Writing for The American Conservative, James Pinkerton offers Crusader talk and a Shire Strategy for the West (links added below). For myself, I am not reassured by his alternative to substitute one backward religious tyranny for another. But his points are valid when drawing some parallels between Tolkien’s Middle Earth and or own modern-day Mordor in the Middle East:

This Shire is ours now, but the way things are going, it won’t be ours permanently. So we must vow to defend the Shire, always. In the last of the “Rings” films, Aragorn the Strider proclaims, in full St. Crispin’s Day mode, “A day may come when the courage of Men fails, when we forsake our friends and break all bonds of fellowship, but it is not this day. An hour of wolves and shattered shields when the Age of Men comes crashing down, but it is not this day! This day we fight! By all that you hold dear on this good earth, I bid you stand, Men of the West!”

We in the West will always need warriors. We must have chevaliers sans peur et sans reproche—“Knights without fear and without reproach”—to safeguard our marches and protect our homes. Men such as Leonidas, whose Immortal 300 held off the Persians at Thermopylae in 480 BC, long enough for other Greeks to rally and save the nascent West. Or Aetius, the last noble Roman, who defeated Attila the Hun, Scourge of God, at Chalons in AD 451. Or Don Juan of Austria, who led the Holy League to naval victory over the Turks at Lepanto in 1571. Or Jon Sobieski, whose Polish cavalry rescued Vienna from the Turks in 1683.

These are not just legends, not just fictional characters—they were real. And if we dutifully honor those heroes, as heroic Men of the West and of Christendom, we will be rewarded with more such heroic men.

Future epics await us. Future Knights of the West, ready to defend Christendom, are waiting to be born, waiting for the call of duty. If we bring them forth with faith and wisdom and confidence, then also will come new heroes and new legends.

Read more here: The Once & Future Christendom

I was looking for a comprehensive list of sailing movies some weeks back and in the course of my searching I came across this very cool site.

ThePirateKing.com is entirely devoted to pirates and sailing, with music, galleries, pirate biographies and much more. There’s a lot of fun, free stuff to dig through, including a very cool little sailing simulator where you can learn how to set the sails and turn the rudder on an authentic digital sloop.

Also be sure to check out his ‘About Me’ page and read up on this guy’s life. Now that’s the way to live, people!

I saw this on Popoholic the other day and it cracked me up silly. The guys at RC are the best and this short stars the voice of one Michelle Trachtenberg. MT played Dawn on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, my favorite show. Kudos to Michelle, that’s the funniest scream ever!

Apologies to all who’ve visited over the past 4 days and seen a blank website. You can thank the incompetent idiots at GoDaddy who don’t know the first thing about MySQL databases. Of course, I don’t either, but I’m not paid to, am I?

Anyway, Yours Truly did in fact figure everything out on his own and now the site is (mostly) back. I’m still upgrading and the design is still under construction, but at least we’re Live!

Look for more posts in the next 24 hours, I’ve got a lot of catching up to do!

Several years ago Cate Blanchett turned in a tour de force performance as Queen Elizabeth I. It really was her breakout role and I found the movie itself intriguing. Particularly good was Geoffrey Rush as Walsingham. Of course, the movie was a dramatic period piece and not usually the one the guys pick off the rental shelf on beer and pizza night.

So how cool is it that earlier today I watched the awesome trailer for the sequel, which packs great combat and nautical scenes, even more stars than before – and the walking badassery that is Clive Owen as Sir Walter Raleigh. But don’t take my word for it:

Click Here for the High-Def widescreen trailer

It’s great to be back with another Jukebox post this week, as I’m really loving this particular song right now.

I’ve been a Lifehouse fan since their breakthrough hit, Hanging By a Moment, which I thought was one of the best pop songs of the last ten years. Now they’re back with their new album, Who We Are, and I’m loving this first single.

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

As always, my policy is that if anyone would like a download link for this song, just make a Comment below and ask – I’ll hook you up with a link in a comment-reply of my own (check back with this article).

Download links are automatically embedded in my RSS feeds.