"A Narrower Atlantic"

We are not as different from Europeans as either we or the Europeans imagine. I didn't make this up. The author of the article linked above is left-of-center, but the statistics refute the stereotypes.

Can we avoid being barbarians while fighting them?

Dan Dreher wonders whether conservatives are becoming what they loathe.

Rufus Cole, 1918-2009, Requiescat in Pace

One of the last of the few who served in Korea with the 64th Field Artillery Battalion in support of the 25th Infantry Division, Major Rufus Lafayette Cole, Jr., died this week in Atlanta. He was simply a good soldier and a great husband, father, and friend.

The obituary in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution does not give much attention to his military career. Of course, he was modest about it, so I'll just say that he enlisted in the Army before World War II. He married his wonderful wife Judy in 1940. He fought the Germans in the mountains of Italy with a unit using mules to drag artillery pieces through the mud and snow. He fought the N. Koreans at Pusan and then the Chinese from the Yalu River to the 38th Parallel. He received a battlefield commission in Korea and retired in 1962 as a major. He had campaign ribbons to match just about anyone, but having come through the ranks from the bottom, he had little vanity and spoke little about his achievements.

Here are two songs to celebrate his life:
Norah Jones singing "American Anthem" for the PBS Series The War, and Artie Shaw playing Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine" as well as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers dancing to a different version.

In the combat photo above, Mr. Cole is the soldier to the left with the field telephone on his ear. Click to enlarge. The patches are for the 25th Infantry Division, "Tropic Lightning," and the 64th Artillery Battalion, "Lancers Conquer."

Neglected but not forgotten...

I am working very hard after sickness and vacation, and I am celebrating several birthdays of close family this month. Blogging is a hobby, not an obsession, so I'll just have to live life and blog about it later. My mother turns eighty this week, and my daughter turns nine. Life is good.