The Rant

Bob: I was listening to the Laura Ingram show the other morning and quite frankly was disturbed by the interview she had with author Jay Winik . I loved April 1865 and am reading the Great Upheaval. I was very disappointed in his appearance on Laura Ingram's radio show. I would think that he is rather insincere in his writings or he could of stood up to her perversion of the great American experiment. See email to Winik below. Dear Mr. Winik : I was a big fan of April 1865, a very important book I recommend to my children and friends. I am just starting the Great Upheaval. I understand that part of the obligations of an author is to make the talk show circuit and appearing on Laura Ingram's show is just one stop on than trail. However, are you aware that you allowed her to use you to advance the false proposition than the U.S. is a Christian country which has fallen away from its religious roots - someday leading to a collapse of our society. Moreover, the founders, agr

Bob: Did you listen to Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's speech at Columbia. The one slant I haven't really heard beyond nut job, petty dictator, crazy, etc. was that the first 5 minutes or so of the speech could have been given by the religious right in this country or Pope Innocent and Gallileo. Essentially he was saying that all true knowledge comes from God. Science that is revealed by God is good, but science is misused by nonbelievers to prevert the truth. Not that we probably didn't expect such comments but it is important to note that science not blessed by the clerics is heresay not science.

The Mercenary, Considered. Does history not tell us that once there were many soldiers in Italy, who, failing for pay because the wars had at length come to an end, formed themselves into Companies and extorted money from the city-states, plundered the countryside, and were a plague upon the nation? . . . Such outrages do not come from anything other than the fact that these men were skilled in the arts of arms, and turned this into a profession. Do we not have a proverb that reasons as I just have, saying: “War makes thieves, and peace hangs them?” Because those who do not know how to live by any other occupation and who do not find anybody who will support them in soldiering, and who are possessed of such limited skills otherwise that they cannot join together in pursuit of an honest trade or living–these men become mercenaries, they turn to rob on the highways. And in the end, justice has no recourse: it must extinguish them all. –Niccolò Machiavelli, Dell’arte della guerra, bk i, s