Tony Stafki, The Battle of Lepanto

(In the contemporary painting above: “The Catholic ships form a cross and the Muslim ships form a cresent. – The standard of the Holy Cross which was blessed by Pope Pius V can be seen on Don Juan of Austria’s ship which is leading the charge. – Papal ships (St. Peter’s keys) – The miracle of the wind: just before the armies met the wind completely switched in favor of the Catholic ships. – Devils can be seen amongst the Muslim ships (they were summoned from hell by the Muslim leader). The devils have peacock feathers as swords, a manifestation of their pride. – Our Lady of Victory with a sword in one hand ready to crush the devils and the other hand outstretched to the Muslim souls. – St. Michael leading the Angels – There are small white lights by the oars on the Muslim ships representing the souls of the Catholic prisoners.”)

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October 7, 1571, the fleet of the Holy League, an alliance of the kingdoms of Spain, of Sicily and of Naples, of the Republics of Venice and of Genoa, of the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, of the Duchy of Savoy, of the Papal States, and of the Sovereign and Military Order of St. John, decisively defeated the Ottoman Empire’s main battle fleet in five hours of fighting at Lepanto at the northern edge of the Gulf of Corinth.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, author of Don Quixote, was shot twice in the chest and once in the left arm in the course of the battle.

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Rev. Fr. Luis Coloma, The Story of Don John of Austria, trans. Lady Moreton, (New York: John Lane Company, 1912), pp. 265-271:

The Turkish fleet came on imposing and terrible, all sails set, impelled by a fair wind, and it was only half a mile from the line of galliasses and another mile from the line of the Christian ships.

D. John waited no longer; he humbly crossed himself, and ordered that the cannon of challenge should be fired on the “Real,” and the blue flag of the League should be hoisted at the stern, which unfurled itself like a piece of the sky on which stood out an image of the Crucified. A moment later the galley of Ali replied, accepting the challenge by firing another cannon, and hoisting at the stern the standard of the Prophet, guarded in Mecca, white and of large size, with a wide green “cenefa,” and in the center verses from the Koran embroidered in gold.

At the same moment a strange thing happened, a very simple one at any other time, but for good reason then considered a miracle: the wind fell suddenly to a calm, and then began to blow favorably for the Christians and against the Turks. It seemed as if the Voice had said to the sea, “Be calm,” and to the wind, “Be still.” The silence was profound, and nothing was heard but the waves breaking on the prows of the galleys, and the noise of the chains of the Christian galley slaves as they rowed.

Fr. Miguel Servia blessed from the quarter-deck all those of the fleet, and gave them absolution in the hour of death. It was then a quarter to twelve.

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Lepanto by G.K. Chesterton

Mahound is in his paradise above the evening star,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)
He moves a mighty turban on the timeless houri’s knees,
His turban that is woven of the sunset and the seas.
He shakes the peacock gardens as he rises from his ease,
And he strides among the tree-tops and is taller than the trees,
And his voice through all the garden is a thunder sent to bring
Black Azrael and Ariel and Ammon on the wing.
Giants and the Genii,
Multiplex of wing and eye,
Whose strong obedience broke the sky
When Solomon was king.

They rush in red and purple from the red clouds of the morn,
From temples where the yellow gods shut up their eyes in scorn;
They rise in green robes roaring from the green hells of the sea
Where fallen skies and evil hues and eyeless creatures be;
On them the sea-valves cluster and the grey sea-forests curl,
Splashed with a splendid sickness, the sickness of the pearl;
They swell in sapphire smoke out of the blue cracks of the ground,—
They gather and they wonder and give worship to Mahound.
And he saith, “Break up the mountains where the hermit-folk can hide,
And sift the red and silver sands lest bone of saint abide,
And chase the Giaours flying night and day, not giving rest,
For that which was our trouble comes again out of the west.
We have set the seal of Solomon on all things under sun,
Of knowledge and of sorrow and endurance of things done,
But a noise is in the mountains, in the mountains, and I know
The voice that shook our palaces—four hundred years ago:
It is he that saith not ‘Kismet’; it is he that knows not Fate ;
It is Richard, it is Raymond, it is Godfrey in the gate!
It is he whose loss is laughter when he counts the wager worth,
Put down your feet upon him, that our peace be on the earth.”
For he heard drums groaning and he heard guns jar,
(Don John of Austria is going to the war.)

KAIT:

MANILA, Ark. (KAIT) – When a Mississippi County man awoke to find a burglar in his house, he told him to leave. Then the suspect told him to hand over his gun. Sheriff’s deputies say that’s when the homeowner shot him.

The victim told deputies he awoke around 3 a.m. Tuesday to a loud noise at his house on East 1st Street.

The homeowner grabbed his gun and began searching the home. In the living room, he found a man he did not know.

The victim told the suspected burglar to leave.

But the man ignored him, according to Sheriff Dale Cook, and began fixing himself something to eat and drink.

Once again, the homeowner told the man to leave.

Instead, the suspect began unplugging the television.

When the victim told him to leave again, the suspect reportedly said: “Give me that gun before you hurt yourself, old man.”

The homeowner then fired one shot at the man, striking him in the leg.

When officers arrived, they found 47-year-old Charles Lancaster of Keiser across the street, suffering from a gunshot wound to the leg.

RTWT

Aram Bakshian linked the above news item on Facebook.

I replied:

Many years ago, when I was running a real estate company in Manhattan, there was a rape one night in one of our buildings. I was there that evening, and some tenants phoned me and said a woman was screaming for help. I intervened and made a citizen’s arrest of the rapist. He finally tried to run away, saying: “You ain’t going to shoot me, man. You ain’t going to shoot nobody!” I responded by shooting him in the leg.

Aram Bakshian replied: “I love a story with a happy ending.”

Alexander Belisle, July 4th Parade #2.

Kevin D. Williamson:

The trauma of 9/11, the divisions of the Iraq War, and the fearful disorientation of the financial crisis left Americans agitated and anxious — but not in a way that put them in the mood for another return to normalcy. The pendulum began to swing madly: The trauma of the Bush years begat the Obama presidency; the radicalism of the Obama presidency begat Trump; the radicalism of Trump (which is not, for the most part, a matter of policy) begat . . . much that is undesirable: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, “resistance,” and the mainstreaming of socialism as a basic current of the Democratic party; Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren in a crazypants radicalism arms race over whether we should confiscate the accumulated savings of the affluent at a rate of 2 percent a year or at a rate of 8 percent a year; a turn toward a politics of implacable hatred and demagoguery in both of the major political parties.

It is sobering to realize that there are young Americans serving in Afghanistan today who had not been born on September 11, 2001, who have only known post-9/11 politics and a post-9/11 America, with all the angst and paranoia that goes along with them. This profoundly abnormal period in our history is their normal, the only world they have ever known. For them, there is no return to normalcy and no possibility of it. “The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there.” These young Americans were not around to hear all those fine speeches about how turning away from our national ethos of liberty and citizenship, turning toward fear and hatred and turning against each other, would mean, in the inescapable phrase of the time, that “the terrorists have won.”

RTWT

Wikipedia:

Model A

The Auto & Burglar Gun was manufactured in two variations. Approximately 2,500 of the original variation were manufactured from 1921 to 1925 using Ithaca’s standard 20 gauge Flues model shotgun, and designed to fire 2½” shells. Sometimes referred to as “Model A”, its barrels were about 10″ in length. These guns should only be fired with 2½” shells; firing longer shells will “bulge” the barrels.

Flues model

The Flues model was designed with a “saw handle” style grip featuring a large spur at the top to absorb recoil.
New Improved Double model

Ithaca redesigned the gun in 1925 using its New Improved Double (NID) model shotgun, which fires 2¾” shells; the barrels were lengthened to about 12.2″; and the grip was redesigned without the spur. Sometimes referred to as “Model B,” about 1,500 were manufactured. Model A and Model B are not formal factory designations.

Demise

Ithaca stopped manufacturing the Auto & Burglar Gun when it became subject to registration and a $200 transfer tax under the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934 (the transfer tax was reduced to $5 in 1960). Relatively few Auto & Burglar Guns were manufactured, and they are today highly prized as collector’s items. Approximately 20 Auto & Burglar Guns were specially manufactured, representing .410 bore, 28 gauge, and 16 gauge, only 11 of which have been reliably documented, and all these guns are extremely rare. The earliest known Ithaca Auto & Burglar Gun was manufactured about 1921, possibly as a prototype; it bears serial number 354442; is in 28 gauge with 12″ barrels; “Auto & Burglar Gun” is hand-engraved on each side; and the gun is listed separately in the Firearms Curios or Relics List published by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.

While it is sometimes incorrectly identified as a “sawed-off shotgun,” the Ithaca Auto & Burglar Gun is a smooth bore pistol which since 1934 has been classified as an “Any Other Weapon” (AOW) under the NFA, and it must be registered with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Auto & Burglar Guns that are not currently registered are contraband, and cannot be legally possessed or registered. The penalties for illegal possession include up to a $250,000 fine and 10 years in prison.

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Auction sales estimates range from $2500 to $8000. Expect to pay nearer the latter.

Oregon Live reports that John Wayne has become the Left’s latest target, and at his alma mater no less!

John Wayne has been a hero at the University of Southern California for decades. But some students at the private Los Angeles school, the late movie star’s alma mater, now view him as a villain.

A group of USC students are demanding the removal of a long-time Wayne memorabilia exhibit at the university’s acclaimed film school. The reason the activists give, reports the student newspaper: the actor’s “legacy of endorsing white supremacy and the removal of indigenous people.”

This harsh interpretation of the iconic star chiefly comes from a 1971 interview Wayne gave to Playboy magazine. Quotes from the article, some of them chopped of their context, made the rounds on social media earlier this year, prompting articles in the Washington Post and other news outlets.

“Since the reemergence of [the Playboy interview] I have felt viscerally uncomfortable [with the exhibit] because of the promotion and glorification of a noted white supremacist and racist,” film student Reanna Cruz told the Daily Trojan.

Wayne, 63 years old in 1971 and a dedicated anti-communist who backed the Vietnam War, expressed views that were relatively common at the time, when the U.S. was in the midst of unprecedented cultural upheaval. …

Wayne attended USC in the late 1920s — he was then still known by his birth name, Marion Morrison — and played football for legendary coach Howard Jones, who helped him get work at Twentieth Century Fox as a set builder and extra.

The Daily Trojan found that student views on Wayne are mixed these days, with some calling for his name’s scrubbing from the campus and others saying he still should be a beloved star. “I think there are many positive elements of John Wayne,” one student said.

USC’s administration appears to be coming down on the side of the student protesters. Film school assistant dean Evan Hughes said Wednesday at a campus discussion that the school would decide by the end of the year whether to take down the Wayne exhibit.

“This has been an issue that [USC’s Council for Diversity and Inclusion] has debated over a long period of time,” Hughes said. “At the end of last semester, we were trying to figure out different options for paths to move forward with this particular exhibit because not only students, but faculty that have walked by the exhibit, said that we don’t think this accurately represents film history as it should probably be represented

RTWT

BREAKING: The whistleblower is a registered Democrat & CIA analyst who was detailed before the 2016 election to the Obama White House,where he worked on the NSC's Ukraine desk & met w anti-Trump Ukrainian officials before being sent packing by the Trump NSC & becoming disgruntled

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) October 4, 2019

Daily Wire:

On Tuesday, a British [employment tribunal] ruled that belief in the Bible was “incompatible with human dignity.”

That statement came in a case involving Dr. David Mackereth, a devout Christian who had worked as an emergency doctor for the National Health Service for 26 years. He said he was fired from his job because he refused to call a biological man a woman. The court’s ruling stated: “Belief in Genesis 1:27, lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our judgment are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others, specifically here, transgender individuals.” The court added. “… in so far as those beliefs form part of his wider faith, his wider faith also does not satisfy the requirement of being worthy of respect in a democratic society, not incompatible with human dignity and not in conflict with the fundamental rights of others.”

Also reported by the Independent and by the BBC:

The hearing was told he would refuse to refer to “any 6ft-tall bearded man” as “madam” following a conversation with a manager at an assessment centre and later left his role.

The tribunal panel – sitting in Birmingham – found the [Department for Work and Pensions] DWP had not breached the Equality Act. It stated there was no contravention and dismissed the complaints.

“A lack of belief in transgenderism and conscientious objection to transgenderism in our judgment are incompatible with human dignity and conflict with the fundamental rights of others,” the judgement said.

Dr Mackereth, 56, said he was “deeply concerned” by the ruling.

“Without intellectual and moral integrity, medicine cannot function and my 30 years as a doctor are now considered irrelevant compared to the risk that someone else might be offended,” he said.

“I believe that I have to appeal in order to fight for the freedom of Christians to speak the truth. If they cannot, then freedom of speech has died in this country, with serious ramifications for the practise of medicine in the UK.”

A nice article in Sporting Classics by Roger Pinckney recounts how it was the Wild American West that made Theodore Roosevelt into the man who could become president.

“I have always said I would not have been president had it not been for my experience in North Dakota, for it was there that the romance of my life began . . . There were all kinds of things of which I was afraid at first, ranging from grizzly bears, mean horses, and gunfighters; but by acting if I were not afraid, I gradually ceased to be afraid.”

It was wild country, alright, absolutely no fences. General Sherman said the Badlands looked like hell with the fires burned out. He was more right than he knew. The Little Missouri cut through lignite coal veins and lightning strikes set them afire. They were still burning when Roosevelt saw them and they are burning today, 50,000 years after they first lit up.

Buttes, canyons, coulees, draws, shelter from the winter wind, water running from the rocks and the bluestem and buffalo grass grew stirrup high everywhere. A perfect place to winter cattle, and America was hungry for beef. Roosevelt drew on his inheritance and bought additional cows in several installments, pastured them on two spreads, the Maltese Cross and the Elkhorn.

“My home ranch lies on both sides of the Little Missouri,” he wrote of the Elkhorn. “The nearest ranch above me being about twelve, and the nearest below me about ten miles distant. The story-high house of hewn logs is clean and neat with many rooms, so that one can be alone if one wishes to. The house is situated where the summer sun never hits the porch and one may enjoy a smoke in a rocking chair. Rough board shelves hold a number of books, without which some of the evenings would be long indeed.”

Roosevelt, already an accomplished horseman, took right to the cowboy life, though his ranch hands noted he never mastered the lariat. He wore silver spurs, chaps, a slouch hat, a handmade buckskin outfit, a skinning blade from Tiffany’s, and a lavishly engraved .45 Colt Peacemaker. But he worked daylight to dark— “can’t-see to can’t-see”—right alongside his men. He kicked together driftwood fires and slept on the ground and was covered with dirt, soot and plastered with manure at branding time. He arrested desperadoes at gunpoint and hauled them to justice.

He had an 1876 Winchester lever gun in .45-75 for hunting in the mountains, a tight-choked 10-bore hammer shotgun for ducks and geese, an open-choked 12 for grouse. When just knocking around, he kept an over-under 16-bore and .45-70 combination gun close to hand in his saddle scabbard. He kept himself, his hands and neighbors well supplied with game and was appointed to the local cattleman’s association. He volunteered for vigilante posse duty, but was turned down as “his face was too well known.”

But there was big trouble coming. The white man had been in the Badlands only a few dozen years, too short a time to fully gauge the potential of Dakota weather, which can be ruthless in the extreme. The summer of 1886 was dry, the high ground pastures played out early, and there was no hay to be made. Indeed, there was scant machinery to even make hay. Ranchers had never needed hay before, as the cattle wintered just fine in the grassy coulees, draws and gulches. When the moisture finally came, it was snow, not rain.

Cowmen in the Badlands still speak of it today, “the Great Die Off.” One blizzard after another buried what was left of the grazing land, and cattle were found frozen to death where they stood at minus 40. Tougher animals survived long enough to eat the tarpaper off ranch houses. Others were found dead in cottonwood trees along the river bottoms after the snow melted, having climbed massive snowdrifts to reach edible twigs before expiring 20 feet off the ground. Tens of thousands of cattle died, around 80 percent of the herd.

“If you could kick the person in the pants responsible for most of your trouble,” Roosevelt later wrote, “you wouldn’t sit for a month.”

Roosevelt lost a million in today’s money, almost half his net worth. And he did not sit down; he fled back East, got to know his young daughter, married a childhood friend, Edith Kermit Carow, ran for mayor of New York City and lost. But this was not the man New Yorkers knew before.

“His voice which would not even raise an echo in Albany,” one reporter noted, “is now strong enough to drive oxen.”

RTWT

Josh Diaz is Class of ’20, Morse College.

Yale junior Josh Diaz sees no reason he ought to have to work a bursary job as a student at Yale, while other students from wealthy families, whose parents are paying $72,100 this year, do not.

I was hired to work events such as Mellon Forums and College Teas, events that Yale is proud to offer to its students. I feel both trapped and embarrassed working these events. I came here to be a student. Instead, after class, I slip into my loose khakis, worn-out dress shoes and black polo to go to work as my suitemate takes an afternoon nap. As the events begin, I stand on shift while my peers indulge in cheese, dessert and insightful conversation. After the event is over and everyone leaves, I stay to clean up after the students and guests and make sure the Head of College’s house is ready for the next event. By the time I get to the library to begin studying, my peers are finishing up and going to bed.

What strikes me most is the indignity of the divide: who gets to be a student and who has to work. As it turns out, getting into Yale was not enough to escape where people believe I belong: working. As a non-white, working-class Latino man, Yale expects me to work. And moreover, the money I make goes right back to the university. I work to make the magic happen for my peers.
This year, I frantically moved all my stuff into my room early to get back to work — preparing for the first years to arrive. All my days were focused on fun for the first years: move-in, first-year reception and other camp Yale activities. At the end, I was overwhelmed, overworked and under-appreciated.

I have grown incredibly close to my friends at Yale and love the communities that surround me. However, the student income contribution still divides us.

As classes begin, I know that this divide is already beginning to take place. Those who are on financial aid will have to work. Those who are on financial aid will have to pay. Until Yale eliminates the Student Income Contribution, students on financial aid will continue to feel disrespected, unsupported and unwelcome at Yale. That’s how I feel.

RTWT

Mr. Diaz’s attitude would, of course have been absolutely inconceivable to members of earlier classes at Yale. Students from humble backgrounds fortunate enough to have been admitted to this elite college in earlier (and better) days thanked their lucky stars at having been given the priceless opportunity to move upward in the world and were only too happy to work hard to earn it.

I make a practice of reading lots of old novels and memoirs offering accounts of undergraduate life at Yale in different eras. Mr. Diaz would be appalled, I can tell you, to learn what real inequality was like in the 19th Century. Poor boys worked regular jobs and lived in miserable hovels in the New Haven slums, eating the cheapest food and often skipping meals, to get through Yale. People without family money had little opportunity to partake of the pleasures of student life, and poor students were certainly not treated as equals by the rich.

I was recruited to attend Yale by an alumni representative from the Class of 1926. He was a wealthy and successful executive, but he had come to Yale the son of a poor Presbyterian clergyman from New Jersey. He absolutely needed to work his own way through Yale. That meant not just earning a small “student contribution,” but earning the money to pay for his tuition and for his room and board somewhere.

He would have dearly loved, he once confessed to me, to have won a letter on the Yale Football Team, but he simply did not have time off for football practice. He had to work. He somehow managed to win a letter finally in LaCrosse, which apparently involved a much smaller time commitment. He also did not have time for singing groups and he had no money to join fraternities or clubs like Mory’s. He was tapped by no Senior Society. But he did not feel in the least wronged. He was grateful to Yale and devoted to her service all his life. If he were alive to read Mr. Diaz’s editorial, I expect that he would be simply astonished at that gentleman’s perspective and depressed at the changes in values and education that are responsible.

And, oh yes, I had bursary jobs myself. I can remember, for instance, having to get out of bed before dawn to go make toast in Commons. I also bused trays, and loaded the dishwasher. I used to wear a necktie under my white coat and I’d make a point of appropriating a carnation or rose from one of the vases on the tables for a boutonnière. I decidedly approved of the bursary job system, and I liked the feeling of doing my bit to pay for being at Yale. I didn’t like getting out of bed early, and I definitely disliked burning my fingers handling hot toast, but I took pride in doing the right thing. Unlike Mr. Diaz, I was quite conscious of the enormous favor Yale was doing me, and I was very much aware that lots of others had had to work before I ever came along.

From Zookeeper Problems:

I told this story to a few guildies a while back and decided to archive it in a longer format; so here is the story of The Great Flamingo Uprising of 2010 as told to me by my favorite cousin who was a keeper at the time. …

The flamingos had their spot near the zoo entrance and never seemed to mind the presence of the other birds, as they kept themselves to themselves and didn’t really like the taste of fish pellets. The problem lay in that their shrimp pond was close to a vending machine. Ordinarily that wouldn’t have been an issue at all, but eventually the goose population grew large enough that one of the gangs decided to annex it. Being territorial little shits, they would harass the poor flamingos any time they strayed within ten feet of it. The flamingos tolerated this for years until one day they snapped collectively. …

RTWT

HT: Karen L. Myers.

China unveiled its “ultimate doomsday weapon” during the military parade celebrating the Communist Regime’s 70th Anniversary.

The Sun:

The Dongfeng-41 is a 7,672 mph intercontinental ballistic missile [carrying 10 nuclear warheads]that is said to have the furthest range of any nuclear missile and could reach the US in 30 minutes.