Speaking of Chivalry or the "Leal Mon".

In Memory of
Captain ALEXANDER ALAN MACKENZIE

4th Bn., Seaforth Highlanders
who died age 26
on 23 March 1918
Son of the late Alexander and Helen MacKenzie.
Remembered with honour
ARRAS MEMORIAL













http://extras.timesonline.co.uk/pdfs/hudsoncrash2.pdf Graphic of miracle flight

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article5529137.ece

http://www.popularmechanics.com/blogs/science_news/4300211.html


Here are some interesting articles related to Chivalry and manhood.

http://www.firstthings.com/article.php3?id_article=2541


http://spectator.org/archives/2007/04/11/groping-for-god-and-country-an

“CHIVALRY or the LEAL MON”

BY RICHARD K. MUNRO

Chivalry was present when Airbus A320 crashed on the Hudson. It was present in the person of the Captain Sullenberger, in the crew and in the passengers. [Chesley Sullenberger] “walked the plane twice after everyone else got off and tried to verify that there was nobody else on board. This pilot did a wonderful job," said Michael Bloomberg, the Mayor of New York. The remarkable exploit of Captain Sully was the prefect example of a chivalrous hero who followed a manly code of ethics that puts DUTY and others –the Common Good- ahead of self at all times. Chivalry was present that cold April night in 1912 when the great ship the Titanic hit an iceberg and sank into the icy waters of the North Atlantic. A stunning statistic from the calamity reveals the ethos of the day: While seventy-four percent of the female passengers survived, only 20% of the men aboard the tragic luxury liner perished. The rule for the lifeboats: women and children first! I remember reading that Winston Churchill was once asked what he would do if the Soviets or the Nazis triumphed in the end; he said he would prefer not to survive in such a world. There are things, in other words, worse than death. If civility, right and wrong, family, faith and chivalry were to die then I, too, would prefer not to survive to endure such a world. Chivalry might be down but it is not out.

Women and children first are indicative of a belief and hope in the future of family, society, country, faith and civilization. It is recognition that men are expendable in extremis. Women, mothers and children are the future. “Women and children first” is not just a time-worn phrase. It bespeaks, honor, fidelity and chivalry - a higher consciousness- one nurtured by the great legacy of Western Civilization, itself a product of Judeo-Christian religious thought and norms of Right and Wrong developed over centuries. Unfortunately, these virtues contend with powerful, often destructive influences from a hedonistic popular culture in the movies, Las Vegas, rock music, television, sports that bombard us with outrageously sexual images of men and women that are not just inappropriate but exploitative even perverse, pornographic and degenerate.

There is no question I am of the Old School. I was raised to be a Highland Gentleman what Walter Scott called a “Doonie Wassal” (Dhuine-uasal Gàidhealach). (As I write I listen to FLOWERS OF THE FOREST a tune and song I must have heard in the womb). Such songs like this or KELVIN GROVE or the NAMELESS LASSIE or RIBHINN CHOIBHNEIL (The Kindly Lassie) which put me at one with the many past events: round the old Baldwin Hamilton upright singing with my mother and sisters as the old folk listened, St. Mungo Cathedral January 14, 2005, the Edinburgh Tattoo in 2000 and 1967, The Park Bar (in Glasgow) and Kelvin Grove in 1967,2000 and 2005, Kearny High School Auditorium 1975, Madison Square Garden 1959 (we never went to basketball games but to see the tattoos of Highland Regiments particularly the Black Watch and the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders.)

http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_forest.htm

Sing on, sing mair o' thae auld sangs, {SING MORE OF THE OLD SONGS)
For ilka ane can tell {FOR EACH ONE CAN TELL
0' joy or sorrow i' the past {OF JOY OR SORROW IN THE PAST
Where mem'ry lo'es to dwell, {WHERE MEMORY LOVES TO DWELL}

http://www.rampantscotland.com/songs/blsongs_sangs.htm

Victorian literature, classical literature, the Bible, traditional Christian prayers and practices were very strong in my family and quite literarily a part of every day life. Growing up as a boy I never remember a single day without books being opened, poems recited, music being played and songs being song though not the songs popular of the time. My son is still astonished that I don’t know the popular music of the 1950’s or 1960’s –supposedly my time- I know the music of the 1850’s and pre-1919 Britain and Europe especially. Naturally, I had heard of Elvis Presley but unless he was singing hymns or traditional music I simply had no interest. I preferred Broadway musicals, opera, classical music and traditional music which seemed much richer linguistically and intellectually to the immature yelpings and banging about of pop and rock music.

My father, in particular, was a model of gentlemanly behavior and what the Greeks called sophrosyne (moderation). He rarely drank anything but wine or sherry. I never saw him intoxicated though he admitted to me he had had his moments of great Celtic exhuberance –V-J day for example. I loved and admired my Auld Pop for his kindness and virtues but temperance was not one of his virtues. I think he tried to drink to kill the pain and loneliness of having survived two world wars unlike almost all of his friends and comrades in arms. Nonetheless he was a mild-mannered gentleman and was always tender with children and women though literally ready to lay down his life to protect those he loved. When he was occupied reading to his grandchildren or teaching them he was too occupied and responsible to drink. He was a ‘leal mon’. In fact, he saved my life when I was an infant, a story that my sisters and parents recounted to me. Perhaps this was the beginning of the great bond of love we had and still have. He had tremendous strength and physical courage and throughout his long life he risked his life many times to save his friends and comrades in arms. He was awarded the Military Medal for courage at 2nd Ypres and it was said he and his comrades would have earned the Victoria Cross except for the fact that there were no officers to document their heroism. The Dins (Indian Soldiers) called him “Changa Dost” (the good comrade) because he would bring back wounded Indian soldiers just the same as wounded Scottish soldiers, most notably Captain Sandy MacKenzie, ASH (later Seaforth Highlanders). Major MacKenzie was critically wounded in the Struma Valley and unable to make it back to allied lines but Auld Pop tended to his wounds, nursed him and carried him on his back for hours bringing him to the aid station. He invalided out of the service but reenlisted during the crisis of 1918 and tragically was killed in France. That was heartbreaking to the men he had led and who thought he had made it back to “Old Blighty” safe and sound. Sandy MacKenzie was only 26.MacKenzie is listed as a Captain in the Commonwealth war graves records but I was told that Captain MacKenzie was posthumously promoted to Major. I have a gold watch his widow gave to my grandfather in 1919.

NE OBLIVISCARIS (do not forget).

http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=3077733

I have not achieved much in this life –I am just a humble schoolmaster- but I have not been guilty of cruelty, neglect or abuse of elders, children or women and I have tried to be a guiding parent and a loyal and faithful husband to my wife. A good conscience is my only reward of a chivalrous gentleman. There have been many times when I think, indeed, I am the “last of the Mohicans” but I think of what Chivalry is and think it is worthy to speak of and to teach others by word and by example.

John Stuart Mill said:

“Though the practice of chivalry fell even more sadly short of its theoretic standard than practice generally falls below theory, it remains one of the most precious monuments of the moral history of our race, as a remarkable instance of a concerted and organized attempt by a most disorganized and distracted society, to raise up and carry into practice a moral ideal greatly in advance of its social condition and institutions; so much so as to have been completely frustrated in the main object, yet never entirely inefficacious, and which has left a most sensible, and for the most part a highly valuable impress on the ideas and feelings of all subsequent times. “

Chivalry spells out certain ethical standards that foster the development of manhood. Politeness and deference towards others, especially women, children and elders is the mark of a gentleman. The virtues of chivalry offer more, however, than mere pleasantries and politeness. They were, are and remain beautiful and noble ideals! They should appeal to the true man. They give purpose and meaning to male strength, and therefore support the overall workings of society for the Common Good. We admire men who are strong, but if their strength is not directed to uphold what is good, honest and just, what value does it have? The SS were strong but they were evil. The Marines I served with were men of honor but I am sure they were every bit the fighting men the toughest SS men were. Chivalrous gentlemen are called to use their strength to defend those who cannot defend themselves, and commit themselves to just causes.

Nothing is more unmanly, in my opinion, and petty, than delighting in scandal and gossip. Not only do you harm those who are victims of gossip, you harm yourself as well. How? By becoming a creature who is unloving. It is wrong to delight in the guilt or suffering of others, or to feed the flames of scandal, a major occupation of nightly television. I am interested in the news of the day but I turn off gossip about so-called celebrities, murdered wives and children. I usually am the last one in the school to know that so and so was cheating on so and so. I simply have no interest in the private sexual lives or preferences of my colleagues. We talk about students, the political and cultural affairs of the day, literature and sometimes sports or our families. I don’t talk a lot about TV because, I must admit, I am not with it when it comes to the latest TV show. I do talk about movies because I love movies particularly classic movies but week after week I look at what is in the cinemas and really I have no interest. Once again, I have more in common with people who are married and have children so I tend to socialize with them though I certainly don’t ignore younger single teachers.

Men ought to be courteous and polite to others, generous helpmates to their wives and elders in their family, their faith community, their social world and their country. My mother, who was a model of Caritas (Christian love), used to say: “God made us strong only for short while so that we can help others.” A man, in my opinion, should never neglect his home or his family duties and should do his best at his work –if not for himself then to provide for his loved ones.

What are the virtues a man -a “leal mon” should have? . Above all he must have integrity or display that the Greeks called “alethic” virtue. Truth must be important to a real man.

One must avoid the temptation to shade the truth, boast or lie, especially to those we love. Sometimes honesty requires us to say things that seem blunt or harsh but a measure of tact, gentleness and a humble, loving approach can take the sting out of honest criticism. He must be honest and share with his children the personal value integrity, modesty, chastity, faithfulness, patriotism, motherhood and faith has for him.

I always tell my catechists that there were times in my life when I did not go to Mass as often as I should have but I never lied about to anyone especially my mother. When she called me up to ask if I had gone to Mass I could never bring myself to lie to her and I promised I would not neglect my obligation. But I also tell them that as the years go on I really enjoy going to Mass and really miss it if I don’t go. For it is when I am at Mass –and when I am singing- that I am closest with my dear departed ones.

A man must courageous but be gentle to the weak and with a strong sense of justice which means having gratitude, displaying mercy and being generous. He must have respect for his marriage partner for life. The word respect comes from the Latin “respicere” meaning “to look at”; one does not ignore others; one looks at them with respect and worth with all their assets and weaknesses. He must be humble enough to laugh at himself and at the world. Humility means an extreme awareness of the limits of all virtue and of one’s own limits as well. Not all can be done and not all can be known. Scott wrote that “true genius of the highest class is always humble.” Men are beings of the earth (humus in Latin whence humility). In my experience the most generous people are also the most humble. Wherever there is humility, says St. Augustine, there is also Charity.” I believe the Gael of old –before the Saints and Scholars and the Greeks hardly knew humility as they did not know mercy or charity. Aristotle did not seem to recognize this virtue in his Nichomachean Ethics. http://classics.mit.edu/Aristotle/nicomachaen.html

A man, must be, faithful and loyal to those he loves. This is the essence of being a “true man” a “leal mon”. If we want to grasp the essence of martial fidelity we need to understand what makes a married couple a married couple. I dislike the term “couple” or ‘”significant other” very much. My uncle Jos –a very frank and sometimes brutal man less gentlemanly than my father- was fond of the term “concubine” which if you think of it is just a fancy word for bed-companion or a “piece of ass.” One would think a woman would aspire to more than being the “squeeze” of the moment. But it is quite true English sometimes lacks the proper vocabulary of love and marriage it seems to me as compared to French, Spanish or Greek.

The highest compliment my Auld Pop could give a man was to call him a “leal mon a goodjin” (a loyal man a thorough good person someone you count on to the death and I mean to the death.) If you could not be counted on to the death in all circumstances to behave with honor , fidelity and courage you were not a ‘leal mon.” (the Highland word is dileas meaning faithful, loyal, loving, trusted)

A good man to Auld Pop was simply a man who would not forsake “his lass nor his brother in arms”.
A man of justice and courage who would never turn his back to his friend or in the face of the enemy.
That was what was a “leal mon,”

The concept is analogus to what the Jews would call a “mensch” (a man of integrity and honor) or the Spanish would call (un hombre de bien) Leon Rosten defined a ‘mensch” as . “Someone to admire and emulate, someone of noble character. The key to being “a real mensch” is nothing less than character, rectitude, dignity, a sense of what is right, responsible, decorous. “ There is no question in my mind that there is such a thing as “leal mon” and it is an ideal I hope my son always follows.

But for the sake of this short commentary I will use the world man or true man as the synonym for “leal mon’, mensch or hombre de Loyalty denotes a relationship that is based on truth and commitment. If we are fortunate, we have companions who are loyal to us—but we must be loyal to others and other things as well. I have always tried to be loyal to my school as my grandfather was to his Regiment and I was to the Marines. Remember, loyalty is a virtue to cultivate, even when it is not reciprocated.

To me fidelity –fidelity to what is good and true- is one of the highest virtues. Fidelity is faithful love to love and through love. We owe fidelity to selfless courage, to suffering, to the blood of martyrs and heroes, to sacrifice, to endurance and to love.

“Remember the people you came from” is a call for giving your forefolk their just due and, I believe gives one a stronger identity.

According to Montaigne in fidelity lies the true basis of personal identity: “The foundation of my being and identity is purely moral; it consists in the fidelity to the faith I swore myself….I take the responsibility of a certain past as MY OWN, and because I intend to recognize my present commitment as still my own in the future.”.

The past is no more ; the future is still to come. The past is in need of our compassion and gratitude; for the past cannot stand up for itself. Such is the duty of memory: compassion and gratitude for the past. Yet in the face of oblivion there is memory. This fragility is the essence of mind, which no less mortal than we, is yet alive within us, as mind in remembering its mortality.

Once again I prefer the Spanish here over English because it distinguishes clearly between an ephemeral hook up and un matriomonio which is one thing: husband-and-wife. Gaelic also has one word for married couple and that is ‘caraid’ which also means a pair (or twins).

There is no question in my mind that when it came to the importance of fidelity in marriage my Spanish wife and I had completely the same culture of fidelity and sincerity. Even though I was an American –it was more important that I was the son of Scottish Catholic and a devout Christian mother –an Islander of the Free Church tradition- because it meant I shared with my Spanish fiancée the common values of the Old Europe or Christendom.

There is no question in my mind so many Irishmen and Highlanders in particular marry Europeans such as Poles, Italians, Portuguese and Spaniards because they feel closeness to those cultures than many English –being highly secularized- simply do not feel. There is no question that Rome and Jerusalem were more important to us than London –a place where no one in my family ever lived or had any special allegiance to.

People often express surprise that I never married a Scottish or Irish girl (I dated a few point of fact) but the simple fact is most of the British or Scottish girls I met were very secular, progressive and left wing even anti-American. Even many of the Irish-American New Yorkers I met were far too avant guarde for me and few were serious Catholics.

By contrast, the Italians I knew and the Spaniards and Cubans I knew were pro-American and held traditional values very similar to mine. There is no question that for me, it was in the cards I would marry someone devoutly Christian who had strong family based values. Marrying someone in my faith and who shared my faith was far more important to me than marrying someone of my parent’s nationality or my nationality. Sharing the faith of your spouse is an important foundation in maintaining fidelity in the marriage.

Mere sexual congress, how often repeated, is, it should be obvious, is insufficient to create a bond of fidelity. Most men, I know would do anything to have (to speak bluntly) “a piece of ass”. I believe mere cohabitation, however lasting, is not true fidelity.

A man who pledges his love and protection to a woman wants her to have the honor and protection of sharing his name, his children, his home, his property and the support and love of his entire family for her sake and for sake of the children. The passion of deep sexual attraction must be in a serious heterosexual relationship at some time but this intense passion cannot last except in memory. No married couple could ever last without this kind of fidelity of each spouse to his shared history, which is a mixture of trust and gratitude that makes a married couple happy. This kind of love, which we observed in our parents who were married 59 ½ years and separated only by war and death, is more moving and impressive than the narrow love of Hugh Heffner or even the pure passionate love of young lovers. To me this kind of fidelity is more precious than any other kind.

There is no such thing as an ‘open marriage’ and divorce is a great betrayal of fidelity. I consider myself very lucky to have avoided the scourge of divorce. My Auld Pop always emphasized there was no word for divorce in his language –one was separated by war or death only. When I asked him, as a small boy, what this divorce was –it seemed to me something very sad , perhaps a form of torture , like tormenting Christ with spears- and he answered somewhat ironically, “Dinna fash yersel’ (bother) about THAT; it’s something they do in America!” To which of course I protested we WERE living in America and he replied, “Aye, but that dinna mean we have to pick up their bad habits.”

One of my uncles married an American born girl and she divorced him, after just a few years and two children, in a most savage, cruel and selfish fashion. But my uncle , a very religious man, treated her with respect long after the divorce, picking her up at the airport, putting chains on her tires in the snow even lending her money. He explained to me that “in the eyes of God we are still married.” He never spoke ill of his ex-wife and he had ample cause to do so. THAT is fidelity. I tried to learn from my Uncle’s mistake. He got talked into marriage by his mother and the woman who turned him down several years before but then found out he was the best prospect she had met. So before she lost her looks and figure –she was pushing 30- she wrote to his mother to find out where he was –he was stationed in Germany at the time- and basically threw herself at him and he fell for the bait. It is good advice never to marry someone who tries to win over your parents more than you. It is also good advice never to go back to someone who “dumps” you and then has “second thoughts.” In my opinion, one cannot trust the fidelity of such a person. “Better to have loved and lost than never have love at all, “ was a saying I heard my Uncle say many times. His wife came to his funeral –he is buried in Arlington Cemetery- and told me that my uncle was better husband than she was a wife. By then she was an old, stout lonely woman well past middle age and nothing like the angry avant guarde confident feminist I had met thirty years before. She had a chance of fidelity and she threw it away. I think she regretted it. She must have known she sinned gravely against the duties of married life and betrayed a trust. She probably never did love my uncle and so did not respect him either. In my opinion, she was a terrible example for her children. How can one swear to love somebody forever and love no one else as husband and wife? If the love dies what’s the point –some people might say- of maintaining the fiction and responsibilities and demands of it? Some people seem to say “I will not love you forever but I will be grateful that we shared love for a while.” That is more than nothing but it is not fidelity. It says love me for a long as you want to –as long as I am young and physically attractive or successful- but then ditch me when something younger or better rolls along. That kind of attitude must be something but it is not fidelity.

There are at least six reasons NOT TO MARRY (a gentleman thinks of such things for himself , his charges and his friends).

#1 Don’t marry someone you don’t really know. If you are pressured to rush to the altar as my Uncle Norman was you have to ask yourself. “What is the reason for the rush?” If he or she truly cares they will give you time to be sure.

#2 Don’t every marry someone you don’t like or have anything in common with BESIDES sex and physical attraction. Everyone I have ever known married someone with whom he or she felt a strong sexual attraction. I could be wrong but this is the easiest part of a relationship. Speaking as a man most women 16 to 60 are sexually attractive at some point in their lives. Once again, speaking from personal experience, most women hit their peak attractiveness from age 25 to about 42. Most women, just like most men, unless they work very hard at it, start to lose the battle of the bulge in their 40’s. Once again, perhaps it is just me, but this is not necessarily a bad thing. If I compare the looks of my friend’s wives who are excessively thin they seem more pinched, more wrinkled and less attractive with each passing year. Other women, with a more matronly look, remain very pleasant to be with and to look at. Some women are astonishingly beautiful for a short period of time and others have a high lifetime batting average and remain attractive for a longer period of time. There is such a thing as growing old gracefully. I can think of nothing more hideous and ridiculous for a 60 year old woman trying to dress like a 19 year old virgin. I once had a chance to meet the opera singer Beverly Sills. She had a wonderful smile and personality. She was a very attractive woman but no one would ever say that she was girlish or thin. She merely looked her age and looked good at it. By contrast I met Eleanor Parker in 1976 –one of Hollywood’s great beauties of the 1940’s and 1950’s now most famous for the role of the forty something Countess in The Sound of Music. She was getting ready for the previews of a rival of Pal Joey. She looked ghastly. She had obviously had one facelift or several and her face was so taut she could hardly smile or make any expression whatsoever. Miss Parker was overweight but less so than Beverly Sills but she was obviously wearing a tight dress one or two sizes too small for her. She could hardly walk it was so tight. The story was the managing director of the Circle in the Square Theater told her to get in her costume or she was fired. I think he knew she COULDN’ T get IN her costume. He must have also been shocked at her appearance as well and must have felt he wasn’t losing anything by firing her. She had obviously lost her looks. But the point is Beverely Sills and Eleanor Parker were both about the same age (in their 50’s) but Beverley Sills still looked like Beverley Sills; Eleanor Parker looked like a zombie with a mask. She was almost unrecognizable. Anyway Eleanor Parker was fired and I never saw her performance. The bottom line is if you can’t respect the behavior, habits and values of your potential mate, rethink the situation. What will it be like with this person once the haze of romantic love fades? Could you love your wife (once again, speaking as a man) if she lost her size 6 figure? Let’s face it multiple pregnancies and the years usually wreak havoc with a woman’s figure. And time does not remain still for any of us in any case. It is a mistake to marry for beauty alone, a very big mistake.

#3 If the people around you who know you well and love you –your parents, siblings, close relatives, teachers, and wise friends- are counseling you against marriage to a certain person, you must pause. Although they don’t know your potential spouse as well as you do, they are not as emotionally mixed up as you are by the strong sexual attraction or romantic feeling you have for that other person. This is particularly true if the couple is sexually active. Nothing fools you that you have to have your spouse like an active sex life before marriage. I wonder what purpose a honeymoon serves for people like that. And why even wear white? But if people around you are expressing doubts you should at least give yourself some time to think about what you are doing. Imagine, for example, if your spouse had no money, lost all of his or her teeth and gained 100 pounds. My father always said to me that I should look at the mother of the potential bride because it was a reasonable indication of what the daughter would look like in 25 or 30 years with 25, 30 or 50 additional pounds. I would add another proviso too. I don’t think it is important to marry for money and position. I think marrying for personal happiness and family reasons are the most important. But that having been said there is something one should always consider. It is one thing to marry someone who has next to no money but it is another to marry someone with extravagant tastes and $50,000 in debt!!!! Most marriages fall apart for two basic reasons: lack of sexual compatibility and financial distress.

#4 building upon that last point. Never marry anyone in whom there are signs of unstable behavior. If you beloved needs to be drunk or high to have a good time, I think it is a serious cause to worry. If he or she can never hold down any kind of job at all in the last few years find out why. Can’t he or she get along with the boss or with coworkers.. Is the discipline of work too much for him or her? Once again, I have never been a great success in life but I have always worked. I worked my way up from being a laborer in construction and unloading rail cars to sales, to being a bank employee, then finally a Community College instructor and high school teacher. No one has ever asked me for me resume or offered me a job but I have always been respected as someone who was a hard worker, honest and loyal.

#5 A lastly to reiterate a point mentioned before if your primary drive for getting married is an overpowering urge to have –or continue to have –sex with this person, STOP. Sex is important for a good marriage but sex is NOT love. It is absurd to overvalue physical love. Speaking as a man, men are beasts and I think it is true to say, that in the dark, as has been said, women are all the same if that’s all you want from a woman. But once again that is not love. Real love is sharing laughter, sharing experience, sharing children, sharing affection, trust. Physical love (eros) can provide the spark and the glue for the beginning of a relationship but it cannot provide the substances. Being in love and having love in a marriage is something other and something more than being sexually aroused. Not all desire is love though it may always be lust. The desire for a woman period might just be lust but the desire for a specific woman is another. Some people say this is love too but I do not ; love that is merely transitory and sexual is not love merely as Anthony Burgess called it in A Clockwork Orange, “the old in and out”.

Nonetheless, alienation of affections is one of the primary reasons marriage fail. They say the French (the elite anyway) have their solution –it seems horrible to me and contrary to fidelity and honesty- a man keeps his lover and his wife separately. That is to say one has (presumably young, thin and attractive) temporary lover and a permanent mother-manager. Virtual bigamy or polygamy you might call it. It seems like a bore to me. If you wife is your partner and best friend don’t you want to spend as much time as possible with your best friend? But there is no question, however, the issue of extramarital sex is present in many marriages. Once again, speaking as a man, one must avoid excessive temptations and exercise self-control. Most of my women friends are safely married or far away. I never pretend to be unmarried and do not socialize with younger unmarried women. It seems to me Lotharios must neglect their families, their work or their intellectual life because if one is dedicated to those things one simply has no time to roll up ephemeral sexual contests. Once –just once- while I was studying at UVA I went to a spaghetti dinner at the Catholic parish in the university. What a mistake! The participants were overwhelmingly young women in their early to mid 20’s. I was in my late 40’s at the time. I was very polite but I did not stick around and I never took the bus to that church again. If I am alone I make sure I go to early Mass. Sometimes when I am alone on a business trip or home alone I may have a conversation at restaurant or bar with a younger woman –a college student for example- but only in an avuncular fashion. I can’t understand teachers who want to date their students. Of course, I love my students and want to best for them but because I love them I want to do them no harm. I am there to teach them not to seduce them or abuse them.

#6 Never get married because you feel you have to or everyone else is getting married. It is chivalry to treat your date with respect. It is foolishness to marry someone because OOPS she says she is pregnant. I have known friends who married their pregnant girl friends but did not know if they were the father. That is no way to start a marriage. Once again fidelity and trust are the basis of any good relationship.

In choosing this unique person for our mate, this combination of history and charm, this merging of flesh and soul, we are looking for a lifetime of love that will sustain us. If we are wise we will come to understand that genuine love is not a free gift but an earned achievement. Perhaps we catch love when it comes our way like a fever or virus; I do not know. But I do know this true love is based on fidelity and it is up to us to learn how to grow in love.

A marriage, or matriomonio presupposes love and duration. My father knew Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 by heart and I often heard his collection of Roland Colman recordings of the Sonnets. As a small boy it was made clear to me that Shakespeare was almost as authoritative as the Bible or Burns and there is no question it was an important part of my education as man or gentleman. He also made it clear to me how much he loved my mother. And let me say that my Auld Pop was widowed never talked about any other woman except his wife. She was so talked about and so quoted by my father and mother and grandfather that I almost came to think as if I had known her myself though she died almost twenty years before I was born. That is fidelity –to love someone who gave you so much love during your life that you never forget that person. Certainly love of that kind is a selfless love because the dead cannot do anything for you themselves except perhaps connect to you in communuion and comfort you through their souls and memory.

One of our favorite modern movies is Sense and Sensibility which uses this poem to show Marianne Dashwood’s conceptions of love. Ah, yes, love’s not Time’s fool:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds

Admit impediments. Love is not love

Which alters when it alteration finds,

Or bends with the remover to remove:

O no! it is an ever-fixed mark

That looks on tempests and is never shaken;

It is the star to every wandering bark,

Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.

Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks

Within his bending sickle's compass come:

Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,

But bears it out even to the edge of doom.

If this be error and upon me proved,

I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

I have been called a hopeless romantic but to that charge I say romantic Highlanders have more fun and sing the best love songs because they know what chivalry and love is all about. As Burns sang “Gae seek your pleasures where you will etc.”

Chivalry speaks about romantic love and Highland Gentleman know about and care about romantic love and fidelity. They also know “modesty is the true beauty of woman”’; in other words modesty and chastity are sexy and very desirable. People today have lots of sex –or at least they boast about it- but they find relationships flat and devoid of romantic love. That is because Eros-love (sex) promises more than it can deliver, especially in regards to companionship, trust and permanence.

Why? Because we perceive romantic love as something spontaneous, something that does not demand work patience and a strong moral base. The wisdom, literature and songs of our forefolk tell us something that is quite the opposite. The very essence of romantic love, true love is commitment. This is where, in my opinion, chivalry provides a vital ingredient. Love relationships provide the laboratory where the virtues of chivalry are tested to their fullest, and the manliness of a “leal mon” is proved. With time and fidelity true love grows and true love not only stimulates the best in us but it is a recipe for happiness and love that can last a lifetime –and beyond.

Aye. “S truth I am telling ye!”

Cremin and Ravitch: Points of Sanity in an Insane World

http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/01/education_in_blue.html


Cremin who, in The Transformation of the School: Progressivism in American Education, declared that the progressive fads, despite their lofty nostrums like "creative self-expression," resulted in sheer "chaos" when implemented by middling teachers, as has often been the case.

Diane Ravitch emphasized progressivism's most deleterious result. In The Troubled Crusade: American Education 1945-1980, she concluded that the practices of the "new" education in general, as early as the late 1940s, sought to change "students' attitudes and behavior to conform to social norms ... rather than subject matter acquisition," causing a decline in academic studies. (Plus ça change. The most prevalent criticism of the Reggio schools today is that it disregards the basic learning that children need to advance academically - and this, to reiterate, because the approach permits children to define their own lessons and projects.)



(All I can conclude is that there is much insanity in the country. The Auld Book has it better: “Foolishness is bound in the heart of a child. “(Proverbs, xxii, 15). The silver lining, of course, is that such people are below ZPG so they will leave little trace on American culture as compared to Islam, Mormonism, Orthodox Judaism, Evangelical Christianity and Catholicism).

In my humble opinion, such people are just play acting at education and civilization. What a waste of time, effort and resources. I return to my classics –the only true education.

MUNRO

HOW TO AVOID BEING POOR

TEMPERANTIA (sophrosyne)

This is how I introduce practical economics to my high school students. I tell them that two of the most important decisions in their lives will be 1) whom they choose to love 2) and what educational and job paths they choose to follow. I emphasize that education is for personal improvement and happiness but also to a large degree for utilitarian reasons particularly in this age of credentialiasm. I have great sympathy for the poor and most of my students are poor but I believe in this life" if you sweat you get and if you snooze you lose." I believe as much as possible young people must take charge of their lives and their education. It is my duty to help them make good decisions but ultimately it is up to them to make choices. They have to choose to study. Whatever the qualifications of their teachers their improvement must chiefly depend on themselves. I cannot think or study for my students. I can only help put them on the best way to think and study that I know. They have to decide how they are going to spend their lives and what purpose if any their lives will have.


(MUNRO)

HOW NOT TO BE POOR BY WALTER WILLIAMS

…. I thought of an excellent topic for the event: how not to be poor.
Avoiding long-term poverty is not rocket science.
First, graduate from high school.
Second, get married before you have children, and stay married.
Third, work at any kind of job, even one that starts out paying the minimum wage.
And, finally, avoid engaging in criminal behavior.
If you graduate from high school today with a B or C average, in most places in our country there's a low-cost or financially assisted post-high-school education program available to increase your skills.
Most jobs start with wages higher than the federal minimum wage , which is currently $5.15. {NOTE: the California minimum wage is $8.00}A man and his wife, even earning the minimum wage, would earn $21,000 annually. According to the Bureau of Census, in 2003, the poverty threshold for one person was $9,393, for a two-person household it was $12,015, and for a family of four it was $18,810. Taking a minimum-wage job is no great shakes, but it produces an income higher than the Bureau of Census' poverty threshold. Plus, having a job in the first place increases one's prospects for a better job.
The civil rights struggle is over, and it has been won. At one time, black Americans did not have the same constitutional protections as whites. Now, we do. Because the civil rights struggle is over and won is not the same as saying that there are not major problems for a large segment of the black community. What it does say is that they're not civil rights problems, and to act as if they are leads to a serious misallocation of resources.
-- Walter Williams, syndicated columnist and Professor of Economics at George Mason University, Fairfax, VA.

N.B.

Like the Federal wage and hour law, State law often exempts particular occupations or industries from the minimum labor standard generally applied to covered employment. Particular exemptions are not identified in this table. Users are encouraged to consult the laws of particular States in determining whether the State's minimum wage applies to a particular employment.

http://www.dol.gov/esa/minwage/america.htm Check the minimum wage laws state to state.

See also
http://www.dir.ca.gov/dlse/faq_minimumwage.htm

“Valkyrie” is a wonderful monument to a great man

You could not endure the shame; you resisted; you gave the great, eternally vital sign of

change, sacrificing your glowing lives for freedom, justice, and honor.”

(“Freiheit , Recht und Ehre”)

Translation of the plaque in the center of the courtyard at the Memorial to German Resistance in Berlin;,

where a firing squad murdered four army officers for their role in the most famous plot to kill Hitler on July

20, 1944.








I saw “Valkyrie” today. Not only was it a NON-FLOP it was actually one of the best WWII era films I have seen in years. “Valkyrie” portrays (accurately) a German Resistance movement as very serious affair and not merely a last minute disorganized effort by a few. The film documents in total three very serious attempts to kill Hitler in 1943 and 1944 including the July 20 bombing. This was nothing new for me because I have made a study of Nazi Germany and the 20 July plot but for most people –even those who have heard of the assassination attempt- there is a depth of detail which many will find informative and surprising. “Valkyrie” has first class performances by an ensemble cast of top rate British and European actors. “Valkyrie” captures to a “t” the desperation a well as the moral bankruptcy and mental exhaustion of a failing Nazi Germany.



Some reviewers complain that the Hitler portrayed here is not ‘exciting’ or charismatic enough. “Downfall” got a big press and was a good film but I did not like the focus on a more “human” Hitler which almost –it seemed to me- to be sympathetic to him. “Valkyrie”, by contrast, showed the Nazi leaders to be cowardly, mean, corrupt, mediocre and out of touch. Mussolini was not allowed a bit part either; Hitler meets with him off screen and his lieutenants dismiss the Duce as a “cheap Dago”. So much for Axis unity! Many World War Two films emphasize Nazi efficiency and therefore glorify, inadvertently, Nazi Germany as an effective and efficient state. “Valkyrie” did not do this.



But many reviewers seem to forget that by 1943-1944 Hitler was rarely seen in public and lived a life of seclusion and was gradually descending into what could be described as a complete breakdown. The director purposely did not dwell on Hitler at all. I found this refreshing. Not much “Heil Hitler” in this movie; “High” Hitler is more like it. The Hitler of this film is not attractive or charismatic in the least but is depicted as a pathetic and perhaps doped up Fuehrer who is too lazy and incompetent to read thoroughly the orders he was signing. This is a suicidal Hitler who had not too long to live regardless of the outcome of the war. I think the film completely demythologizes Hitler and for that I say: Bravo!.



The only thing lacking in “Valkyrie” was a real star turn by Tom Cruise. Mr. Cruise, nonetheless, was perfectly competent but I can imagine this role being done by Alec Guinness for example or James Mason or Jack Hawkins. I just know THEY would have made Mr. Cruise’s good lines really memorable. But I give Mr. Cruise credit; he does a very workmanlike job. He did not overact or attempt to make himself look physically taller or more glamorous in any way but allowed himself to be shown as scarred and visibly disabled.



The script was first rate and great care was put into this film to create an air of authenticity and historical accuracy. “Valkyrie” shows how many ordinary Germans were just cogs in huge totalitarian machine and were almost quite literally what the Cubans used to call ‘hombres de siete nalgas” that is to say people who were fence sitters who wanted to survive regardless of who came out on top. It shows that some members of the plot had to be virtually blackmailed into working with the plotters and that many conspirators had cold feet at various times. As it became clear the assassination attempt had failed people began to drift away and abandon the plotters to their fate. This is historically accurate and did show that some people had some courage but most lacked the overwhelming fortitude needed to stand up the feared Gestapo and murderous SS to the very end. Except perhaps one: Stauffenberg himself.



If I had been involved in the film, personally, I might have given more emphasis to the devout Catholicism of Stauffenberg and his family. But that would reflect perhaps my own personal prejudice and may not have made a better or more believable film. The director preferred (no doubt for commercial reasons) to imply Stauffenberg’s Catholic faith via his loving wife and family, using Christian motifs and shooting a scene in a bombed out Cathedral. I strongly object to the reviews that say that the film downplayed Stauffenberg’s Catholicism or that it showed the German officers or policemen or the Germany Army in a romanticized light. Let us remember that many people who cooperated with the plot paid for it with their lives. All in all, I think the film did a believable job at characterizing Stauffenberg’s moral repugnance for the Nazi Regime and its crimes.



Stauffenberg was a hero and a very , very brave man and the film did him honor. Of course, tragically, he failed and Hitler lived nine months more. If the plot HAD SUCCEEDED, however, much of Europe may have been spared- not to mention the 80,000 Americans killed in the Battle of the Bulge? But we must pause and think about it. How many civilians, Jews and POW’s would have been saved IF the plot had succeeded? The number might have been in the millions. I have a Waffen SS helmet that my uncle personally liberated in January 1945 from a bombed out postal warehouse (he made me promise never to wear it or display it). It had been in a box stamped DIED FOR GREATER GERMANY. My uncle served in the 10th Armored Division in the Bastogne pocket and was awarded a Bronze Star V with Valor. He personally attested to the ferocious killing power of the Germany Army right up to the end of the war. He also helped liberate death camps and slave labor camps. Trying to kill Hitler and make a separate peace with the West was not a small thing it was a very big thing and a noble thing. Stauffenberg knew the risks and was prepared to lay down his life for his country and as he said for the greater cause of humanity.



“VALKYRIE” is a very fine film and I would rate it THREE STARS and ½ . Valkyrie was so good it really will have to be on anyone’s list of the top 50 movies ever made on a WWII theme. Not as great a film as “Patton” or the “Bridge over the River Kwai” but on the level of “TORA TORA TORA” which is very good indeed. “Valkyrie “ was a better movie than the very entertaining but childish -by comparison-“The Longest Day” or the cheaply made Hollywood bio-picture of the 1951 “The Desert Fox” (which also had as a subplot the 20 July plot) That film featured Luther Adler as a very memorable but typically violent and maniacal Hitler. “Patton” was a tour de force by George C. Scott but as World War II buffs will remember there were some historical inaccuracies in so far as uniforms and German weaponry. “Valkyrie” by contrast left no stone unturned to make the film authentic in every detail from the Wolf’s Lair reconstruction to authentic Ju-52 transports and Messerschmitt fighters. Much of the film was shot in the actual buildings and locations.



Every educated person should know about how easy it is to sit back and criticize collaborators with the Nazis and other dictators and how extremely hard it is, and dangerous, to oppose a modern totalitarian state. “Valkyrie” captures the terror and doom and sometimes faltering courage- of the conspirators very well. “Valkyrie” is a film worth seeing and in fact will reward multiple viewings. Stauffenberg’s daughter called this film a success. I agree. “Valkyrie” is a wonderful monument to a great human being, a loving husband and father, who did a true man’s part. “You could not endure the shame; you resisted; you gave the great, eternally vital sign of change, sacrificing your glowing lives for freedom, justice, and honor.” Yes, indeed.



RICHARD K. MUNRO, Bakersfield, California December 29, 2008.









http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hkVQcDw7cPIg8NPZqD4boGgvY2aAD95CKADG0

Great and Wise authors; SAKI

Carol

While shepherds watched their flocks by night
All seated on the ground,
A high explosive shell came down
And mutton rained around.

SAKI (HECTOR HUGH MONRO)
(1870-1916)









THIEPVAL MEMORIAL: Burial place of Saki (H. H. Munro) Note the date here is November 14, 1916; I have seen other sources that say November 16.


Casualty Details
Name: MUNRO, HECTOR HUGH
Initials: H H
Nationality: United Kingdom
Rank: Lance Serjeant
Regiment/Service: Royal Fusiliers
Unit Text: "A" Coy. 22nd Bn.
Age: 45
Date of Death: 14/11/1916
Service No: 225
Additional information: Younger son of the late Col. Charles Augustus Munro (Bengal Staff Corps), and Mary Frances Munro. An Author ("Saki"), Special Correspondent and Journalist. Enlisted in 1914.
Casualty Type: Commonwealth War Dead
Grave/Memorial Reference: Pier and Face 8 C 9 A and 16 A.
Memorial: THIEPVAL MEMORIAL

Saki was the pseudonym of writer Hector Hugh Munro (1870-1916). Born in Burma, but raised and educated in England, he began his writing career because poor health precluded more strenuous occupations. He borrowed the nom de plume "Saki" from a character in The Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam made famous in the Fitzgerald translation. It was a favorite poem of my parents and I have always loved it the way I love Burns and Shakepeare's sonnets.

C
Yon rising Moon that looks for us again--
How oft hereafter will she wax and wane;
How oft hereafter rising look for us
Through this same Garden--and for one in vain!


CI
And when like her, oh, Saki, you shall pass
Among the Guests Star-scatter'd on the Grass,
And in your joyous errand reach the spot
Where I made One--turn down an empty Glass!


“The young have aspirations that never come to pass, the old have reminiscences of what never happened. “ Saki is very funny. He seemed to see right through the hubris and pretence of Edwardian society particularly upper class English society. He anticipated the almost complete collapse of the Anglican Communion (remember even Tony Blair became a Roman Catholic). He wrote some drama but is primarily, as you know a master of the short story genre. I have been lucky enough to be able to teach him (every other year). The story I usually use is “The Interlopers”. "The Open Window" may be his most famous, with a dramatic and ironic closing line :"Romance at short notice was her specialty" It has been quoted many times and remains amusing.



Es ist nicht genug, zu wissen, man muss auch anwenden. Es ist nicht genug, zu wollen, man muss auch tun." – (Goethe) Wilhelm Meisters Wanderjahre. It is not enough to know, one much use one’s knowledge. It is not enough to desire one must DO.” Saki had an unusual cosmopolitan background(like so many Scots or overseas Scots because that’s what he was). He was born in Burma to a class of people higher than my own; they were the junior officers and we were the NCO’s and privates.

Saki was a great favorite of Chesterton and I think Chesterton wrote an introduction to one of his posthumous books. Chesterton’s brother as you may or may not know, enlisted in the British Army and like Kipling’s only son and like Sir Hector Munro’s only son (the chief of the Clan Munro) was killed in action as was Saki. I think I sent you the memorial page if I didn’t I can send it again. He is indeed remembered with honor. He was killed in action November 16, 1916 by a German sniper. That is a fact I have known almost all of my life; we always toasted the lad’s …who fought with heart and hand to burst in twain the galling chain. And kept free our native land. …Aye To do a true man's part -To free my land I'd gladly give The red drops of my heart."



Saki did a true man’s part. NE OBLIVISCARIS…do not forget. I do not and I shall not.

These are some favorite stories I highly recommend. “the Interlopers” is also almost prescient. It takes place in the Balkans and it is about the rivalry of two proud men over control of a certain border land. The Germanic (Austrian?) family Ulrich von Gradwitz are the lairds with legal title dating back centuries. But Georg –I forget the last name but it is Slavic- is the resentful “native” in the sense his people stole the land by force in an earlier era (when the Eastern Roman Empire fell appart). If you think about it how many wars have been fought in that regions between the Ottoman Turks, the Slavs , the Russians, the Austrians, the Romans, the Visigoths, the Dacians etc. etc.!!! This story has a dramatic exciting finish. What gives the story strength it that it deals with the ultimate price and folly of pride to POSSESS and HAVE PRESTIGE? In a way it is an anti-Imperials story the foreshadows the complete destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire and the tragic suicide of Europe 1914-1918. But as you know I am no pacifist; I believe Belgium (which was neutral) and France (which was invaded) and Britain (which guaranteed the Independence of Belgium had to defend themselves. The British knew it would be real threat to their security if the industries and channel ports of Belgium and France were occupied by a hostile power with a strong submarine force. Rolling over to the Prussians (as they did in 1940) would not have guaranteed peace or freedom. Appeasement is, as Churchill described it, like feeding crocodiles. When you are in a fight to the death with a Croc the only thing to do is fight back and scratch its eyes out.



“ The Interlopers”reminds me of another allegorical Tolstoy story “How much land does a man need”; the Tolstoy story was much admired by Hemingway and Joyce which is great praise indeed because both men were masters of the short story so they really knew excellence when they saw it. .Anyway READ this story. It is one of the greatest short stories I have ever read. The best of Saki is very good indeed.


I love his cat story “Tobermory” ; it is simply charming almost science fiction.

(Tobermory is a town on the isle of Mull and is featured in I KNOW WHERE I AM GOING one of the greatest movies every made about the Scottish Highlands and the character or Highlanders and their relationship with the English. Roger Livesey and Wendy Hiller. First rate with some nice Gaelic singing. It was my mother’s favorite movie of all time and naturally since her story in a way paralleled the Wendy Hiller character. She gave up everything to be with the young, penniless Scottish immigrant who had ‘naught to offer” , “nae gold frae mine, nae pearl from sea” and “nor was he of high degree” but he loved her and had a leal heart and promised to be true to her till death did them part. And he kept that promise. My parent’s entire life was one of the greatest love stories I have every known.

We need more love songs about marital bliss and the growth of AFFECTION (storgic love) FRIENDSHIP (philla love), and ALTRUISTIC LOVE (Caritas or Agape love); naturally in marriage PHYSICAL ATTRACTION and PHYSICAL LOVE (Eros) are part of the package, the icing on the cake so to speak.

But the greatest part of EROS as far as I am concerned is TRUST in the intimacy and the memory of the UNION and its FRUITS (the children you share together). But I must say all writers seem to have their limitations and Saki does not write about heterosexual love in any extraordinary way. Perhaps he was not capable of it; I do not know.

Another story which is absolutely amazing is “The Toys of Peace”. The mother is very PC and she refuses to give her sons toy soldiers or guns or swords or ships for (Christmas? Or Easter or their birthday I don’t remember). They are instead given a cultural gift which is a model of a museum and a public library with figures of public intellectuals, scientists and poets.



Many of his references are very sly for example he alludes to John Stuart Mill (a utiliarian/utopian) and poetess Felicia Hemans.



Hemans was well-regard lyrical poet of the romantic era and she was a fixture in Victorian anthologies of poetry and is mentioned in the Oxford Book of quotations. Saki teases the reader and makes fun of the mother very subtly. The PC mother obviously DOES NOT know the works or themes of Felicia Hemans. The effect would be like Jane Fonda quoting Edmund Burke! Her most anthologized poem is about LOYALTY and OBEDIENCE to a FATHER and an OFFICER. “Hold until relieved!”



This was the watchword at 2nd Ypres, El Alamein, and Pegasus Bridge (Normandy 1944)



“The boy stood on the burning deck” or Casabianca



The boy stood on the burning deck
Whence all but he had fled;
The flame that lit the battle's wreck
Shone round him o'er the dead.

Yet beautiful and bright he stood,
As born to rule the storm;
A creature of heroic blood,
A proud, though child-like form.

The flames rolled on–he would not go
Without his Father's word;
That father, faint in death below,
His voice no longer heard.

He called aloud–'say, Father, say
If yet my task is done?'
He knew not that the chieftain lay
Unconscious of his son.

'Speak, father!' once again he cried,
'If I may yet be gone!'
And but the booming shots replied,
And fast the flames rolled on.

Upon his brow he felt their breath,
And in his waving hair,
And looked from that lone post of death
In still yet brave despair.

And shouted but once more aloud,
'My father! must I stay?'
While o'er him fast, through sail and shroud,
The wreathing fires made way.

They wrapt the ship in splendour wild,
They caught the flag on high,
And streamed above the gallant child,
Like banners in the sky.

There came a burst of thunder sound–
The boy–oh! where was he?
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea!–

With mast, and helm, and pennon fair,
That well had borne their part–
But the noblest thing which perished there
Was that young faithful heart.

Notes:
Young Casabianca, a boy about thirteen years old, son of the admiral of the Orient, remained at his post (in the Battle of the Nile), after the ship had taken fire, and all the guns had been abandoned; and perished in the explosion of the vessel, when the flames had reached the powder.

Edition: Hemans, Felicia Dorothea. The Poetical Works of Felicia Dorothea Hemans London: Oxford University Press, 1914. p. 396.









A. J. Languth wrote an excellent biography of him; SAKI which details his war experiences. It also is the only book I had ever read that talks about his bisexual or homoerotic tendencies. Of the truth of that lifestyle I don’t know and I don’t care. It matters no to me if Saki were a saint or a role model or a good cook or a bad cook. What matters is he was a patriot and he put his life on the line for his counrty. What matters is he was a writer of great talent. If he had lived (he was only 45 when he died) he may have written one of the great books about WWI. As it is the whole world is his monument not just the lonely grave at THIEPVAL.

Speaking in Tongues

Bible Story - Speaking in Tongues: On the day of Pentecost, "tongues of fire" descended on the heads of Jesus's apostles, allowing them to speak in languages they did not know.

Sextra Credit:Cougars Preying in the Classroom

Mary O' Hara circa 1980





This is a MUST READ article.



According to a major 2004 study commissioned by the U.S. Department of Education – the most authoritative investigation to date – nearly 10 percent of U.S. public school students have been targeted with unwanted sexual attention by school employees, and in those cases, 40 percent of the perpetrators were women.

****

Titled "Educator Sexual Misconduct: A Synthesis of Existing Literature" by Virginia Commonwealth University Professor Charol Shakeshaft, the report brought to light staggering statistics.

Compare the numbers with the much-publicized Catholic Church scandal.

A study by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops concluded 10,667 young people were sexually mistreated by priests between 1950 and 2002.

Shakeshaft's study, however, estimates that roughly 290,000 students experienced some sort of physical sexual abuse by a public school employee between 1991 and 2000 alone.

If female employees are responsible for 40 percent of those crimes, that means America could be facing an average of more than 11,000 instances of women abusing students in school each year – in other words, more cases in one year than were reported in 50 years of Catholic priest abuse.

****



The first warning sign is a kid spending a lot of private time with the teacher," Schoener said. "The second: text messaging and emails that go back and forth. At the grade school, junior high, high school level, most teachers are discouraged from a lot of Internet interaction. Frequent emailing and text messaging are questionable. It would be a rare occasion where a teacher would need to be in that level of contact with a student."

Schoener also warned that parents be clear on the purpose and the chaperoning of all field trips and events outside of school.

Finally, Schoener said, the boundaries of a teacher's role need to be clearly set.

"A teacher's job is not to counsel students past a point," Schoener explained. "Even if the kid really needs help and it's legitimate counseling, it's rare that a teacher should be doing a lot of counseling. That's the school counselor's job. If there are a lot of private meetings, you have to ask yourself what's going on."



http://www.worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=83705

MUNRO’s commentary:

I never give my home phone or personal email to a current student ( teach high school students and am a catechist in my parish).. All internet interaction should be via your school computer and your school account and should reflect school business.’

Field trips are very problematical though in my experience the problem is not the chaperones or teachers but the students themselves. In today’s world ‘have private bedroom, have morning, noon or night, will have sex.” A great many of my students have sex in the morning at vacant homes while parents or relatives are away. Oh, it’s possible that they are studying for AP tests or saying the rosary together but under the circumstances not likely. The point is students don’t need predatory teachers to have sex. We have predatory senior and juniors in abundance.’’

Gilbert Highet mentioned long ago that a teacher’s job IS NOT to counsel students for the simple reason that a teacher does not have the energy to do this and do his or her educational task.

Nonetheless, counseling, encouragement and exhortation is absolutely necessary for today’s marginal or at-risk students. It goes with the territory. But teachers and students CANNOT be colleagues and CANNOT be and SHOULD NOT BE considered peers. The military knows officers should not fraternize with enlisted men and with good reason: it is prejudicial to good discipline. Teachers should show great self-discipline themselves particularly in the beginnings of their careers when the age differential is not that great. Debra LaFave, for example, was a very youthful 23 with a stunning figure. There is no question she sexually aroused many of the young men she met. She could have used that power to her advantage as a teacher because young men would have gone out of their way to please her, to attend her class and to be successful academically in her class. As a married woman, Mrs. LaFave, should have been totally inaccessible to ANYONE let alone her students. That is the example she should have set for her students. If she really loved and cared for her students, her school and her community she would not have wanted to harm her students. Affection (storgic love) is natural between students and teachers and helps bond the class with the teacher. There is nothing wrong with teachers being friendly and kind with their students; I think, on the contrary, if a teacher is not kind and does not care for his or her students that person SHOULD NOT BE A TEACHER. One cannot care for ALL the students in the same way and, yes, sometimes students MUST BE REMOVED from a classroom or from a school FOR THE COMMON GOOD. And, speaking as a Christian, in the Roman Catholic tradition, teachers must forgive their students and MUST LOVE them as fellow human beings and as future adults and citizens. But if a teacher truly loves a child he or she would not want to see that child come to harm. Eros must be tamed and restrained, however. Just as we would not urinate on the front wall like a dog in front of our entire class we should not act our and follow upon our every bodily instinct. The highest moral obligation in America today is “have sex, drink, eat and be merry, for tomorrow we die.” Most young Americans partake “exuberantly in the pleasures” of the belly as if there were no tomorrow.” Two results of this are:

1) an alarming increase of obesity among all ages but most shockingly among teenagers and young adults. A major factor –in my view- is the consumption of alcohol and junk food at secret rendezvous, usually the vacant home of parents or relatives but also the back seat of cars or the far side of that grassy knoll in the park which cannot be observed from the street.

2) The other result of course is the massive rise of STD’s what we used to call VD. Diagnoses of genital chlamydia have risen since the 1990’s by over 70%, gonorrhea, and syphilis by over 50%s and genital warts by over 20% . Oral contraceptives, while providing the greatest protection from unplanned pregnancy, offer no protection against sexually transmitted diseases.

An American sociologist quote by David Shaw in the Pleasure Police (1996) "Don't people realize every scientific study shows that the single best thing you can do for your health is have fun?" This sort of attitude leads to a culture where liquor is always chosen over learning and having entertainment and childish fun is preferred to poetry, arts, books and (good) music. I am quite aware young people have music of a kind but, for the most part, this music is thin stuff just part of their hedonistic sexual lifestyle. One would think that graying 65 year olds would be embarrassed to be gyrating to the blaring booming music of Mick Jagger etc in pants two sizes too small but we live in a age of little shame and even less common sense.

For example, women have never been drafted into military service in the United States and women are not required to register by the Selective Service. This makes good common sense because men and women are different. The Selective Service law, written in 1940, specifically refers to “male persons.” In the 1980 case of Rostker v. Goldberg, the registration of women was examined by the Supreme Court and the Selective Service law as clearly discriminatory as it is was NOT seen to violate the due process clause of the Constitution. We can pretend that Congress was not influenced by a traditional way of thinking about women and young girls and Congress can pretend and NOW can pretend but all would be lying. We are influenced by societal norms and traditional values. If America forcibly drafted women, especially into the combat arms of the military, it would mean the destruction of the private life and break-up the rhythm of the home and family life. The consequences of such a brutal and, in my view, totalitarian act by the State would be almost beyond ken. Minority languages, cultures and religions would be wiped out. Healthy distinctions between the sexes would be wiped out. Homes would become merely billets and duty stations. The harm such a policy would cause to children, education and our entire civilization would be irreparable. Indeed a society which would forcibly pressgang women into military service would not be worth defending. It would be an evil society and every man of honor should want to raise his hand a fight such a society to the last cartridge and to the death for the sake of his family, his culture, his language(s), his religion, his family’s right to freedom , a private life and the sacred right of parents to raise children as they wish. André Glucksmann wrote: “A totalitarian way of thinking loathes to be gainsaid. It affirms dogmatically, and waves the little red, or black, or green book. It is obscurantist, blending politics and religion. Anti-totalitarian thinking, by contrast, takes facts for what they are and acknowledges even the most hideous of them, those one would prefer to keep hidden out of fear or for the sake of utility. Bringing the Gulag to light made it possible to criticize and ultimately reject "actually existing socialism." Confronting the Nazi abominations and opening the extermination camps converted Europe to democracy after 1945. Refusing to face the cruelest historical facts, on the other hand, heralds the return of cruelty. Yes, as Burn wrote ‘but facts are chiels that winna ding,/An downa be disputed.”. The English translation is ‘But facts are little fellows that will not be overturned,/And cannot be argued with’. The facts are that the role of women in our society to educate and raise children is vital and we destroy this role at the risk of destroying our entire civilization and society.

(See April 2006 http://209.212.93.14/doc_posts.mhtml?i=w060403&s=glucksmann040506 )

By the way, I am not raising the specter of a straw man but am talking about policies which have actually been discussed at the highest level of the U.S. government. See for example:

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/171522_draft01.html

We live in a society where for the most part there is no such thing as sin or lust or excess and the major goal of many people is to have a good time. Every lust is satisfied and new lusts and titillations are constantly being invented. We have forgotten that modesty is the true beauty of womankind. The most horrible and the most ugly thing about a temptress like Debra LaFave proof that beauty is only skin deep -is her total lack of restraint, modesty and faithfulness to her husband her reckless lack of consideration for others. She knew she has sexual power of men and she used it to satisfy her personal pleasure and wantonness. To me it is just another case proving women can have –for a period of time while they are sexually attractive- a great power over the male sex of any age past puberty.

It could well be that so many years of internal peace, wealth and material success have smothered and snuffed out civic virtue and private morality. I doubt very many of my students even know the word wanton or wantonness and if they did they would disagree with it. I would argue that what has sustained America –and other Western countries as well- has been their civic virtue, their heroism in peace and war, their restraint, their deep consciousness of Right and Wrong, their respect for marriage, their respect for womankind and children, their purity of motive and for want of a better word, nobility. The Gael of old called this uaisleachd, the Spaniard called it nobleza de alma (nobility of soul). We might call the self-respect and generosity, we might call it integrity, we might call it civic virtue or even gravitas, to use a Latin word. However we call it, this ineffable virtue, this civic virtue, this sense of honor, this love of country, this loyalty to family and our faith community, we in the West have it much less than our forefolk though I would argue that America still has it in relative abundance and this is our great strength more so than our coal or oil reserves. Baghehot remarked “there is a character to an age and a character to nations.” We need to cultivate the manifold loves, not exalt one (eros). We need to cultivate the manifold virtues that make character and make for a happy life, not just the desire for material success. It is good to work hard. It is good to make money and to save but it is better and more sensible to live modestly with goodwill, generosity, kindness and hospitality towards others. It is better to love and be loved than to possess.

Speaking as a teacher of young people and adults, I believe adults should only date -or to use an older word court- other adults. Dating has become almost synonymous with sexual activity which is too bad because it is only by to used that dated word again –courtship- that a couple many develop the philia love that will sustain their relationship when the bloom of youth and beauty fades. Every dog has his day but it is a mistake to make a god of Eros that is to say sexual love. This way lies madness, unhappiness and I think in the long run great loneliness and bitterness for both men and women alike. There is such a thing –as I tell all my students as the joy of trust and marital bliss.

As the Bard of Ayr sang: “To make a happy fire-side clime, to weans and wife, That’s the true pathos and sublime of human life.” Burns was no prude and he loved the pursuit and conquest of the fair sex but even he realized that sexual pleasure was nothing compared to the manifold loves found in marriage and family life.

Within living memory, young people were not adults until their majority –age 21. One of the results of making 18 year olds adults has been to lower the age of consent so that college teachers and even high school teachers could have consensual sex with persons who are legally adults. This has had the effect of encouraging sexual contact between adults and mature teenagers. There are many 17,18 and 19 year olds who could pass for 20 or 21 with the proper dress and makeup. And since it is established that it is natural for persons to be sexually aroused (in most cases by persons of the opposite sex) sexual contact is always a temptation and always a possibility.

I have known high school teachers to marry their former students. In all the cases I know the age different was not great –less than seven years- and in each case I know the older partner was a male. I believe but I do not know that they did not seriously begin to date until the student had graduated from high school and junior college I will not even speak of college professors and their mores but suffice it to say

I am old enough to recall my parents speaking of the America they grew up in ,as immigrants, an grew to adulthood in the 1930’s and 1940’s. America upheld a certain degree of 'moral standards' there were things that, even in Hollywood, were best kept in the 'closet' such as the true sexual proclivities of Charles Laughton –that charming and brilliant actor- and his faux marriage to Elsa Lancaster There were always scandals, rumors and gossip but no one outwardly discussed their 'sexual preference' because, after all going to prison was, well, just not a good thing. Did anyone need to know Rock Hudson was a flaming homosexual who loved wild orgies and very young boys? Leo Katcher ( the brother of Ed Katcher, Ruth Rosenberg and Gladys Bletter) my father’s business partner and closest friend Herb Katcher regaled us at the old 1407 club –now Abigail’s I believe- with tales of Mr. Hudson’s escapades ,some of which he personally witnessed, in the finest hotels in New York. As I recall as Leo Katcher explained it, Mr. Hudson’s agents was pleading that none of the reporters break the news so as not to destroy Mr. Hudson’s career circa 1959. I can’t help but think in retrospect that Leo Katcher may have had the goods on actors like Tyrone Power and Hudson and that might have helped him get on in show business. He certainly was in the know as my father used to say. He was a West Coast correspondent for the New York Post and wrote numerous screen plays and also wrote an excellent biography of Bakersfield worthy Earl Warren I read a number of years ago I always admired Tyrone Power –he volunteered for the Marines in WWII- but who needed to know the sordid details of his personal (reportedly bisexual) private life? Whose business was it to know that Errol Flynn was a complete reprobate and drunk who liked his whisky very old -15 years or more- and his sexual conquests very young? Let me enjoy the romantic hero of Robin Hood, Dawn Patrol, The Charge of the Light Brigade and They Died with their Boots On. I suppose I am very old-fashioned and a traditionalist but Deborah Kerr, Donna Reed, Jean Simmons, Elizabeth Montgomery, Shirley Jones and Maureen O’Hara -in their screen personas anyway- were to me very glamorous and classy. The very feminine womanhood they portrayed and the romance they engendered was far more pleasurable, more entertaining and probably sexier than seeing every current sluttish actress alive rutting like dogs in heat while displaying their surgically crafted 30 or 40 something bodies for the entire world to see. (And to my continuing delight, happiness and comfort, I married a Spanish lady de nobleza y carácter whose views on such matters are the same as mine. Go seek your pleasures where you will etc.)



When people went mad after Janis Joplin I was applauding Mary O’Hara, the Irish harpist who was a delightful person and an excellent conversationalist. She was a very accessible person, especially in the Mass a night after her concert. If she recognized you from the audience she would sit to have coffee with you in the Parish Hall. Not the greatest voice nor the greatest physical beauty in the world but a delightful woman and extremely appealing especially in person. A few hours in the physical presence of such a woman is a reminder that Hugh Heffner knows very little about love indeed. In his pursuit of ¼ of it over and over again he misses the best ¾. It seems to me all he knows about is the” old in and out” that is to say rutting like a wild animal. I have been blessed to have known the affection and the love of many women and men without having slept with any of them. I think it not too much to say that Mary O’Hara was possibly one of the greatest characters I have ever met and I have met more than my share of good and godly persons. Meeting her was almost like meeting Mother Teresa or Elizabeth Anne Seton in person. That is how profound an impact she had on me. She had a great spiritual glow and exuded a spirit of love and kindness. It was simply unforgettable it was faith, charity, humanity and womanhood in its full bloom. What is “the old in and out’ that “expense of spirit in a waist of shame” compared to that?

T & A –and I am not talking about tardiness and absenteeism- has always abounded in theatre, the arts and film but I have to admit that I prefer the glory of the human voice lifted in fine song over any air-brushed cheesecake photo. I never could understand the popularity of Playboy; just a lot of wanton lasses, no-talent models and aspiring actresses. People just like ex-teacher Debra LaFave. The first thing to realize about our society and Western society in particular is Anything Goes. This is why we have genocide, infanticide, that Holocaust and holocausts present and holocausts to come. We, ain’t, my friends ‘seen nothin’ yet. I have visions of Ypres 1918, Berlin and Manila 1945; the first was endured by my grandfather, the next was experienced by my uncle and the last by my father. Their descriptions left a profound impression of the true suicidal folly of mankind and the deep tragedy of man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. And I have read Steven Vincent Benet’s “By the Waters of Babylon.”

We are in a race for our lives between education and total annihilation whether we know it or not and the real battle, I am convinced, is in the home and the classroom not the battlefield.

RICHARD K. MUNRO

(December 20, 2008, on the banks of the San Joaquin River –California, USA- as the sun is shinning this quiet Saturday morning)



IN CASE the hedonist allusion passed over you here is a refresher:

In olden days a glimpse of stockings,
Was looked on as something shocking,
Now heaven knows,
Anything goes.

Good authors too who once knew better words,
Now only use four-letter words,
Writing prose,
Anything Goes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Ba6U6DNog4 JEWEL

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5wcLl13a8s&feature=related A version known to be contemporary with Cole Porter.



Read for example this book or at least the book review of David Shaw’s book the PLEASURE POLICE:



http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9803E0D91739F93BA15754C0A960958260

Andrew Paterson a Fallin Worthy (Sterlingshire) KIA 1918

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article5254225.ece



Forgotten for almost 90 years…



http://www.cwgc.org/search/casualty_details.aspx?casualty=595412



http://www.cwgc.org/search/cemetery_details.aspx?cemetery=65802&mode=1



“Montay was reached in the Pursuit to the Selle on the 10th October, 1918; and on the 28th and 29th the cemetery was made by the 33rd Division and given the name of Selridge from its position above the river valley. It contained originally 60 graves, dating from the 10th October to the 1st November, the majority belonged to the 6th or 12th Lancashire Fusiliers or the 2nd Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders”





Private Andrew Paterson :



ARGYLL AND SUTHERLAND HIGHLANDERS SAN PEUR (without fear)



Killed just as the big push towards victory was starting. “Greater love hath no man than to lay his life down for his friends.”



KIA October 10, 1918 (FRANCE; NE OBLIIVCARIS DO NOT FORGET





“in the eyes of Christ the ever young, no less than a king of realms far flung” Aye, now in the land o’ the leal.



RICHARD KEITH MUNRO



In memory of all the lads and all my grandfather’s Scottish pals and his kith and kin of the Argylls, the HLI and Black Watch, in the 27th Division, whom he never forgot and whose absence in his life was a sorrow and a loss he had to bear for over fifty years most of which was spent in exile from his native land taking delight only in his nine grandchildren.



2nd Ypes, Gallipoli, Palestine, Egypt, Salonika, Derian, Struma Valley and Constantinople (1919)



(THOMAS MUNRO , SR., MM 2n Ypres: August 4, 1914 – November 30, 1919 ASH) “Up the Ants; the men of Company A his Scottish pals…..” Over 7,000 killed and over 20,000 casualties in that one Regiment alone. Many companies had a 200% or 400% casualty rate; over 90% of my grandfather’s company of 1914 were killed, wounded or invalided out by 1918.



They were in my Auld Pops’ words “THE FINEST LADS IN THE WAARRRLD, AYE.”


,