1.  Who is Duck Archer? 

'Duck Archer' commits this blog to discovery and exploration of fact, regardless of what he, or anybody else, might wish reality to be. Acceptance of ‘objective reality’ has been essential in his career. He is retired from 20 years in the U.S. Air Force, including Cold War nuclear warfare (no mistakes tolerated, back then!), mapping and remote sensing (accuracy is vital), foreign military sales (avoid international incidents), and intelligence (people die if you're wrong). He holds academic degrees in Geography and Aerospace Science, and has indulged ‘fascination projects’ ranging from from space exploration to history, and from comparative religions & other ideologies, to complimentarity of the sexes. His hometown & state are irrelevant because he is a citizen of the USA more than of any given state. Both before and during his USAF years, he lived in several states, spanning the USA, and traveled through most others. He has also lived overseas, traveled overseas several times as well, and has traveled (literally) around the world. 

At a time when heroes are denigrated for having a slightest character flaw, Duck Archer admits to upholding legions of heroes as inspirations to a nobler way of living.  These heroes include visionary patriots from Pelayo and King Clovis to USA’s founding fathers, explorers from Prince Henry the Navigator to multiple nations’ rugged frontiersmen, intellectuals from Eratosthenes to Aquinas, intrepid iron men like Captain Cook and John Paul Jones, adventurers like yesterday's and tomorrow's lunar astronauts, knights who abided by the Code of Chivalry, and icons like John Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, and Ronald Reagan.

The author’s pen name comes from an event in the 1200s AD, when King St Louis 9^th sent his personal Royal Archers to the universities. Death threats had become common and believable, directed at instructors and students who would not adhere to the day’s political correctness. Nothing less than the king’s own elite armed men, in bell towers and walking the university corridors, was required to counter death threats against the right of academic freedom to discuss all sides of an issue in order to arrive at truth. 

2.  What is Dumb Ox? 

Duck Archer names this website in honor of St Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274 A.D.), one of history’s foremost thinkers. When Thomas was about age 20, he was somewhat reserved.  Fellow students initially considered him odd. But in his years that we today would call him an 'upperclassman', he began to debate with eloquence and profound logic that absolutely smashed his opponents' arguments.  St Albert the Great told Thomas' classmates: “We call him the Dumb Ox, but the bellowing of that ox will resound throughout the whole world.” 

Thomas became famous for using a depth and breadth of logic not seen since the Greek civilization of legends.  He solidly argued both sides of an issue, and argued which side should not be believed due to too many holes in the logic.  Though somewhat forgotten today, Thomas Aquinas became a legend within very few years of beginning his university instruction career.  He was highly valued in centers of learning and political circles; political powers contributed great sums to charities for the favor of him teaching within their domains.  He did not teach just the rich & educated, and people of all classes seemed to never get enough. As only one example: in spring of 1273, he delivered 59 presentations, each to nearly all the population of Naples. 

1273 A.D. saw Thomas’ apogee.  And the year ended leaving generations of people wanting more. A multitude observed him entering ecstasy while saying Mass on Passion Sunday.  During that spring & summer, he wrote feverishly on Summa Theologica, to great popular anticipation of its completion. Simultaneously, he taught certain sections of it as he completed them; many of these formed some of the 59 lectures in Naples.  Near the end of his life, on 06 Dec 1273, some unknown experience occurred to him while saying Mass.  After that Mass, he stopped writing and teaching, and even talking generally, in favor of contemplation.  Riginald of Piperno, his longtime secretary, asked why.  Thomas explained to him:  "All that I have written seems like straw to me."  Several times after, to others, he repeated this phrase.  Best estimates are that he received an answer to a conversation from the prior year, when Friar Dominic of Caserta had observed Thomas at prayer.  Thomas began to levitate. Then the crucifix animated, picked up the Summa draft, and spoke, "Thomas, you have written well about me.  What reward will you have?"  Thomas answered, "Lord, nothing but yourself." 

3.  Why the bellowing? 

No human encouragement nor entreaty could convince Thomas to write or teach again, after 06 Dec 1273.  The dumb ox had suddenly fallen mute, until he died. Yet few humans have ever matched the logic in his works, no matter that he expressed that logic with insight apparently aimed straight towards, but falling short of adequately describing, ultimate truth.  Even today, his breakthroughs in philosophy still impact our thinking, whether or not we recognize our depth in history.

Thomas was a great mind who sought truth through logic. People responded almost universally, when protected from the proponents of ‘agenda despite truth’. Today, in our public policy arenas, we have too much emotive manipulation within arguments that possess too little logic. We seldom even teach logic in our schools, any more. This blog aims to defend and expose truth, with logic, to the level its author can manage. This author intends to defend Americans against self-proclaimed elites; against especially those elites who tend to denigrate Americans as so busy and/or so dumb that they need a self-selected group of enlightened to tell them what to think. This author promotes discussion of issues, and rejects ad hominem denigrations that self-knighted elites resort to, usually when facts and logic prove to be inconveniently opposed to social engineering agendas. 

No, Americans prove again and again, that they are fully capable of accepting truth, and acting prudently upon it, when they can only be exposed to it!  Maybe, Duck Archer can help create an atmosphere of intellectual honesty in our public debates. Maybe, that atmosphere will allow some successor to Thomas Aquinas, who can build on the works of the Founding Fathers, to further perfect this country’s singular Constitution with all its echoes of inalienable personal dignities, freedoms, and responsibilities!

May this blog be worthy of intellectual honesty & integrity, and may slurs roll off like water off a duck’s back.