The morons at PicApp didn’t have a picture of Fess Parker, so I had to settle for this. My Davy Crockett cap was way better than this one.



This is a big one in my odd little universe. I achieved sentience just about the time the Davy Crockett craze hit America, and (although it’s embarrassing for a Christian to admit), ol’ Davy (as portrayed by Fess Parker, who died today at 85) loomed about as large as Jesus there, for a while.

And in my obsessive way, I’ve remained not entirely unfaithful to the Crockett cult. I’ve read a couple books on his life, and checked out the web sites. I once visited a house “Colonel” Crockett built and lived in, near Rutherford, Tennessee. I met a guy who’d played tennis with Fess Parker once, and he could have borrowed money from me if he’d wanted to.

It always irked me that I didn’t have an ancestor at the Alamo. That was actually one of the things that bonded me with Erling Skjalgsson, hero of my novels. I hope it’s not too much of a spoiler (anybody who’s read Heimskringla knows about it) to say that Erling died a death not dissimilar to Davy’s. Because generations of my ancestors lived in Erling’s neighborhood, it’s a statistical impossibility that I didn’t have an ancestor or two who fell with Erling (I might even be a descendant of Erling himself).

So without Davy Crockett, I might have never written the books I’ve written. (“And what a loss that would have been to the world,” he whispered to himself, very quietly.)

In any case, rest in peace, Fess Parker.

A study by the Witherspoon Institute gives us the terrible social cost of porn.

From their website, they give this answer to the question of free speech and the first amendment:

In a series of cases decided since the middle of the twentieth century, the Supreme Court has narrowed the definition of what counts as obscene, and society has simultaneously grown more permissive regarding explicit portrayals of nudity and sex in magazines, in film and on television. Nevertheless, material that meets the Court’s definition of obscenity – that appeals to the prurient interest, that is patently offensive, and that lacks serious artistic, social, or scientific value – can be suppressed, while material deemed indecent though not obscene can be regulated as to the time, place, and manner of its availability. There is little question that hard-core pornography does not receive constitutional protection, even though many jurisdictions now permit its dissemination.

In their report, they give evidence for the rise in crime, trafficking, and family disruption due to our casual acceptance of pornography.

Lawrence Meyers is writing about what’s wrong in Hollywood this week and next.

Here’s the diagnosis regarding Hollywood’s present malady:

1) Movies operate in a statistical environment of extreme uncertainty


2) Uncertainty creates fear


3) Fear creates a desire to control


4) Desire to control has resulted in a multi-layered, needlessly expensive studio bureaucracy, resulting in sub optimal risk management.


5) The goal of each individual level of the bureaucracy is to insulate itself from criticism from the layer above it.


6) This results in the hiring of the most expensive, but not necessarily most talented or suitable, creative team
to manufacture product that audiences are losing interest in and are not designed to achieve maximum ROI.

Writing and performing believable characters. D.G. Myers writes, “At all events, critics say this kind of thing all the time (‘the character comes to life,’ ‘the character just never seems real’), but only now do I realize that I have no idea what they mean.”

DreamWorks has acquired the rights to produce Katheryn Stockett’s debut novel, The Help, is a good read in Southern literature. They hope to begin filming this summer in Mississippi. The book is good, and the author has consulted the script, so the movie may be passable.

This controversy over the health care bill must be galvanizing the American people, because it roused The Most Sedentary, Antisocial Man in America (your humble servant) to join a rally at the Minnesota state capitol in St. Paul on Saturday. Although it was unseasonably warm for mid-March, we had overcast skies and a nasty cold wind, and I wished I’d worn a nondescript watch cap, rather than my stylish fedora.

I persuaded a friend to come with me. We heard, among others, Captain Ed Morrisey of Hot Air blog, and Rep. Michelle Bachmann (I was able to tell my friend that I’d shaken her hand once, which filled him with satisfying awe).

Very stirring. On the evening news, our local CBS affiliate seemed conflicted in their reporting of the attendance. At one point they called it a huge rally. A minute later they described the crowd as “hundreds.”

My own guess (and I’m not very good at this) was about 2,000 people. That jibes pretty well with the estimates of the capitol police, as reported here at Power Line.

Don’t look for me in the photos. I was pretty far back. And I’m not very tall.

“Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?”

“To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time.”

“The dog did nothing in the night-time.”

“That was the curious incident,” remarked Sherlock Holmes.

(“Silver Blaze,” by Arthur Conan Doyle)

I always think of Silver Blaze when I recall one of the few actual murder mysteries I’ve ever gotten close to. I wasn’t actually all that close, but it presented one or two points of interest, as S. Holmes might have said.

Years ago, I was pretty well acquainted with a particular couple, who lived in a suburban community. They socialized quite a lot with their neighbors, most of whom they enjoyed knowing.

There was one exception.

I met the man once, I think, when I was visiting this particular couple. He wandered in through the back door, uninvited, somewhat drunk, and proceeded to monopolize the conversation for an hour or so. I remember that he made fun of the shirt I was wearing. My friends told me they put up with him for his wife’s sake. He was a self-appointed sergeant-major, the kind of man who always had to be in charge of everything, and always knew what to do better than everyone else. His wife smiled tensely, and endured.

The neighbors suspected he hit her from time to time.

And one night, he was murdered. Continue reading The dogs in the night-time →

As you will learn in the article below, a genuine holmgang did not look like this. Photo credit: Emily Chesley.

We have discussed the importance of the judicial duel in Viking society as a method of limiting violence in a community with no police protection. And we have looked at the preparations, including the laying out of a limited fighting space marked by a barrier, outside of which the participants might not step, and into which the onlookers dared not trespass.

If one participant failed to show up for the duel, he naturally lost his honor. This meant more than a loss of reputation. A man without honor — a niðing — lost important legal rights.

Before the fight started, it was the obligation of the challenger to recite the rules of the duel. Although there were generalized rules for a holmgang, the duelists might make special rules for this particular engagement, if both agreed. The summary that follows comes from the best information we have concerning the customary procedures. Continue reading The holmgang duel, part 3 →