Bryan Strawser – Page 48

Sanctuary

by Bryan Strawser · May 19, 2005

After about six months of thought, this morning Bill Whittle posts the latest of his monster philosophy essays: Sanctuary

What’s worse than crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage?

NOT crawling under your beloved house and seeing the foundations rotten with decades of termite damage.

I’ve been away for a while, doing a little thinking. Usually, my thoughts for these past few years have started at home and then taken me to Iraq, and the war. Lately, though, I have been thinking about Iraq, and my thoughts turn more and more to home.

I started thinking along these lines six months ago, after a young Marine shot and killed a wounded Iraqi in a mosque in Fallujah

The ideas behind this little adventure we are about to embark upon have changed enormously since then. I have, quite frankly, been at a loss to know how to put so many wide-ranging snapshots together into this montage, this image, this idea of Sanctuary that I think holds the key to many of the problems we face today.

Stay with me — our fist stop is not our destination, but it is a necessary one. So let me first take you on that original journey, and show you how events in Iraq can show us how to fight and win a much wider and deeper conflict, right here at home.

I’ve not read it yet – and don’t have time this morning. But based on Bill’s past track record, I’ll be glued to the screen tonight devouring his latest.

Asinus asinum fricat

by Bryan Strawser · May 14, 2005

You know who you are.

Now I know who you are.

The spear in the Other’s heart is the spear in your Own.

You are He.

Last year, when I was in DC, I missed the opening of the World War II Memorial by only a few weeks. I had planned on this trip – if I had any free time at all – to see the new memorial in spite of everything else that DC has to offer. Fortunately, our meetings on Thursday ended early, and we were able to skip down to the National Mall to spend some time at this long overdue memorial to the men and women that served to liberate Europe and the Pacific:

My home state was well represented:

At the center of the memorial, with the Lincoln Monument in the background and facing the Capitol is a field of gold stars on a wall with the inscription “Here we mark the price of freedom”. Each store represents one thousand deaths. There are four thousand of them.