Pilgrims

As Americans reach for the stuffing and turkey basters, it is well to reflect on the meaning and origins of the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday.

William Bradford, in his classic Of Plymouth Plantation, records that in 1621:

They began now to gather in the small harvest they had, and to fit up their houses and dwellings against winter, being all well recovered in health and strenth and had all things in good plenty. For as some were thus employed in affairs abroad, others were exercised in fishing, about cod and bass and other fish, of which they took good store, of which every family had their portion. All the summer there was no want; and now began to come in store of fowl, as winter approached, of which this place did abound when they came firest (but afterward decreased by degrees). And besides waterfowl there was great store of wild turkeys, of which they took many, besides venison, etc. Besides they had about a peck a meal a week to a person, or now since harvest, Indian corn to that proportion. Which made many afterwards write so largely of their plenty here to their friends in England, which were not feigned but true reports.

A letter by Edward Winslow, dated December 11, 1621, relates:

Our harvest being gotten in, our governor sent four men on fowling, so we might after a more special manner rejoice together, after we had gathered the fruit of our labours. They four in one day killed as much fowl as, with a little help beside, served the Company almost a week. At which time, amongst other recreations, we exercised our arms, many of the Indians coming amongst us, and amongst the rest their greatest king, Massasoit with some 90 men, whom for three days we entertained and feasted.

And so the Pilgrims embarked on their task of founding a new nation, a new culture, a new world. Sustained by their courage and their faith in Providence, they persevered through good times and bad.

But all was not perfect among these early pioneers. For all their virtues and their ideals, they, too, had human failings. Life in the settlements was harsh, and sometimes, despite the Pilgrims' heroic efforts towards virtue, the more unpleasant aspects of human nature emerged. And so we read, in chapter 32 of Bradford, the unfortunate case of a young man who was brought to trial for unnatural acts involving

a mare, a cow, two goats, five sheep, two calves, and a turkey.

Happy Thanksgiving.

Morning Report: November 23, 2004

Yankunovich declared winner in disputed Ukraine election. The Russian-leaning incumbent, Ukrainian Prime Minister Viktor Yanukovych, was declared the winner in the recent election, defeating the pro-Western challenger Viktor Yushchenko. Recent news reports indicate massive protests by Yushchenko's supporters. Dreams Into Lightning will be following this situation as it develops.

Second "Islamic Scholars" leader assassinated in two days. Another high-ranking member of Iraq's Islamic Scholars Association was murdered Monday. "Sheikh al-Zuheir killed by gunmen in Miqdadiya near Baqouba day after assassination by drive-by shooter of Sheikh al-Feydhi in Mosul", according to the latest Debka bulletin. The anti-Western Islamic Scholars Association had threatened to boycott the upcoming Iraqi elections.

Iran Regime Arrests Feminist Bloggers

Ampersand at Alas, a Blog reports that more than 25 internet activists for women's rights and human rights have been summarily arrested in Iran. Two Iranian women leaders, Fereshteh Ghazi and Mahoubeh Abbasgholizadeh, are among those arrested by the regime. Please go read the post, which contains e-mail links to Iranian and international officials. These folks need to hear from you.

This letter from the International Women's Media Foundation might give you some ideas.

Also, please support Iranian freedom organizations like these:

Free Iran

SOS Iran: Iran of Tomorrow Movement

NCRI: Iran-e-Azad

Marze Por Gohar: Iranians for a Secular Republic

Thanks!

Join the Spirit Of America Blogger Challenge

If you keep a blog, be sure to read up on the Spirit Of America Challenge and invite your readers to participate!

Dreams Into Lightning readers, if you should be moved to acknowledge this blog in your donation (thank you!), here's the information you'll need.

Dreams Into Lightning Joins Spirit Of America Donor Challenge

You - yes, YOU! - can help American troops build a better future for Iraqis. Spirit of America is a humanitarian relief organization operated by American service members overseas. Keep watching this space to find out how you can help Dreams Into Lightning make a difference.

News Roundup: Japan, China, Iran

Japan's more assertive stance was apparent at the recently concluded APEC summit, with Koizumi showing little interest in mollifying either China or Russia in territorial disputes stemming from East China Sea gas fields and the Kuril Islands respectively. The increasingly confident - and pro-US - Japan is seen as a potential ally against possible threats from China and North Korea. More information is available from Stratfor.

China, eager to fuel its faltering economic engine, has recently been courting the IRI regime in Iran. Meanwhile, the Iranian regime is working to produce a nuclear missile, with over 350 sites involved, according to this Debka report:

... a “walk-in” source approached US intelligence earlier this month with more than 1,000 pages purported to be Iranian drawings and technical documents, including a nuclear warhead design and modifications to enable Iranian ballistic missiles to delivery an atomic strike. The warhead design is based on implosion and adjustments aimed at fitting the warhead on existing Iranian missiles. DEBKAfile’s military experts believe the data referred to the Shehab-3 and its improved version, the Shehab-4. The US official said he would not have revealed this much had not Powell alluded to the intelligence publicly. If the information is confirmed, it would mean the Islamic republic is further along than previously known in developing a nuclear weapon and the means to deliver it.

MEMRI reports that Omar Hadid, one of Saddam's private guards prior to the liberation of Iraq, was also a key aide to Zarqawi and went to Afghanistan for training with al-Qaeda. Omar's brother, Hamid Hadid, was the bureau chief of al-Jazeera in Iraq, before al-Jazeera was closed by the Iraqi government for inciting violence. (This would fall under the category of "Saddam-Zarqawi-al-Qaeda-al-Jazeera links".) This November 19 item at the MEMRI News Ticker is attributed to al-Sharq al-Awsat, London, November 19.

War Crimes

'In Fallujah, where U.S. Marines and soldiers are still battling pockets of resistance, insurgents waved a white flag of surrender before opening fire on U.S. troops and causing casualties, Marine spokesman 1st Lt. Lyle Gilbert said Saturday without elaborating.

U.S. troops in the northern city of Mosul found the bodies of nine Iraqi soldiers Saturday, all shot in the back of the head. The military first reported that seven of the victims were beheaded, but a second statement issued later Saturday said those reports were false.

Four decapitated bodies found earlier in the week in Mosul have not been identified, the military said Saturday. American and Iraqi forces detained 30 suspected guerrillas overnight in Mosul, the U.S. military said.' - AP article (Hat tip: Big Pharaoh.)

Chamber of Horrors

'Three empty bottles of whiskey were dropped beside the front walk, and a pair of the type of black gym shoes worn by many insurgents was in the doorway beside a black ski mask. Inside, a black banner bearing Arabic writing was taken off a wall in an empty room. Translated, it read "There is no God but God" and "The Organization of Tawhid and Jihad."' This news story describes the discovery of some of the torture/execution chambers used by Zarqawi's network, Al-Qaeda In Iraq, formerly known as Tawhid And Jihad. The site "is one of more than 20 found in Fallujah", according to the article. (Hat tip: Little Green Footballs.)

Morning Report: November 22, 2004

President Bush: hands-on manager. President Bush personally intervened in a dispute among security agents, pulling his lead Secret Service agent away from Chilean guards after the Chileans tried to prevent the Secret Service from accompanying the President to a state dinner. (CNN)

Iraqi government stands by January 30 election date. The date for Iraqi general elections has been set for January 30, al-Sabah reports:

The UN  High Commission on the Elections has announced that the elections will be held in 30th January . That announcement forms a reply on the rumors circulated two days ago. Which referred to the possibility of postponing the elections under pressure and demand of some regional and  local political forces.Dr. Fareed Riyaal the spokesman of the commission said that the specified date will include the elections of the national association and elections of the national assembly in Kurdistan region in addition to the elections of councils in 18 Iraqi provinces.He denied the rumors on the contacts made by Lakhdar al- Ibrahimi the UN special envoy with the Iraqi parties to postpone the elections , saying that is groundless and it is just predictions because the commission is the only concerned side in adopting the decisions concerning all elections in Iraq.  

Debka: 350 nuclear sites in Iran. "What installations?" an IRI official asked innocently, when international nuclear inspectors requested, last May, to revisit installations they had seen earlier in the year. According to this Debka report, US intelligence estimates that as many as 350 sites may have to be hit in order to destroy the regime's nuclear weapons program. Additionally, Pentagon planners are convinced that such an operation must also accomplish regime change:

The first stage would be a bombing mission against the regime’s primary prop, the Revolutionary Guards. The second stage would be the destruction of known and probable nuclear sites – a much harder mission given the hundreds of sites known and unknown number and carefully camouflaged underground behind cunning window-dressing. US intelligence estimates as many as 350 sites. It does not have precise knowledge of which are the most important or even which are active. Regime change in stage three would entail ground action.

Dreams Into Lightning encourages readers to voice support for regime change in Iran by signing the Iran Regime Change Petition, which is endorsed by the activist forum Free Iran.

Let's blogroll!

Some people think of terrorism as a "nuisance" comparable to organized crime. Kat at The Middle Ground puts the same analogy in a more useful context: like the generations-long battle with the Mafia, it will be a slow and difficult, but ultimately winnable, war. Winnable, that is, if we remain committed to shrewd and relentless prosecution of the battle. BTW, I've added a long-overdue sidebar link to TMG as well.

Zeyad at Healing Iraq has gotten a much-too-close-for-comfort view of the fighting. I don't know how he manages to stay sane enough to blog ... he must have a pair of those brass cojones.

Jane at Armies of Liberation is more than a little bit miffed about journalistic double standards, and she's not mincing words in her latest article published in the Arab News. She also picks up where a previous Dreams Into Lightning post left off, with a comprehensive listing of progressive Arab, Muslim, and Middle Eastern organizations.

As you've probably figured out by now, your host doesn't get out that often, and rarely manages to leave downtown Portland. Michael J. Totten doesn't have that problem. Follow this post to his article on his recent trip to Tunis. Also read MJT's recent posts for his thoughts on Zeyad's predicament, and a guest post by Jeremy Brown on Fascists, Nazis, and assorted other totalitarians.

A plague of locusts is the subject of recent posts by Allison Kaplan Sommer and Imshin. Let's hope this turns out not to be a major problem in Israel.

Drawing the line. Ampersand of Alas, a Blog offers some thoughtful critiques of the controversy surrounding various cartoon or caricature portrayals of our next Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice. Amp isn't impressed by the International Women's Forum's accusations of "racist" political cartoons, but is nevertheless troubled by the racial overtones of Danziger's and Oliphant's cartoons.

Dumb and dumber? You were probably worried that the Washington Post was too high-brow for most readers. You weren't? Well, fret not, because they're lowering the reading level even further to try to stop the paper's circulation hemorrhage. And, oh yeah, they're doing all kinds of other neat stuff ... LaShawn Barber has the details.

Update

Regular posting will return to Dreams Into Lightning starting tomorrow. I've gotten caught up on American Literature and I've gotten a handle on Simpson's Rule and other approximate integration techniques ... now if I can remember the difference between the Shell Method and the Disk Method, I'll have Solids of Revolution down pat, and I'll be almost done with second-semester Calculus.

Looking forward to Thanksgiving weekend, as The Next Generation is coming up from San Francisco for a visit.

On the home front, I just got a new vacuum cleaner and a new bed - no more sleeping on a futon on the floor! - and the apartment is finally starting to look presentable. And my DVD set of "The L Word" arrived last week, so I've got no shortage of mindless melodrama to keep me entertained during my downtime.

There's a lot I want to write about, particularly around anti-Semitism, authority and responsibility, and the changing landscape of American culture and politics. Stay tuned.

Hezbollah Drone Update

On November 12, a Hezbollah-operated reconnaissance drone called the Mirsad-1 penetrated Israeli airspace and flew over the northern town of Nahariya for fifteen minutes. The incident raises serious questions about Israel's air security, according to this Debka report. Debka notes that a Patriot air-defense system normally posted in the area was absent on the day of the intrusion, leaving the area guarded only by the less advanced Hawk missiles - which, unlike the Patriots usually on duty, lacked the ability to detect small objects like the drone. Debka points out another curious aspect of the incident: the footage broadcast after the overflight, purportedly shot by the drone, "shows a Patriot battery present". Either these photographs were taken by a previous, undetected mission over Israel, or they were illicitly obtained from another source such as a private satellite company. The report also weighs in on an unidentified submarine spotted of Israel's coast at the time of the incident; read the article at the link for full details.

RELATED:
Morning Report: April 12, 2005 (Hezbollah drone penetrates Israeli airspace.)
Hezbollah Drone Update
Eagle/Heron, and Another UAV