The Manly Arts

I'm 37 years old and, to my annoyance, I discover that there is an encylopedia of knowledge about being a man that either my father never taught me, that my absurdly expensive English boarding school never showed me, and that I have not before encountered for myself until recently.

There's an entire generation growing up with the same problem, and as a cure there are books to help with the problem, with instructions on how to mow a lawn, or start a grill.

In the public interest, I shall expound on three things I have learned recently.

1. How to tuck in your shirt. The real secret to tucking in a shirt and making it look right is to not shove the shirt down your pants with your hand; the withdrawal action can cause the shirt to come loose. What you really want to do open your fly, reach in, and pull the shirttail down as far as it will comfortably go. Reach all the way around to the sides and get every angle.

2. A tip on shaving. Rinse the blade in cold water after every stroke. This apparently hardens the blade and cools your face as you shave, thus making the act of shaving less uncomfortable.

3. How to section a grapefruit. While not really a manly art, a grapefruit and coffee is my preferred breakfast on workdays, and I have never quite managed to do it without a bit of a mess. Here's what I have learned: cut off the ends of the grapefruit and discard. Place one of the flat facings on a cutting board and trim off the outer skin, making sure to trim off all of the white, waxy part. Now, with your knife, saw down along the waxy inner membranes to the center, working the knife back and forth. The inner flesh of the grapefruit should now come out cleanly.

Ugly Rhetoric From the Right

Some of you may be aware of the case of Lt. Col. Allen B. West. Probably most of you are not. Here are the basic details: In Iraq on August 16th, Lt. Col. West interrogated a captured prisoner of war. The prisoner was wearing an Iraqi police uniform and was apparently infiltrating the US area for scouting purposes. LC West, determined to get information from the prisoner, fired his pistol at an empty barrel twice then threatened the prisoner with the firearm.

The prisoner talked, revealing a credible threat that was dealt with. It is unquestionable that West's actions saved lives that day. Three snipers were themselves surprised by US Forces who now knew of their locations.

A petition is now circulating the Internet calling for West to be exonerated of all charges. The petition echoes many other right wing commentators have said.

What is galling, to me, is this bit:

In twice firing his sidearm, Col. West never intended nor did he actually harm the interrogated prisoner. In this case, the end does indeed justify the means.

On the flip side, we should be grateful that there are level-headed men in the military, however. Lt. Col. Allen R. Naugle sent out the following email to his colleagues (courtesy Jesse Walker at Reason):

It is indeed rare that I find myself in complete disagreement with the conservative establishment, but this is one of those times. I find it distressing and troubling that Christians and conservatives are espousing, in essence, that the ends justify the means.

I take no issue with Lt Col West's motives. He was jealous with the lives of his soldiers. For that, he is to be commended. I too zealously guard those whom the people of the United States entrust to my care. But I cannot, and will not, place my life and theirs in higher import than the rule of law.

If Lt Col West is indeed guilty of that which he is being charged, he violated DOD and Army standards. He may have violated the Uniform Code of Military Justice. He may also have violated the Geneva Conventions, to which the U.S. is a signatory, and which carry the force of law for the U.S. Armed Forces. To put it quite simply, he may have crossed the line from aggressive soldiering to criminalized inhumanity.

We, as a nation, object when other nation-states use torture, in whatever form, against U.S. personnel, be they military or civilian. And rightly so. Torture has no place in a civilized society. However, if we are to support West's actions, then we have no moral or intellectual standing to object when others detain and torture Americans in order to extract information that could potentially save the lives of those who would engage in violence against us.

It is only a very short intellectual distance from torturing purported 'enemies' to winking at the torture of detainees in America. And that would take us one step further away from representative democracy, and one step closer to a place we dare not approach. And that is a step that Christians and conservative should be actively oppposing!

Perhaps, once the facts are in evidence at his trial, he will be adjudged as to have committed no crime. But in any event, the ends do not justify the means, however noble the cause may or may not have been. And morality is not situational. No man, especially someone who has taken an oath to support and defend the constitution of the United States of America, is above the law.

ExSqueeze Me?

I've never heard of the magazine Resurgence, "the leading international magazine for ecological and spiritual thinking," but their ridiculous broadside against chemistry, of all things, makes me wonder if they're maybe a little too egotistical. Or simply absurd.

The article is entitled Heart of Darkness, and it's about nanotechnology. Calling nanotechnology (which is really just a sub-discipline of chemistry) "grim and frightening," the authors portray those in the discipline as intoxicated pollyanas following their muses to the destruction of us all.

Some tidbits include: "the prevailing western scientific model assumes scientific inquiry to be both a neutral and (paradoxically enough) a positive activity." I was under the assumption that most forms of inquiry, whether scientific or artistic or religious or historical, were primarily positive activities; that adding to human knowledge was better than enjoying ignorance.

But the most precious quote is this one: "one sometimes wonders which century the world just, barely, lived through - surely not the century of chemical, biological and nuclear warfare, global warming, acid rain and Frankenfoods?"

Can anyone name a single person who was harmed by "Frankenfood?" I can point to the billions in India and surrounding countries today who are not starving thanks to the first generation of Frankenfoods. I suppose if they were starving, Resurgence would be livid about "The West" not doing enough, but because they're not starving, that is because the problem doesn't exist, it's not worth commenting on.

Vicious, small-minded, and yes, Luddite. They should embrace the term.