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Ill Omen: The Death Of ‘Kings’

“It’s not popular to speak of God. But I do so now and publicly because I feel blessed. I am blessed.” So declares King Silas, head of the fictional kingdom of Gilboa, in the pilot episode of “Kings,” one of this summer’s most compelling and least known television dramas.

“Kings” — a modern re-telling of the Biblical story of Saul and King David — represents an unusually ambitious incursion into the territory of high-powered cultural-religious drama in a medium notorious for elevating the pedestrian and pedantic over the thoughtful or provocative.

So, perhaps it comes as no surprise that “Kings” was canceled earlier this year.

Despite its relatively low profile, “Kings” did not lack in talent. King Silas, the program’s lead, was portrayed by Ian McShane, a Golden Globe-winning English actor and stage performer whose first London appearance was a starring role with Dame Judi Dench.

The brainchild of Michael Green, known for his role in the development of programs like “Heroes,” “Everwood,” and “Smallville,” “Kings” also brought in Francis Lawrence and Erwin Stoff, both of “I Am Legend,” to direct and produce the series that won considerable praise from mainstream media.

Salon, in glowing language, applauded the series as “artful and poetic,” “original and daring and lovely” … suggesting that “it’s impossible not to feel inspired and cheered by the fact that a drama this ambitious and unique could make it onto network television.”

The New York Post lauds “Kings” as a show that “sparkles with imagination,” while the Philadelphia Daily News describes it as “intriguing and, yes, a little crazy.” The Boston Globe calls it “fascinating” and “unique.” Metacritic.com users rated “Kings” an 8.7 out of 10.

The show succeeds in its re-imagining of the classic David vs. Goliath story with refreshing inventiveness.

Opening in a modern-day kingdom under siege by an advancing enemy, young David (Christopher Egan, “Resident Evil: Extinction”), a soldier in the King’s army, sizzles as the earnest and unflinchingly principled counterpart to the King. David soon earns the trust and admiration of Silas after his daring rescue of wounded hostages from enemy territory. His actions, which bring a temporary peace to a nation beleaguered by war, lead to his inclusion in the royal court and set the stage for the drama that unfolds.

Yet, despite a compelling storyline and religiously themed narrative, the show was not a commercial success. What happened?

To its credit, NBC kicked off its marketing blitz for the show during the Super Bowl, one of television’s most watched events. Unfortunately, the campaign was less than gripping, and NBC’s promotional efforts were later met with criticism by Mr. Green.

In a July 16 Newsweek article, the show’s creator revealed: “They were very confused with how to market our show. … When the time came for the marketing, there was a very deliberate, outspoken, loud desire articulated by them that ‘we are not going to say King David.’ They just felt that would be detrimental to the show.”

Only a network executive could see the logic in investing tens of millions into the production of a new series, only to avoid any explicit promotion of its content.

“This holiday season,” begins the “Kings” Super Bowl commercial, “… there’s much to be thankful for … our families … our freedom … our nation … our king.” As if that weren’t peculiar enough, the thirty-second commercial fades out with an image of an orange butterfly – a reference only those who had seen the then-still-to-be-aired show would comprehend.

Imagine a similarly incoherent marketing effort for Survivor. Instead of shots of an island paradise and a preview of the castaway’s struggles, imagine wide-angle shots of American towns and cities. A man’s voice [emerges], “We are a nation rich in friends, in opportunity, and in family. Are we ready for an Idol?” Fade to black.

One can almost guarantee that such a show would have been scuttled before its second episode.

NBC’s refusal to discuss the program’s core theme of the struggle between faith-and-power was probably the chief factor contributing to its less than impressive debut of fourth in its time slot.

Sadly, only 13 episodes were produced — all of which, to its credit, NBC aired — but the network effectively canceled the program after only four episodes, when it moved it from its prime time weeknight slot to the boondocks of Saturday night.

For now, the entire season can still be watched through NBC.com, and the series is scheduled for release as a set through Amazon.com later this year, where its user rating is already five stars.

The eloquence of the characters is certainly equal to the elegance of the program’s vision. It’s depth and ambition in storytelling is evocative of that great recent series, “John Adams,” based on David McCullough’s book of the same name which aired on HBO.

It is surely a shame that the same faith-based audiences that helped spur a film as unlikely as “The Passion of the Christ” to widespread commercial success were ignored entirely in the marketing effort of “Kings.”

If there was anything that, on it’s face, would seem destined for commercial failure, it was an ultra-faithful, raw retelling of the story of Christ – in Aramaic.

“Kings” was cerebral, no doubt, and perhaps for this reason alone was doomed to be stillborn before ever having a chance at staleness. But this was more than a failed attempt at high-minded prime-time drama.

This was the rare program that succeeded at transplanting a religious storyline into a compelling, modern re-telling, buttressed by gripping drama, palace intrigue, poetic dialogue and stage-quality acting that allowed for real character development.

Given the caliber of “Kings” as a commercial venture, and the depth of the subject matter with which it sought to deal, it’s truly something of a miracle that it was ever given the green light by the same executives who believe that the dilapidated state of so-called “reality” television constitutes responsible use of public airwaves.

To some degree, the disappearance of “Kings” — killed before it was given a chance by a marketing team as timid as it was oblivious to the strength of such thoughtful programming —represents just another signpost of the more or less steady descent into the boorish and buffoonish in mainstream network television.

The Roots Of Penn State: Toward A More Vibrant University

The following remarks were delivered in a speech to Rotary International of State College in Centre County, Pennsylvania on March 24, 2009.

Introduction
First, thank you for inviting me tonight to speak. I’m sure you hear it often, but it really is an honor for me – a guy who four years ago was just an average freshman on a campus of some 45,000 – to be with you now, some of the most distinguished members of what I identify proudly and perhaps rather presumptuously as our shared community in the Nittany Valley.

I’ll be speaking tonight on some of my experiences at Penn State over the past four years as a student and campus leader. Specifically, I’ll be talking about a group I founded two years ago called “Safeguard Old State”, a student-alumni group designed to “protect the rights and traditions of Penn Staters.” I hope to relate how my experiences have shaped my impression of the state of modern university life at a land-grant school like ours.

Finally, I’ll introduce the conclusions I have drawn about the kinds of things I believe our University community will need to rediscover in this century, and how we can write a new chapter in the history of higher education by understanding the crossroads at which I believe we are soon to arrive.

Why ‘Safeguard’ Old State?
So, why “Safeguard” Dear Old State? The name implies, after all, that our beloved school is in jeopardy, as if from some unseen foe. To put it simply, Safeguard Old State was founded to oppose what I and many of the other students saw as an increasingly soulless campus climate.

We felt – and still feel – that an alarmingly high percentage of the student body was being allowed to graduate without any particularly meaningful sense of the traditions and heritage unique to Penn State, being sent off into the workforce before being introduced to the things that made Old State “Dear” when Fred Pattee put pen to paper in 1901.

And without an understanding of our common heritage as Penn Staters – the institutions, customs and traditions that make the label “Penn Stater” distinct from “Ohio Stater” or “Michigian Stater” – we have little of real worth to bond us, other than alcohol, football and basic friendships.

Such things are important, certainly, and can play a role, but taken alone they do not provide the incoming freshman or graduating senior with that vital sense of himself and his place in the long history of our institution that engenders tenderness toward our name, thoughtfulness towards our brothers or fidelity to the ideal of a liberal and practical education.

President Spanier emphasizes frequently that his goal is for us to become America’s most “student-centered research university.” But Old State wasn’t founded primarily for research – it was founded to, in the words of our Alma Mater, “mold” young men and women into intellectually informed, practically trained citizens.

And the rights and traditions of Penn Staters for more than three centuries –academic freedom, student rituals and pranks, football games, Indian legends, reading societies, fraternities and free association – are vital to any genuinely “student-centered” enterprise.

In creating Safeguard Old State, our group of a few dozen students and campus leaders, sought to explore the roots of our University in more than a superficial manner.

If Safeguard Old State could succeed in informing a new generation on campus of what the real student body was, we supposed, we might be able to turn the tide against the onslaught of the consumer-driven approach to education which debauches its worth and value.

The pernicious idea of the institution as “multiversity,” charged merely with research and job training, rather than university, a place for a liberal and personal formation, has taken hold over the past few decades, and the label of “Penn Stater” is in danger of losing its luster.

Penn State students now graduate with steadily fewer experiences of common pride, common experiences or common values. The campus has adopted the stark character of the modern research university; fewer and fewer opportunities exist to unify a fragmented student population into that precious and rare community in time that used to make each class of students so different from each that came before. We lack collective memory and are losing the fondness for our own specialness that has been central to the character of Penn Staters.

Safeguard Old State, in attempting to stem this tide, has articulated its mission in “striving to rekindle the spirit of the classical university within the structure of the modern research institution, promoting personal growth through fellowship and genuine academic inquiry.”

To such an end, Safeguard Old State has essentially sought to answer three questions about students that we believe are requisites for a vibrant academic community at a land-grant university that was one of the first to successfully blend traditional liberal arts-style formation with a hands-on, practical and vocational education.

First, what does a vibrant student body resemble? Second, what are some of the successes of the modern student body? And finally, how can a richer student body be encouraged?

1. What Does A Vibrant Student Body & Community Look Like?
In answering the question, “what does a vibrant student body resemble,” we have looked to past successes of student creativity and initiative unmitigated in terms of its success in fostering a richer student experience and strong bonds with alumni and townspeople.

The emergence of the fraternity system in the early part of the last century is the most obvious and still most remarkable development. Students came together to devote themselves to a common purpose – for not only living quarters, but a shared brotherhood – and they did so before paid staff or administrators existed to aid or regulate them.

The enduring beauty of the fraternity homes that grace our town are a lasting testament to the potential of the student body when it is elevated above campus bureaucracy.

Other examples are perhaps less obvious today, but the reading societies, poetry groups and sporting clubs that have arisen over the last century have played a significant role in developing a lasting spirit that represents a lasting success even with the transient nature of an undergraduate population.

The key take-away from these successes is that students are naturally ambitious and enterprising when given the opportunity to achieve outside the classroom as well as in it.

Much of the student activity on today’s campus is confined to the Student Affairs bubble, and as a result we’ve fallen into a cyclical political system wherein students have tended to seek power in groups not to distinguish themselves as men or character or students in the pursuit of higher virtues, but instead folks who would merely pad a resume to get ahead later in the job force.

Some of the failures in student life – rampant binge drinking, grade inflation and destructive tendencies off campus – I believe can be remedied if we can call students to emerge from the bubble of purely campus-centric involvement.

With such a vast campus, many students rarely make it outside of the borough to explore Mount Nittany or the streets of Lemont or Bellefonte.

The heart of man was made for bigger things than the campus power structures are built for, and if students are to establish the 21st century equivalent of the fraternity system in terms of traditions and institutions with lasting meaning and beauty, we’ll need to get to reintroduce the wider world to their minds for exploring.

A new concept of student empowerment beckons, of student leaders who merit their title by virtue of their relationships to and bonds with their peers and friends, rather than by their proximity to committees endlessly tweak rules and regulations.

This can be accomplished by connecting with local townspeople, businessmen and philanthropists who are interested in underwriting new student ideas and initiatives and by networking with Rotarians and Kiwanians to enrich communities, giving rise to new customs and traditions that can showcase today’s student spirit.

2. Present-Day Success Stories Of The Modern Student Body
I may have gone too far, though, by painting a bleaker picture of the current student body than really exists. There is much to celebrate, and these things upon which further success can probably be built.

I recently learned that Trustee George Henning has begun an initiative as a part of his service to the University to restore and maintain President Evan Pugh’s Bellefonte grave. Working with students and community members in this way is both a refreshing and deeply humbling example of the kind of servant-leadership from which students can learn.

A few more present day success stories come in the form of two current campus leaders. Luke Pierce, a good friend and president of the Interfraternity Council, has embarked on a campaign to enliven Greek life by calling for brothers to rediscover their founding principles.

Luke has made a point of calling for brothers to act in all facets of their lives as genuine fraternity adult men rather than Animal House-style “frat boys.” He believes, even in his limited one-year term as IFC president, that he might be able to impart a desire for more gentlemanly behavior from our fraternities.

Luke is working to accomplish this not just through new service activities, but through a campaign intended to help current brothers understand the history of Greek life and its significant contributions at Penn State, so that they might understand how they can be a positive part of the future of Old State.

Luke calling for better behavior is not in itself a panacea for Greeks, but it’s also one of the only major initiatives of its kind to have come not from the outside – from administrators or regulators – but from the students themselves. For this reason, I’m hopeful there might be something special to his cause.

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Another noteworthy student leader is Gavin Keirans, the current student body president and head of the student government. I’ve known Gavin for three years now, and he is truly the most exceptional student I’ve met.

Since his freshman year, he has devoted himself to understanding the history of Penn State in and out, and this has guided him during his time in student government in choosing to seek not new services and programs from administration, but instead to seek fundamental change in the mindset of student leaders.

For example: Gavin’s running for re-election as a junior, and his campaign platform, totaling more than 40 pages, includes goals such as personally sitting down with every freshman over the course of the next 12 months to, in his words, “give Penn State a face.”

Gavin’s creating a “Living Legends” series where he will seek to unite folks like Graham Spanier and Joe Paterno to read some of the Indian Legends of Penn State to new students. He’s bringing together a cabinet of the presidents of the top 50 student groups into an informal “college cabinet” in an effort to enfranchise students in the decision-making aspect of the university.

Gavin has reached out to borough officials, numerous deans, trustees, including the student trustee and many others. He writes an online column for the Centre Daily Times on his experiences.

He understands that a vibrant student body can only be achieved once students can feel excited about the life of their university, and know the movers and shakers of the community.

These are promising signs of a student community that might very well navigate itself beyond petty campus politics, short-sighted power grabs and infighting, instead opting to work toward rebuilding a coherency among students that allows for one regarding another as a part of a shared community and common experience rather than a member of an opposing special interest lobby on-campus.

3. How A Richer Student Body Can Be Encouraged

The examples outlined relate to the kind of phenomenon we would like to see spring forth today in terms of a sense of fidelity that gives rise to a real stewardship, to a real understanding of oneself and one’s love of another, to a community in time.

Fidelity is foundational to everything of worth and value that happens at our University. Fidelity to an idea – for the incoming freshman and graduating senior – that they are inheritors of a rich tradition and legacy that by its existence it can enrich their lives in a way nothing else can. Only with fidelity can we witness a rebirth of fraternities and fraternal bonds among students.

Fidelity gives rise to family – that’s the community in time that real transcends time and place. “One heart that loves thy name” can only have sprung up with a sense of brotherhood and sense of inheritorship.

We’ve lost faith in our government and financial elite because people have been taught vocational skills and talents, but they haven’t been taught character, fortititude, morality, civics, ethics or the value of tradition as a means to communicate the timeless.

These first principles are essential to a healthy, coherent university community that genuinely “molds” the young entrant to the college gates into the men or women who will go on not only to be captains of industry, but to exercise their power ethically and morally, and to understand their duty to pass along those gifts to the student body.

When more students feel a part of something deeper than a trade school mentality to education or marketing slogans like “Making Life Better,” they will apply themselves with confidence and alacrity to the creation of a newly beloved “Old State.”

Conclusion
I’ve highlighted what I’d like to think are some intriguing thoughts for enriching and deepening campus life at Penn State.

There has not existed for some time (at least to my knowledge) any organization quite like Safeguard Old State, independent of student government, faculty senate or alumni groups that exists to foster a renewed thoughtfulness among the student body.

Whether we succeed in our goals, practical or philosophical, to restore a more meaningful, lasting sense of collective memory or affection for campus institutions is yet to be seen.

Surely, there is much work to be done, but we’re hopeful that the more we communicate our ideas and our ideals for a renewal at Penn State, the larger Penn State family – including everyone in this room – will find that the more and more students are rediscovering the worth of old values in this new and often daunting world.

If the University remains committed to the ultimate search for life’s purpose and meaning, and a means to such a discovery through learning, we’ll need that collective memory of those old values.

In dedicating Schwab Audition in 1904, President George Atherton spelled out some of these values in no uncertain terms, declaring: “I dedicate Schwab Auditorium to the advocacy of truth in every area of human thought; to loyalty, patriotism and unselfish consecration to public duty; to the service of Religion, pure and undefiled.”

Such old and ageless values – of fidelity to one’s alma mater, our dear mother, of genuine companionship and brotherhood, of character to guard from rashness, ethics to guide action and morality to guide our hearts so that we, like others before us, may be surprised by the joy of living a life well led.

Perhaps surprising, as it runs counter to our culturally-affected expectations, these are the things for which young men and women still yearn, desires written on the heart that still draw the freshman to the gates.

The question is before us: can we, through the University, make these things real again, today?

Thank you.

The Road To American Energy Independence

This column originally appeared in The Philadelphia Bulletin on August 13, 2008. You can read the article on The Bulletin’s website.

As energy prices and the cost of living are rising, many elected officials seem content to wring their hands in indignation rather than wringing the necks of those responsible. So, we the people are left to decide our energy future.

Three numbers are keys to a solution. The first is 2 trillion, the second is 86 billion and the third is 16 billion. These numbers account for the amount in barrels of proven oil reserves the United States possesses in the Rocky Mountains, the offshore continental shelf and the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

The Rocky Mountain region alone represents three times the known oil reserves of Saudi Arabia. The offshore continental shelf holds enough oil to supply U.S. demand for a dozen years, according to a recent report by the U.S. Geological Survey.

Further, the Congressional Research Service, an arm of the Library of Congress, estimates that if we opened only the Alaskan wilderness, we would see a surge in tax revenues of $191 billion from domestic sales. That’s $191,000,000,000 … without levying any new taxes.

While no serious politician, energy executive or environmentally conscious American believes that we can “drill our way” out of the current energy crisis, our dependence on foreign regimes for our energy supplies has proven disastrous.

“Oil money pays for the bombs going off from Baghdad to Beirut, and the bombast of dictators from Caracas to Tehran,” said Sen. Barack Obama recently in Michigan. “Our nation will not be secure unless we take that leverage away, and our planet will not be safe unless we move decisively toward a clean energy future.”

All Americans desire that “clean energy future,” and developing a 21st century American energy policy is crucial for our stability into the next generation.

To develop clean and sustainable energy, though, will require research, development and significant domestic investment.

Imagine, then, if the United States were to put that potential $191 billion in tax revenue just from our Alaskan reserves toward such vital research and development through subsidies, prizes and incentives to develop better flex fuels and a cost effective hydrogen solution.

Americans are ready for change when it comes to the use of domestic energy resources. According to a poll last month by Zogby, 74 percent of likely voters support offshore drilling. In other words, a tri-partisan majority of Americans – 58 percent of Democrats, 75 percent of Independents and 90 percent of Republicans – support repealing the ban on domestic drilling.

American Solutions for Winning the Future, a non-partisan political group in the nation’s capital, has garnered nearly 1.5 million signatures for its “Drill Here, Drill Now, Pay Less” petition, urging Congress to repeal the federal moratorium that has prohibited domestic expansion for more than two decades.

Perhaps most surprising in this debate is that China has already begun drilling just 60 miles off the coast of Florida. Have we strayed so far on sensible energy and security policy under what Speaker Nancy Pelosi promised would be the “best Congress ever” that drilling off our shores is pursued by Communist China but not allowed in the free market United States?

We cannot reasonably expect to find a sustainable solution to our energy demands over the long-term by banning domestic exploration in the short term.

The American solution to this crisis surely is not to remain content with our failed status quo, funding “bombs from Baghdad to Beirut” by lining the pockets of regimes hostile to the American values. Rather, we can choose to apply ourselves to domestic exploration by petitioning Congress to act.

Only then can we wean ourselves from debilitating dependence on foreign dictatorships and the crippling wealth transfers that result, simultaneously harnessing new tax revenues and applying them toward American entrepreneurs, empowering those who will develop the next generation of sustainable fuel technology.

Hezbollah Emboldened By American-Backed U.N. Cease-Fire

This column originally appeared in The Philadelphia Bulletin on August 23, 2006. You can read the article on The Bulletin’s website.

The war between Israel and Hezbollah lasted just 32 days, and over that course of time Israeli forces struck at the heart of Hezbollah throughout southern Lebanon, increasing the scope of the war into the north only days before the current cease-fire took effect and Israeli troops were forced to withdraw.

One must question the sense, though, in the current cease-fire which took effect Monday, Aug. 14. Is it in the best interest of Israel as a free state with a right to self-determination? Is it really in the best interest of the Lebanese people, who have undoubtedly suffered from the recent conflict, but whose historically Christian culture has suffered much more greatly at the hands of Hezbollah over the course of its rise to power in that country?

While the current break in fighting has succeeded in bringing an end to most open fighting between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the peace accomplished is as fragile as it is artificial. The United Nations may have brokered a truce between Israel and radical Muslim fighters in the form of Hezbollah, but the war will continue, regardless. It would be surprising if this resolution turns out to be of a permanent nature.

Hezbollah, the most accurate English translation of which is “Hezb’allah,” literally means “the party of God.” Founded in the mid-1980s, Hezbollah’s main goals were to oppose the Israeli occupation of Lebanon and to spread the Shi’a revolution as heralded by Ayatollah Khomeini, the radical Muslim cleric whom President Carter allowed to overthrow Mohammad Pahlavi, the last Shah of Iran.

In allowing the Shah to fall in 1979, President Carter and the West watched as Khomeini replaced one of their greatest allies for modern reform. Khomeini, himself a preeminent cleric, quickly established Iran as an Islamic theocracy and inspired the radicalization of much of the Muslim faith as it exists today. Hezbollah is one of the standout black fruits of that radical fundamentalism.

Hezbollah’s Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah, the political and ideological leader for Hezbollah and prominent in the recent war against Israel, has had this to say of Israel: “It is an open war until the elimination of Israel and until the death of the last Jew on earth.” Nasrallah has also said that, “there is no solution to the conflict in this region except with the disappearance of Israel.”

He has claimed that Hezbollah reacts to Israel only in defensive ways and that the Katyusha rockets that famously rained down on Israel, killing many, were originally acquired only to deter attacks on Lebanon. Remember that the most recent conflict began as a result of an incursion by Hezbollah fighters into Israel, whereby two Israeli Defense soldiers were taken prisoner and three murdered.

Much of the West remains blind or pig-headed in its unwillingness to accept the very real threat that groups like Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Palestinian territory, and al-Qaida globally, present to the free world at large and Israel specifically as the last great vestige of liberty shining in the heart of the Middle East.

Coexistence is not possible so long as Islamofacism remains the dominant ideological and political reality among the powerful Shi’a throughout the Middle East and beyond. Fundamentalist Islam watches and takes note as the free peoples of the West capitulate in one instance after another. It shakes our hands with its right while holding the knife by which it will slay us in its left.

With the recent U.N. ceasefire, we have saved Hezbollah from destruction as a military force, while at the same time emboldening them, as they believe they were the true victors in the recent conflict with Israel. Really, who can dispute their contention of a moral victory?

Hezbollah, responsible for invading Israel, killing three Israeli soldiers and taking prisoner two, and bombing civilian targets resulting in the deaths of dozens of Israelis, has been lent moral equivalence by the United Nations. Hezbollah is greatly strengthened by the current ceasefire.

This is the quiet before a storm that is bound to rage again, and in the quiet, Hezbollah’s capabilities can be repaired, their militia rebuilt and their arsenal restocked by their allies, Iran and Syria, who themselves present threats of a catastrophic proportions that we continue to wish away. If only it was so easy.

Meanwhile, the cease-fire remains in place, but to neither party’s interest. For Israel, the continued existence and threat presented by Hezbollah’s military wing means that their objective remains unfulfilled. For Hezbollah, the continued existence and imagined threat presented merely by the Jewish presence in the Middle East means that their objective of genocide, too, remains unaccomplished. Can we really deceive ourselves into believing that this peace is a lasting, or even meaningful, one?

President Reagan said that “history teaches that wars begin when governments believe the price of aggression is cheap.” For Hezbollah and its sponsors, the price of aggression is marvelously cheap. Supplying rockets and fueling state-sponsored propaganda messages costs millions, but for Iran, one of the world’s top suppliers of oil, the price is next to nothing if the result is the chipping away at the mantle of freedom that is Israel.

Whether through gradual spurts of war or by future nuclear means, the reality is that Iran is prepared to effect the destruction of what it labels the “Zionist state”, Israel, whether directly or through its proxies.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the Bush administration seem to have suffered historical amnesia midway through the Israeli war with Hezbollah in Lebanon. The administration shifted its policy from supporting Israel’s right to self-defense to, essentially, the idea that peace at any cost is the ultimate objective.

In brokering this cease-fire, we will have only ourselves to blame when fresh fighting breaks out in the Middle East between Israel and better equipped, battle hardened Hezbollah guerillas. The New York Times reported last week that Hezbollah is already moving throughout Lebanon to offer civilians rebuilding support through its social service network, much of which is grassroots.

With the U.N. hoping to have a meager 3500 troops in Lebanon within two weeks, at best, with the rest of the 15,000 contingent to arrive within a full year, Hezbollah will have more than enough time to move throughout Lebanon as it wishes.

It will capitalize on its already rising support among the Lebanese people, thanks in great part to the lack of Western or even much Middle Eastern aide. Iran, however, being the one notable exception, as it has extended to Hezbollah an “unlimited budget” for rebuilding Lebanon according to Nehme Tohme, a member of the Lebanese Parliament who cited a conversation with an unnamed Hezbollah official.

America and the United Nations have emboldened and abetted Hezbollah, Iran and Syria with the peace that we’ve foisted onto the region. For decades now the free nations of the world have suffered terrorist attacks by Islamic radicals, whether the attackers be Black September, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Iran, or Saddam Hussein.

We cannot bury our heads in the sand forever as our values are degraded and our freedoms destroyed, else we should pull our heads out one day, puzzled by the dark and shocking world transformed around us, wondering when it all happened.