Sunday, June 28, 2015

Gypsies

     There was a time, believe it or not, when your correspondent spent a lot of time in pool rooms years past. And the reason was because of three cushion billiards table. unlike pool tables three cushion tables have no pockets. Three cushion tables are all about geometry and not trickery. To see an example of the game watch a movie called "Lady for a Day" made back in the 1930s. It is ,basically, the same story as "Pocketful Full of Miracles" made in the early 1960s. The earlier motion picture was made when pool was considered outre' and three cushion an art.
     The reason that your truly brings this up at this time is because of Gypsies.  Anyone who has travelled in southern Europe is aware, Gypsies are a problem. Women have to hold their handbags closely and men have to keep their hands on their wallets an passports to prevent themselves from being robbed by Gypsy children.
     It may appear racist or ethincist, but the truth of the matter is that a lot of Gypsies are just damn crooks, thieves and cheaters despite what they say.
     Back in the day when your faithful correspondent was haunting pool rooms it was made clear to him. Your writer had, and still has, a custom made billiard cue. There was no way that it could have been mistaken for a house cue because of the wrap on the thick end of the cue. At said pool room there were a group of gypsies looking for something they could get. One day your faithful correspondent left his cue on a billiard table for a few minutes to go get a cup of coffee. When he came back the cue was gone despite the fact that he had paid for the table for a period of time. Being pretty angry and a natural detective he started stalking through the pool room looking for his cue. He found a Gypsy boy using your writer's cue to play 9 Ball (quell horror!) among a bunch of Gypsy men. Your writer approached said boy and said, "Young man! I believe you have my billiards cue!" The boy looked at his older compatriots. One nodded to him. Then the boy gave yours the cue with the words, "I thought it was a house cue." At which this writer took the cue and returned to his billiards practice cursing under his breath that Gypsies are not romantic and that they are, by culture, crooks, cheats and thieves.
     The point is that Gypsies know what they are. They know and embrace the culture in which they've been raised. And they don't get out the ACLU when someone calls them out for what they are. They are honest in that way. They know what they are and admit it. This is different than a lot of other groups who demand one's respect.


Flags, ISIS and Coathooks

     This writer apologizes for having been so slow to return to the blog since his last post. But the passing of Baroness Nib and Lord Isamu in the month of February and the attendant legal and financial matters have precluded any posts due to demands on your faithful correspondent. Dear Reader, please be assured that yours truly will make every attempt to post on a weekly basis in the future.
     This past week has been an interesting one that has left us here at Bloody Nib Manor rocked back on our heels for a bit. It is not that the incidents were unexpected, but more that they came so fast. An analogy would be one expecting a punch from an opponent and finding oneself at the receiving end of a fist not one time, but several times in an instant. Four punches in the time of one punch will result in one feeling confused and dopey and consider throwing in the towel. Or pulling out a sap.
     Last week, after the shooting at the church in Charleston, S.C., it didn't take long for politicians, in their never ending quest for cheap solutions and get their mugs on the telly, to call for the banning of the Confederate battle flag from all governmental institutions. Governor Halley the first by calling for the flag to be removed from the state capitol grounds. Then every politician and liberal commentator jumped on that band wagon as if the Confederate battle flag is some sort of demon that drives stupid drug addled young men to do evil things. Soon thereafter merchants such as Wal-Mart, E-bay and Amazon announced that they would no longer sell Confederate battle flags or any merchandise displaying the flag (Which raises the question about what are said merchants going to do with their Lynard Skynard and Confederate Railroad CDs and downloads). And then, once the thing end of the wedge had been inserted, everything seems to have collapsed. Calls for the removal of statues of Confederate soldiers, the removal of Confederate cemeteries, changing the names of universities (Washington and Lee, for example) and streets and parks. The attempt seems to be that anything Confederate, whether the battle flag, but any and everything, is as evil as the horned god that Satanists pretend to worship. A film critic for the New York Post has even suggested that Gone With The Wind be banned from showings at governmental institutions (film museums and such). It's all silly and stupid and wrong-headed. But liberals and politicians of every stripe are often that way.
     No matter what your thoughts about the rightness or wrongness of the Southern states seceding from the Union one's opinions concerning that unfortunate event have nothing to do with the Confederate battle flag and it's place in modern Southern society. In fact, this writer, based on no scholarly studies by eggheads writing doctoral dissertations or chasing tenure, posits that the Southern affection for the battle flag is not so much as nostalgia for the Old South as it is, and was after the Civil War, a reaction to Reconstruction and the burden that the Federal government put upon the Southern states after the war. The War was ended with the understanding that, for most in the South, the peace would result in life going back to that before the War. There would be no Confederates and Unionists. There would be Americans who had a sad and bloody disagreement. The reality was that the South was, in fact, if not in law, under martial law for twenty years and the Southerner was under the thumbs of often mercurial and often vengeful men who really knew nothing of the South, were often chasing money and wanted to punish those who had defied them. The reaction of the South was to grasp harder onto it's regional identity. The South had been beaten and humiliated by losing the War. Reconstruction was the North grinding it's heel into the face of the South. How could a man or woman who had suffered that humiliation not fight back in whatever way they could? The battle flag and nostalgia for Southern heroes was the reaction. It was a way to say that they are somebody worth respect, not a way to say down with blacks. Consider the fact that in some jurisdictions ex-Confederates were legally prevented for running for political office by men, from the Union, who treated black men and women worse than a Southern non-slave holder ever did. Also consider the fact that after WW II it was not uncommon for ex-Nazis to be elected to governmental office. The U.S. did what it could to bring up and help to recover from the ravages of WW II in Germany and Japan while the U.S., after the Civil War tried to do everything it could to keep the South down and in poverty. The Confederate battle flag was, and is, more a symbol of resistance to Federal over reach than it is a symbol of racism. It is the biting of an ankle of a dog that has not only been beat into submission, but kicked and starved afterwards by its master.
     (N.B. Be it known that this writer has, as far as he is aware, no ancestors who fought for the South in the Civil War. One great-great grandfather was a corporal in 3rd Regiment of the Iowa Veterans Volunteers {Cavalry}under the command of Capt. John D. Brown, and a great-great grand uncle was hanged by Confederate bushwhackers under the mistaken idea that he was a spy in Jasper County, MO. So this writer has no special sympathy for the C.S.A.)
     Within a week of the Confederate battle flag brouhaha the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that same sex marriage would be the law of this great nation. Immediately the Rainbow flags came out because, apparently, no one appreciates rainbows like the gays. And almost as immediately the gay (yours would use the words "sodomite" or "queer", "gayster" or "qweeb" but this writer really doesn't want to put up with a crap storm of outrage from any gays that may happen to read this) cohort has called for all churches and religious institutions to recognize, and support enthusiastically, same sex marriage. Our own Dear Leader has even gone as far as to say that religions, specifically Christian denominations, should get with the modern program and embrace the whole concept that there will be two little toy men or two little toy women on a wedding cake. "Love" is supposed to overcome all because love is, well love and love is always a good thing, right? So what religious people, people who are not religious but hold a morality based on religious values and people who are concerned about the future of the moral state of the name and society are supposed to throw out their values so that Barbie can pretend that she's married to Lucille when, in fact, in no religious tradition over fifty years old recognizes anything close to same sex marriage. 2% or, at the most 3%, of the population of the nation have somehow decided what the rest of us are to believe. And since the decision is so fabulous E-bay and Amazon are happily selling rainbow flags despite the fact that the fact of same sex marriage is ruinous to society. It's all about love, you see. And love overcomes all. And since the Supreme Court decision we are all expected to embrace our gay brothers and sisters and say that being gay is not only okay. It may be better than being straight. In fact, there should be a mandatory gay class in junior high schools so that all kids will love the gays and, perhaps, discover the fact that they are gay despite the fact that Bobby, until taking the class thought he was in love with Sally and suddenly found out that, because of the class, Jimmy was not his best friend, but potential lover.
     It all reminds me of ISIS and the erasure of collective memory. Jonah Goldberg calls the phenomenon  "the memory hole" based on Geo. Orwell's novel 1984. In the novel the government, once it has changed it's mind about an issue, demands that the people put their memory of the former governmental stance into a "memory hole." The memory is supposed to disappear and instead of the nation being at war with Eurasia and allied with Asia the nation is at war with Asia and allied with Eurasia and always has been. The difference is that the nation has, as of yet, not been able to perfect the "memory hole" but television and movies come pretty close. Instead, what our "betters" do is demonize our memories and tell us that what we know, experienced, believe and have studied, are not true and they will do whatever they can to try to erase those memories, at least in public, from the populace. It is not so much cover-up as it is denial and demonization. ISIS denies that there is any other form of the awful religion of Islam. It will deny that there is any other religion than their form of Islam. They clench their fists, stomp the ground and will kick over any evidence or kill anyone who denies that their form of Islam is stupider than any other form of Islam or that Christians and Jews understand the Bible better than they, or their founder, Mohammed, do.
     The modern liberal and politician (whether Democrat or Republican) who caters to the news media in their attempt to be hip and with it would like to destroy everything and have forgotten everything that doesn't fit into their idea of what should be. They want the Confederate battle flag banished to the area of history that the flag of Joan of Arc in in the U.S. and want it replaced with rainbow flags. It's all about love, you see. Not morality or common sense. And besides, the gaysters spend a lot more money buying off politicians than do Southerners, on a per capita basis. The modern pol doesn't blow up Buddha statues in Afghanistan or Christian churches in Syria. They are much more under handed by making laws. They use the stiletto hidden under the cloak instead of the cosh. And we put up with it.
     Regarding the coat hook, your faithful correspondent has gone on all too long this week and will address the matter of the coat hook next week. To put it short, for those who are interested, the coat hook is a metaphor for modern America. To wit, one can only hang so much on a coat hook before it rips out of the wall.
     All the best from Bloody Nib Manor. There are pigs to be fed and onions to be dug up.