VH2 Presents
Behind the Pants: The Story of FLASHPANTS

Flashpants. The very sound of the word conjures up visceral images of the heady days of arena rock, the boisterous era of glamrock and heavy metal. It embodies the glitz and glory of those early years with a fusion of power, grace, and allure that has never been equalled or challenged by any other Scottish metal band here in the Cleveland metropolitan area. Tonight we examine the myth, the legend, the history of this seminal and influential ensemble of top rate musicians. We see them at their most glamourous as they dominate the stage, but we also go behind the scenes to examine up close and personal the horrific demons they faced as a band, and how they were able to conquer them.

It was in 1981 in the dingy urban core of Glasgow that Nigel Van Neuffison had a chance meeting with Dugald McCormick. Nigel, a promising young musician studying the ukelele at the local university, had been intrigued by the previous decade of guitar rock that had emanated from their English neighbors to the south.

Nigel Van Neuffison

Nigel Van Neuffison: Hawaiian music was my first love, admittedly. I've never quite given up on it, I always retreat to it, kind of a happy little oasis in a raging sandstorm of rock. So in a way I'm a something of a dromedary camel. And FLASHPANTS is the little Arabian fellow that I carry around on my back. So
sometimes it was nice to strum my ukelele under the palms at the oasis, but other times it was great to carry me little Arabian mate out into the endless dunes of heavy metal.

Dugald, a prize-winning Alpine yodelling champion, was working as an apprentice at a local toy shoppe, and made his paltry earnings glueing the beards onto imported Chinese nutcracker dolls.

Dugald McCormick

Dugald McCormick: Well, the toy shoppe was quite formative for me...it was my life at the time! Several of the songs I wrote were inspired by it. For example, "Nutcrackers and Ballbreakers", that was mostly drawn from my toy
shoppe days. Mostly.

They met to discuss their joint musical vision in a local watering hole outside the city limits. Dugald had actually meant that they meet in the local pub, but Nigel, always the literalist, assumed he meant a real watering hole, so they sat in a meadow near a large metal water trough discussing their goals. Soon enough the local farmer chased them off with a blunderbuss, but not before Dugald had convinced Nigel to abandon his dreams of stardom on the Hawaiian music circuit and unite to conquer the world of rock. Soon after, Angus MacPhadden, the son of the noted botanist and art critic Adolphus MacPhadden, responded to an advert in the local paper to audition for the budding group, known at that time as "The Enchanted Visigoths". His skilled bass guitar chops as well as his thorough knowledge of the entire Barbra Streisand catalog were quickly noticed by Nigel and Dugald, and he was swiftly hired on as bassist. He had auditioned to play hammered dulcimer, and it is significant to note that his failure to gain that position would become a wellspring of intense bitterness and resentment in the years to come.

Angus MacPhadden

Angus MacPhadden: When I firs' met the other lads, I thought to meself, oy, here's a right pair of manky gollywobbler nancies! But I got over that, and we got on like ol' wockety chums from the bally harper brineys! Methinks, crikey!
Wot, ho, spiffy!

And yet one more piece of the puzzle was requisite to complete the picture. The group auditioned for a drummer with little success, as all the talented percussionists were being snapped up by bagpipe ensembles. However, when the three members were returning from performing for a traditional Hawaiian Bar Mitzvah in the highlands, they found a curious man loping along the side of the road. His name was Quentin Walpole. He adamantly claimed to be a retired Army colonel who had fought the Nazis in the Ardennes in 1944 despite his being visibly under the age of 20. While the rest of the band seemed content to dump the confused young vagrant at the next petrol stop, Angus took a liking to him and took him home as a sort of adopted pet.

Quentin Walpole

Quentin Walpole: Right, Angus is me mate. Good lad there, solid backbone, heart of gold. The sort of lad that you'd want in your foxhole when the Gerries would come over the ridge. Salt of the earth.

Angus taught Quentin the ins and outs of rock drumming and soon Quentin was revered widely for his percussion prowess. He was courted by the likes of Pete Townshend and Elton John for studio work, but his loyalty to Angus was unquenchable. Nigel and Dugald were amazed at his improvement and quickly moved to accept him into the band. A new name was thought to be appropriate, and though no one truly recalls whose idea it was, the name FLASHPANTS was immediately accepted.

Nigel Van Neuffison: Well, Flashpants sort of encompasses all that we are, really. We've got the flash, you have to admit. With the noted exception of
Henry Kissinger, can you think of anyone flashier than us? And as far as pants
are concerned, we all are very keen wearers of pants. Except for Dugald...he
tends to wear kilts. It became a bit of a problem in the early years, when he
would go...well...unencumbered. We had to remove high kicks from his repertoire
of stage antics in the interest of public decency.

After recieving some atrociously bad financial advice and signing an aggressively high-interest mortgage on a llama ranch in Naples, the band decided to move to Cleveland, Ohio for tax shelter purposes. There they found their niche and began a steadily rising phenomenom on the local scene. Soon the streets were abuzz with the word "FLASHPANTS". They released their first album, "Not Another Flash In The Pants" in 1982. Unfortunately Nigel, who authored a majority of the songs, had unwittingly rewritten a half-dozen AC/DC songs with only very minor changes, for example, "For Those About To Flash" and "Thunderskunk". The resulting legal setbacks hampered their financial success but their popularity grew despite the bad publicity.

Angus MacPhadden: Those were the good years, says me wop-haired dingo
bat knockwally! All day long the squiffy'd be chiming like a knobby-kneed wimshaw, mate!

Dugald McCormick: Aye, inn't that the truth!

The band's second album, "Back In A FLASHPANTS", was released in 1982 to tepid critical reception. It was around this period under the growing stress of touring the Cleveland club circuit that Quentin, feeling overlooked and overworked, turned to croquet. His first games took place over the summer at various lawn parties in the suburbs.

Nigel Van Neuffison: Well, it was about that time...I think Quentin just felt a bit outside the circle, right, and a bit lonesome. Croquet was innocent
at first, we all experimented with it, just a bit o' fun. I don't think any of
us had any idea what it was capable of. We don't often speak of it these
days.

Dugald even gave Quentin a travel croquet set as gift, hoping to reach out to their disillusioned drummer. It was a move that he would regret for years to come. A seed had been planted that would bear the fruit of tragedy. In 1984 the band released their third album, which was erroneously labelled "FLASHPANTS XII" due to the band's failure to properly comprehend the Roman numeral system. The haunting ukelele-driven ballad "Smell The Worcestershire" was a big hit locally and gained considerable airplay despite its condiment-inspired lyrics. It was at this point that in a dramatic misunderstanding they hired Don King as their band manager. He and the band quickly agreed to part ways after a tragic incident in which Nigel was given a concussion in a boxing ring. Ever since that time he has found it difficult to say the word "cheadle" which unfortunately meant that he could never, ever again sing the backing vocals to "Another One Flashes The Pants".

Dugald McCormick: You've done got it this time, Nig'.

Nigel Van Neuffison: (singing into studio mic): We're gonna take
you to Cheady...choddle...chuddy...chhh...chhh...oh BOLLOCKS!

Also in 1984, they released their first and only Christmas album, "FLASHPANTS For The Holidays", which was panned viciously by the critics and largely ignored by fans. Although mostly a collection of heavy metal interpretations of Christmas classics, it had one original composition, a disturbingly lewd number entitled "Pull On A Warm Pair Of Festive FLASHPANTS".

Quentin Walpole: I think a great many people misunderstood our Christmas album. It was chock full of holiday cheer, packed to the brim. I mean, honestly,who says whips and leather can't be cheery?

The next year things started to go awry. Quentin's growing obsession with croquet had started to concern the band. His every waking moment was spent in pursuit of croquet...when he couldn't play, he drew diagrams of croquet fields, plotted croquet strategies, and even wrote a book entitled "Quentin's Winning Croquet Methodologies". It was never published. Finally, the band members' growing concerns culminated when Quentin showed up for a gig wearing nothing but a suit woven entirely of croquet hoops. It was the last straw. With great sadness, Angus checked Quentin into the obscure sports wing of Ohio's preeminent substance abuse clinic.

Angus MacPhadden: Aye, twas a great pity. I'd never been more down on the crock, if you follow, than when the chogged-up pommy wagged the starboard hives, by Saint Mary! Twas a pity, truly.

The band members recognized they could never replace Quentin, and they decided to go ahead and finish the rest of the record in progress with a drum machine. The resultant album, "Flash Flood", was universally dismissed as utter tripe.

Dugald McCormick: I found the reviews in 85 to be a bit cruel. Tripe I could handle, it was a bit harsh, but fair. Once we were called "audible cancer", that smarted a bit but turned out to be a smashing title for our boxed set. But when the critics started to publicly burn effigies, we knew it was time to do a bit of self-reflection.

The band, despondent at the loss of their drummer and their success, officially called it quits in January 1986.

Nigel Van Neuffison: Well, naturally, I wouldn't want Quentin to think that the downfall of the band was his fault. It would be unfair for me to say that no one else contributed to it, and that if he hadn't had that stupid little
obsession with lawn darts or whatever it was we'd all be very rich and popular
still. I don't think I'd want him to think that he is responsible for all that,
no, that just wouldn't be very fair.

After the breakup, Dugald went back to Glasgow to humbly ask for his job back at the toy shoppe. Unfortunately the shopmaster had found a new apprentice as well as a Chinese supplier of pre-bearded nutcrackers, so Dugald went into commercial real estate, and was quite successful in procuring lots for strip-mining. Nigel fulfilled his life-long dream in releasing the solo album "Odes To Maggie", a collection of traditional Hawaiian love songs dedicated to Margaret Thatcher. Angus, being free to pursue his own musical ambitions, formed the group "The New Visigoths" in which he played lead dulcimer. They released one album, "Advanced Metallurgy", had a brief chart hit with their remix of "The Way We Were", and subsequently disbanded. He went on to become a Daoist accountant. Quentin, meanwhile, slowly came to grips with his addiction, and began the healing process. In 1992 he suffered a relapse when he took up crochet, which turned out to sound too much like "croquet" for Quentin to be able to handle. However, after a few more years of therapy, Quentin was released, 100% croquet free, in 1997.

My proposed new Mac vs. PC advert:

[In walk a middle-aged businessman in a shirt and tie and a sloppily dressed "creative-type"]

Businessman: I'm a PC...

Creative-Type: and I'm a Mac. [broad, simpleton grin]

PC: Well, Mac, how was your day?

Mac: Oh, PC, it was so cool! I made a collage in iPhoto!

PC: Aw, that's really good, there Mac! Very...abstract.

Mac: It's an elephant. With wings!

PC: I see!

Mac: It would have been more fun if you had been here, PC.

PC: I'm sorry, Mac, I was at work. Someone has to pay the bills you know...how about I help you with your colouring books tonight?

Mac: Wow, terrific! And maybe I can help you with your...umm...netbook...defibrilation?

PC: You mean network administration? Sure thing buddy. I'll even let you do the ping requests!

Mac: [claps excitedly] PING! PING! PING!

PC: Great job buddy! Now let's go get that colouring book. You get started, I'll go do some management of the company CRM infrastructure.

Mac: [walking off to find his crayons] PING! PING! PING!

This is a caption from a silly article on global warming:

"At a protest near the U.S. embassy in London in November 2006 asking world leaders to act urgently to cap global warming at 2^oC or less."

OK, does anyone else consider this as ludicrous as I do? Asking politicians to act to set a cap on global warming at no more than 2 degrees Centigrade? What are they going to do, pass a law? The Earth then is contractually bound to keep it global warming below that "cap"? Otherwise, I tell you what, we'll sue the Earth's pants off. We passed a LAW! Suck on that, Sitwell!

I know what they are saying. Act now, sign Kyoto, install a catalytic converter on Al Gore's mouth, and somehow magically that will cap the warming to 2 degrees. I get it. But it is so, so dumb. Why are these silly sods so wrapped up in the belief that government will save them? I mean, even taking all the religious tenets of the Church of Warmingism for granted, still, the idea that some law, even adherence to that law, will "cap" warming is silly.

Moving on!

I just outted myself as a firearms enthusiast (we prefer that to the pejorative "gun legume") to a University English writing class...well, perhaps I didn't come out and say as much, but when a guy starts answering technical questions posed by the professor ("who invented the AK-47?"), and starts nitpicking technical details central to his argument that the AK-47 is evil whereas somehow bolt-action rifles are good, you're marked. Oh well! Let them dismiss the shooting sports, leaves more ammunition for me!

Not to delve into the delights of analyzing hippie Christian movements, but sometimes, upon reflecting on the vast waves of postmodern horsedump relentlessly pounding away at the shores of reason, I can understand the sentiment behind Cartman's prayer to the Sea People:

"Only three more hours, sea people. Only three more hours and you can take me away from this crappy goddamn planet full of hippies."

It is sad and silly how much I love guns. I was gazing lovingly at my Mauser 24/47 and realized I have the same silly fondness for these machines of accurized lead projection that I used to have moreso for my guitars. Men and their toys, I guess.

But throwing deep introspection and all that to the wind, let's dive right in the shallow end...I went to the range on Saturday and got to shot my little Yugoslavian arm cannon. I was using Greek surplus ammo, 180gr FMJ, non-corrosive primers. It was an accurate little SOB, despite the freaking cold harming my ability to shoot and the horrendously designed sights. Now...full disclosure...I'm not an experienced rifle shooter. So it pains me a bit to say it, but I started out at only 60 feet. That's 20 yards...pistol range, really. But at 60 feet I was getting 1" groups, and most people would be hardpressed to even see a 1" group at 60 feet. I'll try longer range shooting once I get out in warmer weather again. I really need a scope to do that sort of shooting, and that would necessitate a different gun. Maybe a Mosin Nagant...they are cheap enough! A good set of modern optics on a Mosin M91/30 would satisfy my nerdy military surplus obsession while also giving me a "reach out and touch someone" sort of rifle. Ahhh, what fun.

I am so sick of this global warming garbage. It is BS.

I'm not going to play scientist and start citing figures...there are enough actual scientists who do that on both sides, not to mention scores of ignorant propogandists who pretend they know what they are talking about. The large amounts of evidence refuting the mainstream theory of global warming are out there, no need for me to regurgitate them to you.

But on this issue of consensus. This is what drives me nuts! They say "the debate is over" because a CONSENSUS of scientists agree on something. What is scientific about that? What is this, science by democracy? Everyone gets a vote and majority rules?

Our history is full of scientific consensus. Science has historically been the story of skeptics in the minority challenging the conventional wisdom, or consensus, with new ideas, testing them, and proving them. We didn't take a vote on whether the world was round. Even if we had done so, a majority of scientists voting for "flat" does not change anything...the Earth is still round.

And furthermore, how do the science guys like this one...a majority of people on the Earth believe in the existence of God. So that makes the existence of God a "consensus", and atheists are deniers that should be expelled from public debate. They were probably bought off by Big Oil! Those batty atheists.

Consensus means nothing, affects nothing, does nothing. We don't care about consensus in science any more than people care about consensus in the existence of God. It's just irrelevant! In science, truth matters. Not polling of opinion.

Anticipating some responses, people will say that my opinion doesn't count since I am not a "scientist". Kind of a silly position to take with Algore at the head of the global warming army.

Yes, I'm a skeptic, a denier, a dissident. Unfortunately this does not give me the same orgiastic gratification that it gives the left wing nutters, who pee their pants with glee when they hear the word "dissent".

Here's a good article:

http://www.canadafreepress.com/2007/global-warming020507.htm

OK, just a brief quote...basically I was doing the wikipedia crawl thing and I came on Mark Driscoll's page. From the previous page I was under the impression that he was an Emergie bigwig, which apparently is no longer the case, judging from this attributed quote:

"The Emerging Church movement is a bunch of disgruntled liberal evangelicals who gather together to complain about the megachurches of their parents."

I'm sorry, but that just gave me a little chuckle there. Cheers, right-wing orthodox cranks and hippie emergie nutters alike! Eb-oh-nee...and ahhhh-vo-ree...living in perfect har-mo-neeeee....

Now I don't want you to start doubting the existence of universal order and all that, but I'm about to do the unthinkable...blog about sports.

Yeah, the American sport (there is only one, after all) has ensnared me. The Bears v Saints game was a bit disappointing, as I was rooting for the Saints despite their unrepentant and unbridled Frenchitude, but the Bears, well I'm happy they won. I like the Bears...something very 1960s about them, very "old time football team"...not like the flashy franchises that came later, they just have a simple mascot and they are a simple, respectable team with a lot of history. Go Bears!

I only caught the tail end of the other game...but it was the best part, seeing the final bit of the comeback as the Colts inched slightly over the Patriots. I really didn't want the Patriots to win...perhaps they just seem like a bunch of Northeastern blue-bloods. Peyton Manning (who I must interject looks uncannily like an overgrown baby) is actually pretty well-known for a modern quarterback...it seems like the QBs aren't quite the celebrities they used to be back in the Joe Montana days. That guy was a legend. Then he came to KC, but he left his game in San Francisco.

So yeah, I like the Colts and Bears...it'll be a good matchup, and I'll be pleased either way, though I'm rooting for the Bears!

It is funny, I have to admit, to witness myself try to write about sports. I know so little about it. It would be like if I started to write about cars. "Yeah, the camshaft has a sprunion that needs torque'ing before I'm ready to gusset the breach valve...but it shouldn't take much more than putting on one of those dual socketed hydraulic flanges I've got in the parts bin."

Cosmoleniac - A person who takes a crazed interest in the act of disassembling, cleaning, finishing, and reassembling old military rifles.

Yes, I had already done found myself jonesin' for another rifle to work my magic on...the Mauser nicely polished and clean, all I can do with it is shoot it and maybe scrub the bore some more, until it starts to need a serious cleaning again. The call of the Enfield No4MkI was strong (fortunately not as strong as the lack of expendable income), but then it struck me...up on my wall, my first gun, the gun that stood at the ready to defend my household in the early years of my marriage (I suppose I'm still in the early years, as we enter our fifth year!), my beloved 1918 Lee Enfield SMLE No1MkIII*. A beautiful piece, with a unique bulldog-like snubby nose. It may lack a bit of the aesthetic elegance of the Mauser, but its bolt is smooth and fast, and it is built like a freaking tank. And aside from needing special tools for disassembly (I borrowed an extra long screwdriver, and I've got the special bolt/firing pin disassembly tool on order) it is fairly simple to dismantle...particularly the stock/barrel band that just swings open, instead of the Mauser ones you have to bang on and off with a mallet. I know .303 British isn't the best caliber in the world, but I'm not a hunter, and I've never had a problem with some sort of rim-based magazine jam, so I don't care.

So yes, I've got it partially disassembled. I'm thinking of baking (yes, baking) the stock in the oven to leach out any more cosmolene. The trigger assembly will be fun. There's a certain joy in cleaning these old machines. Not only the sort of therapeutic pleasure from stripping away the grime, grease, dirt, and (of course) cosmolene from the old rifles, but also in dismantling and rebuilding them from each and every pin, screw, and component...it gives an understanding I used to lack. I know now exactly how a Mauser trigger works (it's a terribly simple sort of thing). I don't do the same with my pistols because especially the small ones (like the Bersa) are so fine-tuned only a master gunsmith should muck about with them. Military rifles have a bit of leeway, and besides, I'm not depending on them as a matter of life and death.

How about, just for grins, I list out some military rifles I'd be interested in owning. Not even own, I guess...if you have one of these that hasn't been properly cleaned and degunked, I'll volunteer!

• Lee Enfield No4MkI. The classic WWII era Enfield, and main armament of the British infantry. I'm keen to snag one of these as a foil to my WWI SMLE Enfield, and to have as a shooter to use up .303, with its nicer aperture sight.

• Mosin Nagant M91/30 and M44. These were the rifles that drove the Nazis back on the Eastern front, a crude bolt-action that is a bit homely, yet still not without a bit of aesthetic charm. Chambered for the potent 7.62x54R, a rimmed round similar in ballistics to the 30-06, 8mm Mauser, and .303 British used by contemporary armies. These are cheap with a capital CHEA.

• M1 Garand. The first prominent semi-automatic battle rifle. Note I said prominent, as I'm sure there were a number of other semi-autos, but the Garand was basically the first big one. A beautiful, well balanced rifle, with an internal mag of 8 rounds of 30-06. These are NOT cheap, I assure you.
  

• M1 Carbine. An interesting "in between" weapon. Firing an almost absurdly unique cartridge (the .30 Carbine) that lands somewhere between pistol and rifle round, this is a fun gun to shoot; my father-in-law has one. It is a definite cobbling of compromises, with a moderate blend of power and light weight. Oh, and its got aperture sights! Also not cheap though.
  

• Lee Enfield Jungle Carbine. Nice little .303 gun that costs far too much, I used to really want to snag one, but collectors' prices have really driven the cost up on these. Short barrel, large flash hider, basically a miniaturized shoulder cannon. Requisite accessory, Aussie bush hat. On second thought, maybe its best I not own one of these.

Couple not-so-important things of which I will choose to blog. First off, last night I experimented with pepper vodka for the first, and in all likelihood last, time. Allow me to explain. A particular beer I was brewing utilised an experimental new hop variety...one that I discovered, too late, gave a distinct green onion aroma. While that scratched my plans to turn the beer into an Apricot IPA, I was unwilling to sacrifice the batch, and surmised it was a fine time to experiment with a pepper beer, at last. Green onions may not work well with apricots, but they'll go fine with peppers!

So off I went to the imported foods store, and I purchased a couple bags of dried chipotle chilies. I put 20 of these peppers in a container and soaked them in about 300ml of vodka, which took on a distinct orange-brown hue after several days. I then took the peppers and vodka and added them to the beer...reserving about 40-50ml of the infused vodka.

Last night, I thought, let's give that a try. So I cut a strip of celery, stuck it in a glass with ice cubes, poured the 1.5oz of pepper vodka on top, and then poured in about 5-6 oz of Spicy Hot V-8. Stirred it up. Smelled it...chipotle tomato, not bad...interesting. Took a sip. MADRE DE DIOS! GOTT IN HIMMEL! APEKATTDRITT! Yes, it was that hot. I can handle a lot of heat, but this, this was pure capsaicin leached out into that drink. Way too much heat to be bearable, my face was on fire. I don't normally admit defeat so easily, but I dumped it all out without subjecting myself to a second sip.

Which leads me to believe...this Chipotle IPA is going to be a bit of flamethrower! I must say, pardon the schadenfreude but I'm keenly looking forward to inflicting this on my fellow St. Crispin's members.

Moving on, my foolish heart, smitten at first, then slowly resigned to reality, is recovering. Yes, last Thursday was the SHOT Show for 2007, where all the firearms industry companies get together to show off their products to distributors. And what should happen, but Kel-Tec, the gun company of whom I am a most devoted fan, decides to come out with a 7.62 NATO bullpup design. An unprecedented design, it is too...forward tube ejection, improved trigger design, all kinds of goodies that make this the perfected bullpup. And at 7.62 NATO! I would have been giggly excited over 5.56mm, but they up the ante with a .308! Needless to say I was quite giddy about it...until I saw the MSRP. $2K for the 18" carbine, $2.5K for the 24" battle rifle, and $3K for the 32" target model. In order to purchase one next year when they become available I would have to put aside $40 a WEEK. While I struggled for a while with that, I came to the decision that no, there is no practical reason I need a .308 tactical rifle, and that is a lot of money for a range toy. For $700 I could get a nice FAL anyway, a proven design...not that I need it! Who knows if they keep making them, I could get one 5-10 years from now perhaps, no need to get one right away.

Here are some pics of that lovely new rifle:

http://www.ktog.org/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.cgi?board=499;action=display;num=1168577349

Sung to the tune of "Tangerine" by Led Zeppelin:

Cosmoline....cosmoline,
Covering the action, and trigger spring
Even glued the mag plate on, damn Cosmoline,
Nastiest crud you've ever seen...

Yes, this glorious Christmas weekend what did I do? Why, learn how to clean 50 year old Cosmolene off of my new Mauser M24/47, of course! A gift from my parents ("you'll shoot your eye out, kid!"), it is a late 40s Yugoslavian-built 8mm Mauser 98k. While the stock was a bit rough, Cosmoline impregnated into every possible nook and cranny, and the action a bit stiff, I can see the inner beauty. This is a fine rifle! Completely disassembling a Mauser is quite a task, especially to those who have never taken a rifle completely down before (my Enfield has had its bolt taken apart, nothing more). I took the bolt completely apart, then I worked at getting the stock off. Took off little extra parts like the butt plate and sight shroud. Took out the magazine assembly and trigger assembly, and disassembled each of those...then finally the bolt release lever. Degreased every thing, soaked it in mineral spirits, and coated everything up with lots of CLP. The bolt and trigger assemblies are back on the receiver/barrel, and I'm finishing the stock nicely with some boiled linseed oil...after a good scrubbing with 0000 steel wool it feels slick and smooth, much nicer than the rough, raw initial feel. The oil gives it a natural, non-glossy finish, nicer than the mirror-bright lacquer they put on commercial hunting rifles.

Ordered some non-corrosive 8mm FMJ as well as a matching Yugo bayonet (goodbye, Christmas bonus!). I probably need to scrub the bore some more, it looked a little crudded out still, hopefully not too much corrosion. I need a better bore brush rod, the threads on mine are stripped out so I can't run it back and forth, to really scrub at it.

But yes, now I own an example each of what were probably the two greatest bolt-action rifles of the 20th Century...the Mauser, and the Lee-Enfield. Personally I much prefer the bolt on the Enfield, but it may just be familiarity...the "bolt cocking upon opening" thing is a bit strange to get used to. And if you somehow manage to decock the bolt when taking it off, you're in for a fun time, I can tell you. But the Mauser is probably the big one that influenced later designs, moreso...I just like the crude, sloppy simplicity of a good stout Enfield.

And now I'm defying reason by unceremoniously linking two previously written posts...one you have read already regarding my Mauser, from which I will now segue into an older post concerning, well, something that mixes rather poorly with firearms...

I pray your benevolent graces to grant me such indulgence as to expound fatuously upon both the salient and subtle virtues of some of world's most noble spirits.

[takes off the Poncy Hat]

Excuse me. Anyway, we're going to take this opportunity to chew the fat (aka performing lipomastication) on some of the classiest booze around. Sorry, there's got to be middle ground between noble spirits and classy booze. High quality adult beverages, there you go.

Anywhichwaybutanyway, the whole reason I started this post is that I'm in relatively high spirits (ha! ha!) because I have just entered another little seasonal quiz competition with Aberlour, which in the past has yielded not one (no!) but two (yes!) grand prizes. The first was a bottle of their ridiculously good a'bunadh, which is an old-fashioned, unfiltered, cask strength Speyside single malt. It is a bracing 120 proof, but the concentration of flavours is amazing. It leans much more heavily to the warm, inviting "raisin" notes imparted by aging in sherry butts (as opposed to the brisker, more austere notes of the other main Scotch aging method, used bourbon casks). It is a very vinuous whisky that is easily one of my favourites. And the other thing I won from them is a pair of fine Riedel single malt tasting glasses, etched with Aberlour's logo. So, yes, I'm partial to them...their 10 Year Old is probably one of the best single malts around in that age bracket (and especially at the price, a relatively modest $30). Maybe I'll win their 15-year, who knows! I've made the bottle of a'bunadh last what, two years now.

Right now I've also got bottles of Dalmore Cigar Malt and Speyburn 10-year (a very respectable whisky for the low price), as well as a few brandies. My latest interest in brandy has drifted away from the admittedly snobby and overpriced cognacs and armagnacs (yes, they are nice, though) and onto a less well known spirit, that of calvados. Calvados is apple brandy from Normandy...similar in some aspects of production and labelling to the grape brandies of the Cognac and Armagnac regions. Cider is fermented, and then distilled, and the resulting white spirit (raw apple brandy) is aged in white oak barrels for a period of years. The younger Calvados tends to be a paler, brighter spirit with a fresher apple flavour, and a rougher edge. As it ages, the fruity apple notes fade a bit to the background and the spirit becomes smoother, and incorporates more of the traditional old brandy aromas...dark aromas like oak and (I'm not making this up) leather. I've tried an XO calvados, and I don't actually think it is necessarily worth the increased cost...when the aging obscures most of the character of the original apple spirit it kind of defeats the purpose, and one might as well have a grape brandy. And Spanish brandy? That can be rather a treat, it tends (in my experience) to be immensely dark, fruity, and sweet. Much more appealing I'm sure to those new to spirits. In 2004, I bought a small 50ml bottle off an auction website of Hine Triomphe. Hine is probably my favourite cognac distillery, and the Triomphe bottling is a blend of 45-55 year old brandies. Very good stuff, although I'm hardly going to shell out $300 for a 750ml bottle. It was nice to try, definitely.

There are other spirits that interest me at least...high quality American whiskies such as Kentucky bourbon and rye, and Irish whiskey is quite pleasing I think. Rum can be good (and can be very, very bad) but I tend to prefer the older, well-aged sipping rums. I like gin, but certainly not as a sipper, it needs to be well diluted with good quality tonic water. Vodka and tequila....well, life is too short to waste my liver on those. Vodka might as well be Windex...pure ethanol, no taste, and if there IS any flavour it is because you are drinking cheap vodka with lots of nasty impurities. Tequila, well, tends to taste "planty" to me and I've never quite understood the appeal, although an 1800 Anejo Reserve I tried was peppery and interesting.

I'm bored. Time to end the post. Soupy twist!

The coincidence of good music and good lyrics is definately the exception, not the rule.

(Note how I used that smarmy, fatuous blogger technique of taking an idea thought to be exceptionally insightful, and separating it into its own single-sentence paragraph.)

So, in my half-hearted quest to keep one ear open to the endless stream of crap music churned out by the uninspired rock musicians of the day, I listened to an interesting song on the radio..."Starlight" by Muse. I admit the fuzz bass hooked me initially, but the vocals and melody was exceptional for the genre, at least. The guy obviously has a Thom Yorke infatuation, but I'll forgive him that. They are British, and apparently from the same generation (starting in 1994). I've listened to the rest of the album (2006's Black Holes and Revelations), and most of it is hit and miss. Sometimes the music reminds me of stuff my old band did, when I was into what we pompously called "progressive alternative" (could a music style possibly sound any more "San Francisco" than that?). All around there is some good music in it, but the lyrics...

Perhaps they are simply marketing to the wealthy ignorati of American youth...but the gist of the album seems to be a huge anti-Bush screed. This being a BRITISH band, I remind you (not that that stopped their idols, Radiohead, from releasing the likewise childish "Hail to the Thief"). And its not even a logical anti-Bush screed. It contains the popular paradox of Bush as both a foolish simpleton and an evil genius. The first track, "Take a Bow", accuses Bush (or who/whatever) of "crimes against the Earth", "cast[ing] a spell on the country you run", and bringing corruption, death, and destruction to all that he touches. Then he ventures into an orgiastic fit of Bush-hating schadenfreude about how he will burn in hell for his sins. The final track has a line "how can we win when fools can be kings". I'd love to believe that the lyricist was venturing a bit deeper than just politics. "Take a Bow" would have been much subtler, surprising, and interesting if it was written about...let's see...the use of sodium bicarbonate in toothpaste. Or about Dick Clark. In fact, it would have been great to do it about Dick Clark, casting him humourously as the Dark Lord over the Earth. But no, it is a humourless amalagam of tired, childish cliches, served up to emotionally stunted people that find an irrational hatred of a government official to be a bedrock in their lives, a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Imagine if they wrote this song about the Secretary of State in 1991. Anyone remember who that was, offhand? No?

My point is that they think that politics is this high ideal...that political protest songs are deep and meaningful. If anything, political lyrics only serve to sever any potential depth of a song, rendering them entirely shallow and shrill. If you think that your life is going to radically change depending on which brand of bureaucrats is helming the leviathan of federal government at the moment...then get a grip, and get on with your life. And if you care that much about the government of ANOTHER COUNTRY...then you're even more silly and pathetic! I can understand Radiohead and Muse seeing a market and exploiting it, I suppose. Just like Alan Jackson, Toby Keith, et al writing silly country songs about kicking terrorist keister and rememberin' them thar Twin Towers, this kind of music is just silly, shallow claptrap marketed to people who feel validated when pop stars sing mantras to them that seem to confirm their feeble thinking.

That said, I know that Eustace Lufgren is in the process of writing a song entitled "Hu Jintao", but it is far from a protest song. More a song of love forelorn, of admiration unspoken, and of funkitude inexplicable. "Hu Jintao...don't you know we gonna make it somehow....somehow."

Perhaps this is the biggest reason I gave up trying to be in a creative rock band. On the rare occasion that I've found creative, talented musicians that have the free time to write and play music, often they end up having a dream to be singer-songwriters as well and have ABSOLUTELY NO TALENT FOR THAT. Honestly, if you can't write good lyrics, shroud them in obscurity. These people would write gut-wrenchingly bad quasi-emo lyrics about the pain (the PAIN!) of whatever-despair-they-are-currently-subjecting-their-emotions-to. Hup-BLAAAAGGGGHH. But the crappiness of emo lyrics is a matter for another day. And...if you are reading this wondering if this rat bastard was talking about you in this paragraph, never fear. The people I'm referring to probably don't even remember me or know my last name, much less know of this blog. I've worked with a lot of great musicians actually, none of us (myself included) seem to have any free time anymore.

Oh, it's beginning to look a lot like Christmas. (shoot me! shoot me now!) OK, sorry, I won't continue speaking Christmas lyrics. But I'm looking forward to it. Not least for the two days off that I have. Speaking of shooting...I got a Dremel polishing/cleaning kit at Walmart. Yet another tool in my slowly expanding gunsmithing kit. Did some light polishing on the feedramp of my Bersa...hopefully it will work nicely with the Magtech FMJ I still need to buy for the next range trip. Oh, and our Christmas tree may be a rather spindly and cheap Douglas Fir, but its real, at least! I'm not sure about alive, but at least it WAS alive. Although given that petroleum was developed from the organic material of prehistoric plant life, and plastic developed as a petroleum product, you could say the fake-o trees were alive, once, as well.

Allow me (won't you?) to jabber nonsensically on about POVERTY.

Let me first say the obvious. I'm rich. I'm typing to you on a fairly high-tech computer (yes, its a Celeron, but its a computer, dangit!). And, as you are reading this on a warmly glowing CRT or LCD screen yourself, you're rich too! How fantastic, isn't it?

First off, the term "rich" is an annoyingly relative word as I have probably just demonstrated...I imagine most readers reading that would recoil and say, "I'm not RICH, I'm middle class" or "I'm just a student, I eat ramen noodles for Pete's sake". But my point is, everyone tends to think that THEY are not rich, but that people who make more than them are. The man who makes $100,000 a year will consider himself middle class while a millionaire to him is rich. The man who makes $30,000 a year will think of himself as far from rich, but to him the $100K earner is a rich man. And the man in rural Africa that lives on subsistence farming will certainly think a man who makes 30,000 US dollars in a single year is rich indeed.

America is a rich nation. Look at our nation's poor. They tend to have television sets. Many have automobiles. Starvation in America is more linked to the disease of anorexia than famine...how strange that would seem to the people of five centuries ago! Overeating and its ensuing obesity is more of a health risk to America's poor than malnutrition and starvation.

People in America, regardless of income level, can general achieve a relatively (compared to most other nations and civilisations past) high standard of living. How do you think that was accomplished? To me it is the triumph of free enterprise and capitalism. What has communism done for its poor? Where would our poor be today if we had adopted communism? Better off? I doubt it. But I'm eluding the point I wanted to make...

Basically, in the centuries past when the poor could barely survive, I could sympathize with the proponents of communism. I still feel that communism actually made people worse off (as proved by early colonial experiments) but the intent was noble. But now, socialism and communism as applied in this country can not claim such a noble goal. The concept of equality is the only thing left. "He has it, I want it, its not fair". And make no mistake, from screwed up tax structures (an inevitable result of politicians consistently hiking taxes on the "rich" and lowering taxes on the "poor"...always popular with the ignorant masses) to every form of entitlement that goes beyond simple provision of food to the poor, it is a sort of modular, piece by piece communism. I can at least respect the goals of helping the poor survive, but now that that is hardly a concern, the nobility is lost, and communism/socialism/leftism are completely bankrupt...bereft of good intentions, without historical success, and devoid of sound logic. Obviously nobody calls it communism anymore, but the entitlement/equality side of liberalism continues to thrive on two things...the guilt of the wealthy and the envy of the unwealthy. But it ultimately helps neither.

It seems like it may be about time to brew again...winter is an excellent time for that. The tapwater for immersion chilling is ice cold, the house temps are great for ale fermentation, and with the chilly weather its much more pleasant huddling over a boiling, steaming kettle for an hour or two.

"Hold the newsreader's nose squarely, waiter, or friendly milk will countermand my trousers."

Sagacious words of advice there from Stephen Fry, with which I have chosen to initiate yet another pointless conglomeration of unrelated and entirely irrelevant drivel. Bear in mind I don't offer that caveat merely out of my habitual admission of the utter crapitude that decks the hallowed halls of this blog, but this is one of those posts that I start without even having an inkling of an idea on what I should write. And so, the post lacks any sense of cohesion or relevance. But does that stop me? You should know by now, of course not!

I shot somewhere on the order of 250 rounds of pistol ammunition over the last weekend, which isn't that much really, but my hand is feeling the pain. Could barely grip anything. Found out that my Bersa does NOT like Winchester FMJ. Shoots nicely though when it feeds properly. I've had no problem with Remington Golden Saber, which is what I've got in it right now. Feeds nicely, and its a good round. I'd consider carrying Cor-Bon DPX instead (I plan to load my Kel-Tec 9mm with this) but I doubt there is that much of a difference and the Rem GS round is quite a bit cheaper than Cor-Bon.

That's it, no more, I'm done. Duty/work calls.

Happy Pseudo-Friday everyone. Whoever invented the "let's celebrate it always on Thursday so we get Friday off too" thing deserves a bloody medal.

We've got a fun weekend ahead full of...you guessed it...lots of shooting with my beloved lead dispensers. The Bersa, which heretofore has only had a brief testing period with some Sellier and Bellot FMJ (only 25 rounds), is going to get a fierce testing with the 250 rounds I've purchased since. I'm breaking it in! I've also got some hollowpoint .223 to test in my PLR-16. I think I've mentioned all this before...oh well. Some low recoil .38Spl Hydrashok to test out, too.

Let's babble about shotguns, shall we? I've heard it said that had it not been "grandfathered in" as a traditional hunting implement the shotgun would be outlawed as a destructive device. As a home defence weapon it is second to none, it seems. Look at a single shell of 3" 00 Buck. In each shell there are 15 copper-coated lead balls, each of .33 caliber...just minutely smaller than a 9mm round. It propels them at a muzzle velocity of around 1200 fps, faster than most 9mm loads. So, essentially, with each shell fired, it is essentially equivalent to emptying an entire high-capacity magazine from a 9mm pistol (such as a Beretta 92 or Glock 19). That is enormously powerful. If you assume a 9mm Luger shell has a bullet diameter of .354" and each Buck pellet has a diameter of .33"...each 9mm bullet makes a hole of 0.0984 square inches, and each pellet 0.0855 square inches...times 15...1.2825 square inches, which is about 13 times as much.

That said, a shotgun is not a precision implement. Not the sort of thing with which to defuse an in-home hostage situation (an area where a tactical carbine like the compact AR-15s would excel). But the sound of racking a shell into the chamber is universally known and feared, and hopefully would have an intruder retracing his steps and looking for an exit strategy, so as to keep his vital organs non-perforated and functioning properly.

Yes, it has been some time since I've gone shooting and I'm all geared up for it as you can tell.

Happy Thanksgiving all. Eat lots of cranberries, they are healthy and patriotic.

Duh...duhduhduhhh...duhduhduhhhh.....
Duhhh..duhduhh, duhh, duhhhhhhh...

As no doubt you've already guessed, I'm humming the signature tune of 24 (also known by its more cumbersome German name, "Vierundzwanzig"). We just started netflixing the third season, and we've gotten through about 1/3 of it. Much fun as usual! Jack always sporting his signature Sig-Sauer and lots of humorously unrealistic action scenes. Great stuff!

I have to pause and give some credit to a very nice local restaurant. We went to "Thai Place" in Westport this weekend, luckily going early enough to miss some (but alas not all) of the crazies that flock down there on weekend evenings. Really, really good food. I'm going to have a hard time going back to the usual Chinese-American food (sorry, that should probably be "Sino-American"). Their Tiger Cry Beef was probably the best thing we tried...basically some really, really tasty marinated and grilled beef, that would have been top-notch on its own, but with a "Tiger Cry" sauce that was flaming, smoking hot, I mean numb-half-your-face-like-Novacaine hot. You can spoon the sauce on to taste, which was good as Debra is a little less heat-obsessed than me. But the entrees were excellent as well...my wife ordered the Ginger Fried Rice with beef, which was very tasty, with long shoots of caramelised fresh ginger. She ordered it to a mild heat level but it was still very flavourful. I ordered mine, Phad Kee Mow with pork, to a medium-hot heat level, and it was also quite viciously hot. But good! The place is a little pricey (actually quite pricey, being definitely in the upper echelon of restaurants we go to), but quite worth it. You could easily share an entree...they give you a lot of food. And this may just be because they are in Westport, but I was stunned by their on-tap beer selection. They even had New Belgium's 1554 on tap! How is that for obscure, especially for a Thai restaurant! I didn't try anything as the only thing I really enjoy with such spicy food is either a good cider (preferably my own) or a really, really hoppy American IPA or DIPA. I mean, scrape the hop resin off your tongue hoppy...anything less would just get lost in a glorious tidal wave of capsaicin.

Capsaicin and lupulin, two of my favourite chemicals. I know I sound like a meth junkie or something, but for a future "St. Crispin's Dinner" I should do something like this...extremely bittered ales paired with flaming hot food, possibly Asian. Heh...people might never come back, though...we'll see.

And for your viewing pleasure, here's what I may seek to make my new home defence shotgun...the Saiga 12, converted by Tromix Lead Delivery Systems. Basically all the goodies added, semi-auto gas operated magazine-fed 12-gauge with a folding stock, updated sights, and a door-breacher on the muzzle. OK, a bit TOO tactical, I confess, but still, looks like a fun gun to shoot.

Just ordered a few boxes of Remington jacketed hollowpoint in .223 Rem. They're for my Kel-Tec PLR-16, previously featured on the blog...basically my Imperial-Stormtrooper-style AR pistol. I've been shooting it only with FMJ rounds...the round is said to have excellent performance in terminal ballistics even with FMJ spitzer ammo, due to yaw, tumbling, and fragmentation. However, with the PLR only having a 9" barrel, I am concerned that the muzzle velocity will be too insufficient to produce any of that in an FMJ round, therefore basically giving equivalent performance to the diminutive .22 rimfire rounds (LR and Mag). So I decided to get several boxes of JHP in .223, and perhaps I can do some expansion testing. I imagine with the velocities still imparted by the 9" barrel expansion should be fairly assured. It'd be an excellent small game/varmint hunting round. Coyotes, jackalopes, little green alien guys... Not that I know, really, but a guy I know who is into reloading and coyote hunting expressed interest in the PLR for that sort of thing.

Blast it, I've been writing tech support emails all day and the pads of my fingers are very sore. No matter, sounds like a good spot to end this blog entry.

I am no theologian. I am not even what one could call a "student" of religion. With that said, thanks to Wikipedia, I learned about Quakerism (if that is a term) or the Religious Society of Friends. You can read about it too:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_Society_of_Friends

It focuses on non-denominationalism (which is kind of ironic in that it is essentially a denomination) and an absence of creed. It talks of an "inner light" guiding the individual, and there are a lot of parallels I seem to see with the Emerg[ent/ing] church movement. It is a strange and unexpected comparison for me, but perhaps a fair one. But the line that stuck out to me in the article was one that said the Quakers "thought of themselves as part of the restoration of the true Christian church after centuries of apostasy". From what I have read, nothing so succinctly seems to describe the Emergies as that. At least the Quakers had the humility to assert they were only "part" of the restoration!

All this isn't to pick on my Quaker homies or you extra-cool Emergie types. It is just to call attention to the words of Solomon...nothing new under the sun.

And in deference to the pacifism of the Quaker faith, I'll avoid telling y'all (yes, I appear to have gone Southern) about my new nifty magazine loader gadget that will make loading pistol mags a breeze, at least in this thread. Cheers all! Get down with your funky Quakin' selves!

I can't help but post these...just a few verses from Fry's song "You, You, You". What sort of madness must take hold to inspire the shaming of frozen veins?

You, you, you, you
The you who do what none can do
The you that haunts my ears
On the shortlist of wasted rains
The avenue of chandeliers
That shames my frozen veins,
That shames my frozen veins.

You, yes, you, you, you
You who knows what once I knew
The you that spits my blood
And stares at both my clouds
You wear a sleeve of mud
Your cuffs become my shrouds,
Your cuffs become my shrouds.

You, yes, you, you, you
You the which why how and who
You crumple the skirts of need
In the belly of desire
Where my freshly planted seed
Can spin its tangled wire,
Can spin its tangled wire.

In other news, I am surrounded by my company's gooseneck cameras, all coiled in various positions, giving me a vague sensation of being surrounded by black metal snakes. The "other news" category is really being stretched today as you can see. Anybody else like their Mac mini? I do...have the little $599 wonderbox on my desk right now, tiny little thing. Of course, I don't like actually USING it so much as admiring its smallness. If you like Macs its a great little bargain, but I'm a Microsoft man. If you know how to handle Windows, its a powerful, stable, and safe operating system. Mac OS is more limited (to me), but has an out-of-the-box safety factor that makes it good for more casual computer users. That said, I'm not going to be touching Windows Vista for a long, long time. A totally unjustified upgrade. I can get a lot more mileage out of XP.

I've come this close to doing another paragraph on several entirely irrelevant and unimportant topics, but it isn't in me, I'm afraid. Thus endeth the worst blog entry ever!

Just....the parcel...of my dreams.

I was doing a little metacognition (there's another fun word) and I came to the slightly pretentious realization on how I develop thoughts and ideas...I prototype. The last post and subsequent comment thread is a good example. Prototyping is a very common method of development (if not exactly the best one) used in software design, for example. What I tend to do is start with broadly, weakly supported assertions that may or may not be quite correct and sort of hone them in subsequent passes. Instead of trying to do it in a modular sense (honing each piece into completion and then synthesizing all items together as a full and complete package) I start with a rough exposition of my thoughts, warts and all, and work from there. And yes...this is all just a long-winded way of excusing any intellectual inaccuracies or fallacies contained in my last post and subsequent comments.

So who's up for a jumbled collection of thoughts on pacifism? You are? I thought as much! And a few caveats...for those of other faiths or of agnostic/atheistic persuasions, bear in mind that these arguments are not intended to be relevant to you necessarily, but they are concerned primarily with Christianity and pacifism.

St. Peter's Sword
Jesus's rebuke to Peter in John 18:11 is often used as an argument for pacifism. Bearing in mind the context, what is more likely Christ's motivation in this rebuke? That Peter was to meter out violence in defence of others, or that Peter was trying to intervene in the fate that God had chosen for His Son? Examine the two things he said. He asks Peter if he should refuse the cup the Father chose for him; he knew that resisting was futile and counterproductive. He instructs Peter, "put up thy sword into the sheath". He never tells him to cast it aside. He tells him to return it to its proper place: in its sheath, hanging at his side, ready to be used if truly needed. In Matthew 26:52 Jesus says "put up again thy sword into his place", which indicates that it was properly carried at his side, and the sword belonged on Peter's belt. Peter was a civilian, not a soldier or centurion. It is notable that Jesus had walked with Peter for three years, and had never admonished him to cast aside his weapon.

Swords as a Defensive Weapon?
There is often the implication that swords differ from handguns in that they can be "defensive" where handguns are purely "offensive". This is perpetuated by the concept of parrying and blocking which is possible with swords and similar weapons. However, it is fundamentally flawed. Handguns are defensive in that they can deter hostile action, or force it to cease when it occurs. Additionally, swords are naturally offensive...they would not require edges or points if they were purely designed for parrying the blows of an opponent.

The Sword as Symbolism
Throughout the Bible the sword is used in symbolism, typically to refer to the Word of God. If warfare and violence, for which the sword was designed, is inherently and consummately evil, then why would God choose a tool of evil to represent something so holy? Why would the sword be holy in a symbolic or spiritual sense, but be evil in its physical manifestation? This is a similar argument to those who see wine as inherently evil; God doesn't choose things he hates to symbolize things of purity and holiness. The sword was chosen because during that age it was the predominant sidearm. If Christ had come and the Bible had been written in modern times, would God have symbolized His Word with a Smith and Wesson revolver? I know it is abjectly unpoetic and distasteful to think about, but at the time swords were the cutting edge (seriously, no pun intended, believe me!) of weapons technology. Would Christ have told Peter to "put up again your Springfield 1911 into its holster"?

Weapons of Our Warfare - II Corinthians 10:3
As Paul states, the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but spiritual. This is to say, that we as Christians do not win the war of the kingdom with Crusades, jihad, forced conversions, or genocide, but through spiritual warfare: through prayer and ministry of the Word. But to say that this makes the presence of "carnal weapons" wrong lacks something...just as Jesus and Paul spoke of spiritual bread, meat, wine, and milk, we still require physical food. The physical food we eat is a part of our simple daily life, and has no real importance to our eternal souls, but it is not sinful. Our use of physical food keeps our bodies (for which we are stewards) alive, just as the carrying of physical weapons likewise is intended to keep our bodies (and those of others) alive. Do we win souls and advance the Kingdom with them, or tear down strongholds of the Enemy with them? No...and Paul's point here is very important, because there was a lot of misunderstanding about this in the Middle Ages, in particular, by people who thought they were doing God's work by waging war with the Mohammedans in Palestine. Islam continues with this concept (embodied in "jihad") to this day.

Sell Your Shirt and Buy a Sword!
In a passage (Luke 22:36-38) that I've often read over without a second thought, Jesus speaks to his disciples before his crucifixion, and admonishes those who do not have swords to do what they need to do (including selling the shirt off their back!) to buy a sword. The Greek word used here for sword (maxairan) references a contemporary Jewish short sword or dagger used for defence against robbers and wild animals. Because this passage surprised me so much when I read it, I went to a number of commentaries to see what people had said of it in the past. To my surprise, the few that did not skip conveniently over this text all seemed to dismiss it as symbolic and non-literal, without giving any clear reason why or what he actually did mean, seemingly because the commentators could not believe or accept what Jesus said at face value. It reminds me of the classic Monty Python line about the misheard "blessed are the cheesemakers" at the Sermon on the Mount: "obviously it isn't meant to be taken literally, it refers to any manufacturer of dairy products." A plain reading of the text, on the other hand, shows Jesus clearly telling his disciples to arm themselves. If Jesus did not want his disciples to do so, why would he have used such confusing and apparently literal language?

Spiritual Warfare
All will readily agree that God engages in spiritual warfare; he is not a "pacifist" in the spiritual realm. In that the physical reality is a reflection of the spiritual reality, would God see engaging in battle as inherently sinful in this world but inherently righteous in the spiritual realm? It is worth bearing in mind that the spiritual realm is not, as we sometimes imagine it, "less real" and more symbolic, as if the term spiritual warfare was just a conceptual model for the struggle between God and Satan; the spiritual realm is eternal, and thus "more real" than the temporal physical realm.

Faith and Pacifism
A frequent argument for pacifism is that arming oneself for protection is to be lacking in faith in God's protection. We are to have faith for much more than just protection from evil men; "our daily bread" is just one other example. How many of us have refrigerators and pantries full of food, instead of waiting every day for God to mystically provide for us and making no provision for our nourishment? Is this a lack of faith? Most of us apply for jobs to earn money to take care of ourselves, and we plan for the future, setting money aside for our children's education, and other types of preparation. Would the God who gave the Book of Proverbs to Solomon find this planning wise or foolish? Is faith wise or foolish? God grants us stewardship of our lives, our bodies, the things we possess, and he trusts us to do his will with what he has given us. A sidearm is simply a tool used to preserve our bodies, just as physical food is, and we realize that we require no less faith for our protection when we go armed than when we are unarmed, because either way, our lives are still in his hands. An excellent article on this subject is posted on the Ethics/Religion section of http://www.corneredcat.com .

The Centurion
Jesus, upon meeting the Centurion in Matthew 8, never exhorted him to lay aside his weapons, but rather praised his faith. The man's very identity was embodied in his skill to do violence and lead his men in war; if such things were inherently sinful, would Jesus not have addressed it? Similarly this brings up the very practical and contemporary issue of police officers. Does a man who straps a Glock 22 every morning, trained and ready to use it to defend his life and the lives of others, violate God's law? Can a Christian be a policeman in good conscience? Or are these people "necessary evils" that we honor greatly because they do a work of evil that keeps us safe so we don't have to? If we stop and examine it, instead of conveniently ignoring it, is the work of a policeman, who is trained and willing to use lethal force if need be, sinful? Most would say no...and the delineation between policemen and civilians becomes markedly blurred when we think of off-duty cops, retired cops, ex-volunteer cops, EMTs and other first responders, and highly trained and certified civilians. Where do we draw the line? Is the use of lethal force sinful across the board, or in some contexts, or does it depend on who executes it? This all becomes very arbitrary and pointless to debate, but it illustrates that it is unfortunately not quite as simple as "Christians should never kill anyone".

David and Goliath
A very interesting case, in that it is used frequently as a testament of David's great faith in God, that God fought for him. But David did not take the pacifist role of inaction, waiting for God to smite Goliath before his eyes without lifting a finger. God had sent the bears and lions to him with his flock probably in order that God could teach his "hands to war" and "fingers to fight". Thus when David picked up his sling and carefully selected 5 stones (which could be considered equivalent to picking up a S&W J-frame and 5 rounds of carefully selected JHP), it was a tremendously deadly weapon due to his God-given skill in wielding it.

Martyrs
Many pacifists will point to non-violent martyrs as examples of the righteousness of pacifism, and it is certainly a good point. You could take as an example Jim Elliott and his party that were martyred by Aucas. But the problem is that you can't take the moral decision from that instance and apply it as easily to another situation. If a hostage rescue sniper is sitting on a rooftop with the reticle of his scope trained on a hostage taker's cranio-ocular cavity, he may be forced into a decision; if the hostage taker, who for the sake of an example is holding a revolver up against the head of a pregnant woman, pulls the hammer back on his revolver to shoot, the marksman is faced with a choice. He has sufficient training and experience to take out the criminal and save the woman's life. If he fails to do so, he will watch an innocent expectant mother be brutally murdered for no reason. What is the Christian decision here? This is a genuine question, and I can't claim to know the answer. In Ecclesiastes 3:3, the Preacher says there is "a time to kill". It seems that pacifism says, "no there jolly well isn't!".

Selflessness and Selfishness
There is a distinct difference one can note between selfish violence and selfless violence. The men who comprised the front rank of a Greek phalanx (a square formation of spearmen) knew they had almost no chance of survival going into battle, even if their side won decisively. A policeman walking into a "shots fired" situation or a SWAT team member taking point on entry into a hostage rescue assault are not acting in their personal interests, but they are exhibiting a good degree of selflessness. Selfishness and selflessness can be defined pretty broadly, so this is not a moral rule of any sort, but it is important not to conglomerate all acts of violence, both the selfish and evil, and the selfless and noble, as the same thing.

Paternal Instinct
A father's instinctive reaction to physical harm threatened against his young son or daughter, that is either sin nature or God's nature. The Bible speaks repeatedly of God's dedication to destroying those that harm his children, which leads me to believe the latter. A protective instinct is natural, but are all natural natures sinful? There is a natural nature of selfishness and greed which is sinful, but just as love for children is both present in physical nature and in God's nature, the protective instinct can be present in both natures as well.

Assorted References
Psalms 144:1 "Blessed be the LORD my strength which teacheth my hands to war, and my fingers to fight:"

Judges 3:16 "But Ehud made him a dagger which had two edges, of a cubit length; and he did gird it under his raiment upon his right thigh."

Luke 11:21 "When a strong man armed keepeth his palace, his goods are in peace:"

Song of Solomon 3:7-8 "Behold, it is Solomon's carriage! Sixty mighty men are around it, of the mighty men of Israel. They all handle the sword, and are expert in war. Every man has his sword on his thigh, because of fear in the night."

Genesis 3:24 (First Mention) "So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life."

Cheers, Mr. Scott, for the most propitious lending of Chesterton's "Orthodoxy". I'm into the Maniac chapter, the second, I believe, and it is quite interesting (specifically Chesterton's asserted causes of insanity). I have a nagging suspicion that to some degree his logic may take a somewhat oversimplistic view of insanity, in that his version of insanity may in actuality only represent one particular type of mental illness, among the many diverse forms known to the medical community now (but that were all lumped in together in his day). Not so much a criticism, but a defensive anticipation of external criticism. Debra had the probably-quite-boring task of achieving a Psychology degree, so I might have her read the chapter and see what she thinks from that perspective. I forgot what little I learned in my Psych 101 class. That said...I think Chesterton's argument works (in spite of any potential incompatibilities with the whole mental health issue) because he is not making a point about insanity at all. He is making a point about reason and creativity.

I don't want to wage a holy war on the emerg[ent/ing] church movement on here, at all, but I find Chesterton and Lewis, in particular, quite refreshing when considering these movements. While I've just started it, Chesterton's "Orthodoxy" seems to be a comedy of irony, or "farce" as he puts it, that shows Mr. Chesterton coming full circle as a logical, free thinker that finds the answers in the place he leasts expect...traditions, the established church. And Chesterton was (egads!) a Roman Catholic (hisssssss). And Lewis...well, he was a member of the Church of England...not exactly that great of a church, but he accepted its faults and didn't call for a "revolution" against the established church. Nor was he a conformist or a traditionalist. In The Screwtape Letters he talks about how churchgoers can be tempted to turn their focus to the frailties of the church body itself, by looking at their neighbors and dismissing the church because it is composed of imperfection. The thinly veiled contempt of the Emergies (great new word!) for "conventional church" reminds me so much of that. The thing I like about both of these authors is that they didn't dismiss 2000 years of church history because, surprise surprise, there was sin and apathy in the churches. But anyway, don't want to open a can of worms here. If I go into a real critique of "la revolucion" I would go on for a long time and probably run the risk of being firebombed by some revolutionaries. Debra and I discuss this stuff a lot, we are analytical types. No matter, though. Movements falter and disappear, denominations come and go, revolutions and rebellions fade to footnotes of history before being squeezed out of even such insignificant notoriety by the march of time...God remains.

On that note...I hate to say this, because other than being a hippie (and Cartman haaates hippies! "hippies everywhere! they wanna save the earth but all the do is smoke pot and smell bad!"), I've got nothing against him, but I've amused myself quite a bit coming up with parody ideas for Rob Bell videos. I mean, the guy is interesting and all, but his videos are just ripe for parody...I can't help it. I'm not sharing the ideas on here though, so at least I've got *some* self control.

I think "Emergies" is a great new term. What about you? It's like the Monkees meet the Goonies meet hippies meet Erwin McManus. See, why can't I have a nice logical discourse on this stuff without inventing a new pejorative term by which I am probably the only one even remotely amused?

By the by, I am now a happy possessor of the complete first and second seasonings of "A Bit of Fry and Laurie (Deceased)". I think with that sketch comedy, my favourite five British comedies have been established, including the following: Monty Python's Flying Circus, Fawlty Towers, Good Neighbors/The Good Life, Yes [Prime] Minister, and A Bit of Fry and Laurie. Honourable mention to Jeeves and Wooster, though its more of a series than a sitcom. Kind of literary sitcom, in a sense.