Stone Soup

The Thirty Years’ War was winding to a close. There are short, victorious wars where the returning soldiers are greeted by bands and parades. They point with pride to eliminating a great evil or stopping a great new tyrant.

This was not that sort of war. A generation and a half of fighting had merely ground hopes and souls in to a mire of death and pain.

Six soldiers were returning home. Which, given the times, meant they were searching for their homes and praying their homes and loved ones still existed. They were greatly afraid of finding their homes and loved ones. Were their souls withered and poisoned by the things they had seen and done? Just because a thing is the best thing you can hope hope to do, doesn’t mean that it is a good thing. And they had not always done the best thing. Wrath had been their usual companion.

They were not optimistic, The folk among whom they traveled were careworn and secretive. For thirty years armies had taken that which they wanted. Food, animals, seed, even their young men. The armies had given disease and hunger.

At the edge of an oak forest these six soldiers found a village. The soldiers asked for food and a soft ground to sleep on. They were denied. To give anyone the slightest boon might attract more attention than they could afford.

So the six men marched unsteadily to the verge of the forest and slept.

In the morning four of the soldiers gleaned the woods to make a fire. Two took a large army pot to the stream. (Any sensible place to live needs a stream.) The two filled the pot halfway with water. Then they chose six stones from stream side. Carefully and with great show they cleaned the stones of any dirt and moss. They broke the clean stones in half and put them in the pot. As proudly as they could, they marched back to the fire and pot on the pot.

Eventually the aged mayor, Curtis, came out and asked what they were doing.

“You refused us food, so we are making stone soup.” said Lieutenant John.

“What is this nonsense ?”

“As you take cleaned chicken carcasses or beef bones, crack them in half to make broth, so in the army we learned to make broth with the finest stones.

“But you can’t get anything from stones.” said Mayor Curtis.

“That’s why it will take all day over the fire. But the broth will be more exquisite than any made from old bones.” replied John.

“I’ll have to try that.”

“Not on your life!” John denied. “You refuse us. This is ours.”

The mayor ambled away.

About an hour after noon a girl named Jane came by.

“Are you really making soup from stones?” asked the little girl.

“Alas, no. Broth is all. Soup is much better, but we’ve nothing to add to the broth.”

“If I brought a potato, then could I try your soup, John?”

“Maybe, Jane, but soup with just a potato isn’t much.”

“I’ll ask grandfather,” said Jane.

That afternoon one of the men found some good mushrooms under the oak trees. Some of the boys from the village brought onions. Some of the old ladies brought some carrots and herbs. Jane’s grandfather, Curtis, brought a roast which they chopped up with their army knives and put in. Some of the young women brought musical instruments.

There had been no reason for a party in the longest time. There was dancing. Everyone who wanted to come out brought something to the pot. John and the boys sang songs that they learned during their time in the army. Some were pleasantly naughty. The boys from the village knew where to pick basil and pull up garlic. Someone brought old bowls.

Come sundown everyone tried the stone soup.

Lo! It was good.

After dinner Mariah said, “This is silly. We have rooms and beds to sleep in. Our young men were taken and aren’t using them. Maybe our fellows will be offered the empty beds of your own people.”

For the first time in a very long time the village was happy. Some of the old people, including Curtis and his wife, Therese, cried themselves to sleep, but this evening their tears for their sons were tempered, softened, by the knowledge they had been good to the sons of strangers who were in the same position.

John and his men had the first free and easy time since they were forced into the army years before. Maybe they had made it out with their lives and souls after all. Maybe, just maybe, it was possible that they could still be wanted and, maybe, even loved.

– – –

Many people have said things about this story.

Rigid skeptics say it never happened.

Mystics say that we should always put stones in our soup.

Economists say- but no one listens to economists.

Religious folk say “So this is how the multitude was fed by the paltry loaves and fishes. I think I actually see souls getting cleaner and healthier.”

Militarists say we made this possible.

Pacifists cry at the waste that happened.

Epicureans say the meal is not so much about the food, as it is about companionship and conversation and friends. Valuing others and being valued. Those are the foods we truly crave.

I say: When you see someone trying desperately to make soup from nothing but stones, talk to him as an equal, joke, recite poetry, add as much to the pot as you can, listen to him.

Perhaps you will both feel better. Perhaps we all will be better.

And, just maybe, we will all be more deserving of love and better able to share it.

---

Modern Love

A man should never fall in love with a woman who watches nature documentaries.
She will expect him to strut and fight. And then just expect to have to sit there and do nothing.
And then she may bite his head off.
It’s even worse if she knows about ducks.

So goes the Starship….

In mid 2021 I was so proud of Elon Musk and America. The Starship was evolving at a furious rate. He kept crashing prototypes. He kept learning. Elon Musk’s wealth in Starship consists of things nobody else knows. Nobody else can know, for they have not done the lessons. Some we all know. The skydiver reentry, for one. There are millions of little things that are not obvious.

I cannot bet on America now.

When the Qeng Ho fleet wasn’t instantly successful, the Emperor could say no. There was no appeal. The Ming empire stagnated.

When the Italians, the English, and the French said no, nothing could stop the Portuguese and the Spanish from saying yes.

I am not even sure anybody was in a position to say no to Isambard Kingdom Brunel. Thank Heaven.

Elon Musk wanted to launch months ago. Now NOAA can say no. The EPA can say no. The FAA can say no. For all I know the IHS and the Forest service can say no. There is nobody who can say yes. Most importantly, We Have No Idea WHO Says No. There is no accountability. ITAR certainly says no.

Now they say it will be months more before he will be allowed to launch. We have no idea who to picket or deride.

Our civilization may die thus, tied down by a million little ropes.

Pulp Christianity

Every year at this time I hear the arguments that Die Hard is a Christmas movie. I want to ask a rather more serious question: Is Pulp Fiction a Christian movie?

We start out with two identical men. Vince Vega and Jules Winnfield. They may be different colors, but they dress alike, they talk alike, and they do the same things. They do not disagree. They even have equally bad haircuts. They are embedded in a secular world of tawdry drugs and violence. In the midst of this, they witness something odd. From that point they diverge. Vega thinks it is simple bad marksmanship. Jules believes he has seen a miracle. They both possess a certain grace. Vega tries to not betray his liege while following contradictory orders. Jules strives to preserve his liege’s property. Vega has a certain grace to dance.

Some Christian apologists – notably G. K. Chesterton and C. S. Lewis – believe that many of our problems with God are based on a sense of the time we are embedded in. Pulp Fiction follows not our time, but a time which God may see and which explains the events of the story. When the miracle happens, Vega dismisses it and goes on as before to his imminent death. Jules takes the miracle as a sign and seeks to extricate himself from his life of evil in as honorable and graceful a way as possible.

Butch is not evil. He is simply imbued by the taint in the world around him. He kills, but not intentionally. Still, he put himself in a position where it could easily happen. Where he would necessarily pummel and harm another for the profit and enjoyment of unworthy people. He seeks to escape. And to escape with his love and that watch which symbolizes his family and heritage. It is not much. Physical possessions never are. The recovery of his talisman puts both his love and his own life in jeopardy. When he and his enemy, Marsellus, are captured by other tawdry and evil men, Butch effects an escape. Butch could have left Marsellus to terror, abuse, and eventual death. Instead, he finds a weapon and goes back to save his fellow man, however unworthy Marsellus may be. Doing the virtuous thing was hazardous, but he did it still. Butch finds several weapons: A chainsaw, a hammer, a baseball bat. He passes them up for a sword which we perceive as a cleaner, more virtuous weapon.

When Honey Bunny and Pumpkin rob the restaurant and Jules, they are outclassed. In a secular world they would have died to no one’s profit or edification. They certainly would have died if Vince Vega was sitting in the booth. But Jules Winnfield has decided to reform. To be worthy of the escape which he believes has been offered him. Jules offers no resistance until the two robbers demand that briefcase which he is pledged to return to his liege. Even so, Jules does not kill. Jules tries to stop killing. He ransoms their lives with his life, his honor, and his fortune, such as they are. Partly, Jules ransoms them from themselves. Partly, from his partner to this point, Vince Vega. He gives them the money so that he need not kill them, Vega will not kill them, and so they will leave alive. Most importantly he tells them why he is doing so, and sets them a virtuous example. His speech is a pastoral homily.

Considered as a black box with no confused reading of motive and internal dialog the situation is even clearer. Those who strive for virtue and escape, survive. Those who do not die. Even Marsellus who merely lets Butch leave in peace survives, although injured.

Pulp Fiction is not a movie of snow, reindeer, and Santa. But that isn’t Christmas, nor is it Christ. It is a movie of seeking redemption in an evil world and ransoming the lives of the weak. That is very Christian.

My New Analogy

Let’s view people through Harry Potter:

If you are a Ravenclaw, you read, research, and make up your own mind. You are not manipulated.

If you are a Gryffindor, you are not intimidated by a 99.7% survival rate. You don’t wear a mask unless you believe risks have risen or you wear a mask properly as safety equipment. Even if you probably should.

If you are a Slytherin, you wear a mask when you can be seen. You are the manipulator.

If you are a Hufflepuff, you do whatever anyone orders.

The Shade of Marhabal

The Shade of Marhabal

At the battle of Cannae all of Rome and Italy lay prostrate before victorious Hannibal. All expected him to make a dash to Rome, kill its defenders, sell the helpless survivors into slavery, and burn the still-wooden city to the ground. Superstitious Hannibal wavered.

Maharbal, his Numidian commander of cavalry said,’All this empire waits for you to end Rome. It lies at your feet. You cannot be defeated in battle. Great Hannibal, you do not know how to win a war.‘

________________________________________

This war is over. America has not known how to win a war during my lifetime. America has not known how to build nations in that time either. Including our own. That is not a disastrous dark age; we yet remember there is a way. And what men have done, men can aspire to. This war in Afghanistan was not ever wise. G.W.Bush and his successors strove to build Iowa in the Himalayas. It was not to be. We poured blood and treasure onto the soil for no man’s benefit.

But the defeat in Afghanistan does not matter in itself.

The disaster is that for five decades we have proven we are worthless allies. Toothless and clawless to our foes, meddling and arrogant to our ‘allies.’ We only have allies because as ineffectual simps we are easy marks for money. Our allies are again reminded not to trust us. In a way this is good; we cannot remain a republic while supporting an empire. Make no mistake, the internationalists who wish for America to challenge the world are Imperialists. Especially the Marxists. Marxists always were Imperialists in ways America never could be. This may kill NATO. NATO in recent years reminded me of the hair-trigger alliances that lead to the disaster of the first world war.

If America is not to be relied upon, countries will have to rely on themselves. For seventy-five years there has been a bargain: Don’t make nuclear weapons and we will protect you. Make nuclear weapons and we will oppose you. Ukraine was fooled out of its nuclear weapons and is now in a fight for its life.

South Korea, Taiwan and Japan are easily able to replicate seventy-five year old technology. They will have nuclear weapons in less than a year after they decide they need them. I believe they need them. More, they will soon believe they need their own nuclear weapons.

Whatever they make will be far cleverer than our antiques. The free ride is over. European and Asian nations will have to make weapons again. They will hide them, but they have no choice. Uranium based reactors will be everywhere. The dream of thorium power will be deferred again.

Without hegemony, the United States Dollar will descend to a sane value. We are in the position of France and Britain in 1956. A feckless bunch of incompetents is no world power.

Marhabal the Numidian has a message for us.

Charred Wood

Ben,

There are experiments one must conduct in youth.

I am told that if you enjoy he taste of whiskey, what you really enjoy is the taste of oak. Oak that has been charred to open up the pores and breakdown some of the carbohydrates into sugars, made into a barrel and had alcohol put into it. Then one waited a decade for the flavors to leach into the alcohol.

This offends me in several ways:

Making barrels is expensive.

Lumber large enough to make barrels is expensive and a waste of good wood.

The ‘angel’s share’ to evaporation is inefficient.

The reduction of woods to the cooper’s choice seems limiting.

I propose a very slow experiment. Too slow for one my age:

Put ethanol in glass jars. Char chips of several types of wood. Put in the jars and seal them. Keep them dark and cool. The word ‘cellar’ is paradigmatic.

Wait a long, long time. Perhaps half a decade or more for a preliminary analysis. More then a decade for a mature deliberation.

In fifteen years you may have invented an industry. Or you may have wasted a cubic meter of cellar space. The upside in knowledge and profit is well beyond the downside risk. Just remember to avoid fire danger.

I would not try this experiment, but you have time, and very few people young enough to make this experiment will think of doing so before they are too old to profit from it.

I propose you could try flavors which might lead to something new and uplifting.

Perhaps:

White Oak as a control

Red Oak as our oak forests are tending this way.

Mesquite – Lovely flavor, but nobody would make a barrel out of it.

Cherry

Plum

Apricot

Juniper – The gin folks may have an idea.

Cedar – perhaps too aromatic

Yew

Pecan

Nut shells – essentially wood, large pores, and very inexpensive

Hickory

Chestnut

Other interesting but waste woods. After all, there was no reason to believe oak would taste good. Or sassafras. That might be a good try too.

There is my idea. Do what you would with it.

All We Learn From History….

I received this in the aether:

Earlier you sent an email (the email disappeared) saying that having a high IQ helps you predict things I think, and that people are not impressed by it. What was it, elections? I forgot.

Not so much IQ as wisdom and intelligence.

All we learn from history is that most don’t learn anything from history, and those who do stand on the sidelines shouting warnings like Cassandra with about as much influence as she and Laocoön had.

On the other hand, I have made a nice profit this year by investing when a panicked market collapsed. I thought about mentioning this on Friday when the marked fell so badly. Alas, concrete work and plumbing kept me from investing this time.

That’s not even wisdom: that’s reading a graph. Even with four major wars – two World wars – the Great Depression, the Dust bowl, three ecological scares, an incipient American Dictator – well, two – … and the catastrophic Obama ‘Recovery’, and changing the very nature of our and world currencies, this is how investment looks:

Put 50 years of investing in there anywhere. Note that the graph is logarithmic.

Do you know of Martianus Capella?

When the fall of Rome was obvious to those who thought, and no one else, he compiled a book of the things people needed to know to run a civilization. This was before science, so it is not my list, but it was kept alive in small places and provided some little light there was in a dark time. That is what some can do with intelligence against the tide of history.

He spat into the wind, but he spat with calculation.

Insincere Compliments

All compliments should be at least partially insincere. Compliments, like love, have the potential to make us better people. If one is only given a compliment, or love, when he deserves it beyond all doubt or controversy, then it means nothing. It is just as if a grading device has measured a status. There is no compliment or love then. How miserable would we be, how lacking in grace, how unwilling to love, would we be if we gave each other no recognition ungrudgingly? What would inspire us to aspire?

By the way, shouldn’t it be a ‘cere compliment’ to avoid a double negative?

Why I Believe Not In ‘g’

Amanda,

‘g’ is what the statistical psychologists call the factor derived from tests to represent general intelligence.

I don’t believe in it.

I see a bunch of upper-class, belle-epoch Anglo-Americans and French deciding how to measure intelligence. Of course they chose those skills which would enchant those interested in parlour games. Memory, vocabulary, general knowledge, a skill in manipulating words. Real skills. Useful skills. Especially to upper-class folks with permanent incomes.

Around World War II the Army and their people developed vocational versions. You’ve seen isometric views of connected blocks which one must rotate in one’s mind and decide which picture is a possible version of the platonic original. Or various visual analogies. Such tests were harder and removed the vocabulary biases of the original type of tests. Much better for people who weren’t well educated in the same schools as the test’s authors. But word manipulation at many times is thinking. And men do much better in the image rotation than women. Women do much better in verbal tests than men. Generally speaking.

If you derive a factor from both types of tests to statistically infer general intelligence, that is ‘g’.

All these tests show something real. Something attractive in Western Civilization. I just don’t believe it is intelligence. This is a conflict of interest for me. I do exceptionally well in such tests. In years of observing people who do well in such tests and people who do poorly in such tests, I have come to my conclusions. It is similar to my opinion on word problems. If you cannot do word problems, you do not know math. If your mind twisting cannot change the world you are not accomplishing anything.

I have come to believe that a Darwinian approach is defined by reality. Those who over the centuries do well are the general groups which have greater intelligence. Distilling that into a test for individuals would be the work of a career.

I have also come to the conclusion that it is not entirely genetic. I suspect it is mimetic. I think abilities are reflected in cultural and linguistic clades. This is why I judge culture and languages. The English language of 1900 is a more accurate and robust creature than the English of 2020. Since 1500 AD, the people who have thrived most are not designated by race or religion, so much as by language. The English and Spanish speakers have prospered beyond belief. Look at the English of 1400. How could I think in that language? The Bantu formed a nation and culture which marched across Africa culminating in the Zulu. Is that racial or mimetic?

Think how learning another language changes how you regard English. At some point you realize that the English language method is not the only method. In some ways not the best. In some ways clumsy. When I learned Esperanto I found an interesting language which challenged how I thought. I also found a language which was too simplified to say some things. I am still conflicted. Look at the title to this entry. ‘Why I don’t Believe in ‘g” is clumsier and rather odd. This form seems odd because you grew up thinking that way. I feel strange to agree with the ancient scholars that teaching grammar is something of great importance.