Having popped out a couple of twins, Israeli bloggess Gloria Salt is back. Via the comments on her most recent post, I stumbled upon the output of “nationally syndicated Libertarian columnist and author” Vin Suprynowicz. Via his commentary on the war in Lebanon…
It’s typical for those who crave peace to try compromise and appeasement. These rarely work, merely emboldening the aggressor. What works are tanks and really big artillery pieces and stubble-faced G.I.s doing the thankless job of winning the war 50 yards at a time.
…
[W]ars usually do resolve these issues — if one side is allowed to fight to a decisive victory. It’s just that the pink petticoat gang shriek hysterically and threaten to faint dead away when confronted with the reality of how real wars really end.Someone raises a white flag, and promises to fight no more if only you’ll give the survivors some food and water and stop burning them out of their holes. Many of the conquered women marry the conqueror’s soldiers and move home with them, giving up their native dress and learning to drive Buicks.
…I clicked through to read that Vin has written a book called The Black Arrow:
The portals are everywhere, now. Scanning for weapons, for drugs…No getting out of line.
The people had forgotten how to fight back. There was no one to show them how. Or was there?
When she first saw him he was silhouetted against the moon, a black stallion rearing up to claim all he surveyed.
Her heart slowed in her chest, then. There was a strange keening in her ears that she knew was not of this time or place, but of the other world. It was a vision she was having, a waking dream that would haunt her, drive her in ways unexplained.
In the dark o fthe city’s night, whenever the weak or oppressed cry out in pain or fear, a quiet footfall can be heard on the roof, he owlshadow passeth before the moon. The twang of the bow, the quiet gasp of feathered death … The Black Arrow lives.
The Black Arrow is a tale of sex and violence; freedom and fertility; rebellion and revenge. With lots of rock ‘n roll.
Vin looks like this:
So that’s how Vin Suprynowicz looks. And?
His fiction writing is clearly rubbish — harmless, hilarious rubbish.
His article from which you quoite, in the Review-Journal, contains some interesting points. (At least one of them — that the Palestinians’ state is Jordan — is an old chestnut no longer worth mentioning; he’s behind the curve on that one. No one in their right mind today claims that the Palestinians shouldn’t have their own state in the West Bank, rather than a Hashemite-ruled one in trans-Jordan, provided they pull themselves together and start behaving with serious national ambition rather than limiting their programme to lashing out childishly at Israel.) His claim that compromise rarely resolves the issues of conflict, whereas war does, is at least worth thinking about. It may or may not be true as a rule, but it is not so obviously absurd as to be rejected out of hand.
But what is the point you are trying to make about how he looks?
And all the funnier for our knowing what he looks like.
Much as I disagree with it, it does, but I wasn’t criticising his article.
As often here, it’s a cheap gag with a trivial point. If you’re going to fetishize sexual and military conquest in public, it helps if you have the sense to acknowledge the obvious gap between your fantasies and reality—or you at least try to look the part. Arnold Schwarzenegger is a real Right-wing politician with (some) real power and is a real alpha male, but even he is shrewd enough not to take himself too seriously.
While I’m on the subject, there’s a marvellous bit in this interview where Mr Suprynowicz rants about other less professional writers who can’t spell and can’t be bothered to do rewrites and don’t even get proper covers done for their books like he got Scott Bieser to do for his. Here is Scott Bieser’s cover for The Black Arrow.
It’s all a bit like that prize jessie Toni Blair sending our men off to die in search of eye-catching initiatives with which he can be personally associated. That’s the Toni who avoided the cadets at school.
If I were you, dearie, I’d start drafting a paper to lay formal academic claim to that “eye-catching initiative” theory of “Blair’s wars” as soon as possible. Yours is clearly the kind of insightful synthesis that will shape the thinking of a generation of future historians.
Incidentally, much to my mother’s disappointment, I was too chicken at school even to join the Cub Scouts.
Okay Pooter, let’s talk about stuff that matters. Here’s a question: do you (as founding Eustonite, etc.) think Israel should have gone to war against Hizbollah, or not? I’m not saying you said anything either way in this post, I’m just asking. Consider it a question without context if you will. But I’m curious.
I (as a person who can read the news, etc) think it’s obvious that Hizb-Allah went to war against Israel.
I liked this bit:
“he owlshadow passeth before the moon.”
I’ll try to drop that into conversation.
I think he actually only looked like that in the seventies – as, indeed, so many did, including me. I suspect that nowadays he looks like this.
Who would imagine that within that rumpled middle-aged exterior beats the heart of a ruthless warrior libertarian? I’ve had similar thoughts in the evening, brushing my teeth after a few drinks.
My god, I look like a boring middle-aged fart.
Maybe. But little do they know, as I pass amongst them, humble, yet controlled, that they are in the presence of greatness. La lucha continua!
Um, as an American all I can say to this is “huh?”
HEY Brits! Listen to your coz…
I spent many hours learning and sing old music hall songs from my great-grandfather, AKA Darky Harris of Dalston in his music hall wrestling days. The more bawdy the songs the better. And it wasn’t just songs; it was a deep respect for my English heritage.
Growing up remember encountering British sailors at my grandparent’s home. You see whenever a British warship made a port call in Boston my great-grandfather and my grandmother would contact the British consulate in Boston offering their home as a respite. Many a British sailor had a nice home cooked meal in my grandmas’ kitchen. Before I was born my grandparents raised money to help displaced London
Read the rest at my site
http://amassachusettsrepublican.blogspot.com/
“I (as a person who can read the news, etc) think it’s obvious that Hizb-Allah went to war against Israel.”
Yes, that is indeed blindingly obvious, and that wasn’t my question. My question was whether you thought Israel was right to go to war against Hizbollah. But I think I have the answer: you do think (as I do) that Israel was right. Correct me if I’m wrong.
I’d always wondered where Dick Dastardly had got to. “The Black Arrow” doesn’t have a canine sidekick by any chance, does he?
“Muttley, do something!”
Mr Geek, if he looked like you, he would not need to write about manly men who stun half-dressed women with their manliness, drag them home to their caves, and ravish them manfully (and give them driving lessons?). He would be doing it in real life, which I assume is what you do when not blogging.
Holy moly. Are you sure you’ve got the right blog? This is the one with the author who can’t get a date (to turn up), cries at films, and is afraid of ants. Though I do not flinch from crushing the largest of bathroom spiders with my manly fingertips. (You’re welcome to imagine me getting up to whatever you like however.)