Last December when the e-book format of Sarah Hoyt’s A Few Good Men became available, I reviewed it here.  Now that the book is in general release, I re-post that review.  Click here to buy the book!  (Didn’t know until I got my copy that the book is dedicated to Glenn Reynolds.)

We gay men, like our straight counterparts,appreciate seeing images of ourselves in literature and film that correspond to a more idealized version of ourselves, not necessarily perfectly idealized, to be sure, but at least characters who have a (somewhat) noble demeanor and show a bit of derring-do — and maybe manifest a few of our flaws.  All too often alas, in literary fiction, we see too many gay men depicted as whiners, victims of an unfair society or, in mainstream and science fiction, as lonely people who live apart from their peers, rarely connecting with others and never succeeding in romance.

In Sarah Hoyt’s A Few Good Men, a science fiction novel set in a dystopian future on earth, , however,we have a gay hero who very much has that derring-do and even has a few of flaws common to most mortals, a man who suffers the loss of one lover, but finds in another both the companionship that we all crave and the encouragement that we all need.

The book is a fast and a fun read. After receiving an advance copy electronically, I printed out various pages and read them as I did my cardio. So engaged was I in the book that I often found myself working out longer than I had intended.

The story moves quickly along from the outset when our hero, Lucius Dante Maximilian Keeva, or Luce, escapes from the secret prison, Never-Never at the bottom of the ocean. He was born to the aristocracy, the son of “Good Man”, each of whom runs a seacity, little fiefdoms built in the midst of the Atlantic.

Before his escape, he had tried to take his life and wondered why the wardens worked so hard to keep him alive. Given the tensions with his father, he thought the old man would be content just to see him die.

He talks constantly with Ben, whose older brother Samuel manages the family estate. Theirs is no ordinary form of communication. They had been lovers until Luce killed him to spare him the pain of further torture.  His late lover’s voice will guide him even after his escape.

Once a free man, Luce learns that both his father and brother have been killed, yet when he returns home to claim his own, he finds that things aren’t exactly as he imagined they would be when he wielded power.

As a Good Man himself, he starts to wonder how his late brother, when he briefly served as Good Man, came to act more like their father, even in his choice of bedroom decor and at the interest Samuel’s oldest son, Nathaniel takes in him.

This interest grows into much more than a friendship.  Soon Luce joins us with a secret sect to which his late lover and current “squeeze” belong.  Until Nat started teaching him about Usaians, Luce thought they were just part of a “religious sect” with “roots in a mythologizing of the old country that used to occupy much of the North American territories.”

In short, they want to restore the republic. Luce soon learns that many of his household staff had joined the movement and were named for the Founders, his first lover in honor of Benjamin Franklin, his second for the under-appreciated Revolutionary War general Nathaniel Greene.

A Few Good Men is thus the perfect book for gay patriots, a story about two men who fall in love while joining a rebellion that honors the Founders of our republic.  Not just that, it’s a fun-faced read, perfect to download to your kindle or iPad to entertain you while you work out.

The book’s strength is not just its patriotic themes, but that it tells the story of a gay man who is willing to risk his life for his beloved and his beliefs.  These gay men are portrayed not as whiny weaklings bemoaning their fact, but as confident leaders, willing to take charge of their destiny.  And Hoyt’s gay protagonist, instead of being a victim, becomes a hero, finding both a man to love and a cause to reverence.

A Few Good Men is a book to savor — and to celebrate.

I agree with Jim Geraghty who doesn’t “know how those few remaining undecided voters will react to this ad… but it strikes me as just the right tone, and contrast, to end this campaign.”

A number of right-of-center bloggers have linked/embedded this, but I hat tip Jim on this one as I first saw it on his Campaign Spot.

Here’s how Mitt Romney answered Obama’s comment today that “Voting is the best revenge.”

Watch the video below to see how a group of Americans at Reagan National Airport responded on May 23 when “a US Airways gate attendant announced that an Honor Flight of World War II veterans would be arriving momentarily“. Prior to the arrival of these heroes, they had no clue such men would be arriving and soon congregated at the gate to welcome some men who fought to, as one great man put it, “free a continent“. Note particularly the headline at 3:18:

Click here to read more about this, “the best flash mob ever“.

In her column yesterday, Peggy Noonan demonstrated the qualities that have caused me to dub her the Athena of punditry:  she offers a particular feminine insight into recent cultural moments, a woman’s wisdom.

Just read her reflection on the death of Steve Jobs and wonder.

Although she is slightly critical of the soon-to-be-released movie about the greatest Western European politician in the past fifty years, contending it never grants the Iron Lady’s political views “any sympathetic legitimacy,” it does suggest “Mrs. Thatcher’s defiance of the snobs while depicting her defeat of the snobs.”

Noonan goes on to wonder why as “The left in America has largely thrown in the towel on Ronald Reagan, but in Britain Thatcher-hatred remains fresh”, contending it is because Mrs. Thatcher is a woman.  Is that it?

I don’t know.  Near all of my male conservative friends hold the Iron Lady in high regard, honoring her as we do the Gipper.  This applies to my straight male friends as well as my gay male friends.  But, maybe it’s different across the pond.

Finally, Peggy laments the decline in movies where “David Lean wouldn’t be allowed to make movies today, John Ford would be forced to turn John Wayne into a 30-something failure-to-launch hipster whose big moment is missing the toilet in the vomit scene in Hangover Ten.”  She ends with a quote from an Iraqi military officer whom she had asked to identify the big thing he’d come to believe about Americans in the years they’d been there:  ”You are a better people than your movies say.”

We are.  If only filmmakers today believed what their counterparts of a previous generation knew in their hearts to be true.  Americans are a good people.

It’s Peggy.  Read the whole thing.

The late Vaclav Havel was a voice of moral clarity on a continent confused by the various ideologies which arose as the threat of communism receded, indeed, which became chic even as those totalitarian regimes oppressed the citizens of nations in eastern and central Europe and challenged democratic republics in the western and southern regions of the continent.

There was a time when such men were commonplace in our society. Or at least when we honored men like him and the ideas they so eloquently expressed. We knew to call out oppressive ideologies for what they were — and warn our fellows of the threats followers of such ideologies posed to free societies like our own — and to men and women across the world.

During World War II, those who produced our entertainment understood the threat of fascism and called it what it was. In Watch on the Rhine, for example, Paul Lukas‘s Kurt Muller “I fight against fascism. That is my trade.”  And he wins and Oscar.

How many other films were produced in that era which had strong characters exposing the evils of that system, with characters like Lukas’s Muller who had suffered under it.  He was a German.  The system was evil and not the people (nor the nation itself).  (Am now watching Keeper of the Flame which seems to have a simlilar theme.)

So, this leads me to wonder where are the films where strong characters take a strong stand against Islamofascism?  And where are the characters, say an Iranian gay man, who suffered under such regimes and speak out strongly for their overthrow as they tell us how that system oppresses their fellow Persians.

Or a film depicting an Arab heroine fighting the ideology which prevents her from reaching her full potential while refusing to punish the men who rape her sisters..

I’m glad I stumbled upon this item in the Wall Street Journal today.

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes can only glimpse a measure of the bounty of America.

And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped.

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We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

-Bruce (GayPatriot)

The Statue of Liberty

Stride Toward Freedom

Battle Cry of Freedom

“. . . land of the free. . . ”

“God who gave us life gave us liberty. Can the liberties of a nation be secure when we have removed a conviction that these liberties are the gift of God?”

“. . . the greatest demonstration for freedom in the history of our nation. ”

“ . . . secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity . . . ”

” . . . with liberty’s lamp guiding your way . . .”

“. . .  a new nation, conceived in liberty . . .”

“. . . one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”

“Let us swear allegiance to a land that’s free,”

“A thoroughfare for freedom beat“

Even as information comes our showing Obama’s hesitation in the run-up to Sunday’s successful operation to kill Osama bin Laden and as the White House bungles in providing that information, the fact remains that the operation succeeded.  And that President Obama gave it the go-ahead.  While many people contributed to its success, most notably Navy SEALs, the president deserves a great deal of credit.  And I for one am hesitant to criticize him on this — or other matters — at present.

Let this be a moment of national unity when we all rejoice that the man who declared war on the United States first in 1996 and then again in 1998 has, thanks to our men at arms, lost the ability to declare war on anyone.  I agree with Allahpundit that it’s ”fitting” for the president to visit Ground Zero on Thursday to “mark Bin Laden’s demise by paying his respects on the public’s behalf. And if that respect-paying just so happens to produce a 24-karat photo op for his upcoming campaign, well, that’s his reward for icing the man Americans hate most.”

That blogger eminds us that the immediate past president would likely have

. . . have done the same thing and, yes, unquestionably, the left would have screeched about “politicization,” but I would have taken his side then so I’ll take The One’s side now. So much goodwill has he earned in the last 24 hours, in fact, that not only are Republican leaders congratulating him but even — gasp — Donald Trump is patting him on the back.

The President of the United States should be allowed to get some political capital out of his accomplishments.  And yet when a Republican does it, we see the mainstream media castigate him for politicizing national security or whatnot.  Recall how back in 2004, when then-President George W. Bush released his first ad, the media went apoplectic that he used an image from 9/11 — as if it were blasphemy, violating some sacred compact, to show that good man’s determination in the face of attack. (more…)

“Prior to this weekend’s events,” Frank Newport, Editor in Chief of Gallup writes, “Americans had more confidence in the military than any other institution we measure.  The success of the U.S. Navy Seals’ operation in Pakistan Sunday will certainly underscore and perhaps increase that confidence.”  We here at GayPatriot have never hesitated to show our high regard for the men and women in our armed forces.

Today, we are particularly grateful for the Navy SEALs.  And to paraphrase something I wrote in another post, let’s recall that the last human being Osama bin Laden saw before being dispatched to the nether regions was a Navy SEAL.

To honor these braven men, I uploaded this video from Youtube.  Seems a proud mother wanted to honor her son.  And in honoring his service, she honored all those to serve.

I’m with Academic Elephant on this one:

But now we have OBL, and it is an opportunity for us to prove ourselves as Americans. For those of us on the right, we should simply thank God for a CIA Director who took the time to develop the appropriate plan, a Secretary of Defense who lent him sufficient man and firepower, and a President who was decisive enough to pull the trigger at the right moment. This sort of leadership should not be parsed or resented. For their part, our fellow citizens on the left might consider giving up the relentless drumbeat of “war crimes” for those who did so much of the long and lonely work to make this possible. Even with the so-called “harsh” interrogation techniques used on Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, it took years to put together the pieces. How many honestly regret those techniques this morning, or that we had Guantanamo to house KSM and his colleagues for further reference?

RELATED:  Did enhanced interrogation lead U.S. to Osama bin Laden? Yes, apparently they did.

UPDATE:  Jennifer Rubin:  ”This is anAmerican victory, triumph shared by two presidents and a magnificent accomplishment for all the military and intelligence officials who worked to see this day.”  Ditto that.

I’m on the west coast on business and last night at about 8pm Pacific time, I was getting frantic texts from home: “Obama will be giving a major national security speech from the solemnness of The White House at 10:30pm. Very weird, especially for this President who prefers cheering audiences as much as his TelePrompTer.

And then came the words I had longed to hear for nearly 10 years: Osama bin Laden is dead.

I began to cry as I thought of the thousands incinerated, slaughtered, and fell to their deaths on Sept. 11, 2001.

My heart goes to the family of our close friend — Joe Ferguson — who died when Flight 77 slammed into the side of the Pentagon that bright blue September morning. I hope they will have some sense of closure. The War isn’t over, but the AQ Commander In Chief has been defeated in battle.

My hearty thanks goes to our intelligence and defense communities. A big thanks to President Obama, CIA Director Panetta and SecDef Robert Gates for what appears to be a rare coordinated intel/military ops that worked flawlessly.

Finally, nothing can express my grief and sadness toward the families of 9/11 victims and to those families who gave our nation their sons and daughters in the first round of the Global War on Islamic Terror.

GOD BLESS AMERICA!!!!!!!!

As we celebrate  the centennial of a great man who was both graceful and gallant, I’ve been watching some of the memorial tributes offered on the DVD, Ronald Reagan: An American President, I had the chance to watch once again former Vice President Cheney’s tribute to the Gipper.

That fine man truly got the essence of the nation’s fortieth president:

“From my mother,” said President Reagan, “I learned the value of prayer. My mother told me that everything in life happened for a purpose. She said all things were part of God’s plan, even the most disheartening setbacks. And, in the end, everything worked out for the best.”

This was the Ronald Reagan who had faith, not just in his own gifts and his own future, but in the possibilities of every life. The cheerful spirit that carried him forward was more than a disposition; it was the optimism of a faithful soul who trusted in God’s purposes and knew those purposes to be right and true.

He once said “There’s no question, I am an idealist,” which is another way of saying, “I am an American.”

We usually associate that quality with youth, and yet one of the most idealistic men ever to become president was also the oldest. He excelled in professions that have left many others jaded and self- satisfied, and yet somehow remained untouched by the worst influences of fame or power. (more…)

“I wasn’t a great communicator, but I communicated great things, and they didn’t spring full-bloom from my brow — they came from the heart of a great nation.”

–Ronald Wilson Reagan

It is very hard for me to believe that it was 25 years ago this morning when the Space Shuttle Challenger exploded after liftoff.  It was a snow day for me in my senior year of high school on January 28, 1986.  I was home and bored and flipping channels.  I had completely forgotten about the “Teacher In Space” on the Shuttle that day until I came upon the live NASA feed being simulcast on the then-called “Learning Channel”.

So I stuck with it.  One problem, there were no commentators… just the NASA flight announcer.  After the explosion, I just stared at the TV.  When the NASA guy said “Obviously a major malfunction….”, I switched to CNN.

That day is etched into my memory and was a day I’ll never forget for the rest of my life.  It was raw, visual, scary, sad and very emotional to watch the TV coverage.

But then the President addressed the nation in the early evening.

This was one of Ronald Reagan’s finest moments as our President. Remember, this was the man who had steered us out of the greatest economic downturn since WWII (until 2008), restored America’s national defenses, and was on the verge of bringing down the Soviet Union and Eastern European Communism. America was back — until the Challenger explosion rocked our world that day.

This was also probably one of Reagan’s last great moments in office. Within the year, the Iran-Contra scandal would cripple his administration up until nearly the day he left office in 1989. Only his farewell speech would bring back the vintage Reagan that we saw 25 years ago tonight.

-Bruce (GayPatriot)