There wasn’t much on TV last night so I headed over to the History Channel and ran across a documentary about a World War I British Officer named Wilfred Owen. At the start of this war, the English saw going off to battle as a fine thing to do and embraced the ancient Latin poet Horace’s dictum, “Dulce et decorum est, pro patria mori”. That translates to “It is sweet and fitting to die for one’s country.” However, WWI was a God-awful war. Soldiers were in trenches filled with mud, rats and carnage. Mustard gas was heavily used by the enemy and if you didn’t die of it there, you hacked your life away for years. Wilfred Owen narrowly escaped death several times and received commendations for “Heroism in action”. He composed a number of poems, some while in hospitals recovering from battlefield injuries. One of them was his answer to Horace. It was titled, “Dulce Et Decorum Est”. and closes with these lines:
My friend you would not tell with such high zest
To Children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old lie:
Dulce et decorum est Pro patria mori. (Which means, “How sweet and fitting it is to die for one’s country.”
Wilfred was killed on Armistice Day when he was only 25. He was not anti-war, he just wanted people to realize what it really entailed, without a glorified account of it.
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Well, the fix is in. Hunter was finally indicted, just in time to keep him from having to answer questions before a Congressional committee. The indictment mostly shields President Biden. All the charges are tax violations, not FARA which would rope in Uncle Joe. Bet one of two things happen, depending on whether Joe remains in office. If he loses, Hunter has a pardon on the way out the door. If the President wins, the trial drags out until the end of his term and the pardon comes then. Just business as usual in our nation’s capitol; the corrupt federal political system where politicians are policed by the same agencies they control. Morality from anyone there is just wishful thinking. I wonder what our Founding Fathers would think of all this? Would they have changed some of our governmental structure?
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Time to call a halt to this rackety rambling. Blessings on you Old Buddy.
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'Til Next Week:
J.M.W
