This guy is my hero

Win.

Adversity doesn't build character, it reveals it

Mr. Anthony Ortolani of Westminster, CO found himself facing adversity.  An avid mountain climber, he was scaling Mount Bierstadt with his German Shepherd, Missy.  Weather rolled in, and they began to descend.

Then Missy hurt her paw, badly enough that she couldn't walk.

We all hope that we will never be tested with a life or death choice, that the cup will pass from each of us.  We hope this particularly when we face the choice because of our own recklessness, and our loved ones are facing the outcome.  Anthony Ortolani had to decide what to do.

He left Missy in the snowstorm on the mountaintop and made his way to safety.  With this decision, he revealed all that we need to know about his character.

If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous he will not bite you. This is the principal difference between a dog and man.

- Mark Twain

So much for Mr. Ortolani.  But have no fear, gentle reader, other climbers heard about the situation and revealed their character, too:

Monday morning, eight days after Missy was left, Washburn led a new search team of eight climbers. Chase Lindell and Alex Gelb volunteered to help.

“The thought of a dog slowly dying on the top of the mountain is tough to stomach,” Gelb wrote about his reasoning for joining the search.

The group powered through a snow squall near the summit of Mt. Bierstadt and found the dog right where Washburn had last seen it, on the treacherous sawtooth. They named the dog “Lucky” and took turns carrying the dog down the mountainside in a backpack.

Astonishingly, Mr. Ortolani wants Missy back.  The rescuers are suing to keep the dog that they saved.  Ortolani has been charged with animal cruelty, but is certain to escape the just sentence that would have been his in a younger and less degenerate age of the Republic - namely, being tarred and feathered.

Worst of all, Missy probably misses her master desperately.  Her pack is broken, even though she has had a significant upgrade in human companionship.  What captures our hearts about our canine friends is that they see us as we would be seen, not as we are.  Alas, this applies even to one such as Mr. Ortolani.

But while Missy will always see him as protector, the rest of us see him as he is: juvenile, reckless, and cowardly when the chips are down.  Missy may remain true to her breed and look at him with the eyes of loyalty, as she should.  I will look at him with the eyes of contempt, as I should.

No man likes to live under the eye of perpetual disapprobation.

- Dr. Sam Johnston

Mr. Ortolani is well advised to get used to it.

The Cold Civil War, put to music

A Cold Civil War it is.  The artists of our time will record the passions of they day for future generations, just like artists in the past recorded theirs.  For us.  The resistance has, I think, shifted from mocking to angry.  Those who think that their vision is a one way ratchet should think on what happens when a bolt is over tightened, or a pressure vessel sealed with no pressure escape.  Those, too, are one-way ratchets.

For a while.

Up until now, I've kept some psychological distance.  Humor has helped here, as has the old standby that we're all Americans at the end of the day.  Far be it for me to question someone's patriotism - after all, we all have that same common heritage.

But I'm not so sure now.  What an ugly realization.

Some of these people are bound and determined to turn this Republic into something I won't recognize, and don't agree with.  Some of them tell me that if I argue with them I'm a hater, a racist, a fascist.

Screw that noise.  I remember the saying back in the early part of the last decade about the anti-war protesters: they're not anti-war, they're just on the other side.  That may have been a slander, but I wonder where they are today with the continuing (and vastly accelerated) war by drone, the continuation of Guantanamo, the expansion of same to include American citizens arrested on American soil.

I suspect that I know: they're on the other side.  They don't care about any of this, they care about their side in this Cold Civil War.  They care about ultimate victory for their philosophy.  They care about remaking this Republic into something I won't recognize.

OK, then.  The lines are drawn.  The game, afoot.  If that's how it will be - with a political class (all three branches of Government) in disrepute, with the People believing that the Ruling Class lacks the consent of the governed, then so be it.

The Cold Civil War is arrived.  If it is time to line up on one side or the other - to choose the ever tightening ratchet or to choose the sudden break of that philosophy - then that's worth knowing.  For me, and for my house, this decision is easy.

Personally, I'd like this day to be one where we celebrate our common heritage.  But we seem to disagree on fundamental principles of what that means.  Sadly, I do question their patriotism, because if they win this Cold Civil War, I will question my own patriotism to their stunted vision of the Republic.  I wish it were not so, but a man must recognize reality.  If that's how it must be, then OK.  So be it.  I choose.

Bid us and our posterity bow the knee, supplicate the friendship and plough, and sow, and reap, to glut the avarice of the men who have let loose on us the dogs of war to riot in our blood and hunt us from the face of the earth? If ye love wealth better than liberty, the tranquility of servitude than the animated contest of freedom, go from us in peace. We ask not your counsels or arms. Crouch down and lick the hands which feed you. May your chains sit lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen!

- Samuel Adams

Me and my House, we will serve the Republic.

Courage

Sometimes even to live is an act of courage.

- Seneca

Six offers up a post filled with sadness, describing a family tragedy.  His honesty is an act of courage that I don't think I could match.

Rest in Peace, Ma'am.

It's not good to get caught in a gunfight

Thoughts on training for the unexpected by a Police Officer who found himself - with his family - in one.  Food for thought.

You need to read this

I don't know how to say anything more compelling than that.

Just go read it.