last two lines are spoken, the camera pans from a green mountain range with pine trees and the like, to a shattered urban landscape, covered by reddish clouds in the sky. ARIEL turns her head back towards the PILOT, placing her right hand on the left side of the PILOT's head. The camera zooms into the PILOT's face as he closes his eyes.

ARIEL: Humanity has the greatest potential in itself, to educate, to heal, to provide. Together, you can do this. Together, you can succeed. Together, we will survive. There are many voices, but it is all one world, a world where there is a need for peace now. And in the future.

As ARIEL speaks, the scene transitions to a sepia-toned static illustration of a classroom with children being instructed from a chalkboard. A UNICEF sign hangs prominently over the chalkboard. Transition to a medical tent, where a WHO logo adorns a tent pole as a man sporting a blue "UN" armband treats a patient. Transition to an airfield(?), where men in what appear to be blue ballistic vests carry blue boxes, apparently food. One of the men is handing a blue box to an individual. The ballistic vests sport a wreathed insignia---half of the UN logo---surrounding an unidentified emblem. The letters "WFP" appear above the emblem.

The static illustrations switch back to the PILOT's eyes as ARIEL begins the "Together" part of her speech. The camera cuts to ARIEL's eyes, which are a shade of purple as are her hair and eyebrows. The camera then cuts to an external view, sweeping past two mounds---potentially the final resting places of SDF-1, SDF-2, and Commander Khyron Kravsher's vessel?---to ARIEL and the PILOT, who is now sitting on the foot of his Alpha.

Two forward-swept wing transport land in VTOL fashion in the background and the camera pans upward to a trio of the same aircraft flying in a vee formation. Camera continues panning until the blue sky turns to black.

The black sky then displays a color illustration of the planet Earth, wreathed in the UN leaves. The caption reads, "UNITED NATIONS IT'S OUR FUTURE.", along with www.un.org

END TRANSCRIPT. All intellectual property rights remain with the holder, ostensibly Harmony Gold. No claim is made against those rights. The use of names and other indicia from other Harmony Gold properties is solely for identification purposes and does not constitute a claim of right against the holder of the property.

OK, now that the ersatz legal disclaimer is out of the way---don't sue me---a bit of response. I don't get this ad. Harmony Gold's intent was to reach children with this message, but I am not convinced that it succeeds. Do children these days know what UNICEF is, and are they going to catch it in the illustration? Ditto the World Health Organization and the World Food Program. The images are kind of quickly displayed, and obvious to me only because I have the luxury of starting and stopping the PSA with QuickTime. Of course, the closing message is absolutely unmistakable, but it's sort of presented as a definitive conclusion, without a whole lot of support.

Of course, I don't know how a kid thinks, and they'll probably catch up on what the message wants them to get pretty easily: UN gooooood. (Napster baaaad!)

If I were a UN officer, I would appreciate the thought, but I'd also thank my lucky stars that the organization didn't (apparently) pay for it.

A quick bit of surfing confirmed a suspicion I had, and provided some additional information: The pilot made me think of The New Generation's Lieutenant Scott Bernard, for some reason. That stands to reason, because a source I've found says that it is a "redesigned" Lieutenant Bernard, and that the woman is Ariel, also redesigned from The New Generation. Of course she looked a little strange; she's an Invid---evil alien race---given human form. (The Invid can do that. Considering that their leaders are apparently able to, sort of like the later Zerg of StarCraft fame, able to warp space and time to travel around across interstellar distances simply by thinking about it, reshaping mere flesh and blood wouldn't be too hard.) Also, The Shadow Chronicles takes place after the end of the "Third Robotech War", wherein Earth is liberated from Invid subjugation. If I understand things right, the series will cover Lieutenant Bernard's search for the Robotech Expeditionary Force, a powerful group dispatched some twenty-five years earlier on a mission of armed diplomacy.

See here and scroll down for a description of the effort; whoever's writing that site is not amused. Me, I'm just looking forward to seeing Admiral Lisa Hayes again.

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Arise, Lord Pundit

Score!

You were destined to have a red lightsaber.

Red is the color of fire and blood, so it is
associated with energy, war, danger, strength,
power, and determination as well as passion and
desire. You have seen the strength and power of
the Dark Side of the Force and you thirst
for more of it.


What Color Lightsaber Would You Have?
brought to you by Quizilla

Heh heh heh. I think I wound up with red lightsabers by the end of Knights of the Old Republic games anyways, when I wasn't using blue. The plan for my current KOTOR II game is silver, or perhaps cyan. Red and blue dual wielding's also in the works.

Country Pundit, Sith Lord of the Commonwealth of Virginia. I could get used to that.

Tip of the Executor hat to Absinthe & Cookies.

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A New Coalition

Of which there may be value in being part of, such as it were.

My response to the judicial nomination thing was a resounding ho-hum. I wrote about it before, briefly, on the old site, and had been more interested in other things. There was, after all, a movie to be stood in line for. I was also rather concerned about what blowing through procedural safeguards could do in the long run. Like Al Perlman at the New York Central, I'm building for the future. Or at least that's what I told myself, conveniently leaving out the fact that Perlman's efforts went down in flames in 1970.

Something, written for Sir Thomas More and his daughter's suitor by a playwright, came to mind:

Roper: So now you'd give the Devil benefit of law!

More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

Roper: I'd cut down every law in England to do that!

More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you - where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country's planted thick with laws from coast to coast - man's laws, not God's - and if you cut them down - and you're just the man to do it - d'you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I'd give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety's sake.

Put in ruthless simplicity, I feared what might happen when the Democrats regained their majority in the Senate. What would we, the GOP, do when our people realized that we'd blown away our only hope of keeping someone to the left of Cass Sunstein off the Federal bench?

I regard a Democratic renaissance as an inevitable event, despite what Mr. Rove may think; I doubt that our GOP will (or even should be) in power for something like sixty straight years. But that's another post for another time.

At any rate, here's something new, and INDC Journal clued me into it:

The Coalition of the Chillin', which is, as they put it, "Dedicated to the proposition that the world didn't end on May 23, 2005."

I highly approve. I don't care for John McCain and a lot of the other players in this game, but I'll take the banner of the Chillin'.

Tip of the Executor hat to INDC Journal.

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The Enterprising Country Pundit

Your correspondent thoroughly enjoys Internet quizzes of various stripes. This one, however, is actually useful: Pew Research Center Political Typology

I took it, and was surprised at the result. Most of these sorts of things tend to call me a social conservative. I'd certainly identify myself as a social, rather than an economic, conservative. What'd I get? Enterpriser. The results are reproduced below with commentary where deemed appropriate:

Enterprisers represent 9 percent of the American public, and 10 percent of registered voters.

Basic Description
As in previous studies conducted in 1987, 1994 and 1999, this extremely partisan Republican groupÂ’s politics are driven by a belief in the free enterprise system and social values that reflect a conservative agenda. Enterprisers are also the strongest backers of an assertive foreign policy, which includes nearly unanimous support for the war in Iraq and strong support for such anti-terrorism efforts as the Patriot Act.

Defining Values
Assertive on foreign policy and patriotic; anti-regulation and pro-business; very little support for government help to the poor; strong belief that individuals are responsible for their own well being. Conservative on social issues such as gay marriage, but not much more religious than the nation as a whole. Very satisfied with personal financial situation.

Assertive? Oh yeah. Heh heh heh. And patriotic, too! I love my Commonwealth and my country; I expect that all other citizens do likewise. I don't dig flag burning, speech or no speech. I do not, on the other hand, have "very little support" for government aid to the poor. I just expect these programs to be administered efficiently, with the constant aim of making their recipients capable of self-sufficiency where possible.

Who They Are
Predominantly white (91%), male (76%) and financially well-off (62% have household incomes of at least $50,000, compared with 40% nationwide). Nearly half (46%) have a college degree, and 77% are married. Nearly a quarter (23%) are themselves military veterans. Only 10% are under age 30.

Well, I'm a male and I project a future household income (i.e. my own, since there is no Mrs. Country Pundit, alas!) of about $50,000 (see prior post). I've got a doctoral degree---the J.D. strikes back!---but I've never worn the national uniform. When the U.S. Navy hands out gray uniforms, festooned with silver code cylinders and decked out with red and blue squares over the left breast pocket, I will immediately rectify this.

Lifestyle Notes
59% report having a gun in their homes; 53% trade stocks and bonds in the stock market, and 30% are small business owners – all of which are the highest percentages among typology groups. 48% attend church weekly; 36% attend bible study or prayer group meetings.

Kim du Toit will kill me for saying this, but I don't have any firearms in the home. There's never been any money in the budget for one, so I don't. Not that I live in a high-crime area, though; anything that gets into my home will probably be incapacitated by something left near the door or otherwise in the floor. Can't rob me blind if you've broken your leg due to tripping over stuff.

What's even better is that I can't be sued for malicious wounding or anything else like that. "Your Honor, my client was not aware that leaving nails welded into a jackrock laying around was an activity that would be hazardous to trespassers. Once he was given notice of this, which would be after Mr. Burglar broke and entered and subsequently was maimed for life by an accidental grouping of these jackrocks, he, my client, remedied the problem." (Yes, I know jackrocks are illegal in Virginia, and rightly so. Bloody union coal miners!)

On the other hand, if someone wanted to give me a Henry repeating rifle or a Spencer carbine, plus a Colt Navy Model 1851 revolver, well, I'd be much obliged. Ah'm yer huckleberry, Mr. Burglar.

I don't own any stocks; being broke and dumping everything into education tends to do that to you, and I don't own a small business. I know a few people who do, and no thanks.

I do attend church on a---pardon the word choice---religious basis. I don't go to Bible study or prayer meetings though; that must've been what kept me from being a Social Conservative. Enh, whatever.

2004 Election
Bush 92%, Kerry 1%. BushÂ’s most reliable supporters (just 4% of Enterprisers did not vote)

Yes, I voted for Bush, but I certainly don't back all his policies and I'm not entirely fond of him, either.

Party ID
81% Republican, 18% Independent/No Preference, 1% Democrat (98% Rep/LeanRep)

Well, duh. That fits.

Media Use
Enterprisers follow news about government and politics more closely than any other group, and exhibit the most knowledge about world affairs. The Fox News Channel is their primary source of news (46% cite it as a main source) followed by newspapers (42%) radio (31%) and the internet (26%).

I do not use the Fox News Channel as my primary source of information. I'd suggest that National Public Radio and the Internet serve as my primary sources of information. I don't have time for FNC's poorly produced and aesthetically unappealing tripe. "Ooh! Let's get together and shout at each other, or focus on Laci Peterson, or celebrity gossip! Fair and balanced!" No.

Make of this what you will, and take the test yourself. Comments and results are, as always, welcome. I'm glad that there's evidence to shatter this ridiculous 50-50 Red State/Blue State meme; it's stupid, simplistic, and annoying. To steal a thought from General Kenobi, "Only the masses think in absolutes!"

Tip of the Executor hat to the Cold Spring Shops

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How Class Works, Etc.

Liberals of varying stripe (cultural, political, economic, etc.) are usually Very Concerned about issues of "race, class, and gender". It seems to be one of the things that a lot of otherwise pleasant young women will get very nasty about, very quickly. I found this out in college, where a Nader-worshipping professor taught a class on that very subject. Lo, whilst I was amongst the feminine masses at an event, I trod upon the holy ground of the professor of race, class, and gender. It was something innocuous, on the order of "I don't like the cut of that man's jib", referring to the professor in question.

As with Doctor Yueh, it would have been better had I not ever been born.

A bunch of the RCG Groupies descended upon me like I was the last living human in a bad zombie film, shrieking cries of "Misogyny!" (It sounds awkward, but can be utterly disarming against an un-prepared combatant. Even the best Jedi needs a bit of heads-up in order to defend himself, after all.) I managed to retreat in good order mostly by expert spin on my own remarks. It was rather close.

All that aside, I was directed yesterday to a point inside the NY Times website, wherein one can calculate their "place" in America's class structure, based upon some factors. Some data is based on personal projections and/or near-term targets, but even so, my results were surprising:

Occupation: Lawyer/84th percentile (of prestige)
Education: Doctoral degree, i.e. J.D./99th percentile
Income: $50,000/69th percentile
Wealth: Up to $500,000/85th percentile
Average: 84th percentile

There were five tiers in which each value was scored, "Bottom Fifth", "Lower Middle", "Middle", "Upper Middle", and "Top Fifth". Only "Income" was not "Top Fifth".

This I had not expected. I have a hard time believing that lawyers are in the top 20% of respected jobs in this country, but then again, I've grown up in an area where peoples' ideas of lawyers, more often than not, were probably formed by unsmiling men in suits telling them that, "The company/lending institution has all rights to your property in this instance", so go figure. As for education, I'm not surprised; doctoral degrees aren't exactly handed out easily. Income sort of rattles me, however. $50,000 (a round estimate) is ahead of the median household income of $46,000 in the Commonwealth of Virginia in 1999, and is twice what the per capita income ($23,000) for Virginians in 1999 was. Yet, almost a third of the country makes more than that. It is difficult, I suppose, to internalize and comprehend that $50,000/year is both ahead of two statistical categories in the Commonwealth, while still lagging in the 69th percentile. Admittedly, when you have both Bill Gates of Microsoft and Janitor Willie on an income scale, things will look very strange.

Wealth bothers me the most. The thing says that, "Wealth refers to a household's net worth in 2001. People in the middle of the distribution have between $50,000 and $100,000." I don't know if that includes all assets of the estate or not; my comments are based upon the understanding that "wealth" is wholly asset-inclusive. At some level, I am disturbed by what having $100,000 in wealth means and how far ahead of the rest of the country it puts you. Case in point: One of my best friends and his wife work in the financial industry. They're nowhere near the level of people from The Bonfire of the Vanities, and they don't work in one of Virginia's large cities. Yet, they just recently bought a house that cost close to a quarter of a million dollars. It obviously isn't paid for yet, but if you include the house's sticker price in their asset computation, they're ahead of 85% of the country in terms of wealth. They're both under thirty.

I suppose the solution is to suggest better fiscal discipline on the part of the lower rungs of this particular ladder. Less cigarettes, more certificates of deposit, if nothing else. I understand that the lower rungs of wealth would obviously not be able to tuck away five digits' worth of savings every month, but even so, a slight program of regular savings at small interest has to pay off sooner or later. Deferred gratification works, doesn't it? (Yes. This message brought to you by the people of the United Methodist Church.) You'd think that sheer human greed would motivate people to have more wealth, whether through increased salary, participation in the financial markets, or what have you. Money has a particular effect on me, for instance. I respond to money approximately like Kirsten Dunst's creepy little Claudia in Interview with the Vampire responds to her first taste of human blood: "More, please." You'd think that this would be a rather universal reaction.

At any rate, this survey taught me a couple of unpleasant truths. I certainly don't regard myself as some sort of socio-cultural economic elite, but the objective data would certainly suggest otherwise, and I'm not even that great of an economic performer. It bothers me at some level that the gap between myself and the man in the blue collar job probably can not be bridged, no matter how hard the blue collar man works. I, on the other hand, could theoretically improve my salary by an order of magnitude or two if I won a couple of cases, much like former North Carolina senator John Edwards. In the words of a cartoon character, "Zoinks!"

I'm also somewhat irate about the high level of prestige attached to lawyering. Sure, it's a high value job. Does that mean that it's more important than say, the guy who picks up your garbage? That I don't know. I'd regard the garbage man as a foundational job, 'cause without him, I'd be up to my nose in rank filth. Ask New York City what it's like when the garbage men go on strike, especially when the Top Fifth isn't about to dirty its hands dealing personally with the problem.

Organized civil society has problems when the guys the Times suggest are on the bottom don't do their job. It's like an army: The generals may plan grand strategy and the staff may concoct the perfect orders, but none of that's worth a hill of beans if Private Beetle Bailey decides he's not sending the orders, or doesn't want to drive his truck aggressively so that supplies get through.

There is an inherent dignity in all honest labor performed well, regardless of what the Times and its snobbery thinks.

It would seem that, based upon these factors and their yield, the following:
1. Your correspondent is better off than he thought he was.
2. Additional effort must be made in the philanthropic effort. As TR's speech to the Sorbonne put it, "To you and your kind much has been given, and from you much should be expected."
3. Even the seemingly modest (and relatively unsophisticated) economic goals of your correspondent are, apparently, pretty lofty when set against the rest of the country.
4. A certain sense of unease about the economic position of the country as a whole. I know that these data are the results of choices both conscious and unconscious, but they're also the result of externalities that the average individual can not, for whatever reason, overcome. That ought to be the bloody role of the government in the economy, making sure that we arrange things so that the man who wants to climb out of say a poverty-stricken background can do so with a fair amount of personal effort. The man from the Hamptons who is born into his third or fourth generation of wealth is no more accomplished---and perhaps less worthy of praise---than the man who comes from the poverty line to create a better life for himself, his wife, and his children.

Put in racing terminology, the man who wins from the pole has less of a victory than the man who starts 43rd and finishes 15th.

Well, now you know what I think.

Tip of the Executor hat to Grim's Hall.

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On This Day - Norfolk and Western History

23 May 1969 - Two of the Norfolk and Western Railway's named passenger trains, the flagship Powhatan Arrow and the Cavalier, made their last runs.

I don't have my book on N&W passenger service handy, but off the cuff, I recall that the Arrow (Winston Link's favorite N&W passenger train, apparently) was combined with the Pocahontas, which was arguably the N&W's next best train. If memory serves, the "new" Pocahontas sported a Pullman-Standard Vista-Dome car, taken from the former Wabash Railroad's Blue Bird trainsets.

Even though the new Pocahontas would survive into 1971, its route would not be picked up by the National Railroad Passenger Corporation, and thus went into permanent retirement.

The Cavalier was notable for having its own logo, a fellow in a large hat with a Van Dyke beard. According to Kenneth L. Miller, people today would recognize it as the basic image used by the University of Virginia's Cavaliers sports teams. (One wonders if the people in C-ville paid the N&W, or if they just assumed that they, as Mr. Jefferson's University, were entitled to it.) From a reading of Norfolk and Western Passenger Service 1946-1971, the Cavalier was never particularly a crack train with the best equipment. Amusing.

I could be wrong on anything other than the date and trains affected; blame a combination of Kenneth L. Miller and my shoddy memory if something turns up wrong.

Primary information for this post was gathered from the 2005 color calendar published by the Norfolk and Western Historical Society.

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The Military Aircraft Quiz

What military aircraft are you? F-15 Eagle You are an F-15. Your record in combat is spotless; you've never been defeated. You possess good looks, but are not flashy about it. You prefer to let your reputation do the talking. You are fast, agile, and loud, but reaching the end of your stardom.

Click Here to Take This Quiz Brought to you by YouThink.com quizzes and personality tests.

That's a nice description, but I would have preferred either some of the Cold War-era types (i.e. B-52 Stratofortress, B-58 Hustler, F-104 Starfighter, F-106 Delta Dart) or something like the F-14 Tomcat. I've had a long love-hate relationship with the F-15, which all got started back when I was a kid, and found out that the F-15 development program made copious use of former F-102A Delta Dagger fighters as drone targets for the AN/APG-63 radar & AIM-7 Sparrow missile combination. Later on, somewhere in the 1990s, I came about and decided to embrace the thing. It didn't hurt that I'd read the following (paraphrased) description of the F-15 program:

"It was a typical American fighter: Developed in tremendous haste against an imagined threat (the MiG-25 Foxbat), it cost an absolute fortune, overran its budget multiple times, and wrecked several other procurement programs. But it was also the best land-based air superiority fighter in the world, and has been for fifteen years."

Nevertheless: I don't actually have a combat record, but I did manage to do pretty good in law school once I actually got in the courtroom. Southern charm still goes a long way, especially when delivered in an understated "let's be reasonable" manner.

I dunno about my looks. I'm a man; so long as I've shaved recently and had a haircut in the last month or so, I'm fine, thank you. I suppose my reputation preceded me on several occasions; it always helps, whether it be to put the other side to sleep or to earn their respect, depending. Yee haw.

Fast, agile and loud? Two out of three ain't bad; I'm too old to be agile. But my hand-eye coordination's still good, thanks to a steady diet of computer games. Nearing the end of stardom my foot; the F-15C can still slaughter most anything in the skies, thank you. That is, if they'd give it the AIM-120B and AIM-9X with helmet-mounted sight. Kinda like Clint Eastwood in Unforgiven switching from pistol to shotgun.

Tip of the Imperial Navy officer's hat to Llama Butchers. Bring back the Star Wars logo!

UPDATE: Well, I spoke too soon about that 'slaughter most anything in the skies' bit. It appears that, when compared to the Su-35 (one of the more up-to-date Russian fighters), the Eagle loses nastily, requiring 1.3 lost F-15Cs to kill 1 Su-35. D'oh!

And yes, I'm well aware that the Sukhoi Su-27 Flanker may very well be superior to the F-15; I've been playing the Su-27 Flanker series of flight simulators since 1996. You've gotta love that beautiful Russian crane.

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In the Sidebar

Over off to the right you'll notice a few new things. I wanted to call attention to the Andrew Sullivan Freak-Out Advisory System. It comes courtesy of the people over at Wizbang, so pay it some mind.

To read more about it, or to get it for your own publication, click here.

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Movie-Going Humor

I'm guilty of laughing at several points during Revenge of the Sith, usually when laughter was appropriate. I like the interactive audience experience, except for the guy who keeps talking how he saw this or that on the web when he was surfing around in search of Star Wars porn. Ew.

Anyways.

I found a list of things to do in order to disrupt the movie-going experience, similar to the list of things to do while watching Return of the King.

Here you go. I just about spewed soda on my laptop while reading several of these, and I was nearly reduced to tears of laughter amidst near-continuous sniggering. I highly approve.

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Uncomfortable Analysis

That cursed Ith! She notes today the Revenge of the Sith review by Orson Scott Card, of Ender's Game fame.

Mr. Card's review is both brutally honest and a welcome read; catch it and let me know what you think.

Ith also says something that lands close to home: "So I'll redo "Revenge of the Sith" in my head, pretty it up, and then I'll go see it again and mesh the two together."

That's interesting, now that I know that other people do it. For the sake of discussion, I'll call it "compression". Defined, it's the process by which one takes a movie and selectively edits it in memory so that only the good---as defined by the individual---parts are retained. To personalize this:

Star Wars does not suffer from compression. The whole thing's an enjoyable ride, from "There'll be no escape for the princess this time" to "Great shot, kid! That was one in a million!" This was amply demonstrated to me over the weekend; I saw this movie in its original VHS release cut with a friend and his wife. She derived great amusement with the fact that she caught me either mouthing or mumbling lines throughout the entire movie.

The Empire Strikes Back operates much the same way, with only a little fudging around the Dagobah sequences. I've never placed any faith in Yoda; I don't like the cut of that fuzzy little hunchback's jib.

To inject other examples, The Hunt for Red October is almost compression-free. From chunks of Marko Ramius' discussion with Borodin to "Welcome to the New World, Captain", I remember this movie. Ditto RoboCop; I've only seen it a few times in eighteen years, but I still pretty much remember large chunks of the film. Admittedly, the dialogue isn't supremely complex, and much of it can be handled with random expletives and "I'd buy that for a dollar!", but that Dutch degenerate Verhoeven managed to make an impression.

I haven't had to redo the first three movies in the Star Wars series, and I haven't had to redo HFRO in my head, either. This is, in my viewpoint, an example of good film-making.

Not so The Lord of the Rings and the Matrix series. FOTR is the least compression-free movie of the bunch to me, but even it can be cut down to whatever happens in Lothlorien. That, and perhaps Boromir's demise, 'cause I really liked that character. Subsequent movies in the series have failed to make much of an impression on me. Note to future directors: If you wish to do so, then I suggest using Cate Blanchett in white.

The Matrix films worked the same way. The first one had some rather memorable moments, and I've fumblingly tried to normalize use of snippets out of that movie into routine conversation. Unfortunately for the Wachowski Twins, they failed in their efforts for more memorable scenes in later films. Reloaded's been cut to a single sequence or two, mostly involving Agent Smith. Revolutions got cut to the Bane v. Neo/Trinity sequence, Trinity's little tantrum in the S&M club, and Neo's disgusted exclamation while in the subway tunnel. Considering that I made those cuts pretty much an hour or two after seeing the movie, that's pretty bad. Of course, I was disgusted with the whole thing, but never mind.

So where does Revenge of The Sith fall? I don't expect to remember enough of it to start reeling out chunks of dialogue, but it's certainly a pleasant memory across several scenes, unlike The Phantom Menace.

Ugh. I really need to get busy with the work of the day.

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A Bit of Issue with the Senate

The Republic Senate, that is. I had been surprised to discover that Kenner had released an action figure of Senator Mon Mothma, of Chandrila.¹ Naturally, I decided that I had to find her in the current picture. That, as they say, didn't work. I had two sets of eyes watching the movie several times in total, and we saw nothing of the Chandrilan senator.

Being thwarted in our collective efforts, we turned to the wisdom of the Internet Movie Database, which confirmed the presence of the character in the movie, played by an actress named Genevieve O'Reilly. Ms. O'Reilly was also noted as having played "Officer Wirtz" in the latter two of the Matrix pictures. None of this helped, and we were a bit stumped. Nobody remembered an Officer Wirtz from Zion or the Matrix itself, so we figured that Mon Mothma was another one of these "If you look at the left side of the screen whilst occluding your eye to the seventh house of Jupiter, you will see her shadow for approximately 0.75 seconds during the sequence where Senator Skywalker makes her observation about thunderous applause" kinds of characters.

However, trust the Internet to bail out the semi-obssessive fanboy in need of a fix. The IMDB message board for Ms. O'Reilly saved the day, telling us two things:

1. The scenes with Senator Mothma (no relation to Senator Mothra, from the island planet of Toho) were cut.

2. Officer Wirtz was in the Zion scenes, with spoken dialogue in Revolutions, asking "What are they doing?" in response to an action taken by the sentinel horde.

A quote, relayed second hand or so, from Rick McCallum (Mr. "George Doesn't Think the Technology's There So That's Why We're Still With VHS" Producer dude in the blue denim shirt a couple of years back) suggests that there'll be deleted scenes on the forthcoming DVD release. I certainly hope so; it seems a waste for Ms. O'Reilly's character to not make the screen.

At any rate, now that that mystery's solved, off to less profitable things. I'm just glad I wasn't somehow missing a giant chunk of the film. See here for one more-or-less authoritative fan source of information WRT the character. The Star Wars website offers The O'Reilly Factor and the 'Databank' entry for Senator Mothma.

I'd vote for her.

¹ We do not recognize the new regime in place. So far as this publication is concerned, Kenner is still making the Star Wars toy line. Hasbro, on the other hand, manufactures the G.I. Joe and Transformers toy lines. Your correspondent is, if nothing else, not about to change terminology simply because twenty-odd years of corporate mergers have intervened.

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More Star Wars

Enough? Never! I'm finally around and coherent for the ending of a movie series that has been present in my entertainment world since the Carter Administration, and there's no way that it'll ever be rivalled. Four out of six were solid pictures, and I could, during a moment of weakness, find something nice to say about Attack of the Clones, pushing the ratio to 5:6. That's got the original Star Trek cast beat, and that's sayin' a lot.

Besides, I'd rather write about Star Wars than Senate nuclear options or Social Security reform, because lots of other people whose lives revolve around Karl Rove's checklists are doing that for fun, profit, and traffic. Revenge of the Sith beats Republicans led by Frist any day, if you will.

Having perused a list of the little action figures from the current movie, I saw that Hasbro Kenner's released Governor Tarkin. Yeeeeeeee haw. A buddy of mine invited me over to his house to watch a VHS copy of the original Star Wars cut, and I was reminded of just how cool Wilhuf Tarkin is. We could use him against the Islamists. Of course, I'll have to get one or two of 'em for the collection.

Ith over at Absinthe & Cookies is reminiscing about Splinter of the Mind's Eye, the very first Star Wars novel other than the one penned by Lucas himself as part of the Star Wars marketing effort. It was written by Alan Dean Foster, a 1970s sci-fi heavyweight, and was reportedly so poorly received that it took Lucas another twelve years or so to greenlight another Star Wars novel. (That novel would be Heir to the Empire, which was written by a guy whose jacket photo had him in a Colonial warrior's jacket from Battlestar Galactica. Sweet.)

I found a copy of it several years ago in a flea market, and didn't share in the majority opinion. If I remember correctly, the novel was clearly a product of the post-Star Wars, pre-Empire universe, so things weren't so fleshed out that Foster couldn't maneuver a bit. I do seem to recall a bit of Luke trying to figure out how best to score points with Leia, which at the time made all the sense in the world. The novel certainly wasn't high literature, but from Foster, what could you expect? He had a style all his own, and I remember the thing reading similarly to his novelization of The Black Hole, which would have been published about the same time.

And yes, our resident Dark Lord of the Sith, Darth Vader, was a right monster in it. None of this touchy feely compassionate stuff about him; this was the Vader fully on His Majesty's Sith Service, and thus at least one or two all-out slaughters ensued. In summation, it was a decent novel that, while not being on par with Timothy Zahn's work in Heir to the Empire, was a good read for a trip or something. I doubt it deserves the whole part of opprobrium that's dumped upon it nowadays. I dare the modern fans to stand it against The Courtship of Princess Leia and tell me that Splinter is bad writing. That particular work, in my opinion, started the long slide that Star Wars books have been in for quite some time. The first batch of "academy" novels by K.J. Anderson didn't help much either---except for Admiral Daala, huh huh huh---and the X-Wing series was too uneven to really sustain a lasting interest. Tremendous savings on my part, though.

In related news, a recent purchase---support the war economy!---was the current model of Anakin Skywalker's lightsaber. Wal-Mart (boo hiss!) had them for fifteen bucks, so I couldn't refuse. It's a solid low-cost toy, with color-changing blades. That little feature sold me on it over a Kenobi saber, but now I've still got to get one of those, too.

I'm not entirely sure why I'm so fond of the Anakin Skywalker model. It's probably because the thing was the first 'saber I ever saw, and so I've had an attraction to it as a result. Conversely, I've never really been fond of the one made by his son; the thing looks too fragile. Qui-Gon Jinn's was also pretty nifty, but it seems like you could lose it pretty easily. Darth Vader's is just unwieldly, in my opinion. However, the ones made in the late 1990s, prior to the release of Phantom Menace, were superior; they were scaled more for people of my age group, as opposed to children. Nowadays, the lightsabers are made for kids, not fully-grown adults. (There's something uncomplimentary in there, but I'm not going to say any more.) What I need is an adult-scale lightsaber that can be fiddled around with, instead of costing $500 or so. Suggestions are, of course, welcome.

Thus ends yet another long post in the blogging world on Star Wars. Now, where's my statute of Admiral Piett?

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