JMA:

Very well put and a good book review too. I wonder about guys like that who apparently find being a small scale "warrior king" isn't interesting enough for them.

I have an observation and question about a little thing but I wonder nonetheless. When you mentioned "the makeshift gym" it reminded me. What do you, and anybody else, think of the whole "gym" and "workout" subculture and how it affects the way things are run over there? I mention this because it was my subjective observation that some of the people I worked with, some, seemed to be as interested in making sure they had their full allotment of gym time as they were interested in the conflict.