If allowed by the culture, women will happily share an alpha male with other females rather than have a monogamous relationship with a beta male, all in the rational, evolutionary proven belief that an alpha male father gives her children the best chance for survival. Alpha males led the hunter gatherer families and led the cultural reorganization into clans and tribes. Alpha male explorers, rulers and entrepreneurs built the nation states and the global companies that created the scientific and technological civilization that permits such as feminists, who never built a thing, the luxury of holding alpha males in contempt. The rise of feminism in the West in general and the United States in particular, has produced a society in which the alpha male is condemned as an aggressive monster deserving of cultural destruction. Feminists would rather see the United States descend into fascism and anarchy than elect an alpha male president. Well, despite their best efforts to prevent it, they got one. His name is Donald Trump.

Friedan and Abzug were the names
That quickly come to mind, sir
Two uglier and horrid dames
You could not easy find, sir
Not every feminist was gay
But all were hateful shrews, sir
And so we find yet still today
Such women are bad news, sir
They hate real men and claim to love
The males who bow and scrape, sir
Before the charming turtle dove
They wrongly think they ape, sir
So sinister the feminist
Determined to destroy, sir
In secret, though, they will insist
They wish they were a boy, sir

Christmas is a golden glow
Of evergreens and soft white snow
Of presents and a tree-well trimmed
And Christmas morning church well-hymned
Of Christmas dinner after grace
With family seated at its place
A Christmas ham with bread and wine
So crisp you taste the very vine
Yes Christmas is a wondrous day
Of feasts and laughter, fun and play
But few recall and fewer know
A child was born so long ago

Barack Obama issued a threat to Russia and Vladimir Putin on the front pages of the New York Times and Washington Post, crying that he will attack Russia in some unspecified fashion for interfering, as he put it, in the recent American presidential election in order to elect Donald Trump. Without producing a shred of evidence that Russia and Putin did any such thing, the Obama Intelligence Agencies flatly refusing to tell the Congress just what evidence they have, and telling through the Congress the American people, as is their constitutional duty, Obama struts in the newspapers that he has had enough and is willing to start a war with Russia, no doubt out of pique that Donald Trump is about to unravel the unconstitutional actions of his predecessor. It is not the strong we must fear, but the weak, like Obama, who by thumping his chest may get a lot of people killed. Fortunately, Obama has never backed up his threats, and so we are probably safe. But are Obama’s threats to trigger a violent reaction from the Russians due to weakness, incompetence, or malice?

As the Red Queen said to Alice
There is such a thing as malice
That is often seen as stark stupidity
But in truth it may be cunning
Competence not in the running
And it all comes down to rank cupidity
Now to some it may seem funny
To ascribe it all to money
But cupidity can mean a craving for
The respect the weak desires
So he scowls and kicks the tires
And he makes believe he’s totting up the score
Making threats that grace the pages
Of the papers causing rages
To erupt where he believed his act would lead
To the backing down of stronger
Men who will refrain no longer
In allowing little Barack to proceed
In charades of angry power
That grow silly by the hour
As Barack clenches his fist and stamps his feet
While the Red Queen says to Alice
I don’t want to be too callous
But this little man can’t see when he is beat

There is much talk of reducing the Federal government to Constitutional size by returning to the States the duties and obligations ceded to the States by the Constitution and since usurped by the an ever expanding Federal government assumption of powers not specifically accorded the Federal government by the Constitution. This is all very well, but the country the Framers envisaged as a collection of sovereign States, each with its own laws and customs, died on a hot July day in 1863 at a place called Gettysburg. The idea of a singular and sovereign United States did not exist until Pickett’s Virginians failed to cross the gentle slope in front of the stone wall behind which lay veteran Union infantry and artillery. Certainly Vermont is entitled to have its own health care system if it chooses to pay for it, but do we really want people to again feel they are Vermonters or Texans rather than Americans? In my unwritten dystopian novel the United States is Balkanized by the Left, not by the Right. The States have a right to determine a full range of things they are now prevented from determining, like same sex marriage and abortion, but there must be natural limits to their ability to defy the Federal government. A State or City should not have the right to decide to declare itself a sanctuary and defy Federal law. A State should not have the ability to withhold its militia if called upon by the Federal government to produce it. It is all very well to allow the States more freedom than they current possess, but the verdict of history is that the greater the distance from the seat of power the greater the impetus to completely divorce oneself from what will inevitably be considered a foreign and oppressive power. Be moderate in the use and dispersal of power, and be careful what you wish for.

Marse Robert paced the floor all night
At dawn came his decision
Virginia was his holy light
His country and his vision
And so they came, the future dead
The young to die in battle
Who wished for life but got instead
A minie ball’s death rattle
But in the end a nation grew
Leviathan in power
No longer were we gray and blue
But freedom’s holy tower
What once were States were now a State
United and unyielding
Determined to direct its fate
With honorable wielding
Of power for the good of all
Its citizens wherever
Small place that they might choose to call
Their home be it so never
So rude as sod huts on the plain
The wagon borne expansion
No longer men from Georgia, Maine
The country our great mansion

The radical leftist Democrats, led by Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton, George Soros and Black Lives Matter, are determined to rule, and if they cannot rule they will burn the country down by delegitimize the national election, by destroying the Electoral College, and hoping to pin the tag of unelected president on Donald Trump. Today, in fifty State Capitals, 538 electors will cast the final ballots for president of the United States. It is believed 305 will vote for Donald Trump, 232 for Hillary Clinton, and one faithless Trump elector for John Kasich or Justin Bieber. And so, by end of day, despite the frenetic efforts of the Democrats to prevent the duly elected president of the United States from taking office, Donald Trump will be duly certified as the winner of the election, and will take the oath of office on 20 January 2017. But it will not end there. The left will not give up power easily, and there will be violence and flaming hatred of all things Trump over the next four years. We will survive the violence and the hatred, for we will be happily witnessing the death rattle of the current version of the Democratic  Party.

I had the oddest dream about all of this the other night, a dream in which a whispered voice told of one last throw of the dice, one last chance to keep Donald Trump from moving into the White House. In my dream I saw thousands of armed Democrats surround all fifty State Houses, preventing the electors from voting, and in the fashion of dreams, I knew the armed Democrats were members of government agencies that Obama had weaponized for just such an emergency.

They called themselves the Minute Men, these well-armed bureaucrats
Who sat at desks and made up laws declaring that transfats
Have every right to shower with the little girls at school
And scowl that guns they have and with them you’re wise not to fool
And so at Barack’s call they leaped from desks and then enplaned
And flew to far State Houses where if anyone complained
Arrests were made and entrance doors were blocked by scowling men
Who at the end of day became mere bureaucrats again
But in my dream they did the job Obama set them to
Deny electors entrance all excepting for the few
Obeying under threat of force to vote Obama’s way
And thus denying Putin put America in play
To be a Russian province like Crimea, Greece and France
And in KGB prisons loyal Democrats to dance
To tuneless balalaikas as the hangman drew the noose
And in my dream Barack used fear of Russia his excuse
But Trump lit up his Twitter, raising millions to their feet
And calmly raised his hand and sank the whole darn Russian fleet
I came awake, looked at the clock, a little after two
And shivered in the darkened room, we’d just survived a coup
But dreams are dreams and for the Left real power is not shared
And in State Houses on this day the country will be spared
Progressivism is now dead, the Left has been laid low
I settled back, in dreamless sleep, my breathing shallow, slow

President-elect Trump has nominated Rex Tillerson, President and CEO of the one of the largest companies in the world, to be his Secretary of State, to the expected howls from those who believe that such an exalted post should go to someone who has consistently failed at some other government task and thus is in line for the top cabinet job. We do not yet know if Tillerson will be as brilliant at the job as Henry Kissinger, but we know damn well he won’t be as clueless, incompetent and venal as Hillary Clinton. I believe we can have every confidence that Rex Tillerson will not turn the State Department into a pay for play criminal enterprise. And for those who sneer and claim that naming generals and highly visible and highly competent and successful executives to the cabinet is merely Trump trying to enhance his brand, I say being President of the United States is enhancement enough.

The branding iron for Donald Trump
Is what he says and does
A Tillerson means that the Sec
Of State’s not what it was
With Hillary and pay to play
Where State was bought and sold
And so we need a Tillerson
To break the Clinton mold
We need a tough guy, a T-Rex
Who plays the game to win
And who believes in talking straight
And not the lying spin
Now Mr. Tillerson is charged
With swabbing down the decks
I wonder though if mom and dad
Did really name him Rex

Barack Obama is soon to be an ex-president, spending his days playing golf, just as he did while president. Walking the lush green fairway the other day, a gentle rain brushing my face, I saw, in the distance, a lone figure standing in a bunker, sand wedge in his hands, a small white ball lying quietly at his feet. Approaching the green, I watched him for several minutes, waiting for the swing that would blast the ball out of the sand, to fall gently onto the green and roll sweetly into the cup. Yet he never swung the club, beyond a few indecisive movements of his hands. Wondering who the immobile figure was, I moved closer, and found myself on the lip of the trap, looking down at Barack Obama, a look of puzzlement on his face. I asked him what he was doing in the bunker, and he said he was always there, no matter what he did, a condition he thought was brought about by his being drunk the day his momma got out of jail, and he was being punished for it, likely for all eternity. I comforted him by saying he had a lot more things against him than that. He shook his head and said, “The only thing I did wrong, the only thing I would change, is the appointment of Hillary Clinton as Secretary of State.” He began to cry at that, and dropped the sand wedge and collapsed onto the wet sand. “I will never get out of this sand,” he moaned. “Never.”

The sand, he sobbed, beneath my feet, hides wealth beyond all measure
Great pools of oil are deep and wide, a long time Saudi treasure
And used to fund a princely life, now done in by the frackers
Who do not care for Saudi kings, they being poor white crackers
My plans to bring the region peace, by buying off the mullahs
Would work if Hillary was good as old John Foster Dulles
But she destroyed the work I did, by using her Foundation
To undermine my policy to elevate her station
The world is on the brink of war, and I stand in this bunker
Trapped in the sand beneath my feet, with naught to do but hunker
I saw a figure on the green dressed as a wealthy Arab
Kufiyah, robe, a haughty air, bejeweled with ring and scarab
Obama sniffed and said he’s mad, in tones of great abhorrence
An English chap, Obama sneered, believe his name is Lawrence
He thinks that blowing up some trains and causing inconvenience
Is better than my policy of great and greater lenience
Ah well, he sighed, this too shall end, these unsought tribulations
For fairly soon, as I have planned, we’ll all be Muslim nations

Two Greek architects named Iktinos and Callicrates designed the Parthenon, but by the time of the European Middle Ages there were no architects trained as such and thought of as such. What they had was Master Builders. It was the Master Builder who oversaw the construction of the Gothic cathedrals, the wonder of the world. For some time now we have placed our foreign policy in the hands of foreign policy architects like Henry Kissinger, who have, by and large, done well. The election of 2016 seems now to be a return to the Master Builder. We shall see if President Trump builds cathedrals.

Stone by stone the structures rose
Until they pierced the sky
Sidewalls of colored glass that those
Who saw them wondered why
They did not fall of their own weight
So elegant and pure
Cathedrals built to educate
The princes and the poor
As so cathedrals of the mind
Can rise to bidden heights
So too a Master Builder find
The place to set his sights
The Master Builder sets his gaze
Upon the tested land
And stone by stone over the days
It’s there he makes his stand

The past has shown that emails are not secure, no matter how secure the experts try to make them. The government is very good at keeping secrets from us, but very poor in keeping secrets from our enemies. Many years ago the great Fats Waller wrote a song that went, I’m Gonna Sit Right Down And Write Myself A Letter. That’s where we are. Were I elected president of the United States I would immediately issue an executive order that no one in the Executive branch was to use email, that all communication was to be by hand delivered letter where possible, and the US Mail for out of DC. I would strongly urge Congress to pass legislation binding all Congressional employees to comply with these regulations. I would also have all elections by paper ballot. Any Federal employee violating these common sense orders would be doing hard labor throwing voting machines into the nearest river.

I’m gonna sit right down and write myself a letter
And put it in my desk and lock the drawer
And make those Russkie hackers go one better
And show Assange and Wikileaks the door
Before the war, the big one, the Pacific
We had a Sec of State who used to rail
At Intel guys, and just to be specific
He screamed no gentleman reads others’ mail
That’s where we are now that the lids have blown off
And nothing in the ether is secure
From prying eyes and shortly will be shown off
And do we really want to go to war
Because Gmail and Yahoo, even Outlook
Can’t keep a secret and don’t even try
In fact they do not care and I much doubt took
The simplest measure to deter a spy
But they are not to blame for Clinton’s treason
In putting our top secrets up for grabs
For money, and for her no other reason
Let’s see she ends with prison weight hijabs

I first posted this on 7 December 2010, and have re-posted it every December 7^th since then. I was in 7^th grade, and remember lying on the floor the Monday morning, reading the paper, looking at the photographs of the burning and sunken ships. I still see the basket masts of West Virginia, Wee Vee to her crew, still see the crew of a ship’s boat approaching a burning ship, still see the smoke and desolation of ships torn apart, burnt and capsized. Those pictures are seared in my memory.

BATTLESHIP ROW

Guts and valor are words not usually associated with inanimate objects, but ships are not inanimate objects. Ships are live, living things. Ships, as well as men, can be tough and resilient. Such were the ships of Battleship Row.

0755 SUNDAY, 7 DECEMBER 1941

A quiet, peacetime Sunday morning. Seven battleships swung gently at their moorings; Maryland, Oklahoma, Tennessee, West Virginia, Arizona, Nevada and California. Pacific Fleet flagship Pennsylvania was in drydock. When the attack came, half their crews were ashore, and most of the officers. None had steam up, for it was Sunday, and all was at peace. Except Nevada. Nevada had steam. Nevada could move. At the height of the attack, with burning and exploding ships all around her, already severely hurt by a torpedo to her port side, Nevada, under Lt. Commander Francis J. Thomas, senior officer aboard, broke out her big battle ensign and stood down the channel, heading for the open sea. Sailors on the burning ships cheered and threw their caps in the air, but Nevada’s gallant sortie was short lived. Five Japanese dive bombers laid her low, beaching her.

The battleships were ultimately raised and rebuilt, those that were salvageable. They rejoined the fleet, but the war had passed them by. It was a carrier war now, and the World War 1 era battleships were too slow, could not keep up with the fast carriers. They were relegated to fire support, and accompanied the Marines in their march across the Pacific, bombarding the beaches, their 14 and 16 inch guns trained on palm trees instead of dreadnoughts, declared unfit to do the job for which they were built. Until Surigao.

SURIGAO STRAIT, 0351 TO 0409 HOURS, 25 OCTOBER 1944

Vice Admiral Nishimura, with a force of battleships, cruisers and destroyers, was heading for the Leyte beaches and the soft-skinned, vulnerable transports, still loaded with troops. Standing across his path was Admiral Oldendorf, and six old fire support battleships, all but Mississippi on Battleship Row that Sunday morning in December. The other five were California, Tennessee, West Virginia, Maryland and Pennsylvania. Oldendorf put his weary old battleships in line ahead, a Battle Line, as battleships had fought since the 17^th century, and waited for Nishimura. At 0351 the big guns lit the sky. Oldendorf brought his big ships across the Japanese front, crossing the T, the dream of every admiral down the centuries, doing to the Japanese what Togo had done to the Russians at Tsushima nearly forty years earlier. The Japanese fought back, but when Nishimura turned away his battleships were gone, along with most of his heavy cruisers.

Surigao was the last battleship to battleship action of WWII, and very likely the last big gun surface action battleship fight the world is likely to see, and it was fought by ships that had been sunk at Pearl Harbor and returned to life. Ships, like men, can be judged by their deeds, and some, like the ships of Battleship Row, by their sheer stubbornness, their refusal easily to die. Ships, like men, are alive, and though it took the ships of Battleship Row almost three years, they gained their revenge in the only way they knew how. With their guns.

Torn by bombs, wracked by fire
They settled slowly to the harbor floor
Breathing their last, or so some thought
But not they
Rising, they joined their kind
Who scorned them now
As the young scorn the old
The slow
They did their job
Plodding the vastness of the central sea
Island to island
A supporting cast
Gaining no praise
No, that was for the young
The swift
The carriers
Until
Until
That blessed night
When called upon to be themselves
They were
Themselves and more