Category Archives: Library

Esti Ginsberg: Rule 5

Posted on March 16, 2011 | Comments Off on Esti Ginsberg: Rule 5

The 19-year-old Israeli model  is serving her obligated time in the IDF.

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Posted in Israel, Library, Rule 5, Scribbles, The War, Troops

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Dear Charlie

Posted on March 15, 2011 | Comments Off on Dear Charlie

In the title tale of my short story collection Leaving the Alamo: Texas Stories After Vietnam (newly available for the Kindle at 99 cents a copy) the ghost of Alamo commander Lieutenant Colonel William Barret Travis laments the death of his son Charlie:

“He thought of Charlie whose story he had read in old newspapers: failed at politics, cashiered from the Army, disgraced and adrift on the land. Dear Charlie.”

The sensational incident that disgraced Captain Charles Edward Travis, his dramatic Army courts martial for “conduct unbecoming…,” occurred one hundred fifty-five years ago today, March 15, 1856, at Fort Mason in the Hill Country, southwest of Austin. He died of tuberculosis four years later.

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Posted in Library, Texana, Troops

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Knoxville 1863 now 99 cent eBook

Posted on March 9, 2011 | Comments Off on Knoxville 1863 now 99 cent eBook

Not that I expect to equal this result any time soon, because crime novels have always sold better than Civil War ones.

But I’ve been watching the debate over how unknown, indie authors can best amass readership without extensive (and expensive) marketing and I’ve become convinced that pricing one’s eBook at 99 cents is an excellent start.

Also, thanks to Al Past of Beeville, Texas, for including my professionally-edited, independently-published Knoxville 1863 in this new posting of his.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Civil War, Library

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I call on you in the name of Liberty

Posted on February 24, 2011 | Comments Off on I call on you in the name of Liberty

Commandancy of the Alamo
Bexar, Feby. 24th, 1836

To the People of Texas & all Americans in the World– Fellow
Citizens and Compatriots–

I am besieged by a thousand or more of the
Mexicans under Santa Anna–I have sustained a continual Bombardment &
cannonade for 24 hours & have not lost a man–The enemy has demanded a
surrender at discretion, otherwise the garrison are to be put to the
sword, if the fort is taken–I have answered the demand with a cannon
shot, & our flag still waves proudly from the walls–I shall never
surrender or retreat.
Then, I call on you in the name of Liberty,
of patriotism & everything dear to the American character, to come to
our aid with all despatch–The enemy is receiving reinforcements
daily & will no doubt increase to three or four thousand in four or
five days. If this call is neglected, I am determined to sustain
myself as long as possible & die like a soldier who never forgets
what is due to his own honor & that of his country–Victory or Death.

William Barret Travis, Lt. Col. comdt.

It’s traditional to read this aloud on the 2nd of March. Even Gov. Ann Richards did it when she was in office. But as it was actually written 175 years ago today…

Much more detail at this classic site. And a contemporary view via the Alamo cam. And the Deguello bugle call of No Quarter which the dictator’s troops played before the final dawn assault on March 6, 1836.

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Posted in Library, Texana

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Rockin’ Roku

Posted on February 15, 2011 | Comments Off on Rockin’ Roku

My Valentine’s gift to Mrs. Charm, a Roku XD, was a hit. She likes Masterpiece Theater and similar Brit stuff, but isn’t always available when the local channel decides to run them. Now, with the various streaming video channels the Roku offers, she can choose her own time. One more reason to read Instapundit.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Mrs. Charm, Science/Engineering, Scribbles

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Let’s really Leave It To Beaver

Posted on February 13, 2011 | Comments Off on Let’s really Leave It To Beaver

I thought Leave To Beaver was insipid when it was first on television. I was, then, at just the right age to know treacle when I saw it. Later, when it became a nostalgia talking point with media culture watchers, I still wasn’t impressed, though now I felt it politic to conceal my disdain. No more. Comes “Leave It To Beaver: The Complete Series” for a mere $83.99. Fat chance.

Via Instapundit.

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Posted in Blogosphere, Library, Scribbles

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Commander of the Exodus

Posted on February 13, 2011 | Comments Off on Commander of the Exodus

Even in translation, the poetry of Yoram Kaniuk’s prose comes through, in an old tale that bears repeating, especially at a time when the anti-Semitism that is never far below the West’s benign surface is adding old darkness to modern light.

It’s instructive to be reminded that the Arab-Israeli conflict didn’t begin with contemporary Palestinian grievances and terrorism, but is at least as old as the 1920s, when a tiny minority of Jewish settlers were almost powerless to stop the periodic assaults of their majority Arab neighbors.

Or that American and British resentment of (and opposition to) European Jewish aspirations began long before there was an Israel, even, as hard as it may to accept, before, during and immediately after the Holocaust.

Kaniuk’s perspective is that of a patriotic Israeli providing the background to the state’s creation story, but he leavens his judgments through the worldly understanding of his main character, the sabra revolutionary Yossi Harel, the commander of the SS Exodus 1947.

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Posted in Israel, Library, The War

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