Elaine Shirley gave a presentation on rare breeds of livestock at Williamsburg at Carroll Lutheran Village

Elaine Shirley gave a presentation on rare breeds of livestock at Williamsburg at Carroll Lutheran Village

#KED

20070520 Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates signs copies of his book

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates signs copies of his book

May 20, 2007

http://www.defenselink.mil/multimedia/

05/20/07 - Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates signs copies of his book, "From the Shadows," before speaking at the commencement ceremony of his alma mater, the college of William and Mary, in Williamsburg, Va., May 20, 2007. DoD photo by Cherie A. Thurlby. (Released)

####

20070520 Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates College of William and Mary Graduation Exercises Remarks

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates College of William and Mary Graduation Exercises Remarks

College of William and Mary May 20, 2007

Courtesy of Joseph McClain, Director of Research Communications, The College of William & Mary and U.S. Department of Defense, Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense (Public Affairs) Duty Officer

For more information go to: “Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates transcribed commencement remarks;” or - http://www.wm.edu/news/index.php?id=7791

and -Video of Gates' remarks and -Commencement 2007 coverage

_____

Thank you, President Nichol. Members of the faculty, parents, distinguished guests. Justice O’Connor—Chancellor—a pleasure to see you. Justice O’Connor administered my oath of office as Director of Central Intelligence in 1991 and, more recently, as President Nichol has mentioned, we served on the Baker-Hamilton Commission last year—although my tenure on the group was rather abruptly interrupted.

Speaking of which, in terms of my timing in taking on the responsibilities of the Secretary of Defense, it reminds me of a story told long ago by Senator Richard Russell of Georgia, who spoke of having seen a bull that charged a locomotive. He said, “You know that was the bravest bull I ever saw, but I can’t say much for his judgment.”

Dr. Kelso and Secretary Coleman, your recognition here today is well-deserved.

To the members of the Class of 2007: Congratulations. I am truly honored—and flattered—to be your graduation speaker.

I presided over 39 commencement ceremonies as president of Texas A&M, yet, today is the first commencement speech I have ever given. I thank all of you for the extraordinary privilege of letting it be at my alma mater.

To the parents: you must be welling up with pride at the achievements of your children. Having put two children through college, I know there are many sighs of relief as well, and you are probably already planning how to spend your newly re-acquired disposable income. Forget it. Trust me on this. If you think you’ve written your last check to your son or daughter, dream on. The National Bank of Mom and Dad is still open for business.

I guess I am supposed to give you some advice on how to succeed. I could quote the billionaire J. Paul Getty, who offered advice on how to get rich. He said, “Rise early, work late, strike oil.” Or, Alfred Hitchcock, who said, “There’s nothing to winning really. That is if you happen to be blessed with a keen eye, an agile mind, and no scruples whatsoever.”

Well, instead of those messages, my only words of advice for success today comes from two great women. First, opera star Beverly Sills, who said, “There are no short cuts to anyplace worth going.” And second, from Katharine Hepburn, who wrote: “Life is to be lived. If you have to support yourself, you had bloody well find some way that is going to be interesting. And you don’t do that by sitting around wondering about yourself.”

In all those 39 commencements at Texas A&M, I learned the importance of brevity for a speaker. George Bernard Shaw once told a speaker he had 15 minutes. The speaker asked, “How can I possibly tell them all I know in 15 minutes? Shaw replied, “I advise you to speak very slowly.” I will speak quickly, because, to paraphrase President Lincoln, I have no doubt you will little note nor long remember what is said here.

I arrived at William & Mary in 1961 at age 17, intending to become a medical doctor. My first year was pure pre-med: biology, chemistry, calculus and so on. I soon switched from pre-med to history. I used to say “God only knows how many lives have been saved by my becoming Director of CIA instead of a doctor.”

When reflecting on my experience here I feel gratitude for many things:

To William & Mary for being a top-tier school that someone like me could actually afford to attend—even as an out-of-state student. By the way, hold on to your hats, parents: Out of state tuition then was $361 a semester.

Gratitude for the personal care and attention from a superb faculty and staff—a manifestation of this university’s commitment to undergraduate education that continues to this day;

Gratitude to those in the greater Williamsburg community, who opened their hearts and their homes to a 17-year-old far from his own home; and

Gratitude for one more thing. During my Freshman year I got a ‘D’ in calculus. When my father called from Kansas to ask how such a thing was possible, I had to admit, “Dad, the ‘D’ was a gift.” So, I’m grateful to that math professor too.

What William & Mary gave me, above all else, was a calling to serve—a sense of duty to community and country that this college has sought to instill in each generation of students for more than 300 years. It is a calling rooted in the history and traditions of this institution.

Many a night, late, I’d walk down Duke of Gloucester Street from the Wren Building to the Capitol. On those walks, in the dark, I felt the spirit of the patriots who created a free and independent country, who helped birth it right here in Williamsburg. It was on those walks that I made my commitment to public service.

I also was encouraged to make that commitment by the then-president of the United States, John F. Kennedy, who said to we young Americans in the early 1960s, “Ask not what your country can do for you, but ask what you can do for your country.”

We are celebrating the 400^th anniversary of the founding of Jamestown. Looking back, it’s hard to imagine this country could have gotten off to a more challenging start. It began as a business venture of a group of London merchants with a royal patent. The journalist Richard Brookhiser recently compared it to Congress today granting Wal-Mart and GE a charter to colonize Mars.

Brookhiser wrote, “Its leaders were always fighting. Leaders who were incompetent or unpopular—sometimes the most competent were the least popular—were deposed on the spot,” He continues, “The typical 17^th Century account of Jamestown argues that everything would have gone well if everyone besides the author had not done wrong.” Sounds like today’s memoirs by former government officials.

Jamestown saw the New World’s first representative assembly—the institutional expression of the concept that people should have a say in how they were governed, and having that say brought with it certain obligations: a duty to participate, a duty to contribute, a duty to serve the greater good.

It is these four-hundred-year-old obligations that I want to address for the next few minutes. When talking about American democracy, we hear a great deal about freedoms, and rights, and, more recently, about the entitlements of citizenship. We hear a good deal less about the duties and responsibilities of being an American.

Young Americans are as decent, generous, and compassionate as we’ve ever seen in this country—an impression reinforced by my four and a half years of experience as President of Texas A&M, by the response of college students across America—and especially here at William & Mary—to the tragedy at Virginia Tech, and even more powerfully reinforced by almost six months as Secretary of Defense.

That is what makes it puzzling that so many young people who are public-minded when it comes to their campus and community tend to be uninterested in— if not distrustful of—our political processes. Nor is there much enthusiasm for participating in government, either as a candidate or for a career.

While volunteering for a good cause is important, it is not enough. This country will only survive and progress as a democracy if its citizens—young and old alike—take an active role in its political life as well.

Seventy percent of eligible voters in this country cast a ballot in the election of 1964. The voting age was then 21. During the year I graduated, 1965, the first major American combat units arrived in Vietnam, and with them, many 18-, 19-, and 20-year-olds. In recognition of that disparity, years later the voting age would be lowered to 18 by constitutional amendment.

Sad to say, that precious franchise, purchased and preserved by the blood of hundreds of thousands of Americans your age and younger from 1776 to today, has not been adequately appreciated or exercised by your generation.

In 2004, with our nation embroiled in two difficult and controversial wars, the voting percentage was only 42 percent for those aged 18 to 24.

Ed Muskie, former senator and Secretary of State, once said that “you have the God given right to kick the government around.” And it starts with voting, and becoming involved in campaigns. If you think that too many politicians are feckless and corrupt, then go out and help elect different ones. Or go out and run yourself. But you must participate, or else the decisions that affect your life and the future of our country will be made for you—and without you.

So vote. And volunteer. But also consider doing something else: dedicating at least part of your life in service to our country.

I entered public life more than 40 years ago, and no one is more familiar with the hassles, frustrations and sacrifices of public service than I am. Government is, by design of the Founding Fathers, slow, unwieldy and almost comically inefficient. Will Rogers used to say: “I don’t make jokes. I just watch the government and report the facts.”

These frustrations are inherent in a system of checks and balances, of divisions and limitations of power. Our Founding Fathers did not have efficiency as their primary goal. They designed a system intended to sustain and protect liberty for the ages. Getting things done in government is not easy, but it’s not supposed to be.

I last spoke at William & Mary on Charter Day in 1998. Since then our country has gone through September 11 with subsequent wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. We learned once again that the fundamental nature of man has not changed, that evil people and forces will always be with us, and must be dealt with through courage and strength.

Serving the nation has taken on a whole new meaning and required a whole new level of risk and sacrifice—with hundreds of thousands of young Americans in uniform who have stepped forward to put their lives on the line for their country. These past few months I’ve met many of those men and women—in places like Fallujah and Tallil in Iraq and Bagram and Forward Operating Base Tillman in Afghanistan—and at Walter Reed as well. Seeing what they do every day, and the spirit and good humor with which they do it, is an inspiration. The dangers they face, and the dangers our country faces, make it all the more important that this kind of service be honored, supported, and encouraged.

The ranks of these patriots include the graduates of William & Mary’s ROTC program, and the cadets in this Class of 2007, who I’d like to address directly. You could have chosen a different path—something easier, or safer, or better compensated—but you chose to serve. You have my deepest admiration and respect—as Secretary of Defense, but mostly as a fellow American.

You are part of a tradition of voluntary military service dating back to George Washington’s Continental Army. That tradition today includes General David McKiernan, William & Mary Class of 1972, who led the initial ground force in Iraq and now commands all Army troops in Europe. It also is a tradition not without profound loss and heartache.

Some of you may know the story of Ryan McGlothlin, William & Mary Class of 2001: a high school valedictorian, Phi Beta Kappa here, and Ph.D. candidate at Stanford. After being turned down by the Army for medical reasons, he persisted and joined the Marines and was deployed to Iraq in 2005. He was killed leading a platoon of riflemen near the Syrian border.

Ryan’s story attracted media attention because of his academic credentials and family connections. That someone like him would consider the military surprised some people. When Ryan first told his parents about joining the Marines, they asked if there was some other way to contribute. He replied that the privileged of this country bore an equal responsibility to rise to its defense.

It is precisely during these trying times that America needs its best and brightest young people, from all walks of life, to step forward and commit to public service. Because while the obligations of citizenship in any democracy are considerable, they are even more profound, and more demanding, as citizens of a nation with America’s global challenges and responsibilities—and America’s values and aspirations.

During the war of the American Revolution, Abigail Adams wrote the following to her son, John Quincy Adams: “These are times in which a genius would wish to live. It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station that great characters are formed. . . . Great necessities call out great virtues.”

You graduate in a time of “great necessities.” Therein lies your challenge and your opportunity.

A final thought. As a nation, we have, over more than two centuries, made our share of mistakes. From time to time, we have strayed from our values; and, on occasion, we have become arrogant in our dealings with others. But we have always corrected our course. And that is why today, as throughout our history, this country remains the world’s most powerful force for good—the ultimate protector of what Vaclav Havel once called “civilization’s thin veneer.” A nation Abraham Lincoln described as mankind’s “last, best hope.”

If, in the 21st century, America is to be a force for good in the world—for freedom, the rule of law, and the inherent value of each and every person; if America is to continue to be a beacon for all who are oppressed; if America is to exercise global leadership consistent with our better angels, then the most able and idealistic of your generation must step forward and accept the burden and the duty of public service. I promise you that you will also find joy and satisfaction and fulfillment.

I earlier quoted a letter from Abigail Adams to her son, John Quincy. I will close with a quote from a letter John Adams sent to one of their other sons, Thomas Boylston Adams. And he wrote: “Public business, my son, must always be done by somebody. It will be done by somebody or another. If wise men decline it, others will not; if honest men refuse it, others will not.”

Will the wise and the honest among you come help us serve the American people?

Congratulations and Godspeed.

###

20070520 Quote of the day

Quote of the Day

May 20, 2007

"Peaches don't go with bacon"

MR2

(It's a long story... ...)

20070427 US Soldiers Indicted In Spanish Court

US Soldiers Indicted In Spanish Court

April 27^th, 2007

The CBS News web site is carrying an AP story about a “Spanish Court (that has passed) Down Homicide Charges Against Three In Deaths Of Two Journalists In Baghdad”

U.S. Soldiers Indicted In Iraq Tank Deaths

MADRID, Spain, April 27, 2007

“Under Spanish law, a crime committed against a Spaniard abroad can be prosecuted here if it is not investigated in the country where it was allegedly committed.”

Although AP was quick to share with readers the “Spanish point of view,” it certainly was not very forthcoming with the American point of view, except for one brief “Following the incident, then-Secretary of State Colin Powell said the troops responded after drawing hostile fire from the hotel. He said a U.S. review of the incident found the use of force was justified.

I’m not sure which I hold in greater contempt, the Spanish Court or AP…

The comments in the comment section run the gamut from howling moonbat to the thoughtful and responsible

One commenter got it right… it has been established that “the tanks were hunting for "scopes" and other lenses which would indicate snipers. Their mission was to clear the city of snipers and other troops wherever possible.”

For those who are not aware, it was reported at the time that enemy snipers were holed in the hotel, using the journalists who stayed behind – in the middle of war theatre - as shields…

Another commenter elaborated, “…The unfortunate Spanish journalists were in a war zone, a place with known risks. If they didn't understand the risks to themselves at the time the tanks began to cross the bridge… I'm sorry to say this, but Spain is a nation of sycophantic quivering idiots.”

I’m not sure I can indict the entire country for the acts of some of their politicians and members of judiciary… Folks in glass houses should not throw stones. The world is well aware of that vocal portion of our country’s political leadership that opposes the war… Folks like Cindy Sheehan and Senator Harry Reid, Representative Nancy Pelosi, et al, are heroes among folks who support al-Qaeda on the world stage.

As much as some folks may dismiss this as moonbat politics on the world stage, for the folks involved, it cannot be treated lightly, “For those that don't know, those soldiers cannot set foot anywhere within the (E)uropean union, they will be arrested…”

Anyway, the AP story reads, in part:

(AP) A judge indicted three U.S. soldiers Friday in the (April 8) 2003 death of a Spanish journalist who was killed when their tank opened fire at a hotel in Baghdad.

Sgt. Shawn Gibson, Capt. Philip Wolford and Lt. Col. Philip DeCamp were charged with homicide in the death of Jose Couso and "a crime against the international community." This is defined under Spanish law as an indiscriminate or excessive attack against civilians during war.

[…]

DeCamp, who is now an adjunct professor of mathematics at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Va., did not immediately return a telephone message left at his home. The school said he retired from the Army in July 2005.

[…]

At the time of the incident, all were from the 3rd Infantry Division, based in Fort Stewart, Ga. Judge Santiago Pedraz asked U.S. authorities to notify them of the indictment.

Couso, who worked as a cameraman for the Spanish TV network Telecinco, died on April 8, 2003, after a U.S. Army tank crew fired a shell at the Palestine Hotel, where many journalists were staying. Taras Portsyuk, a Ukrainian cameraman for Reuters, was also killed.

Read the rest here – but not on a full stomach: U.S. Soldiers Indicted In Iraq Tank Deaths

####

20061006 Lunch at the Greenleafe Café

Lunch at the Greenleafe Café in Williamsburg, VA.

Kevin Dayhoff October 6^th, 2006

20061005 Red Hot and Blue

Red Hot and Blue

http://www.redhotandblue.com/ 10/05/2006 Kevin Dayhoff

For dinner on Thursday, Oct. 5^th, 2006, we went to Red Hot and Blue in Williamsburg.

####

20061005 Williamsburg from the back deck

The plantation from the back deck
Well sorta, kinda...
Williamsburg Oct. 5, 2006

20061005 Breakfast and a class at William and Mary

Now this is breakfast.

October 5, 2006

Breakfast and a class at William and Mary

Posted October 5, 2006 by Kevin Dayhoff

Breakfast at The Gazebo in Williamsburg. Next I get to observe a class at William and Mary. I will be attending a government class: “Govt. 303: Survey of Political Philosophy.”

I can’t find a current syllabus on-line. I received a current syllabus electronically from the student that has facilitated me attending the class. I found a similar syllabus for the class, from 2004, here:

This course will examine the works of several key political philosophers in the Western tradition, starting with the Greeks, through the Romans up to early Christian political thought. We will be concerned to read and analyze these thinkers’ central texts, seeking to discern what is being said, what this tells us about the politics of the societies in which they were written, and how this compares and contrasts with our own society and thought about politics. In addition to the study of specific thinkers and specific texts, we will also seek to consider more broadly what it means to think critically about politics, and the strategies available for doing so.

Course Requirements: Two short papers (6-8 pages) 30% each; Final Examination 30%; and class attendance and participation, 10%.

Required Texts: Available in the Bookstore.

Thucydides History of the Peloponnesian War (trans: Rex Warner)

Plato The Republic (trans: Allan Bloom)

Aristotle The Politics (trans: Carnes Lord)

Cicero The Republic (trans: Niall Rudd)

Augustine The Political Writings

The professor is Simon Stow. Simon Stow HOME - Bio - Publications - C.V. - Courses - Daisy - Government Department

Simon Stow received a BA in Politics, Philosophy and Economics from Corpus Christi College, Oxford in 1993; an MA in Political Science from McGill University in Montreal in 1997; and a Ph.D. in Political Science from The University of California, Berkeley in 2002. He joined the Department of Government at the College of William and Mary in the fall of 2002 where he teaches classes in the history of political thought, and Senior Seminars on topics in political theory.

Professor Stow's research focuses on the use and abuse of literature in political thought and analysis. Arguing that -- influenced by a 'Political Turn' in literary criticism -- there has been a 'Literary Turn' in much contemporary political theory, he seeks to identify what is promising and what is problematic about the use of literature in contemporary political thought and analysis…

####

Kevin Dayhoff writes from Westminster Maryland USA. E-mail him at: kdayhoff@carr.org www.thetentacle.com Westminster Eagle Opinion and Winchester Report www.thewestminstereagle.com www.kevindayhoff.com has moved to http://kevindayhoff.blogspot.com/

20061004 Dinner at Tequila Rose

Dinner at Tequila Rose on 7207 Merrimac Trail in Williamsburg, VA.
October 4th, 2006 Kevin Dayhoff

20061003 Dinner at the Taphouse in Williamsburg

Dinner at the Taphouse in Williamsburg
October 3, 2006

20061001 Les chiens ne sont pas admis

Les chiens ne sont pas admis

A sign found in a window in Williamsburg

Par arrete prefectoral – Les chiens ne sont pas admis dans les magasins d’alimentation.

####

20061002 Aromas Williamsburg

"Aromas"
(c) Kevin Dayhoff Oct. 2, 2006

20061001 Cheese Shoppe Williamsburg No. 2

The Cheese Shoppe
(c) Kevin Dayhoff Oct.1, 2006

20061001 They're not talking anymore

"They're not talking anymore"
(c) Kevin Dayhoff October 1st, 2006 Williamsburg, VA

20060930 Williamsburg

Williamsburg No. 1
(c) Kevin Dayhoff September 30, 2006