As the IRS scandal unfolds it may appear, at times, to be more political circus than serious.  That’s what happened during the Clinton Impeachment.  The fundamental issue – the Chief Law Officer of the United States of America lying, committing the felony of perjury in a court – was lost.

The fundamental issue with the IRS is the Rule of Law vs.  the Rule of Mere Men.  Except for the awful reaction to election of 1860,  the losing side of federal elections has been able to abide the outcome.  Because the winners were limited by the laws – and the checks, balances and shared powers of our Constitution – in how they pursued their issues.   The winners couldn’t use the power of the Federal government to punish their opponents.  When Nixon tried it, he was impeached.

Winning elections allows elected officials and their political appointees  to be stewards of the government power and the public trust.  When elected officials abuse that power and destroy that trust, they are more than criminals.  They are domestic enemies of the Constitution.  They sow the seeds for future abuses of power.  They promote the ruin of the Republic, because when The People find there is no Rule of Law, then they will fight to protect themselves against the Rule of mere Men.

If many Americans know their life, liberty, or pursuit of happiness is threatened by who wins elections, then America is ripening for Revolution.

This isn’t an issue about political party, although the career politicians and media lackeys will try to make it so.  This isn’t an issue about Obama any more than the impeachments of Nixon and Clinton were about them, although sycophants will try to make it so.  Their impeachments were about their crimes  in office.  This isn’t an issue about ideology of the Left and Right, unless the Left has moved so far that it now supports dictatorship and, soon, Totalitarianism.

The IRS scandal is deeply American.  The scandal goes to the heart of governance.  Are elected officials entrusted to administer the government or to use the government to punish, intimidate, silence, and frighten political foes?

Will Americans restore the Rule of Law?

What will it be America?

Hold the Representatives and Senators running for office in 2014 accountable.  Or, forever hold your peace and prepare for the dictatorship and Totalitarianism of Animal Farm.

The most remarkable woman I ever met

Happy Mother’s Day 2013.  Especially to my wife and two daughters – all Mothers.

Happy Mother’s Day to my Mother.  My Mother was 32 when I was born.  The picture of my Mother, above, is when she was about 22 – in 1940.  Yet, when she died at age 68, she was like this young woman in more ways than not.  This picture captures much of the woman my Father married and I knew as my Mother.  She was the most remarkable woman I’ve ever known.   Of course, I haven’t seen my two daughters live all their lives, nor my three grand-daughters live theirs.  So, my Mother is the most remarkable one to date.

She always was as full of life as she is in this picture in Greenville, SC.

She was from Greenville County, SC.  A Southern belle.  A Southern woman I’d call a steel magnolia, except steel isn’t tough enough.

Here is what I said in her eulogy at the Fort Myer, Virginia Chapel on October 17th, 1986.  She was buried with her husband in Arlington Cemetery.

Edith Madge Henderson Bowden, September 15, 1918 to October 13, 1986

Before we commit the body of my Mother, Edith Henderson Bowden, to the earth we shall share a short testimony to her.  Any family may eulogize their departed Mother as someone special, but we gathered here today know that Edith, Momma, Mimi was a very special person.  She was richly blessed with special gifts.

She was bright, beautiful, humorous, musical, artistic, practical and capable of accomplishing anything she set out to do; except one.  She wanted to live to an old age with the indomitable spirit, courage, and charismatic grace of her beloved Grandmother Bobby.  She could not will the extra years on her life.  Yet, the quality of her life was much like the Matriarch of her South Carolina family.  Her hand shaped the clay of her immediate family like a sculptor.  Her love and caring for her extended family and friends warmed you and many others in a way which you can actually feel in your hearts.

This was a remarkable woman.  She will not be remembered on a monument, a building, a stamp, or any man-made edifice, but she had the character, the qualities, to be so great a public woman.  Instead, she lead a private life of excellence.

She made over 38 places into home over 40 years.  She was more ‘Army’ than my father.  She had three children and eight grand-children.  No man had a more loving or better wife.

No children had a more loving or better Mother.  We were instructed throughout our lives.  We grew up on stories of family – from religious persecution in France through pioneer days in South Carolina, the War Between the States, the Great Depression, World War II and Post-war Europe.  The stories always had morals about living with courage and dignity, facing adversity with pride, enjoying life with humor, music and love.  She would preach, “It is who you are, not what you have.”

Also, she preached through the lessons of our lives.  I teased her that Jean Calvin  was alive in her.  Each failure, disappointment, hardship was part of God’s plan to strengthen you for tests to come.  Everything was meant to build us in to God’s children with character and strength.  She said, “Life is seen through a veil of tears.”  Yet, the harshest trials and death in this life are not meant to slacken our thirst for life each day.

She repeated that the Lord will never give you a burden you can not bear.  Psalm 118 says, “This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  This is her most  profound testimony.

Edith Henderson Bowden taught this philosophy and lived the Scripture like no one else.  She had an unabashed zest for life.  She rejoiced in the seasons and in the abundance of life and beauty in all of nature.  She exuded strength, character and love.

It is her joy in life and our love for her living which makes her passing another of God’s mysteries.  When she said farewell to my Father’s body, she said, “This was the house he lived in.”   Today, we bury only her mortal vessel.

Remember that she said Easter is the happiest day of the year.  It is the holiest of days because of the Promise the Lord has made.  It is because of this promise that we can rejoice even in death.

Remember Edith Henderson Bowden as she wanted you to remember.  Follow her example and love the life the Lord gave you.  Let us go from here with Psalm 118 in our hearts as Edith taught and lived.

“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Goodbye.   – James Atticus Bowden

This Mother’s Day I think of my Mother and just smile.  I see flashes of her in my sisters, nieces, daughters and grand-daughters.  Every lightening flash that shows her in a woman of her line stops me like the real bolt of electricity exploding on earth nearby.  She was such a force of humanity.

A few weeks after she died, several of the doctors and nurses from Fairfax, VA  sent me a letter in Germany where I was a serving soldier.  They couldn’t find out what was wrong in three weeks in the hospital until after she died in the autopsy.  They shared the medical Latin for her passing and wrote what remarkable courage and grace she showed them.  That was my Mother.

There’s so much more that could be written.  Happy Mother’s Day in Heaven, Momma.  I love you so.

Pay: $0.00. My heartfelt best wishes. If I am ever paid, I’ll share in the gain.

I moved from writing weekly, almost, op eds in 2005/2006 to blogging. I was sending my op eds out to about 30 or so places to be published. (Google my full name and see where they landed). It took from a half an hour to a hour to format them for each site properly and launch them. I didn’t have the extra time.

I’m trying to communicate through writing. I have thousands of FB ‘friends’ I’ve never met – with common ideas and interests. My blog posts go to their pages. Sometimes they re-post.

I’d like to write more and send it out to the ink and web publishers, but I don’t have the time to do it. So, I’m asking for help.

As John Wayne said, “All I want is volunteers.”

Applicants: Please comment or message me with your email.

There are more than those who call themselves Scot-Irish. A small minority identity in the culture they shaped

Forgive me, dear Reader, for being so tardy to write in the month so many folks recognize Confederate History. I prefer to write about Southern History. It’s much larger than Confederate History. And, there is a future for South which some day will be recorded, in the future, as new history for the South.

Here are some of the reasons why there will be a Southern Future.

Our Southern Culture. The three main sub-cultures are 1) Anglican, Cavalier, Tidewater 2) Catholic, Cajun, Louisiana 3) Calvinist, Scot-Irish, Frontier. The Texans will insist theirs is a fourth leg, but I’d argue it’s an evolved Scot-Irish Frontier with the best of Mexico. Look at the graphic above. The dominate sub-culture that commands the society is the Calvinist – now Evangelical, Scot-Irish, Frontier culture. We can use one name now – it’s our Southern Culture.

Our Southern Culture is ascending. Southern Culture is based on ascending ideas. The very same ideas that were radical in 1776 are updated through the Industrial Era and emerging Information Era – and they’re alive and ascending. Ideas about faith, family, freedom are mutually supporting. They are coherrent and modern. That’s why Southerners are so comfortable in their skin. It feels right. It makes us brave.

Southern Culture has the courage to fight socialism – and Human Secular Totalitarianism – and win. Southern Culture has the courage to fight Islamist Totalitarianism and win.

Look at the religion map and see the voting map patterns

Our Southern Moral Superiority. Look at the map on the single largest religious denomination by county. South is morally superior to the North. Not because of the Southern Baptist denomination, but because of the connection between Baptists and other Evangelicals with the Holy Bible. See Barna.org for how many Southerners read the Bible compared to other regions. The people who read the Bible believe the Bible and try to live the Bible – from all Christian denominations.

The sins of slavery and de jure segregation are long gone. The hearts of most Southern Christians have been transformed on issues of race.

A people who believe in the Bible as written believe in the Rule of Law as written – in the Constitution as written – not as imagined – more than other people. The South will have the moral will to win – many struggles.

Descendants of Confederate Soldiers and the Battle Flag

Our Confederate Ancestors. To be a Southerner is to share ideas and a place – the South. You don’t have to have blood ancestors who fought in the Recent Unpleasantness (1861-1865) to claim the Southern heritage. If Southerners in the future are half the men and women as our Confederate ancestors, then they’ll win. There’ll be a future South.

It may look like the cultural cleansing of the South is proceeding well in public schools and the public square. It’s okay. The South will win because of our culture, our moral foundation and our heritage. If we pass on our heritage, our culture and our faith, our South will evolve forward and win.

There is so much more to write about this subject – connecting dots about Southern Culture and History for our Southern future. I should write a book.

Changing direction this late in life

For the past 10 years I’ve taken weeks to months in the start of every new year to find my pace, writing what I feel and think must be written, lest I burst.   Which, of course, is why I write.  I have to – lest I burst.  Even so, although I write by hand all the time (often using ink pens that flow with the feel of putting my soul on parchment) and so much more than this blog, I’ve hesitated for one reason or the other.  When the words finally came out, some of my best sharing of word to the tiny world who reads me was written.   This year is uniquely different.

(Search this site, if ye like, for the first few passages of each year to taste the flavors of the time.)

I’ve waited to talk about changing directions.  For many reasons.  To see if the new azimuth was set.  To weigh the ideas, and their words, in the balance to put them in the right priority.  To make them count to the people who read.  To have them serve the Lord Jesus Christ more than anything else.

I’m still sorting the messages, especially as the hand writing on the wall of time writes, moves on and writes again – as life unfolds like each season, of what to write first.  And on.

Three times in the past 4 years I’ve changed who I work for to earn my daily bread.  I made the same kind of changes 3 times in the 17 years from 1992 t0 2009.  Those changes were under my own power (after prayer) for better opportunities.  Then, I made 2 changes in 2009 and 2011 because the corporation lacked funds or lost the contract.  Both times, after the transition, I was making more income for my family than before.  This last change is different.

This one is personal.  It’s about my age and my income.  I haven’t landed yet.  But, I feel it is such a blessing to not be in a hostile workplace – the first I’ve felt in civilian life.

I’m throwing out fleeces.  Don’t know which side, wet or dry, will be up.  Don’t know where this goes.

I’m reading and writing – as I was commanded on March 15, 1987.  I’m trying to get healthier.  I’m looking for new work.  I’m living and serving in my hierarchy of duties as a man, I’ve always had.  I’m thinking about many things.

I’ll see what I have the light to see.

This is a time of changing directions.

See the passionate focus for life – what the Bible refers to as the soul (different from the spirit).   See Jeff’s loves.

See the love his grown children and in-laws held for him – in their words and in the making of this memorial tribute.

I served with Jeff in 2d Battalion 508th Airborne Infantry, 1st Brigade, 82nd Airborne Division.   Never served with him again.  My memories of the young man and Army Officer are undimmed by 4o years passing.  He was a good man.  He was a good officer.  He was a good soldier – a paratrooper.

I was junior to Jeff.  He was a company executive officer when I was a platoon leader in a different company.  I looked up to him.  Learned from him.  Trusted him.  Liked him and remember his laugh.

My son-in-law and his son are close friends.

Jeff’s remains are buried in Arlington Cemetery.  He lives in Heaven.  Hooah.

The state has a compelling interest in marriage

I wrote this in October 2006 to support Virginia’s Marriage Amendment.   Virginia won.  The reasons remain strong.  Pay close attention to the last one about Judicial Tyranny.

October 19, 2006

By James Atticus Bowden

Virginia has an amendment to its Constitution on the ballot this November. It’s a little institutional concrete to shore the riprap before the next big storm of Judicial Tyranny. The arguments for marriage may be illustrative for folks in other states who need the same protection for a fundamental institution.

The Marriage Amendment on the Virginia ballot asks:

Shall Article I (the Bill of Rights) of the Constitution of Virginia be amended to state:

This Commonwealth and its political subdivisions shall not create or recognize a legal status for relationships of unmarried individuals that intends to approximate the design, qualities, significance, or effects of marriage. Nor shall this Commonwealth or its political subdivisions create or recognize another union, partnership, or other legal status to which is assigned the rights, benefits, obligations, qualities, or effects of marriage.”?

Here are ten, among many, reasons to vote Yes!

1. Yes to what is best for children. The best family for children has a father and a mother who are married to each other. The statistics on physical, mental, emotional health, as well as success in school, work, relationships and all of life are off the charts for children with a mother and father. The children who suffer during divorce often gain new families through remarriage of mother and father. The many successful, healthy, happy children of single parents are outnumbered by many more who lost much in life — missing a mother or a father. Ask anyone who lost, at any age, their mother or father, or never had one, what was missing. Was a ‘parent’ gone or was it their ‘Mother’ or ‘Father’?
2. Yes to what is best for the Commonwealth. The secular state regulates marriage for the survival of the state. Every state regulates marriage. They always have. It’s not an intrusion. It’s the law. The best family, producing the most productive, educated, law-abiding citizens has been regulated by our law since 1607 as a family with one mother and one father.
3. Yes to close Pandora’s box on marriage alternatives. Most opponents to the Marriage Amendment want to legalize homosexual marriages. They just don’t have the political courage to say so truthfully. If marriage is changed from one man and one woman, then there is NO legal-ethical-moral justification to NOT let a Muslim have four wives, a fundamentalist Mormon forty wives, incestuous marriage or group marriage. Court challenges for these marriage alternatives are working now. If the state allows homosexual marriage it can’t stand against other alternatives.
4. Yes to the legal status for marriage. Opponents claim the second paragraph is so confusing. Read it again. It says the cities, counties and Commonwealth can’t make up marriage and call it something else. The confusion opponents shout is exactly the same ‘the sky is falling’ they made over the ’04 Marriage Law. Nothing happened then. Nothing bad will happen now. It’s about marriage — not contracts, wills, or any other legal document an individual can make. The Attorney General’s legal opinion is clear — this amendment is not a problem.
5. Yes to stop a social experiment. Social experiments like abortion, no fault divorce and welfare become social pathologies. They destroy families and cause personal pain, even death, to millions over the decades. Homosexual marriage is a social experiment of the worst kind.
   • Homosexuals say woman as mother and man as father is “an abstract model of gender bipolarity.” And for them…
   • It’s a “logical leap from definitive biological roles that fathers and mothers play in becoming parents to the assumption that fathers and mothers must therefore play equally definitive roles in parenting.”
   • This places “reproductive roles of male and female with sets of attributes to which we have assigned labels “masculine” and “feminine.” This ‘error’ reduces “real men and real women to the two-dimensional symbols one finds on the doors of public restrooms.”
   • “Like all cultures, ours has a way of categorizing people by gender, and we have labeled certain traits “masculine” and “feminine” as a sort of cultural shorthand: but that’s all it is.”
   • Additionally, homosexuals say two men or two women can ‘parent’ as well as, or better than women mothers and a men fathers.

   Homosexuals have to procure children, since they can not create them naturally, for this experiment. Children should not be used as social guinea pigs.

6. Yes to stop the cultural cleansing of Christianity. Marriage that follows the 2000 years of Judeo-Christian tradition isn’t forcing ‘religion’ on non-believers. Specific marriage regulations reflect the majority culture in every society. If Virginia were Muslim, men could have four wives and homosexuality would be punished by death. Virginians of all religions practice freely — precisely because our English Enlightenment Protestant idea of ‘Christian tolerance’ — not an established religion — is written in our Virginia Constitution. When pro-homosexual opponents talk about discrimination and hate being written into the Constitution, they speak from the overflow of their hearts. These Liberals have an agenda which follows homosexual marriage to include making the statement, “the Bible says homosexual sex is sinful,” a hate speech crime — enforced and punished by the state.
7. Yes to the most obvious and normal for all of history. NO culture producing a tribe, nation or great civilization EVER confused homosexual sex with marriage. Ever in human history around the world. Even declining pagan civilizations that honored and encouraged homosexual sex NEVER had legal marriage for homosexuals. Since homosexual sex can’t produce children to make a family no one, except modern Liberals, ever pushed for homosexual ‘marriage.’ If you speak against homosexual marriage in public you are called a homophobe, bigot, etc. Look whose name-calling is un-gentlemanly and un-ladylike for Virginians. Look who will silence free speech.
8. Yes to keep the family strong. Marriage is the state’s business. Religion isn’t the state’s business. Every culture and state that ever existed regulated marriage, just as they regulate sex. The variations are wide and extreme for both marriage and sex across cultures and through the centuries. But, marriage has always been between men and women. It has never been between the same gender. Re-defining relationships because a tiny minority want their sexual orientation honored is wrong. The most effeminate man can never be a mother. The most masculine woman can never be a father. That is biology, not culture.
9. Yes to keep what is good — strong. Marriage between one man and one woman has served Virginia well for 400 years. Homosexual marriage doesn’t threaten individual marriages. Homosexual marriage threatens the future institution of marriage. It doesn’t need to be fixed to allow homosexual marriage, group marriage, one man and many women, one woman and many men, incest, bestiality or marriage to children. Every sexual orientation that cries out that their true love be honored by marriage is equal — and equally wrong to break the best model for marriage. It’s isn’t discrimination to make rules about marriage. Denying every sexual behavior the legitimacy of marriage isn’t slavery, segregation, racism or hatred.
10. Yes to stop Judicial Tyranny. It only takes one judge to declare the Virginia law keeping marriage between one man and one woman ‘unconstitutional’ to throw the will of The People at the mercy of courts who have grown arrogant with power. If the Virginia Constitution says marriage is one man and one woman, then it can’t be unconstitutional — even to a Liberal judge. Judges who make up laws and give executive orders from the bench can — and must — be stopped.

Please vote ‘Yes’ to Marriage.

————————————————————————-

Number 10 above – stop Judicial Tyranny, at the federal level,  is about to come to a climax in the Supreme Court.  The Justices will have a Dred Scott/Roe v Wade moment of judicial tyranny or not.

From my pen. 3.12.13

Shock and Awe Indicated the Wrong Direction from the Start

Eclectic reflections 10 years after the start of hostilities for Operation Iraqi Freedom.

From March to August 2003, I waited for the President or the Secretary of Defense to give a speech and tell the American People that the U.S. military would be there 10, 20, 30 0r open ended years – depending upon how much change the US wished to impose on Iraq.  It would be the practical, military application of the political objectives.   The extension of politics – the essence of military operations.  But, the speech was never given.

When I realized that the governing adults of the USA hadn’t thought through their war well enough to give the speech, I was more disappointed than I can express here.  I had a nagging suspicion that the political leaders lacked the moral and political courage to make their case – and express it in decades of committment – yet, that is not as bad as knowing how clueless very, very powerful persons could be.   Of course, Carter and Clinton should have been prologue and Obama epilogue the Folly of Bush II.

Don’t misunderstand.

The folly wasn’t in the invasion and regime change against Saddam Hussein.  It was the lack of understanding the nature of the initial combat phase and the subsequent occupation phases.

A dear friend of mine, classmate, quit talking to me for years at the time, because I was so nonchalant about the coming war in Iraq.  I figured it would happen sooner or later.  Better to happen on our terms.  Except our leadership was so ill-prepared.  A key exception being the Army Chief of Staff, GEN James Shinseki.  He spoke the truth to power with courage – and understanding.

And, there were many officers in the Army who knew the Occupation would be long and complicated.  Unfortunately, they weren’t in charge.  I wrote “The Long Hard Peace”   http://jatticus.wordpress.com/2011/12/19/the-long-hard-won-peace/   Obviously, I wasn’t in charge or influencing.

SecDef Donald Rumsfeld got to play out his theory on modern warfare.  It would support gutting the Army.  His theory failed. ( Obama is still going to gut the Army - for different reasons.)  Rumsfeld’s decisions made the war last at least 2 years longer  – andcost about 1500 American lives.   He earned a special place in Hades next to SecDef Robert McNamara.

The Air Force and Air Power cheerleaders got to bomb a lot.  They bombed the Iraqi intelligence agencies and destroyed the records on the entire population which would be invaluable during the Occupation.

Disbanding the Iraqi Army – 400, oo0 men – was an act of monumental stupidity.  Ambassador Bremer had a hand in that.

The good news is that a lot of jihadi Islamists from everywhere came to Iraq to kill Americans and were sent to see Allah asap.  The terrible news is how many innocent Iraqis died – especially in their own sectarian fighting.  And, that fighting isn’t over.

Democracy, the flower of Western Civilization, didn’t bloom in the Islamist sand.  I knew it wouldn’t unless the US did all the things to change the culture that the US lacked the courage to think, let alone say.  The US lacked the moral will to do what it did in Occupations after WW II.  Those Occupations – even including Japan – had far less to change than Iraq.

The Active Army which had been reduced by over 40% in the 90s after Operation Desert Storm had its troops suck up extended and repeated tours.  The Reserves were activated and deployed, but still the burden fell on Joe Bag of Donuts soldier and his family.   The Marine Corps conducted sustained land operations as part of the Joint Force.

New technologies in digitization and robotics matured.  The modular designed Brigade Combat Team for the future became the building block of Army organizations.

A generation of soldiers were bloodied.  The killed and wounded suffered valiantly.   All the vets deserve respect.

One campaign in a long, long, long World War Against Islamists took 10 years.   It’s called a war, but it was one campaign in the bigger, longer war.

God bless all who served and their families – our Country and its Allies.

“Irish” Southerner

Happy St Patrick’s Day 2013!

I shared the short story on Facebook of my Daddy telling his kids “we wear orange” on a St. Patrick’s Day morning 1959 or 60.  He said and let it drop.  Nothing else was ever said about being “Orange.”    Perhaps that’s because our family clan is Irish Southern not Southern Irish – and I don’t mean lower latitudes on the auld sod island.

My uncle said his grandmother Maley said, “We’re Arash.”   Translated from West Tennessee Anglish, that means we’re Irish.  That’s how she described herself.  She was born in Tennessee in 1855.

My father added, “We’re Black Irish.”  And, “We’re Scots-Irish.”  I think he knew correctly.  His grandfather from his mother’s side was Scottish.  He was born in West Tennessee too, but farmed in a kilt – so it’s said – and had a thick brogue from his parents.  He knew Scot from Irish.

Here’s a map showing where the Scotch-Irish, Scots-Irish, Ulster Scots, or as the good people of Philly said, “the scum of the earth” immigration waves.

Most came to US 1700-1770. Key point. .

The “people with no name” were often called Irish on the shipping manifests.  And, as my great-grandmother did, they called themselves Irish without further explanation.   It should mean that all qualify to drink green beer.  But, what about this wearing of the Orange?

The Orange was the color for the Protestant people coming over from northern Ireland.   The Green was the color for the Catholics who came in great waves from the 1840s on.   Some Catholics came during the big Protestant wave and some Protestants came during the big Catholic waves.  Timing is everything.

The Orange Irish had created a key American sub-culture, one of four, on the frontier and spread it west for 100 years before the Recent Unpleasantness of 1861-1865.  Plenty of Black Africans, Amer-Indians, English and Germans – Mexicans in Texas – and a smattering of others – Italians, Jews lived among them, but only one culture dominated.  As it always does.   Since so many of the Orange Irish were on their third to sixth generation in America (figure 4 generations @ 100 years), they didn’t see themselves in their ‘otherness’ as a minority even when they usually were a minority.  It was their culture.

There are more than those who call themselves Scot-Irish. A small minority identity in the culture they shaped

Culture commands.   Take West Tennessee.

Andrew Jackson kicks out the Indians in 1820.  My ancestor, Jeremiah Bowden (born in Isle of Wight County, VA) comes over from his daddy’s Revolutionary War bounty land grant in Franklin County, NC.   We don’t know if his first ancestor in America was from England, Ireland or Scotland, but that fellow married a Webb woman.  That’s a good Scot-Irish family name.  By the time Jimmy Bowden marries Susan Ellen Maley in the 1870s the defining event in their life was the War of Northern Aggression.  The family deaths.  The theft and destruction by Union troops – and making little 8 year old Susan deaf in one ear for life by shooting a percussion cap pistol by her ear, trying to scare her into revealing her partisan ranger brother’s hiding place.  Then, the stealing and crimes during Reconstruction.

Their identity is their family name – their clan.  Which means being evangelical Protestant Christian.  And their identity is West Tennessee and American.

The ideas and folkways of one strain of Irish culture shaped their culture.  Their Arash made America, the South and their county in West Tennessee what it was.  But, frankly, there’s nothing “Arash” about them.

Hence, the confederate battle flag design on the Irish shamrock fits.

The defining historical events of my parents’ lives were the Great Depression and WW II.  The defining watershed of my life was the Vietnam War.  The Great Recession may be or the coming upheaval or whatever happens – if I live long enough maybe the other defining historical happening.

So, I’m not sure what common and defining characteristics of my clan – the 300 or so of us descended from GGrandmother Maley (Bowden) are broadly Celtic or specifically Scot-Irish 0r just “us’n”.   But, I do know that we call ourselves Bowdens – and we are really all Maleys.  The matriarch shaped her family to me – the 4th generation – as I hope to influence another 4 down.

And as I wrote -  http://jatticus.wordpress.com/2011/09/18/movie-the-fighter-the-fight-and-family-within/ – I was amazed at how I connected to the movie “The Fighter” about a Boston (actually Lowell) Irish family.

Finally,  my son-in-law – whose father’s family are recent immigrants from Ukraine – sees that we aren’t “Irish” or “Scot” with connections back to an ethnic identity.  Our identity is Southern.  That is our ethnicity.  Confederate-American – if that can be short hand for longstanding Southern identity and not political commentary.   As the better universities teach, we have Southern politics, literature, art, poetry, religion, food and music, etc.

For me, as much as I love hearing Scottish bag pipes, Irish whistle and drums, Country Gospel – is my ethnic music.  Old country music – heavy on the fiddles – is my ethnic music too.

Happy St Patrick’s Day!  Happy St Columba Day – whenever that is!