Wyoming Observer

Recycling is a false religion

2007-03-16T17:36:00.000-04:00

Recycling

“Hours are Monday-Saturday 7-6, closed Wednesday and Sunday 10-3.

This is a group effort. I'm asking the question: Do we want
to do it? If we do, we can get bins to separate

I do want to recycle, however the separate thing really irritates me.
Let me know what you think so I can make a decision.”

PDW

Recycling is a false religion

Recycling is a religious ritual, a sacramental offering to the faith of hyper-environmentalism. It is damaging to the economy and, in the last analysis, harmful to the environment. The waste of sending a separate garbage-truck brigade -- with all those smoky combustion engines burning fossil fuels and angering the Atmosphere god who resides over our polar ice caps -- negates whatever marginal benefit there is to creating the crappy brown containers and wood-chip flecked paper that comes from newspaper pulp.

But recycling makes us feel like we've done our part, a physical ritual that eases our conscience daily. We are bad for producing, bad for consuming, and bad for "wasting." In an earlier age, we would have said that separating our evil waste products confounds the demons that gather and gain power in our garbage bins as they plot to corrupt our souls.

Like most faiths, this religion has a high holy day near Easter spring -- "Earth Day" -- when instead of drawing crayon pictures of Jesus, kids make construction-paper planets and pledge their sincerity to respect the universal "Mother" (i.e., Mother Nature). The new congregants even have an officially sponsored vehicle: Driving a Prius is how we silently announce that we are "holier than thou" today.

As Dad keeps reminding us, there is an eschatology to this religion, too. The cranks & prophets warning about the End of the World now have environmental degrees. They moan about how our sinful ways will bring about the wrath of the naked sun, cooking us alive in a hell of runaway greenhouse gases, a melting of the ice caps, and a flood that will drown the earth. (Noah's Ark II: Global Warming) St. Albert even wrote our contemporary Book of the Apocalypse ("Earth in the Balance") and was canonized a few weeks ago by the Vatican of Vanity in winning the Academy Award -- for a preposterously dull power-point lecture, "An Inconvenient Truth," which, rather than entertaining us in the classic Hollywood style, feeds us the proper catechism like the most humorless Catholic School Nun imaginable.

Last generation's prophets warned that the end of the world would be brought about by over-population; now we see that the opposite is the case -- at current birth rates the population will soon peak and then begin to contract. The generation earlier warned that a scarcity of resources would bring about ungovernable chaos; now the real cost of raw materials is cheaper than ever because our methods of extraction (brought about by wicked free-market incentives) are more ingenious than ever. And the generation before that was sure that we were at the dawn of a new ice age. Which is it? Are we too hot or too cold? The new zealots need to get their "Nicene Creed" straight, lest their story keep changing with every news cycle.

Our masters who think the world can do without religion are the most secretly religious, intolerant, ritualized people in the country. They warn of a world-ending catastrophe if we don't "mend our sinful ways." We all have a faith in something, only some of us are conscious of it.

In other words, for God's sake, don't recycle. Literally ... for God's sake.

WW

The use of "stupid" in the Global Warming Debate

2007-02-05T22:35:00.000-05:00

The use of "stupid" is from the old Clinton slogan, "It's the economy, stupid" that has since become a term of art having nothing to do with the original unsophisticated phrasing. If you have a problem with the tone, take it up with James Carville.

"Ignorant" is a descriptive term meaning unknowledgeable. If a partisan willfully ignores facts for political purposes, he can appropriately be called "voluntarily ignorant." The fact that most people use "ignorant" as an insult doesn't mean we should allow the term to lose its original meaning. It is not inflammatory to challenge someone on his grasp of facts, especially if we think his condition is "voluntary." That's the whole point of debate.

If you want to get philosophical, ignorance is a compliment. Socrates' famous claim was, "All I know is I know nothing." You must be aware of your ignorance before you can be wise. Or as Don Rumsfeld might have put it, you have to know what you don't know before you can know anything. Rumsfeld calls it the "known unknowns."

If you are positive -- positive -- our CO2 emissions are causing global warming, then why entertain evidence to the contrary? The fact is we don't know, we are ignorant. Emissions might cause global warming, they might not. The problem, as George points out, is that both sides don't admit their ignorance up front. The problem, as Chris hints at, is that one side constructs its position on faith. Global Warming has become an article of religious faith, much like Recycling has become a ritualistic sacrament that has nothing to do with "Saving the Planet."

I scoff at the Global Warming Cult because I am appropriately skeptical. We simply don't know one way or another what our effect on the climate is. However, we do know that a severe curtailing of our carbon emissions will cripple our pro-growth economy. To me, the religious content is obvious: the Global Warmists want to force our Penance for the Sin of burning things and being prosperous.

In other words, I didn't see anything particularly inflammatory about the exchange.

WW

2007-01-22T16:54:00.000-05:00

Get ready for two INSUFFERABLE weeks of being reminded of how black the black coaches are black, black, black, blah, blah, blah. Black. Did you know that black Dungy and black Smith are black? Black as in black?

"I hope we get to the point we don't have to hear about it." Hey, Dwight. Hello? We are at that point. I don't understand why an accomplished man like Dwight Freeney (or hundreds of others) allow themselves to be condescended to in this way. Only bigots keep shoving it in our faces. Unfortunately the biggest bigots in America today are firmly entrenched in our media, doing all they can to ensure the black man's perpetual victim status. They get a thrill beating America over the head with how virtuous & enlightened they've become despite the curse of their white skin, and anyone who calls them on their crass maneuver is labeled a racist. I'm not buying into it.

Jim Nantz, putting his arm around Dungy last night, squeezing his shoulder, saying in his patronizing avuncular way (before 50,000 delirious Colts fans), "Aww, aren't ya just a proud black boy today?" Utterly despicable. As happy as I am for one of the game's true gentlemen, Tony Dungy, that scene makes me wish Bill Belichick won last night. Just to avoid that national cringe-making moment. Revolting.

Let's stop using weasel words like "racial preferences" and "affirmative action" and "quotas" and call it by its proper name: bigotry.

I don't share all of Chris's suspicions about the Rooneys, but he is spot on about their racism. The Rooneys originated that abominable racist NFL policy, but I have enough faith in their business/common sense until they prove otherwise, their good instincts have not failed me in my lifetime. (Pittsburgh 5, Cleveland 0.) I believe the Rooneys' patronizing bigotry comes from generosity, and they are far from the only ones who practice it today. It is an epidemic.

I was hoping we could talk about Tomlin's virtues as a leader and a football mind, but Christopher is right, we are not at that point yet. But why? Why are we not at that point? Is it because I have a little racist demon inside me that secretly hates brown people? Is it because rednecks run the country and are itching to hold KKK rallies as soon as the ACLU drops its guard? No. We are not at that point because the tyrannical politically correct regime in this country, brought about by decades of belittlement and paternalism, of which a good family like the Rooneys are a victim, has no idea how to judge a man *other than* by the color of his skin. Jim Nantz is more insidious than David Duke. At least we call David Duke's crime by its proper name.

Read Shelby Steele and be done with this nonsense forever.

http://tinyurl.com/33w9fz

WW

Dead tyrant (Islam)

2007-01-10T16:24:00.001-05:00

A couple of thoughts.

Regarding these thugs. I'm not so sure you can make a lump judgment on the Middle East and you seem to have mixed Muslims with Iraqis with
just plain extremists. There are moderate Arabs and not all people
who practice Islam are killers. I have met some. I wonder if Stouff
has too. Just be clear in your writing lest some people get the wrong
idea.

GW

*****

I don't lump all Muslims or all Arabs or all Middle Easterners together, I try to be very careful about which group I am referring to because there is a lot of overlap. Not all Iraqis are Arabs, not all Arabs are Muslim, etc.

There are plenty of moderate Arabs just as there are plenty of Christian Arabs. I was referring to Muslims, and if you know any moderate Muslims personally, they are moderate despite their severe religion. There is no such thing as a moderate Muslim movement, because their theology abhors moderation. Despite their soul-destroying faith, many innocent Muslims persevere and live normal human lives. But there is a theological reason why extremists find a home in Islam, and why terrorist religion is tolerated and even celebrated by a large number of (if not a majority of) Muslims.

I am only trying to isolate the causes. I take Islam's claims at their word, and I take their faith seriously. The more I look into what they believe, the more I realize what we take for granted here in the West, and the closer I come back to the unfathomable treasure of own faith. There are important differences. We have been living off the moral capital of the Christian ethic for centuries, and it has been so successful for us that we assume all people have this gift ("moderation"), and it's just waiting to be uncovered. We are naive because we are rich enough to be naive. We are rich because the generations before us built civilization and fought for it and died for it. That is not the norm. Nature is war. Our forebears carved out a large sanctuary of peace in which we (and the Europeans) have lived our whole lives.

Our worst mistake (the mistake of the 1960s) is thinking that peace just happens when everybody settles down, rather than being the ultimate product of millions and millions of quiet sacrifices: from our great great grandparents steaming over on a god-awful boat, to our grandfather dying when a mine collapsed on him, to our grandmothers and mothers devoting their entire lives to raising generations, to our uncles' and father's time in the service, to Christopher giving up a year of his prime to shuffle around with Arabs in the sand.

The generation before sacrifices for the generation after. It is *imperative* to find out why the Muslims have inverted this holy formula: they allow for the idea that it is the highest good to send children off to kill themselves. That is something that the Christian ethic could not by definition allow, and something that the Islamic ethic is perfectly comfortable with. My horrific discovery is that Islam itself encourages these conclusions. Not "extreme Islam," not "Islamism," not "Wahhabism," but Mohammad, the Koran, and their sacred tradition (the Sunnah) . I know it isn't exactly PC to say that, but I don't think we have the luxury to keep nibbling around the edges here.

Look, don't get me wrong. I greatly admire the piety and the seriousness of the typical Muslim. Their humility is admirable in a world with so many temptations to irrational atheism and selfishness. Most important, as a Christian I love every human being as human, whether they are good, wicked, god-fearing, atheist, Muslim, Hindu, Wiccan, rich, poor, sick, or healthy. I love Saddam Hussein and I pray for his soul. I don't know many devout Muslims myself, but I would never judge a man's character by his unfortunate upbringing. Islam is a death philosophy, a stagnation, a burden. I pity Muslims, I don't hate them. The universal love of life -- despite nationality, despite infirmity -- is the teaching of one man, Jesus of Nazareth, a teaching so comprehensively successful in us that we don't recognize its absence or incomplete understanding in other people. Islam does not have a universal love of life. Islam is not Christianity without the cross. Their doctrine divides the world into, literally, The House of Submission ("Dar al-Islam") and The House of War ("Dar al-Harb"). You are Muslim or you are in a state of war.

We will never ever win a war if we don't know what we are fighting. We are losing in Iraq because we were initially naive enough to pretend Islam is a religion of peace. I don't hear our president proclaiming that same error anymore, thank God. The Muslim soul is geared to war, perpetual war until everyone bows to Mecca in perfect submission. Our barbarian souls -- the savage in all of us -- is similarly geared to war, the struggle of all against all, what Hobbes called the "state of nature." It took the paradox of the cross, the inversion of seeing a god crucified, to turn our nature on its head, to heal what we call "original sin." It is not natural to align our souls toward peace. We are perpetually tempted to war, to sin, to be selfish, to withhold love, to withhold sacrifice. Our God was defined by his sacrifice, the ultimate example, the permanent reminder that we must deny ourselves to make the ultimate virtue -- "caritas" or charity or love -- real in the world. This is a lesson you and I have interiorized because we had a good upbringing, not because it is naturally occurring. "Honor your father and mother": our parents gave us a gift we can never repay but can only pass on.

Every human being intuits the lesson of charity. We all feel good when we are charitable, even if the local religion teaches the opposite. Every humble Muslim or Arab resonates with universal charity (caritas). The tragedy is that his religion puts obstacles in the path of practicing that charity. Even when they aren't making open war on caritas, they are making it difficult on themselves. There is a reason why there is only a single successful Muslim state on the planet -- Turkey -- which only became successful when its founder Kemal Ataturk outlawed all forms of political Islam. Except, Islam is by its nature political. There cannot be a separation of mosque and state when they recognize only one supreme law that governs all realms everywhere, Sharia. The best they can hope for is the bastardization of the "Islamic Republic" or Iran, where their pretensions to democracy lead to the worst kind of clerical oppression by the ayatollahs, who derive a false legitimacy by holding sham elections every now and then.

I have come to terms with the fact that "some people [will] get the wrong idea" when I zero in on Islam itself as a canker sore on humanity. I don't nag people who are not already somewhat disposed to hearing the truth. So, for instance, I wouldn't harangue my sandwich-eating colleague about his irrational hatred of George Bush. I am not a Jehovah's Witness wanting to force anything down anyone's throat. It is enough that I am simply a servant of the truth.

Truth has an awesome power, but it is a subtle power. It doesn't beat anyone into wisdom, it insinuates slowly, like an eroding tide on the beach. The rocky shore seems to turn the ocean back every time, but we know in the end that rocks don't stand a chance against the constant, timeless crash of the waves. Boulders will be turned into sand long after I am dead. The most any one of us can do is join the communion, be a part of the effort that began millennia before us and won't end until millennia after us. Humility is the ultimate blessing, it allows us to be satisfied with chipping away, doing our little part, knowing that many little parts someday will add up to the only effort that truly changes the world.

So would you ever catch me tearing down a simple Muslim for praying to Allah? Not in a thousand lifetimes. I am commanded to save my greatest love for those farthest away from the truth, and that sacrifice is the hardest command any human being could be asked to do. But it also yields the greatest reward.

WW

Dead tyrant (Revenge)

2007-01-07T15:37:00.000-05:00

Those thugs -- those scuzzy barbarians -- botched that execution, a pinnacle moment in their nation's history, the end of an era and the beginning of a new one. They killed Hussein the way Hussein would have killed them. Ski masks, chanting "Moqtada!" in a filthy airless dank torture room. An absolutely awful moment for history. Those semi-human Shiites, that lawless nihilistic horde, cannot govern themselves. I am sick to my stomach.

This is what happens when child-men are asked to rule themselves. Revenge begets revenge begets revenge ad infinitum:

-----
Unfortunately, when the US handed [Hussein] over to the Iraqi authorities, the "authorities" did their best to look entirely unauthorized. Saddam was dispatched in some dingy low-ceilinged windowless room of one of his old secret-police torture joints by a handful of goons in ski masks and black leather jackets. It looked less like the dawn of a new Iraq than a Russian mafia mob hit. A couple of guards gleefully yelled out, "Moqtada, Moqtada, Moqtada" - as in Moqtada al-Sadr - to which Saddam added a disbelieving echo: "Moqtada?"

As well he might. It's one thing to be done in by Bush but by forces loyal to the punk son of some nickel-and-dime cleric you had murdered years ago… Granted, it was more genteel than the, ah, change of government in Liberia in 1990, when Prince Johnson had President Doe's ears sliced off and stuffed them in His Excellency's mouth before cutting off the presidential genitals and eating them himself in the belief that the "powers" of the person whose parts you're chowing down on are transferred to the diner. But the general vibe was a bit too similar.

And the many Muslims around the world who see this video and hear the "Moqtada!" cries may agree with the pithy summation of the Powerline blog: The thug is dead. Long live the thug! Given that Saddam was transferred from coalition custody to the Iraqi government only a few hours before his demise, I'd be interested to know whether US authorities proffered any "advice" on the optics: Ixnay on the torture dungeon, maybe in the exercise yard with a couple of Iraqi flags; get the heavies out of the Quentin Tarantino get-up and into some neutral prison-warden garb or Baghdad Airport parking-garage-attendant uniforms; if you have to have victims' loved ones present, go for the widows and photogenic orphans rather than Moqtada's boys. Meta-message: "Time to move on, says Government of Free Iraq", not "Payback's a bitch, says local enforcer." [Mark Steyn, http://tinyurl.com/yfaztb ]

WW

Air America a bust??? Who would've seen that coming???

2006-10-14T15:12:00.000-04:00

The Left has a stranglehold on the major news networks, the big city newspapers, the national magazines, the university faculties & administration, the charitable foundations, the education establishment, the boards of museums, the professional guilds (doctors, lawyers, teachers), the unions, the government lifers, and the diplomatic corps. And their foray into a sector of our tiny territory (talk radio, Fox News, a few think tanks, the military, & evangelicals) yielded a high-profile bankruptcy in little more than two years. I'd like to meet the visionary genius behind that business model and BUY HIM A CUP OF COFFEE.

We don't have much cultural organization over here on the right, but what we do have we guard like a pack of wolves.

Sweet, sweet "I told you so." So sweet.

WW

Weirdos with nasty habits occasionally in our leadership

2006-10-05T14:53:00.000-04:00

The press hops from scandal to scandal. They do not report news anymore. When they hit on a fresh scandal, they are like starving pigs at a trough. Foley is their trough of slop for this season.

Not only isn't there fire, there isn't much smoke either. What smoke are we talking about? All of the breathless "news" is about a potential cover up. That's what substance-less scandal stories always devolve into. It's never about the non-story, it's about the alleged attempted cover up of the non-story -- which usually is only a rumor of a cover up, which at the end of the day, wasn't really a cover up. See Karl Rove's alleged duplicity in the Valerie Plame cover-up, that, after beating us over the head with it for two years, amounted to precisely nothing.

What has happened with the current scandale du jour? A demented old pervert wrote e-mails to young men in high school who were independent enough to Congressional pages. If that had happened to me when I was 17, I would have immediately forwarded it to all of my buddies and made endless fun of the old queen. I wouldn't be traumatized. That's just me. Maybe these pages were not sufficiently warned never to get into a car with a stranger.

But, okay. It is a nasty, nasty thing for a man in Rep. Foley's position to do. It was a betrayal of "in loco parentis," always a serious thing. It was not illegal per se, but it is morally repugnant and certainly not something we want to see in our leaders. So he resigned. He didn't drag it out for a year, like President Clinton, on technicalities. He resigned.

What is left? The residual creepy feelings we have about the incident. This is the "awful lot of smoke." We are looking around for someone else to blame. The culprit is punished, but that's not enough to slake our own creepy thirst for scandal. So let's cast the net further, onto the Speaker of the House! This is the media's formula. Predictable and without substance -- and a month from now amounting to precisely nothing.

Weirdos with nasty habits will occasionally find themselves in our leadership. We the people are our own leaders, and we the people come from many stripes, backgrounds, and sets of imperfections. Power corrupts. There is going to be an occasional Representative sleazing himself onto a page and a President taking advantage of an intern. Nasty but true. We are imperfect. We absolutely should aggressively root them out and expose them to the light so that we may be rid of them. Public embarrassment and resignation used to rid us of them. Clinton broke that tradition when he decided to fight rather than resign. And the press fed off of the scandal for an entire year (while al Qaeda plotted to murder 3,000 New Yorkers). All we have left is the embarrassment, and we wallow in it.

Far more disturbing than the Foley affair is our salacious appetite for it. The news this morning went on and on and on about nothing, just wallowing in scandal details like a connoisseur of our lowest inclinations. The underlying facts have not changed. There is nothing "new" in this news. The cable channels and tabloids rehash the same gross facts to whip themselves into a moral frenzy again and again and again. The frenzy becomes the story: what does your local politician think of Foley, what does the president think of Foley, what does Sally your neighbor think of Foley? We all think he's "disgusting," okay? Tomorrow we will still think he is disgusting. Foley himself thinks Foley is disgusting. So he resigned. What else do we want?

If we trot out the Speaker and put him in the Town Square stocks next to Foley, will that be a sufficient emblem of our moral outrage? If we deliver the House to the Democrats and all their unknown scandals (unknown because they are not in power like the GOP), will that be an appropriate punishment? Don't we detect the scandal pattern yet? Don't we see how little we'll care about this in a month? Can't we determine already that there is not enough substance to this story to last to November, despite the media's best attempts? Can't we tell when they're drumming stuff up just to make flashy headlines?

The "scandals" that originate from the unfixable imperfections of our leaders are like the seasonal flu. But the habits of our "news" gatherers is terminal cancer.

WW

Always remember, the media is fighting its own war

2006-08-03T22:14:00.000-04:00

For those of you wondering about me and the rest of the military, or remotely concerned about events going on in Iraq and the rest of the middle east, consider the following column. This column explains precisely why the Iraq situation is well-in-hand and why I always say that it isn't as bad as it looks on TV. If you have any "knowledge" of the Iraq war, or even pretend to be mildly interested, this article explains through Israel's conflict with Hezbollah (read: Lebanon) why you actually--through no fault of your own--know nothing.

Always remember, the media is fighting its own war.

CJW

Read Noah Pollak's article in National Review:
http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=ODg3MGZkODllMThmM2ZhMmE4NWEzZmJhZTc3MTFiNGI=
or click on National Review Home Page:
http://nationalreview.com/

Prayer for beer

2006-08-02T11:27:00.000-04:00

Benedic, Domine, creaturam istam cerevisae, quam ex adipe frumenti producere dignatus es: ut sit remedium salutare humano generi: et praesta per invocationem nominis tui sancti, ut, quicumque ex ea biberint, sanitatem corporis, et animae tutelam percipiant. Per Christum Dominum nostrum. Amen

TRANSLATION:

Bless, O Lord, this creature beer, that Thou hast been pleased to bring forth from the sweetness of the grain: that it might be a salutary remedy for the human race: and grant by the invocation of Thy holy name, that, whosoever drinks of it may obtain health of body and a sure safeguard for the soul. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

-- From the Rituale Romanum (no 5)

Durka, Durka

2006-04-18T23:10:00.000-04:00

Just dropping a quick line from Baghdad. We've been sitting around the last week doing nothing in between seabag drags. We are scheduled to move to another location for about a week of "training." And then move on to our final destination when that is complete. And we still have no idea where that is or what our address will be.

For those of you glued to the television wondering why this country has devolved into civil war and hell on earth, I haven't heard a shot fired in anger since I've been here.

One funny thing though, I ran into Tim here. Tim was a friend of mine at Ft. Sill for artillery school. He went to TBS with me and he's been stationed at 29 Palms, CA, ever since. He deployed to Iraq before I did in 2004, and he came home pretty much on the same plane as I did when we returned. He was talking all about how he was getting out, blah blah blah... And then I saw him in-processing in Kuwait. Turns out he's here again, doing the same mission he did last time--the same one as I have now--for as long as I will be--in the same region of Iraq.

Weird.

CJW

Using equivalency as argument

2005-12-01T10:34:00.000-05:00

Bush's speech at Annapolis was very good.

The speeches are good because his case is strong, and the media's (& the
Dems') case is weak. It's that simple. All we need is some
plain-language reiteration on a regular basis. The case hasn't really
changed since 2003, when Bush was saying the same stuff. The media
falls into the trap of thinking the strongest case is the newest case.
That's why they call it "news" after all. Or they mistake something
flashy, like Murtha's dramatic (but empty) announcement, for something
significant. They get bored easy. TV News has to capture your
attention and hold it before you flip channels.

The only difference between 2003 and now is that we've become fatigued
and impatient. You can't accomplish anything great if you allow
yourself to become fatigued. Maybe if Bush mixed in some Karaoke or
some stand-up shtick, people would stop getting distracted by loud
side-shows like Cindy Sheehan and Valerie Plame.

The reporters always say after a Bush speech, "There's nothing really
new here." That's the point. "News" is their game. Consistency and
application is the Executive's.

Below is the case stated as plainly as can be. Very little of it can be
challenged, so the media will inflate trivia to epic levels and pretend
it's on par with the reality -- just to have some kind of fresh
response. In other words, "50 million people liberated" is the media
equivalent of "Scooter Libby indicted." Or, "The United States' loudest
& most persistent enemy dethroned and on trial for his life" is the
equivalent of "Joe Wilson didn't find yellowcake."

WAXW

Marine from Illinois is killed in Humvee crash in Iraq

2004-09-30T09:29:00.000-04:00

Dad:

Here is an article about Ryan. 



Christopher

Marine from Illinois is killed in Humvee crash in Iraq

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

09/26/2004

PANA, Ill. - A 28-year-old Marine was killed as a result of a noncombat vehicle accident in Rutbah, Iraq, the Department of Defense said.

Second Lt. Ryan Leduc of Pana was killed Friday when the Humvee in which he was riding crashed, throwing him out and landing on top of him, his father, David Leduc said.

Ryan Leduc, a graduate of Pana High School and Southern Illinois University Carbondale, was assigned to the Second Battalion, 10th Marine Division, II Marine Expeditionary Force stationed at Camp Lejeune, N.C.

Leduc graduated from college in May 2002 with a degree in aircraft engineering with the intent of pursuing a career in commercial aircraft maintenance, his father said. But the downturn in the airline industry stymied him, and he joined the Marines in January 2003.

David Leduc said his son, whom he described as easygoing and always smiling, was not motivated by the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks to join the Marines, adding it was just an opportunity that presented itself.

"When he became a Marine, he knew that it was what he was looking for," Leduc said. "He loved his job. He believed in the mission and he knew the risks, and still felt it was the right thing to do.

While a student at Carbondale three years ago, Ryan Leduc met Megan McCabe at the university's aviation fraternity, Alpha Eta Rho, and the two became engaged. She is a pilot for a private firm in Miami.

On Sunday, she tearfully recalled her fiance as an honest, hard-working man.

"He was the kind of person who would give his life for his country," she said.

2ndLt. Leduc

2004-09-28T15:20:00.001-04:00

Christopher

I am so sorry to hear about Ryan. How did the accident occur?

I think about you every day and wish I could be with you or you with me.

The job you picked is a very difficult one but I know you will do it very well. There were times, in Korea, when I was cold and miserable and wished I was not there, but that service has given me many years of quiet satisfaction. I know you will someday be blessed with that same feeling.

Be safe. Do good. Always protect your men.

Dad

2ndLt. Leduc

2004-09-28T15:20:00.000-04:00

About a week ago, 2ndLt Ryan Leduc was killed in a vehicle
accident while out on a convoy. I knew Ryan very well. He was
one class behind me at OCS, but was in my class at TBS, went
with me as one of 11 Marine lieutenants to Ft. Sill, and he was
assigned with me to 2/10 at Camp Lejeune.
I ask you all to please say a prayer for him. It could very
easily have been me in his place.
As it stands, however, I will be taking his place in Battery F.
Within a few days I will be transferring away from my present
location to my new location in the west. My new duties will
involve leading a rifle platoon for the first time in
infantry-based missions. I regret having to leave Echo Battery,
but I am more than proud to do it for Ryan.
I hope you all are doing well, otherwise I would have no reason
to be here. Best wishes. You will hear from me again soon.
Christopher

Should we kill only the rat in our bed?

2004-09-27T19:31:00.000-04:00

Google

Should we kill only the rat in our bed?

Almost everyone agreed then, and agrees now, that the killer rat of September 11, 2001, had to be exterminated. After all, he had jumped into our bed and had eaten some of our children.

Everyone in the neighborhood came together, braced themselves, armed themselves and struck at the offending rat. It was chased to its refuge and mercilessly and efficiently destroyed, along with the hole that harbored it.

While rejoicing with success, everyone agreed that there were other rats, some unseen, others still visible but not directly threatening or immediately identifiable.

That's when problems arose. Some people wanted to destroy immediately all the remaining rats by all means available. Others counseled restraint, arguing that perhaps the rats would not bother us if we did not bother them. If another rat dared again to jump into our bed and eat more of our children, they argued, we would resolutely defend ourselves.

So the question remains: Should we kill only the rat in our bed?

PWTW