Posts
With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.
Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.
But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;
As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,
To the end, to the end, they remain.
-- Laurence Binyon
Today is not about sales. It is not about summer starting. It is not about grandma.
It's is about those who served and have passed beyond the vale.
I want them all back.
To:
The world is better that you were in it and worse that you have left.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVod4K9AWQQ
ReplyDeleteAmen...panzer guy
ReplyDelete"Jerry Pournelle (you do read, don't you? Willing to be wrong and listened to my correction!)."
ReplyDeleteNEVER saw that happen in all the years I was reading his blog. Instead, I repeatedly saw people point out measurable facts that contradicted his premises, to which he would simply repeat the premises without acknowledging the facts. Many times I saw this. I put it down to the aftereffects of his stroke, but it really punctured the respect I had for him.
Recently I've been rereading the CoDominium novels. I don't think there's a single prediction he got right anywhere in any of those - I don't just mean the science fiction stuff, but the social changes, the demographics, military (he was just dead-blocked on Vietnam as being the end of military history and never incorporated any lessons from anything after), on and on. For a guy credited as co-author on "Strategy of Technology", his novels repeatedly assume circumstances into existence that totally contradict and ignore that work. It's weird.
Then there's his March 2014 commentary on Crimea where he was repeating the Putinist line verbatim. That didn't age well either.
In a discussion of the movie Valkerie he didn't think that Von Staffenberg would have had the pistol he was using. I told him he was wrong and gave a link in a email. He thanked me for correcting him.
Delete