Two Anniversaries

On this day in 1571 the combined Christian forces of Spain, Venice, Genoa, Savoy, the Holy See and the Knights of Malta defeated the Ottoman Turkish fleet at Lepanto. The victory was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed Virgin Mary, to whom the Christian sailors had appealed by praying the rosary. Pope Pius V declared the day the Feast of Our Lady of Victory (later changed to Our Lady of the Rosary).

This feast of interest to me for two reasons. First, Our Lady of the Rosary is the patroness of our parish here in College Station, St. Mary's. Second, when the University of Dallas was founded by the Sisters of St. Mary of Namur, the junior college they ran in Ft. Worth - Our Lady of Victory College - was rolled into the new school. (Incidentally, I think Madonna Hall should be renamed Our Lady of Victory Hall, in honor of this history.)

Today is also the ninth anniversary of the US invasion of Afghanistan. Since that October day in 2001, the Taliban has been toppled from power, but not defeated. Over 1,200 Americans have been killed, along with another 800 or so coalition forces and more than 6,000 members of the Afghan security forces. Countless civilians have lost their lives.



US Special Forces riding with the Northern Alliance early in the conflict. Photo courtesy of of The Virtuous Republic.

My Kind of Guy

I have recently acquired a new hero in my pantheon: Rory Stewart. He was born in Hong Kong in 1973; his father was a diplomat, his mother an academic. He mostly grew up in Malaysia, where he and his father would encounter tigers on their camping trips. Stewart attended Eton, served as an officer in the Black Watch, and then studied history, politics, philosophy and economics at Oxford, where he also tutored Princes William and Harry. He joined the Foreign Office and was posted to Indonesia for two years and then to Montenegro. However, a short while later he decided to take an 18 month sabbatical and walk across Asia. (Well, Turkey to Bangladesh. Close enough.) This provided the material for his first book, The Places in Between. He then returned to the Foreign Office and, at the age of 30, became acting governor of an Iraqi province, providing the material for his second book, The Prince of the Marshes: And Other Occupational Hazards of a Year in Iraq. Back in Afghanistan, he founded The Turquoise Mountain Foundation, a non-profit organization which seeks to foster traditional Afghan craft as a means of economic and social regeneration. He has been teaching at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard since 2008 and is the Director of the School's Carr Center for Human Rights Policy. He is 38 years old.

I first came across this interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, but I couldn't figure out how to embed it. The one below is perhaps even better: