BREAKING: Democrats have engaged Olivia Julianna as part of their strategy to bring young men to the Democratic Party. pic.twitter.com/c3JXlFgErG

— Leading Report (@LeadingReport) May 29, 2025

Who is she? See Wikipedia.

All of my grandparents’ sons and one daughter, now all departed, served.

Joseph Zincavage (1907-1998) Navy
(No wartime photograph available, but he’s sitting on a Henderson Motorcycle in this one.)

William Zincavage (1914-1997) Marine Corps

Edward Zincavage (1917-2002) Marine Corps

Eleanor Zincavage Cichetti (1922-2003) Marine Corps.

My father (on the left, wearing jacket & tie, holding the large envelope), aged 26, was the oldest in this group of Marine Corps volunteers from Mahanoy City, Pennsylvania, September 1942, so he was put in charge.

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William G. Zincavage, Fall 1942, after graduating Marine Corps Boot Camp

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Military Police, North Carolina, Fall 1942
He was only 5′ 6″, but he was so tough that they made him an MP.

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Third Marine Division

I Marine Amphibious Corps

First Amphibious Corps, Third Marine Division, Special Troops:
Solomon Islands Consolidation (Guadalcanal), Winter-Spring 1943
New Georgia Group Operation (Vella LaVella, Rendova), Summer 1943
“The Special Troops drew the first blood.” — Third Divisional History.

“We never saw them but they were running away.” — William G. Zincavage

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III Marine Amphibious Corps

Third Amphibious Corps, Third Marine Division, Special Troops:
Marianas Operation (Guam), Summer 1944

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V Marine Amphibious Corps

Fifth Amphibious Corps, Third Marine Division, Special Troops:
Iwo Jima Operation, February-March 1945

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Navy Unit Commendation (Iwo Jima)
Good Conduct Medal
North American Campaign Medal
Asiatic-Pacific Campaign Medal with Four Bronze Stars

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While recovering from malaria after the Battle of Iwo Jima, he looked 70 years old.

But he was back to normal in December of 1945, when this photo was taken shortly before he received his discharge.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. was a Second Lieutenant in the 20th Massachusetts Regiment during the Civil War.

Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. gave a famous speech at Soldiers Field on Memorial Day 1895, in honor of Harvard University’s Civil War dead. It’s a particularly appropriate read at this time of year.

Behind every scheme to make the world over, lies the question: What kind of world do you want? The ideals of the past for men have been drawn from war, as those for women have been drawn from motherhood. For all our prophecies, I doubt if we are ready to give up our inheritance. Who is there who would not like to be thought a gentleman? Yet what has that name been built on but the soldier’s choice of honor rather than life? To be a soldier or descended from soldiers, in time of peace to be ready to give one’s life rather than suffer disgrace, that is what the word has meant; and if we try to claim it at less cost than a splendid carelessness for life, we are trying to steal the good will without the responsibilities of the place. We will not dispute about tastes. The man of the future may want something different. But who of us could endure a world, although cut up into five acre lots, and having no man upon it who was not well fed and well housed, without the divine folly of honor, without the senseless passion for knowledge outreaching the flaming bounds of the possible, without ideals the essence of which is that they can never be achieved? I do not know what is true. I do not know the meaning of the universe. But in the midst of doubt, in the collapse of creeds, there is one thing I do not doubt, that no man who lives in the same world with most of us can doubt, and that is that the faith is true and adorable which leads a soldier to throw away his life in obedience to a blindly accepted duty, in a cause which he little understands, in a plan of campaign of which he has little notion, under tactics of which he does not see the use.

Most men who know battle know the cynic force with which the thoughts of common sense will assail them in times of stress; but they know that in their greatest moments faith has trampled those thoughts underfoot. If you wait in line, suppose on Tremont Street Mall, ordered simply to wait and do nothing, and have watched the enemy bring their guns to bear upon you down a gentle slope like that of Beacon Street, have seen the puff of the firing, have felt the burst of the spherical case-shot as it came toward you, have heard and seen the shrieking fragments go tearing through your company, and have known that the next or the next shot carries your fate; if you have advanced in line and have seen ahead of you the spot you must pass where the rifle bullets are striking; if you have ridden at night at a walk toward the blue line of fire at the dead angle of Spotsylvania, where for twenty-four hours the soldiers were fighting on the two sides of an earthwork, and in the morning the dead and dying lay piled in a row six deep, and as you rode you heard the bullets splashing in the mud and earth about you; if you have been in the picket line at night in a black and unknown wood, have heard the splat of the bullets upon the trees, and as you moved have felt your foot slip upon a dead man’s body; if you have had a blind fierce gallop against the enemy, with your blood up and a pace that left no time for fear—if, in short, as some, I hope many, who hear me, have known, you have known the vicissitudes of terror and triumph in war; you know that there is such a thing as the faith I spoke of. You know your own weakness and are modest; but you know that man has in him that unspeakable somewhat which makes him capable of miracle, able to lift himself by the might of his own soul, unaided, able to face annihilation for a blind belief.

RTWT

Main Street, Shenandoah, Pennsylvania in the old days.

Daryl Ponicsan 1938-, screenwriter and novelist best known for The Last Detail (1970), wrote a hilarious, only slightly exaggerated, portrait of his, and my, hometown, titled Andoshen (1973). He changed the name to “Andoshen” to protect the guilty.

The anecdote below is a true story (well known in Shendo) and Shakey the cop is, like many of his characters, based on a real local character.

A place was reserved for the squad car on the corner of Main and Center. The slot was across the street from the Majestic [a pool hall on the west side of South Main] and up a few doors, hidden from the vision of approaching cars because the squad car was parked parallel to the sidewalk while all the other cars behind it were parked diagonally. Likewise, a car headed north on Center Street could not see it until it was too late.

“Yeah,” said the driver, “Pittsburgh.” “Then how come youse got a Pennsylvania license plate?” said Shakey the Cop, straightening up triumphantly and putting his fists on his hips.

1/ The @Harvard foreign student ban is the clearest indication that America is in the midst of a serious revolution right now – easily comparable to the end of USSR. But our preconceptions – political and intellectual – prevent us from seeing this reality. pic.twitter.com/Zozqroil1z

— Philip Pilkington (@philippilk) May 24, 2025

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Philip Pilkington contends (in a series of 15 tweets on X, starting above) that we are at the beginning of a genuinely revolutionary moment and that the America and the American Order created by the New Deal are about to be swept away.
Read the rest of this entry »

Quondam conservative Andrew Sullivan podcast interviews Sam Tanenhaus whose new Buckley bio will be released June 3rd.

“When a gap opened in the Confederate line around the Bushong Farm, fear grew that the Federals would exploit it. To this point, Breckinridge had held the cadets in reserve, reluctant to send them in. Urged on by an aide, Major Charles Semple, he finally relented: ‘Put the boys in, and may God forgive me for the order.’ “

May 15, 1864 – charge of the VMI Cadets at New Market, Virginia. Written by John Sergeant Wise, one of the cadets —

The command was given to strip for action. Knapsacks, blankets, — everything but guns, canteens, and cartridge-boxes, was thrown upon the ground. Our boys were silent then. Every lip was tightly drawn, every cheek was pale, but not with fear. With a peculiar, nervous jerk, we pulled our cartridge-boxes round to the front, laid back the flaps, and tightened belts. Whistling rifled shells screamed over us, as, tipping the hill-crest in our front, they bounded past. To our right, across the pike, Patton’s brigade was lying down abreast of us.

“At-ten-tion-n-n I Battalion forward! Guide center-r-r!” shouted Shipp, and up the slope we started. From the left of the line, Sergeant-Major Woodbridge ran out and posted himself forty paces in advance of the colors as directing guide, as if we had been upon the drill ground. That boy would have remained there, had not Shipp ordered him back to his post; for this was no dress parade. Brave Evans, standing six feet two, shook out the colors that for days had hung limp and bedraggled about the staff, and every cadet leaped forward, dressing to the ensign, elate and thrilling with the consciousness that this was war.

Moving up to the hill crest in our front, we were abreast of our smoking battery, and uncovered to the range of the enemy’s guns. We were pressing towards him at ” arms port,” moving with the light tripping gate of the French infantry. The enemy’s veteran artillery soon obtained our range, and began to drop his shells under our very noses along the slope. Echols’s brigade rose up, and was charging on our right with the wellknown rebel yell.

Down the green slope we went, answering the wild cry of our comrades as their muskets rattled out in opening volleys. “Double time!” shouted Shipp, and we broke into a long trot. In another moment, a pelting rain of lead would fall upon us from the blue line in our front.
..
Meanwhile, the troops upon our left performed their allotted task. Up the slope, right up to the second line of infantry, they went; a second time the Federal troops were forced to retire. Wharton’s brigade secured two guns of the battery, and the remaining four galloped back to a new position in a farmyard on the plateau, at the head of the cedar-skirted gully. Our boys had captured over one hundred prisoners. Charlie Faulkner, now the Senator from West Virginia, came back radiant in charge of twenty-three Germans large enough to swallow him, and insisted that he and Winder Garrett had captured them unaided. Bloody work had been done. The space between the enemy’s old and new position was dotted with dead and wounded, shot as they retired across the open field; but this same exposed ground now lay before, and must be crossed by our own men, under a galling fire from a strong and well-protected position. The distance was not great, but the ground to be traversed was a level green field of young wheat.

Again the advance was ordered. Our boys responded with a cheer. Poor fellows! They had already been put upon their mettle in two assaults, exhausted, wet to the skin, muddy to their eyebrows with the stiff clay; some of them actually shoeless after struggling across the ploughed field: they, notwithstanding, advanced with tremendous earnestness, for the shout on our right advised them that the victory was being won.

But the foe in our front was far from whipped. As the cadets came on with a dash, he stood his ground most courageously. The battery, now shotted with shrapnel and canister, opened upon the cadets with a murderous fire. The infantry, lying behind fence-rails piled upon the ground, poured in a steady, deadly volley. At one discharge, Cabell, first sergeant of D Company, by whose side I had marched for months, fell dead, and with him fell Crockett and Jones. A blanket would have covered the three. They were awfully mangled by the canister. A few steps further on, McDowell sank to his knees with a bullet through his heart. Atwill, Jefferson, and Wheelwright were shot at this point. Sam Shriver, cadet captain of C Company, had his sword arm broken by a minie ball. Thus C Company lost her cadet as well as her professor captain.

The men were falling right and left. The veterans on the right of the cadets seemed to waver. Colonel Shipp went down. For the first time, the cadets appeared irresolute. Some one cried out, “Lie down!” and all obeyed, firing from the knee, — all but Evans, the ensign, who was standing bolt upright, shouting and waving the flag. Some one exclaimed, “Fall back and rally on Edgar’s battalion!” Several boys moved as if to obey. Pizzini, first sergeant of B Company, with his Corsican blood at the boiling point, cocked his rifle and proclaimed that he would shoot the first man who ran. Preston, brave and inspiring, in command of B Company, smilingly lay down upon his remaining arm with the remark that he would at least save that. Colonna, cadet captain of D, was speaking low to the men of his company with words of encouragement, and bidding them shoot close. The corps was being decimated.

Manifestly, they must charge or fall back. And charge it was; for at that moment Henry Wise, “Old Chinook,” beloved of every boy in the command, sprang to his feet, shouted out the command to rise up and charge, and, moving in advance of the line, led the cadet corps forward to the guns. The battery was being served superbly. The musketry fairly rolled, but the cadets never faltered. They reached the firm greensward of the farmyard in which the guns were planted. The Federal infantry began to break and run behind the buildings. Before the order to limber up could be obeyed by the artillerymen, the cadets disabled the teams, and were close upon the guns. The gunners dropped their sponges, and sought safety in flight.

Lieutenant Hanna hammered a gunner over the head with his cadet sword. Winder Garrett outran another and lunged his bayonet into him. The boys leaped upon the guns, and the battery was theirs. Evans, the color-sergeant, stood wildly waving the cadet colors from the top of a caisson.

IMGWnews:

What was meant to be a modest fiscal tweak has turned into an expensive lesson in capital flight. In 2022, Norway’s Labour-led government raised the wealth tax to 1.1%, hoping to boost annual revenues by $146 million. Instead, it triggered a migration of the wealthy—not just of assets, but of people.

Roughly 50 of Norway’s richest citizens packed their bags and left, including high-profile investors and founders of tech firms. Switzerland emerged as a favoured destination, thanks to its lenient tax regime and predictable fiscal policy. The net effect? A reported $594 million loss in tax revenue—four times the projected gain.

Norway is one of a shrinking handful of countries that still imposes an annual tax on net wealth, and the recent adjustment, though minor in absolute terms, served as a tipping point for those already disgruntled by rising fiscal burdens. The departures, legal but disruptive, highlight a growing tension in policymaking: the trade-off between progressive taxation and fiscal pragmatism.

RTWT

“When he switched to speaking Spanish, I said to myself: ‘quit showing off, you little jerk.’” — Pope Leo’s oldest brother Louis pic.twitter.com/o3ATbsvSRa

— Christopher Hale (@chrisjollyhale) May 11, 2025

Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett says she doesn't have to explain why her family has been cashing their dead grandmother's Social Security checks since 2004.

"Our family business is our family business."

Sure. Until your family business is defrauding the taxpayer,

DOGE has… pic.twitter.com/73IYjJcW23

— Texas (@MustangMan_TX) May 8, 2025

St Michael’s Church, Shotwick, Cheshire.

The grooves in the Norman Porch were made by archers sharpening their arrows for Sunday practice.

A decree by Edward III in 1363 ordered all able bodied men to practice their longbow skills after Mass.

Wikipedia:

Whereas the people of our realm, rich and poor alike, were accustomed formerly in their games to practise archery – whence by God’s help, it is well known that high honour and profit came to our realm, and no small advantage to ourselves in our warlike enterprises… that every man in the same country, if he be able-bodied, shall, upon holidays, make use, in his games, of bows and arrows… and so learn and practise archery.