Author: Gordon

Patriotism

Orson Scott Card, a card-carrying Democrat, weighs in on the current American political climate.

Just one of his several salient points: to elect one of the current crop of raving looney moonbats (my words, not his) in the Democratic Party next year would be to ensure that the sacrifices of the US servicepeople in the past couple of years were all for nothing.

(Hat tip: Stephen Green)

See no Evil…

Heh. I stole these pictures from Zayed‘s site. There has still been no reportage of the massive anti-terrorism protests in Iraq last week.



Update: The Weekly Standard has published an excerpt from Zayed’s blog.

Quote Apropos

There’s a thread right now on rasfw about appropriate SF quotes for recent world events. Someone quoted the following, which sent shivers down my back…

Ignosi bound the diadem upon his brows, and then advancing placed his foot upon the broad chest of his headless foe and broke out into a chant, or rather a paean of victory, so beautiful, and yet so utterly savage, that I despair of being able to give an adequate idea of it. I once heard a scholar with a fine voice read aloud from the Greek poet Homer, and I remember that the sound of the rolling lines seemed to make my blood stand still. Ignosi’s chant, uttered as it was in a language as beautiful and sonorous as the old Greek, produced exactly the same effect on me, although I was exhausted with toil and many emotions.

“Now,” he began, “now is our rebellion swallowed up in victory, and our evil-doing justified by strength.

“In the morning the oppressors rose up and shook themselves; they bound on their plumes and made them ready for war.

“They rose up and grasped their spears; the soldiers called to the captains, ‘Come, lead us and the captains cried to the king, ‘Direct thou the battle.’

“They rose up in their pride, twenty thousand men, and yet a twenty thousand.

“Their plumes covered the earth as the plumes of a bird cover her nest; they shook their spears and shouted, yea, they hurled their spears into the sunlight; they lusted for the battle and were glad.

“They came up against me; their strong ones came running swiftly to crush me; they cried, ‘Ha! ha! he is as one already dead.’

“Then breathed I on them, and my breath was as the breath of a storm, and lo! they were not.

“My lightnings pierced them; I licked up their strength with the lightning of my spears; I shook them to the earth with the thunder of my shouting.

“They broke — they scattered — they were gone as the mists of the morning.

“They are food for the crows and the foxes, and the place of battle is fat with their blood.

“Where are the mighty ones who rose up in the morning?

“Where are the proud ones who tossed their plumes and cried, ‘He is as one already dead’?

“They bow their heads, but not in sleep; they are stretched out, but not in sleep.

“They are forgotten; they have gone into the blackness, and shall not return; yea, others shall lead away their wives, and their children shall remember them no more.

“And I — I! the king — like an eagle have I found my eyrie.

“Behold! far have I wandered in the night-time, yet have I returned to my little ones at the daybreak.

“Creep ye under the shadow of my wings, O people, and I will comfort ye, and ye shall not be dismayed.

“Now is the good time, the time of spoil.

“Mine are the cattle in the valleys, the virgins in the kraals are mine also.

“The winter is overpast, the summer is at hand.

“Now shall Evil cover up her face, and prosperity shall bloom in the land like a lily.

“Rejoice, rejoice, my people! let all the land rejoice in that the tyranny is trodden down, in that I am the king.”

He paused, and out of the gathering gloom there came back the deep deeply:

“Thou art the king.”

Thus it was that my prophecy to the herald came true, and within the forty-eight hours Twala’s headless corpse was stiffening at Twala’s gate.

– Rider Haggard, King Solomon’s Mines