I believe the usual woezers about the encroachments of plitikle krektness and the dreadful impact of 'snowflakes' on their right to 'free speech' - which they are, we note, woezing about in the columns of the press and quite often on the broadcast meedja as well -

- are waxing very agitato about the de-plinthing and sending swimming in the ( Read more... )

[T]he Fijians, strong of heart and body, robust and compliant, are the perfect soldiers.

Is this line, which would not look out of place in one of those C19th military manuals on 'Military Tribes and Castes of the Empire', really appropriate in the context of an article about Fijians serving in the contemporary British Army?

Today's ODNB Life of the Day: Lady Butler, military painter (nee Elizabeth Thompson, sister of the poet Alice Meynell):
Her first successful Royal Academy submission, Missing (exh. 1873)-a scene of the suffering of ordinary soldiers in the aftermath of a battle in the Franco-Prussian War-was an exercise in this manner. The next year, the lessons ( Read more... )

From today's Guardian:

A chilling article by a Falklands veteran, as to why an American marine shooting a prone Iraqi 'is just what soldiers are trained to do':
all your training is about breaking down soldiering into little pieces, the drills that you do again and again. Then those elements are put back together to build you into an effective ( Read more... )