Off Topic

The Masters, Rudy and the Pro-lifers, Pelosi, etc.

• Well, Tiger finally didn't win one that he had a chance at on Sunday. Now, things might get interesting.
  
  Or maybe not..
  
  The story of this tournament wasn't that there was a showdown between Tiger and Johnson, and Tiger blinked. Tiger didn't have his game. And even still, only one golfer was able to beat him out. So, I don't think the king is quite dead.
  
  
• I've got a couple of posts over on MBB about Rudy Giuliani's recent slip-ups with the pro-life crowd.
  
  The GOP can nominate Rudy if it wants to, but if it does, nobody better come to me and tell me that I am obligated to vote for Giuliani for the "non-negotiable" issue of abortion, or I may just scream.
  
  
• I don't have a problem with Nancy Pelosi wearing the head scarf to the mosque, and I don't even have much of a problem with her conducting her own visits.
  
  The Blamer's rhetoric notwithstanding, I'm not sure that brashly disdaining local religious customs was part and parcel with being a feminist, or that Pelosi self-identified as a feminist anyway.
  
  
• There's been some criticism about the behavior of the British soldiers who were captured by the Iranians.
  
  First, I'm probably not well positioned to judge the soldiers' behavior, since I don't know what their conditions were.
  
  Still, it's disturbing to see soldiers so quickly turned to mouthpieces of propaganda to the other side. It does seem apparent that there is not the patriotism that was there in previous generations. The idea of a military that is not fiercely loyal is troubling, especially for those who are counting on that loyalty.
  
  But these critics don't examine things far enough. They seem to stop at, "Kids today!" or even "Britain today!" and lament that children are not socialized to have the same patriotism their forefathers (gender specific term chosen intentionally) did.
  
  But loyalty is a two way street. I'm not sure about the British forces, but I think a lot of American soldiers enlisted for reasons other than the opportunity to police a civil war in Iraq.
  
  We may have to adjust to a post-patriotic reality, where each individual's steadfast refusal to harm his country cannot be assumed.