Normally, when Bill Whittle posts a new essay, I hear about it relatively quickly; the blogs that I read on a regular basis tend to mention his posts within a day or so of their posting, but he’s had a couple since mid-June that I hadn’t heard anything about (which may be more a result of my not reading than them not writing about him, honestly). My favorite bit, from his CHAPTER ONE: THE WEB OF TRUST (the introduction to this new set of essays, RAFTS, can be found here, was this:

We can go on and on and on – all through 3,461 current Medal of Honor recipients. Not one of them could be named by any schoolkid in a hundred. Add all the other awards for gallantry and you have a small army of heroes, all unremembered by the huge majority of the population. And ask any combat vet, and he’ll tell you that only a sliver of the daily acts of sacrifice and heroism go reported, let alone recognized. For every selfless Medal of Honor recipient there are tens, perhaps hundreds, who have shown the same courage unsung. These people gave their lives for us…for this country and this Civilization. They gave their lives so we could live in the freedom, security and prosperity that alone allows us to be so callow, so cynical, and so relentlessly ungrateful to those who have sacrificed on our behalf.

We don’t see these things because we choose not to see them. But we not only have movie awards, we have movie awards season. Oscars, Golden Globes, SAG awards, People’s Choice…it goes on and on and on. A civilization that is this debased when it comes to who and what they glorify is in some trouble.

I’ve never followed the Oscars or any of those other award ceremonies, but I do know the names of most of those people who win (or simply nominated), and I have to say that Bill’s got me feeling pretty guilty about that. Anyway, as always, go read the whole thing.

I went out shopping for DVDs earlier, and I was utterly incapable of finding one I wanted. In the end, I picked up Serenity*, which may not sound particularly bad to you until you realize that I already own it (though, granted, it’s temporarily missing).

How much money does Hollywood spend each year? Why can’t they come up with at least a couple of movies I’d like to own?

* You remember Serenity, right? It’s the movie that finishes up the story of Firefly, a television show that, in the words of its creator, Joss Whedon, “was immediately hailed by critics as the most cancelled show of the year.” Firefly and Serenity were much better than their commercial success might seem to indicate, and if you’ve not seen them, you should do so. Now.

One of my friends has a habit of telling me that all of the problems in the Middle East stem from our support of a state that was created as a direct result of terrorism. While there was, undeniably, a rash of Jewish terrorism during (and immediately following(?)) World War II, mostly as a way of fighting back against the way Jewish refugees were treated, I’m not quite certain that the creation of the Israeli state is directly attributable to Jewish terrorist activities.

Even assuming that the sole (or, at least, primary) motivating factor for the United Nations to create a state for Jews in Palestine was the terrorism of Jewish extremists, does that change the right of Israel to exist today? At most, a tiny percentage of Israel’s Jewish citizens in 1950 had anything to do with that terrorism. The percentage of Israel’s Jewish citizens today who were involved in that terrorism is much, much smaller, I’d think. Do the sins of a handful of Jewish extremists, inexcusable (but not incomprehensible) as they were, negate the right of the state of Israel to exist today?

I say no*, and because of that, I tend to think that at least some knowledge of the acts of Jewish extremists more than half a century ago are interesting historically and vitally important in understanding some of the reasons that the Middle East is in the situation it’s in, but they really play very little role in striving for peace in the region today.

I’m not going to get into the current situation with Israel and Hezbollah right now, but Jay Tea covers it pretty well (and again, even assuming that we accept my friend’s claim that Israel’s origins are the direct result of terrorist activities of their own, all of Jay’s other points provide a pretty solid set of evidence as to which of these two groups we should be supporting).

* Even if one believes that, yes, Jewish terrorists of the mid-20th Century somehow undermine the right of the state of Israel to exist, then I’m forced to wonder what action that belief would dictate. If the state of Israel were to be dissolved, who would be given control of that territory? If Jewish terrorism from a half century ago undermines the right of the Jewish people to control a state in the Middle East, surely modern terrorist activities would do the same for the Palistinian Arabs (and since we’re painting the entire Jewish people with the same brush to say they’ve no right to Israel because of terrorist activity, maybe we should extend that to say all Arabs, just for true reciprocity), wouldn’t it?