Sheathe Your Swords

Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show...(the opening lines of David Copperfield as written by Charles Dickens;inspired by MTM). Or at least this ACCOUNT will, perhaps, have a reflection on whether I'm going to be the hero in my own life.

A little death
Without mourning
No call
And no warning
Baby...a dangerous idea
That almost makes sense~~~U-2; Love is Blindness


I received a call from the Buffalo News, Tuesday; late morning. I'm at the Buffalo Historical Society, watching my 2-8-8-2 articulated-mallet locomotive perfectly navigating the RAILBARONS.ORG, H.O. track, in a clockwise manner, when I get this phone call. It is like birds-of-a-feather-flocking-together. I'm doing something I thoroughly enjoy, and I get this exciting phone call, as well. Damned it!!! I should have been a train engineer!! The Buffalo News called to inform me that they will print, the editorial comments I had emailed over the week-end, to them. And they will be printing this sometime, over the next seven days. The below is the advanced copy.
If they do not edit, and do print "...Sheathe your swords," this will be a truly memorable moment. The expression just fit, so I had to use it. And I have to give Norb Warnes credit for this material!!! We were the early part of a get-together at Malone's in Kenmore, NY in the middle of November. Those whom know me, know I like to keep things lively. Hey!! Come on~~~why not!! If you want to do that in a lounge, bring up politics. I did!!! Of course, most of the readership is thinking~~~why am I not surprised!?!? The conversation that ensues is getting animated, spontaneous, and intense, when out of the clear-blue, Norb exclaims~~~'Sheathe your swords'!!!!

We all laughed, interjected some points about The Gladiator movie, and for the rest of the evening, just to throw a curve into the mix, sheathe-your-swords would be called out.

The BELOW is the editorial that will appear in The Buffalo News:

Dear Editors;

For a president, who predicated his election campaign on hope, change, and original thinking, I am dumbfounded at what appears to be his old-school reaction to answer N. Korea's unprovoked use of deadly force against their neighbors to the south.

The first reaction by Obama was to pull out-of-the-deck, the old Cold-War-tactic 'card' of demonstrating a very visible military show-of-force; in effect, doing some sabre-rattling.

Sheathe your swords!!

The Walton Family may have gotten miffed, but this is the first thing I would have done to get China's attention to put immediate pressure on North Korea to cease and desist. I would have put an immediate halt to any off-loading of container ships currently docked in U.S. ports, and any container-ships enroute; to return to China.

An economic leveraged response to such a military threat that China can influence, will get China's attention immediately. The success of China's economy is hinged on the American market, its exports cater to.

Lou Marconi

This portion of the essay represents some additional perspective on this topical subject matter. North Korea as a nation, is what it is, because of China. Yes, it has its million-man army, and they are motivated because they are getting 3-square-meals a day, while the rest of North Korea is literally starving to death. But it is because of China that North Korea is able to give off the military machismo, that it does. I had heard earlier in this week how a pundit on N P R's On-POINT, hosted by Tom Ashbrook, tried to frame North Korea as only able to survive in the twenty-first century by sustaining the impregnable image of the military-behemoth; that anything less would reduce them to a level of mediocrity that would be unacceptable; in effect cultural suicide. Let us look for a minute, at CHINA. Once upon a time, their image was Mao Tse-tung, The Cultural Revolution, and a hard-core communism that had Stalin blushing. Where is China today??? Changed; in that economically, they are trying to model themselves after many of the capitalist, trade, and investment, strategies of the western world. And in doing so China has become a curious hybrid, that has become one the rising powers of the global economy(and I'm sure our Dan Panzica can share volumes on this point).

Here is what China ought to do. Tell North Korea to stop being a bully. Tell North Korea to change their attitude, and give them a public spanking. Then encourage them to go back to the sand-box, and play nice with their South Korean kindergarten classmates.
--{-=@
Hickok
The Promise