The Explorers Club
No. XXI - The French and Indian Wars, Part I: King William's War (1689-1697), Queen Anne's War (1702-1713), and King George's War (1739-1748).





Though critical to the colonial history of North America and the eventual founding of these United States of America, which would itself have a massive influence on the course of human events, each of the French and Indian Wars was an adjunct to a broader European war. Interested readers may wish to research those principle wars, respectively the War of the League of Augsburg (1688-1697), the War of the Spanish Succession (1701-1714), and the War of the Austrian Succession (1740-1748). Our attention for the nonce shall remain with the colonial wars in the New World, but rest assured that the continental conflicts shall be addressed in future episodes of "The Explorers Club."

Mission: Unpossible Zwei - Sonntag
All quiet on the Western front. Yesterday was on oddly hectic day; thus, I had the opportunity to blog about neither "The Explorers Club" nor "Mission: Unpossible Zewi" in a timely fashion.

The Winged Wheel
Cicero and the Senate are moral absolutism, the certainty that propriety demands the Red Wings be forsaken for so long as they debase themselves through the presence of the monster Bertuzzi amongst their ranks. Catiline and his conspirators are loyalty, the yearning to stand behind the Red Wings through the darkest hour. Catiline has the more complicated position. On the one hand, I have consciously chosen loyalty as among my most treasured virtues; perhaps because of a nearly subconscious sense of having been betrayed and grievously wounded once upon a time, perhaps not, but nevertheless the fanatical devotion to the concept of loyalty remains. On the other hand, Catiline shares Cicero's abhorrence of both the monster Bertuzzi and the Red Wings' collaboration with same. On the gripping hand, Cicero taunts that the Red Wings have betrayed themselves, the clear implication that Catiline's loyalty is in fact disloyalty to the high moral standard the Wings are supposed to represent; and catiline cannot deny that he agrees with Cicero, to a degree.

Cicero: We cannot brook any embracement of the monster Bertuzzi. An old adversary is one thing, the great Chelios was himself once a dread foe, but Bertuzzi is the enemy of sportsmanship itself. To embrace him is to embrace victory at all costs, honor be damned!

Calitine: We have revelled in three achievements of Lord Stanley's Cup. We cannot throw our lot in with the Red Wings when it suits us and withdraw our support at the first sign of displeasure. The monster Bertuzzi lives up to his epithet, but our loyalty to the Red Wings has always been about more than one man, bigger than any one man, bigger even that the Captain. The Red Wings are the first step on a ladder: loyalty to the team, to Detroit, to Michigan, to the very ideas and ideals of home and hearth. Detroiters never failed to elect Coleman Young, the embodiment of corruption and ineptitude, but still we remained loyal to Detroit. The monster Bertuzzi is the Red Wings' Coleman Young.

I knew that Catiline had won when Filppula scored his goal in the third period. My arms raised from my sides in exultation without any intercession by my brain. Loyalty to home and hearth, and revulsion at the idea of indulging in the depravity of the fair-weather fan, however slightly, trumped loyalty to moral absolutism. I have never failed to fail the cause of moral absolutism and yet another bird has been added to that chain of albatrosses. Still, how could I do other? Loyalty demands that once I declared before all the world the Detroit Red Wings to be "my team," I was lashed to them as Ahab to his white whale. In for a penny, in for a pound.

And both Cicero and Catiline delight in the victories in Games 1 and 2 against Calgary, victories achieved without the participation of the monster Bertuzzi.