Heartbreak Ridge

My son and I enjoyed a Clint Eastwood double-header last night.  We watched Gran Torino and Heartbreak Ridge.

Gran Torino was, I think, Eastwood's crowning achievement.  Subtle, politically incorrect, yet ultimately celebrating humanity.

Heartbreak Ridge, one of my all time favorites, is a blast from the past.  It reminds us of the bad old days of the post-Vietnam Carter years, when we were supposed to be in decline.  The military was a joke, and many of the leaders coming up were REMFs trying to grab some glory the easy way.


Gunny Sergeant Highway was a war hero who rocked it old school, and he wasn't appreciated by peacetime desk jockeys.  Many despised  our military back then.  Hard to imagine in this post-9/11 world.


Remember Grenada?
We had a president with balls who was not afraid to make a stand.  We sent the Cubans (the ones who survived) packing back to their gulag on the Caribbean, and put some starch back in our step.

The US Military I retired from was much improved over the one I entered in the early 80's.  Some whine about the billions spend and that we have dissipated our power over the past 9 years, but that's bull.   Our military is leaps and bound over what it was in 2000.  Yes, we have spent a ton of money, but we still possess the most powerful  economic engine in the world and the greatest workforce on the planet.

America is great because her people are great.

It's America and it was the 5th of May

1. It's not Mexican Independence Day (which is 16 September).

2. Cinco de Mayo is a holiday celebrated only in the Mexican state of Puebla and is not a national holiday in Mexico.

3. Cinco de Mayo celebrations started in America (California) in resistance to the French occupation of Mexico.

4. This is America.

5. The flag on top is our flag (If you're in Mexico feel free to reverse the placement).

6. If you are in America, you can display this flag any time you want, despite what some jackass high school assistant principal says.

Live Oak High School threatens to suspend 5 students for wearing the American flag, while hundreds sport the Mexican flag.

I think I can speak on behalf of Western Hero when I say we salute:

Dominic Maciel, Matthew Dariano, Clayton Howard, Daniel Galli, and Austin Carvalho

Way to go boys!!!

I might also point out that the first three are of American-Mexican heritage.

Personally, I would like to say that assistant principal Miguel Rodriguez can go pound sand, his lame excuse that wearing the flag put the five American boys in danger would seriously call into question his ability to properly supervise his school. If wearing the flag put the boys in danger, it is not the boys fault and he really needs to do something about the Mexican racists in his school.

I also look forward to his resignation, so that in abject shame he can go back to school and make up the class on American history and constitutional law that he obviously miserably failed.

~Finntan~

Keeping America's Edge

Jim Manzi has written a thought-provoking article on the social and economic transformations our nation must go through if we want to survive and thrive in the 21st Century.

That chart says much.  America's manufacturing output, as a percentage of GDP, has not changed, but it now requires less than half the workforce it did in 1947.  Productivity increases mean many factory workers have to go find a job somewhere else.

Creative Destruction is a bracing shock to cities, families and individuals as well as whole industries, but we're better off for it in the end.  I expected to follow Papa Silverfiddle into the factory after high school, but economic upheaval wrecked my plans.  I'm not from Pennsylvania, but Billy Joel's "Allentown" explains it all. I went into the Air Force instead and I'm a better man for it.

Innovation, as always is the key

Our success owes much to our dynamism and innovation.  We now need to throw it into hyper-drive.  This involves putting slow-thinking, sclerotic government on a diet and getting it out of the way, of manufacturing, technology innovation, and education.

I recommend you go read this piece.  It is long but interesting.  Thankfully, the author avoids partisan left-right arguments while challenging us to think in new ways.