For the past couple of weeks your faithful correspondent (apparently because he has a masochistic nature) has been reading biographies of Communist dictators. Specifically, Joseph Stalin and Mao-Tse-Tung (or as he is called at the Manor, Mousey Dung). In the reading of these biographies this writer has realized that Adolf Hitler had no monopoly on being a very bad man. In fact, yours has come to the conclusion that while the Austrian was a very bad man, Stalin and Mao may have been worse men.
Please know that this writer has no truck with Nazism. Several of his elder relatives fought against the Germans in WW II and hated the Nazis and taught their progeny to hate the Nazis) until their dying days. One uncle not only despised the Nazis, but he, because of his experience in Europe, hated the Russians and the Soviet Union. It must be remembered that during the War the United States and the President, the silly and often foolish Franklin Roosevelt, referred to Joseph Stalin as Uncle Joe because he was fighting the Germans, The awful Walter Duranty reported for the New York Times that there was no man-made famine in Ukraine during the 1930s while, there was, in fact, an awful famine that resulted in the deaths of millions of innocent people. The press lied in saying that Stalin was just a mild Socialist somewhat like a 1960s Swede. And during the Chinese Revolution the government and press more supported Mao than it did Chaing Kai-Shek because Chaing was considered corrupt and a bounder while Mao was considered a man of the people. The press and government neglected to mention that, while Chaing was a bit of a self server, his troops fought the Japanese while Mao's troops fought Chaing's troops whenever they could. Chaing was a crook, to be sure, but he was a crook in the way that a mild dictator is a crook; he wanted to live the big life with a lot of toys and money. He never oppressed his populace as is evinced by Taiwan where he set up his government after he left Mainland China.. Mao was a crook in a much different way.
Let's look at the three men. Hitler was a monster because of his racism. He believed, or pretended to believe that Jews were undermining the German and Western culture. He used an old European fear of Jews and institutionalized it. He hated Poles and Russians because they represented the East. For him the East was a source of grief. When Hitler went on his killing spree he had The Other killed. All Jews, whether German or not, were The Other. He was, in his own mind (or for the benefit of the anti-Semitic Germans which were raised by him) basically exterminating a sort of termite. Bad thinking? Yes. Evil thinking? Yes. Should we spit, pee or poop on a swastika every time we see it? Of course. Hitler and Nazism are major cooties and should always be remembered and their memories shat (please forgive the vulgarity) upon.
Now we come to out allies in the War.
Stalin is responsible for more than 10 million deaths of Russians, Georgians and Ukrainians during his reign. These deaths are not war related deaths. They are deaths that are the result of intentional famines, massacres, forced labor and assassinations. Stalin was killing his own people for his own benefit. The man pretended to be a Bolshevik, but he lived like a grandee. He had more than a few vacation houses and held parties, many of them drunken routs, while the average Russian was wearing cardboard shoes, eating nothing but turnips to survive and having to use communal toilets in apartment buildings. Stalin regularly killed his own people. He regularly terrorized his own people. He indoctrinated his own people that Hitler never could.
Mao followed Stalin's example. Mao was not interested in defeating the Japanese. He was interested in using his power. He had a stable of female entertainers for his sexual pleasure and lived the life of a horny ReillyDuring his reign more than 20 million people died from famine because Mao considered the export of agricultural goods more important than feeding his own people. Mao wanted an industrial China and was more than willing to sacrifice the lives of millions to attain it. If a local official said to Mao that people in an agricultural area said that people were starving to death because of Mao's policies Mao would say that if the people worked harder there would be more food to eat. Then the official would be jailed and executed, Mao used terror in a way that Stalin never could. And the oddest thing is that Mao always spoke a Chinese dialect that was not common in China. He never learned to speak Mandarin, but he managed to establish a cult of personality unlike any other ever seen.
When Kim Il-Sung was considering invading South Korea both Stalin and Mao encouraged him to do so. Stalin wanted to test his weapons. Mao wanted to extend his influence in Asia. The result was the deaths of thousands of Koreans, Chinese and Americans. Kim wanted to end the war in 1951. Both Stalin and Mao wanted him to continue with the war. The result was more deaths and the fact that the borders of North and South Korea did not change. Kim took the Mao road to governance i.e., the people serve the state and the leader of the state. The citizens of the state mean nothing. The state is all as long as Kim was living big. And the curse of that adherence has resulted in the awful Doughboy Kim Jong-Un.
And it keeps descending to Fidel Castro and his lackey Che Gueverra (a psycho-murdered if there ever was one), The Shining Path Guerrillas in Peru, Ho Chi Minh, Saddam Hussein (more Stalinist than Arab nationalist) and the Khmer Rouge. All of these groups have followed the Stalinist/Maoist path. Ask your self what governments has followed the Hitler path?
This writer remembers when it was popular for people in the United States to wear Mao pins (almost all Chinese in Communist China) band to have copies of Mao's Little Red Book. There was the chant of "Ho! Ho! Ho! Che Minh!" at anti-Vietnam War rallies. Images of Che Gueverra were, and are still, considered the "thing" despite the fact that the man was a stone killer of the worst sort. But, if then, if one showed up weaving a swastika flag or wore a swastika patch one was considered a hater or an outlaw biker.
It makes no sense. All of the above men were bad. No one of them was worse than the other. But, for some reason, Hitler is considered the non plus ultra bad guy despite the fact that compared to Stalin and Mao he was a piker.
It makes one wonder about the state of popular culture and contemporary education.
Sunday, July 26, 2015
Saturday, July 25, 2015
So Sorry!
Considering this writer's last post concerning apologies, there is this about Indian politicians demanding reparations and apologies for the British colonization of India. It's all cheap race mongering and feel sorry for one's self. If it had not been for the British there would be no India. There would be a warring collection states speaking different languages on the land mass now known as India.
India's prime minister endorses call for Britain to pay reparations for colonial rule - Telegraph
India's prime minister endorses call for Britain to pay reparations for colonial rule - Telegraph
Who's Sorry Now?
Things have been rather busy here at Nib Manor what with dealing with shady real estate agents and talking to his solicitor about how to realize the most benefit from the selling of the late Baroness Nib's estate. Be it know that this writer is not a businessman and has no head for business. But that is the price of being a member of the lower aristocracy fitted for nothing much more than reading and writing and regretting lost opportunities as the lower nobility tend to do.
This week your faithful correspondent has been spending a bit of time reading about the late writer Iris Chang. Ms Chang was a Chinese-American woman who wrote what many people consider the definitive book about the take over of Nanking China by the Japanese in the early days of World War II. The title of the book was "The Rape of Nanking." When the book was published it set off fire alarms in Japan because the Japanese have always denied that any such program of massacre, oppression and organized rape had taken place. Ms Chang was a troubled young woman suffering from depression and mild schizophrenia, and after her third book (about the Chinese experience in America) she took her own life.
One of the things that she did after her book about Nanking she had the opportunity to meet a high level Japanese official. During the meeting for an apology from him, on behalf of the Japanese government, an apology for the rapes of Nanking and Shanghai. The man acknowledged that those incidents took place but did not apologize for them. She kept pressing him for an apology and he never did. She wanted the man to say, "I'm sorry. We, the Japanese, are sorry for our barbarity." She left the meeting frustrated and angry. The press screamed, "Japan refuses to apologize for atrocities of WW II!"
In pondering this apology fetish this writer has found himself on the side of the non-apology crowd for historic wrongs simply for the reason that the apology demanded by many groups or people are demanded from people who had nothing to do with the offense. The Japanese official from whom Ms Chang demanded an apology had nothing to do with Nanking or the invasion of China. The man may not have even been alive during the incident. Most Japanese at the time of the meeting were not alive during the incident. Their fathers and grandfathers may have been, but does a son have the right, or does he have the obligation, to apologize for his father's sins? The most that the person can say that has any import and sincerity is that he or she regrets that the incident happened.
Yours has noticed that Asians are particularly fond of apologies for past sins. Mao Tse-Tung used that tool to come into and stay in power. He demanded apologies and self-criticism from his lackeys and the people to the point that they would apologize and beg forgiveness for things that they had never done. The Japanese have demanded apologies for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while never apologizing for the invasions of China and Singapore and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One wonders what the value of an apology from a person who had nothing to do with the offense is worth. To this writer, it means nothing.
Let us assume, for a moment, that you, dear reader, punched a fellow in the nose for whatever reason. You threw the first punch. And once the fight was broken up and every spectator of the tussle agrees that you were in the wrong, your victim demands an apology and you refuse stalking away in high dudgeon. Now we fast forward to the reader's grandchildren. The grandson of the person you punched in the beak approaches your grandchild and says, "Hey, your grandpa punched my grandma in the nose and I want an apology. I want you to say you're sorry!" And your grandkid says, "My dear fellow, I had nothing to do with it. Talk to grandpa." And then another fight breaks out because the other kid has confused your grandkid with you. Does that make any damn sense?
The only time that an apology is sincere is when it is from the person or persons who committed the offense. You cannot apologize for the actions of others. You can say that you can regret those acts. But you can't apologize.
Early in his career as President of the United States Barack Obama took a tour of much of the Middle East, Africa and Europe on what was called The Apology Tour in which he apologized for every perceived offense against other nations by the U.S since 1776. And the result was a big yawn from the world except those who wanted to lay a sense of guilt on the U.S. It was an exercise in foolishness by a man who is, essentially, a fool.
The time to apologize is immediately after the fact. If you accidentally hit a person in the head with a shovel one apologizes, or one has beat a foe to dust and realizes that one has gone a bit too far one apologizes. But to apologize to the Bank of America because one's father was a bank robber, or because one's great grandfather chased the army of the Madhi in the Sudan is just cheap and stupid. One cannot speak for one's ancestors. In fact, this writer would posit that nations cannot apologize.
So, please, people trapped in the past, quit demanding apologies that we have no right to give. Is the lack from our vocabulary of the two words "I'm sorry" going to ruin your lives. If so, this writer feels sorry for you.
This week your faithful correspondent has been spending a bit of time reading about the late writer Iris Chang. Ms Chang was a Chinese-American woman who wrote what many people consider the definitive book about the take over of Nanking China by the Japanese in the early days of World War II. The title of the book was "The Rape of Nanking." When the book was published it set off fire alarms in Japan because the Japanese have always denied that any such program of massacre, oppression and organized rape had taken place. Ms Chang was a troubled young woman suffering from depression and mild schizophrenia, and after her third book (about the Chinese experience in America) she took her own life.
One of the things that she did after her book about Nanking she had the opportunity to meet a high level Japanese official. During the meeting for an apology from him, on behalf of the Japanese government, an apology for the rapes of Nanking and Shanghai. The man acknowledged that those incidents took place but did not apologize for them. She kept pressing him for an apology and he never did. She wanted the man to say, "I'm sorry. We, the Japanese, are sorry for our barbarity." She left the meeting frustrated and angry. The press screamed, "Japan refuses to apologize for atrocities of WW II!"
In pondering this apology fetish this writer has found himself on the side of the non-apology crowd for historic wrongs simply for the reason that the apology demanded by many groups or people are demanded from people who had nothing to do with the offense. The Japanese official from whom Ms Chang demanded an apology had nothing to do with Nanking or the invasion of China. The man may not have even been alive during the incident. Most Japanese at the time of the meeting were not alive during the incident. Their fathers and grandfathers may have been, but does a son have the right, or does he have the obligation, to apologize for his father's sins? The most that the person can say that has any import and sincerity is that he or she regrets that the incident happened.
Yours has noticed that Asians are particularly fond of apologies for past sins. Mao Tse-Tung used that tool to come into and stay in power. He demanded apologies and self-criticism from his lackeys and the people to the point that they would apologize and beg forgiveness for things that they had never done. The Japanese have demanded apologies for the atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki while never apologizing for the invasions of China and Singapore and the bombing of Pearl Harbor. One wonders what the value of an apology from a person who had nothing to do with the offense is worth. To this writer, it means nothing.
Let us assume, for a moment, that you, dear reader, punched a fellow in the nose for whatever reason. You threw the first punch. And once the fight was broken up and every spectator of the tussle agrees that you were in the wrong, your victim demands an apology and you refuse stalking away in high dudgeon. Now we fast forward to the reader's grandchildren. The grandson of the person you punched in the beak approaches your grandchild and says, "Hey, your grandpa punched my grandma in the nose and I want an apology. I want you to say you're sorry!" And your grandkid says, "My dear fellow, I had nothing to do with it. Talk to grandpa." And then another fight breaks out because the other kid has confused your grandkid with you. Does that make any damn sense?
The only time that an apology is sincere is when it is from the person or persons who committed the offense. You cannot apologize for the actions of others. You can say that you can regret those acts. But you can't apologize.
Early in his career as President of the United States Barack Obama took a tour of much of the Middle East, Africa and Europe on what was called The Apology Tour in which he apologized for every perceived offense against other nations by the U.S since 1776. And the result was a big yawn from the world except those who wanted to lay a sense of guilt on the U.S. It was an exercise in foolishness by a man who is, essentially, a fool.
The time to apologize is immediately after the fact. If you accidentally hit a person in the head with a shovel one apologizes, or one has beat a foe to dust and realizes that one has gone a bit too far one apologizes. But to apologize to the Bank of America because one's father was a bank robber, or because one's great grandfather chased the army of the Madhi in the Sudan is just cheap and stupid. One cannot speak for one's ancestors. In fact, this writer would posit that nations cannot apologize.
So, please, people trapped in the past, quit demanding apologies that we have no right to give. Is the lack from our vocabulary of the two words "I'm sorry" going to ruin your lives. If so, this writer feels sorry for you.
Sunday, July 19, 2015
Call Me Mister
Your faithful correspondent has spent a good portion of the past few months dealing with the estate of the late Baroness Nib. Unfortunately for all concerned this writer is the executor of the will. In trying to be a responsible executor yours truly has had to deal with lawyers, para-legals, notaries, real estate people and workmen. And one thing has been noticed; almost all of them, once discovering one's given name, are all too quick and eager to start addressing one by one's given name, while, in fact, they should, out of a sense of respect and courtesy, address one by an honorific followed by one's surname.
Those who personally know this writer know that he is not a stuffy or uptight person. In fact, he is pretty casual and fairly friendly. Being a citizen of the United States he does not expect people to address him as "Lord Nib" despite the fact that, while not born to the blue, he is a natural aristocrat. But he does expect people with whom he is not on a familiar basis to call him "Mr. Nib" simply because yours refers to the other person as "Mr. Smith", "Miss Jones", "Mrs. Johnson", or "Ms Angry."
In dealing with all these people, who have all been hired to perform various duties and tasks by this writer there is an invariable sequence of events: Yours introduces himself as Marmaduke Nib. The other person introduces herself at Patty Sneakyrealtor. Then, immediately Ms Sneakyrealtor starts calling your faithful correspondent "Marmaduke", or even worse "Marmie." And she continues doing so despite that fact that this writer continues to call her "Ms Sneakyrealtor." She's so damn dense that she doesn't realize that she is being urged to return the courtesy without the writer coming out and saying plainly, "Call me Mr. Nib, if you please, madame." To which she'll probably reply, "But I don't please. I want to be your friend. Call me Patty."
Here's the point: It is only common courtesy to address other people by an honorific and their surname until until given permission by the person to use the Christian name. People have a right, face to face, to expect to be called by the name they want to be called by. In this day where a clean tee shirts and jeans are considered almost formal wear people are all too eager to be "friends" with someone they really do not know. A person one has just met, nowadays, is all too quick to assume that one is their friend and they expect one to be their friend. A person may want to be considered one's friend, but one, if nothing else, has the right whether or not to consider that person a friend. In the not too far past it was a trick for a car salesman to use one's given name as soon as he could because he wanted to appear to be one's friend. After all, a friend wouldn't cheat another friend on a deal, would they?
And the usage of an honorific and surname for another person is a sign that one respects the other person in a professional manner. Your faithful correspondent has worked with people for over ten years, known them well and are professionally friendly with them and yet refers to them as "Mrs. McCoy" or "Mr. McGee"
and they refer to yours as "Mr. Nib." We are equals, and yet separate. We like one another, depend on one another, but we realize that we really aren't friends in the old sense in which a friend was an especially close person and not just an acquaintance. Now it seems that every-God-damn-body is one's friend and one is supposed to buy the world a Coke.
One should especially expect one to be called "Mr. X" by people one hires to perform duties or tasks. Those people are one's, in a sense, employees. One is paying them. This goes for doctors (consider the fact that when one goes to the doctor the doctor usually refers to one as Otto {or whatever one's name is} while if one calls the doctor Myron he has a hissy fit and says that one should call him Dr. DeGaulle), lawyers and anyone who one pays to perform a task. One is paying them to perform a task. One should expect the person, even if they recognize the common courtesy and respect in name usage, to address one in the most respectful and courteous manner because one is paying that person. To be crude, one is that person's boss and should be treated as such. And those who are all too eager to call one Otis (or whatever one's name is) should be considered on the same level as Gypsies trying to sell one a "great horse" or Travellers offering to paint one's house for a "great price" because they have "left over" paint from another job.
So, this writer advises that the reader expect he or she be called Mr., Miss, Mrs. or Ms by those with whom one is dealing until one gives the person permission to call one by one's first name. And, of course, one should show the courtesy to the person one is dealing with until given permission to do otherwise. If the person insists on using one's Christian name the best thing to do for both one's self and the other person is to say, once the other person has said, "Well, Jasper....." one rudely interrupts that person and say, "Pardon my rudeness, Mr. Shyster, but starting now I would prefer that you call me, Mister. You are not my buddy. You are not my friend. This is a professional relationship. Let's keep it that way." You, the reader, will benefit. And the other person will benefit simply because you have drawn a line that makes clear that there is a difference between business and friendship.
Those who personally know this writer know that he is not a stuffy or uptight person. In fact, he is pretty casual and fairly friendly. Being a citizen of the United States he does not expect people to address him as "Lord Nib" despite the fact that, while not born to the blue, he is a natural aristocrat. But he does expect people with whom he is not on a familiar basis to call him "Mr. Nib" simply because yours refers to the other person as "Mr. Smith", "Miss Jones", "Mrs. Johnson", or "Ms Angry."
In dealing with all these people, who have all been hired to perform various duties and tasks by this writer there is an invariable sequence of events: Yours introduces himself as Marmaduke Nib. The other person introduces herself at Patty Sneakyrealtor. Then, immediately Ms Sneakyrealtor starts calling your faithful correspondent "Marmaduke", or even worse "Marmie." And she continues doing so despite that fact that this writer continues to call her "Ms Sneakyrealtor." She's so damn dense that she doesn't realize that she is being urged to return the courtesy without the writer coming out and saying plainly, "Call me Mr. Nib, if you please, madame." To which she'll probably reply, "But I don't please. I want to be your friend. Call me Patty."
Here's the point: It is only common courtesy to address other people by an honorific and their surname until until given permission by the person to use the Christian name. People have a right, face to face, to expect to be called by the name they want to be called by. In this day where a clean tee shirts and jeans are considered almost formal wear people are all too eager to be "friends" with someone they really do not know. A person one has just met, nowadays, is all too quick to assume that one is their friend and they expect one to be their friend. A person may want to be considered one's friend, but one, if nothing else, has the right whether or not to consider that person a friend. In the not too far past it was a trick for a car salesman to use one's given name as soon as he could because he wanted to appear to be one's friend. After all, a friend wouldn't cheat another friend on a deal, would they?
And the usage of an honorific and surname for another person is a sign that one respects the other person in a professional manner. Your faithful correspondent has worked with people for over ten years, known them well and are professionally friendly with them and yet refers to them as "Mrs. McCoy" or "Mr. McGee"
and they refer to yours as "Mr. Nib." We are equals, and yet separate. We like one another, depend on one another, but we realize that we really aren't friends in the old sense in which a friend was an especially close person and not just an acquaintance. Now it seems that every-God-damn-body is one's friend and one is supposed to buy the world a Coke.
One should especially expect one to be called "Mr. X" by people one hires to perform duties or tasks. Those people are one's, in a sense, employees. One is paying them. This goes for doctors (consider the fact that when one goes to the doctor the doctor usually refers to one as Otto {or whatever one's name is} while if one calls the doctor Myron he has a hissy fit and says that one should call him Dr. DeGaulle), lawyers and anyone who one pays to perform a task. One is paying them to perform a task. One should expect the person, even if they recognize the common courtesy and respect in name usage, to address one in the most respectful and courteous manner because one is paying that person. To be crude, one is that person's boss and should be treated as such. And those who are all too eager to call one Otis (or whatever one's name is) should be considered on the same level as Gypsies trying to sell one a "great horse" or Travellers offering to paint one's house for a "great price" because they have "left over" paint from another job.
So, this writer advises that the reader expect he or she be called Mr., Miss, Mrs. or Ms by those with whom one is dealing until one gives the person permission to call one by one's first name. And, of course, one should show the courtesy to the person one is dealing with until given permission to do otherwise. If the person insists on using one's Christian name the best thing to do for both one's self and the other person is to say, once the other person has said, "Well, Jasper....." one rudely interrupts that person and say, "Pardon my rudeness, Mr. Shyster, but starting now I would prefer that you call me, Mister. You are not my buddy. You are not my friend. This is a professional relationship. Let's keep it that way." You, the reader, will benefit. And the other person will benefit simply because you have drawn a line that makes clear that there is a difference between business and friendship.
Saturday, July 18, 2015
Conrad
Anyone who has read Conrad's novel "The Heart of Darkness" knows that the last words of the character Kurtz were "Kill them Kill them all."
Kurtz was a Belgian trader who had gone to the darkest part of Africa to make money. He was not a missionary. But despite his search for money he also, perhaps unknowingly, expected to civilize his little part of Africa. Instead he was made an sort of idol and a prisoner by the Africans that he had hoped to civilize for his trading concern.
We, in the West, have fallen into the Kurtz trap. Our civilizational kindness and the wish to make a profit have resulted in us being trapped by a lower form of civilization. The lower form of civilization is the Islamic civilization.
Through our kindness we have not only given the revolver to those who wish to destroy us, we have loaded the chambers and handed the gun to those who are such savages in their mores and morays and yet benefit from our work and talents as Christians and Westerners, we have pulled the trigger in slow motion The bullet is coming into our brains unless we wise up.
Be it known that this writer is not a racist or religionist. The ever lovely Lady Nib is an Asian woman, Bloody Nib Manor is in a Mexican neighborhood, one of this writer's best friends was a black man, and the most beautiful woman he ever saw was an African woman and one of his doctors was a Muslim.
But one wonders, considering the current state of Islam against the West, if it would not have been a good idea if General Gordon had not directed, in his battle against the Mahdi, had told his men to kill them and kill them all.
Kurtz was a Belgian trader who had gone to the darkest part of Africa to make money. He was not a missionary. But despite his search for money he also, perhaps unknowingly, expected to civilize his little part of Africa. Instead he was made an sort of idol and a prisoner by the Africans that he had hoped to civilize for his trading concern.
We, in the West, have fallen into the Kurtz trap. Our civilizational kindness and the wish to make a profit have resulted in us being trapped by a lower form of civilization. The lower form of civilization is the Islamic civilization.
Through our kindness we have not only given the revolver to those who wish to destroy us, we have loaded the chambers and handed the gun to those who are such savages in their mores and morays and yet benefit from our work and talents as Christians and Westerners, we have pulled the trigger in slow motion The bullet is coming into our brains unless we wise up.
Be it known that this writer is not a racist or religionist. The ever lovely Lady Nib is an Asian woman, Bloody Nib Manor is in a Mexican neighborhood, one of this writer's best friends was a black man, and the most beautiful woman he ever saw was an African woman and one of his doctors was a Muslim.
But one wonders, considering the current state of Islam against the West, if it would not have been a good idea if General Gordon had not directed, in his battle against the Mahdi, had told his men to kill them and kill them all.
Saturday, July 11, 2015
Who's Confused?
As long time readers of this series of pamphlets are aware, the ever lovely Lady Nib is an Asian woman; specifically Japanese. From the day of her birth until into her fifties her hair was as black and shiny as onyx, as straight as a die and as thick as a hawser. It was only then that a few silver strands came in. She's always been proud of it, and rightfully so.
Back in the early 90s it became popular for a segment of the female Asian population to bleach their hair to various shades of brown, auburn or even blond and to curl their hair into ringlets. When Lady Nib first saw this trend she said, "Oh my! That looks very bad. These poor girls want to have Northern European hair on Asian faces. It's like putting Ford decals on Dodges. It just doesn't work. In fact, it looks stupid." But, the world, being a slave to the fashions of those who have money and/or fame, ignored Lady Nib's protestations and now, if one watches Japanese television one sees images of many Japanese young women with a set of blondish curls that would drive Farrah Fawcett into fits of jealousy. But Japanese people, in Japan, really don't know much about the U.S. or Europe. They think they do, but once they get to Los Angeles or London they find themselves gobsmacked by a world that they didn't know existed. Some of them, while in Japan, want to appear American or European in a Japanese milieu. They think of Japan as staid and tradition-ridden and that the Occident is hip and with it while the Occidental hipsters look to Japan for what is the new trend. It's all very confusing for them; is manga cool, why do Goths dye their hair black, why do Americans love Godzilla while people in Japan think the monster is a joke?
Which brings us to "people of color" in the U.S. Has the reader noticed that an inordinate number of well-known African-American women seem to have hair that is lighter than the natural color? Many of these women spend a lot of time complaining about how they are "put down by The Man", and yet they have chosen to have their locks bleached to match those of Paris Hilton. There is no way that Beyonce's long curly and honey colored locks are natural or that Raven Symone's chrome head came from genetics. And one must ask one's self why women of color, who are constantly pitching a bitch about the white man and white culture, decide to make their hair as European as they can. It makes no sense unless one factors in the fact that many black men consider European idea of beauty to be the ideal beauty and that black women are trying to match that as best they can. Consider the fact that in South Africa, and even in the United States there are beauty products for black women that are supposed to lighten their skin color. Why?
Be it known that the most beautiful woman (besides the ever lovely Lady Nib) this writer ever knew was an African (not African-American) woman. She was beautiful in every way; mind, body and soul. She had a posture that would make a ballerina jealous. Almost every man who saw her got slack jawed when he saw her. She straightened her hair for convenience sake, but her hair was as black as coal. And, as far as this writer is aware, she never disliked or was jealous of anyone on racial terms. She was what she was and accepted it and people loved her for it. She didn't try to be white. She didn't try to be black. She was just her; a woman comfortable in her own skin and she didn't let the tides of popular culture dictate who she "should" be.
Consider this tirade by Raven Symone about Donald Trump. She's got a chrome head while bitching about Trump's anti-immigration rants. Well, we've got two idiots; Raven Symone and Donald Trump. Trump is right in immigration, but Symone, because of her chrome head, can't tell the idiot Trump that he's racist because she's, in a sense, as racist as she claims that he is by trying to make herself look like a Swede with a suntan.
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/views-raven-symone-thinks-trump-behind-steinle-murder
Back in the early 90s it became popular for a segment of the female Asian population to bleach their hair to various shades of brown, auburn or even blond and to curl their hair into ringlets. When Lady Nib first saw this trend she said, "Oh my! That looks very bad. These poor girls want to have Northern European hair on Asian faces. It's like putting Ford decals on Dodges. It just doesn't work. In fact, it looks stupid." But, the world, being a slave to the fashions of those who have money and/or fame, ignored Lady Nib's protestations and now, if one watches Japanese television one sees images of many Japanese young women with a set of blondish curls that would drive Farrah Fawcett into fits of jealousy. But Japanese people, in Japan, really don't know much about the U.S. or Europe. They think they do, but once they get to Los Angeles or London they find themselves gobsmacked by a world that they didn't know existed. Some of them, while in Japan, want to appear American or European in a Japanese milieu. They think of Japan as staid and tradition-ridden and that the Occident is hip and with it while the Occidental hipsters look to Japan for what is the new trend. It's all very confusing for them; is manga cool, why do Goths dye their hair black, why do Americans love Godzilla while people in Japan think the monster is a joke?
Which brings us to "people of color" in the U.S. Has the reader noticed that an inordinate number of well-known African-American women seem to have hair that is lighter than the natural color? Many of these women spend a lot of time complaining about how they are "put down by The Man", and yet they have chosen to have their locks bleached to match those of Paris Hilton. There is no way that Beyonce's long curly and honey colored locks are natural or that Raven Symone's chrome head came from genetics. And one must ask one's self why women of color, who are constantly pitching a bitch about the white man and white culture, decide to make their hair as European as they can. It makes no sense unless one factors in the fact that many black men consider European idea of beauty to be the ideal beauty and that black women are trying to match that as best they can. Consider the fact that in South Africa, and even in the United States there are beauty products for black women that are supposed to lighten their skin color. Why?
Be it known that the most beautiful woman (besides the ever lovely Lady Nib) this writer ever knew was an African (not African-American) woman. She was beautiful in every way; mind, body and soul. She had a posture that would make a ballerina jealous. Almost every man who saw her got slack jawed when he saw her. She straightened her hair for convenience sake, but her hair was as black as coal. And, as far as this writer is aware, she never disliked or was jealous of anyone on racial terms. She was what she was and accepted it and people loved her for it. She didn't try to be white. She didn't try to be black. She was just her; a woman comfortable in her own skin and she didn't let the tides of popular culture dictate who she "should" be.
Consider this tirade by Raven Symone about Donald Trump. She's got a chrome head while bitching about Trump's anti-immigration rants. Well, we've got two idiots; Raven Symone and Donald Trump. Trump is right in immigration, but Symone, because of her chrome head, can't tell the idiot Trump that he's racist because she's, in a sense, as racist as she claims that he is by trying to make herself look like a Swede with a suntan.
http://www.truthrevolt.org/news/views-raven-symone-thinks-trump-behind-steinle-murder
Trump?
This piece by Jonah Goldberg pretty much tells the problem with Donald Trump:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421045/donald-trump-fraud
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/421045/donald-trump-fraud
Sunday, July 05, 2015
The Same Old Song
As long time readers of this broadside are aware, we here at Bloody Nib Manor as Christians. The ever lovely Lady Nib is an Anglican and your faithful correspondent is an Old Baptist, as well as being an old Baptist.
This fact matters to this entry because this entry deals with the shrinking Christian ethos in the West and the results of such shrinkage.
The West, specifically Western Europe, the United States and Canada, were heretofore nations and cultures based on the Christian ethos, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant. The Church and the teachings from the Bible were as important, or more important, to the average citizen or subject in personal and public life as were the dictates of the governments. For the highly educated there were such teachers as Socrates and Marcus Aurelius and the histories of Greece and Rome to draw upon for wisdom and ideas of governance, but even these eggheads always referred to the teachings of the Bible to make their case to the wider world. We, as societies like to natter on about the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Icelandic republic and so forth. But in the end, it was always the Judeo-Christian ethos and belief in Judaism and Christianity that have put the best parts of those documents into effect. When we look at the results of the French Revolution and the de jure banning of the Jewish and Christian teachings and ethos we see the results of the abandonment of the things that made life in France livable for the average Frenchman. We see mass executions of the aristocrats, the unfavored, and the religious -- including a convent of Carmalite nuns---, the assumption, in a way that no monarchy had before been assumed in the West, that the citizen was a tool of the state, and the assumption that they, the revolutionaries, have not only made a government anew, but the world anew i.e., the establishment of a ten day week and the first year of the Revolution being called Year one. The silliness, in its self is overwhelming. Or it would be if the Soviets in the Russian Revolution, the Nazis, the Chinese Communists and the Cambodian Communists had not done the same thing in spades.
What we have in the West now is the result of more than seventy years of de-Christianization which was led, not only by atheists and agnostics, but by liberal Christian theologians. One cannot blame atheists and agnostics. They are what they are; fools. But liberal Christian theologians are to be blamed. They are to blame hard and heartily condemned. They are fellow travelers in the same way that many wealthy persons supported the Soviets back at the beginning of the 20th century or as actors support mere idiocy now. They saw a what they thought of as a "better idea" that was new. They still reverted Jesus, but not as the Truth. They saw, and still see Him as a Jewish version of Socrates and Plato; a man with some pretty good ideas. And when one is dealing with man instead of the Son of Man one can pretty much ignore the things that that man said in favor of the new flavor. Mohammed said a few (two nor three) things that make sense, so one might as well put an illiterate Arab trader on the same level as the Son of God.
Female genital mutilation is considered by the New Theologian, a sad thing, but excusable in the same way that women in the church were expected to wear a hat or veil (your writer remembers those days in Protestant churches). Abortion on demand, while sad according to the New Theologian, is also sad, but a woman's happiness is more important than a child. We all deserve to be happy, don't we? And same sex marriage is just a matter of courtesy to our gay brethren and sisters; they are nice people and are born that way. Meanwhile, if a dirty drunk stumbles into the New Theologian's church, is confronted by the New Theologian and the drunk says that he wants Communion the New Theologian will probably give the drunk the address of a rehab clinic and send him on his way despite the drunk saying that he can't help being a drunk. He was born that way.
The New Theologian kicks out the props of Western society while saying that he loves, not Western society or Jesus Christ, but the world. And this intellectually poor educated dope actually thinks that he's doing God's work by ignoring God's Word. After all, the New Theologian has a B.A., an M.Div and maybe a T.Hd. Jesus never made it to high school as far as we know. The old Scottish crofter, the American sharecropper, the mechanic, and the boy behind the plow read the Bible and studied it more in a year than the New Theologians does in a lifetime. And the reason that he comes up with such silly and destructive ideas and pronouncements is because he want to be liked and respected in the world at large. He has forgotten, or does not want to remember that Christians have three enemies; the World, the Flesh and the Devil.
The New Theologian is more dangerous to Western society than the atheist or agnostic because he operates under the cover of Faith. He is, in a sense, antiChist in that he misrepresents the teachings of Christ under the cover of Christ. And because so many people who regard themselves as Christians have no knowledge of the Bible or their faith, they will follow the New Theologian over a cliff like lemmings. And along the way they will do their best to change Western society to an anarchic and at the same time fascistic society while they insist that they are being "nice."
The odd thing is that back in the 18th century and before "nice" meant "silly." They condemn themselves with their own words and don't realize it. And they condemn us with their ideas and don't realize it.
This fact matters to this entry because this entry deals with the shrinking Christian ethos in the West and the results of such shrinkage.
The West, specifically Western Europe, the United States and Canada, were heretofore nations and cultures based on the Christian ethos, whether Roman Catholic or Protestant. The Church and the teachings from the Bible were as important, or more important, to the average citizen or subject in personal and public life as were the dictates of the governments. For the highly educated there were such teachers as Socrates and Marcus Aurelius and the histories of Greece and Rome to draw upon for wisdom and ideas of governance, but even these eggheads always referred to the teachings of the Bible to make their case to the wider world. We, as societies like to natter on about the Magna Carta, the Declaration of Independence, the Icelandic republic and so forth. But in the end, it was always the Judeo-Christian ethos and belief in Judaism and Christianity that have put the best parts of those documents into effect. When we look at the results of the French Revolution and the de jure banning of the Jewish and Christian teachings and ethos we see the results of the abandonment of the things that made life in France livable for the average Frenchman. We see mass executions of the aristocrats, the unfavored, and the religious -- including a convent of Carmalite nuns---, the assumption, in a way that no monarchy had before been assumed in the West, that the citizen was a tool of the state, and the assumption that they, the revolutionaries, have not only made a government anew, but the world anew i.e., the establishment of a ten day week and the first year of the Revolution being called Year one. The silliness, in its self is overwhelming. Or it would be if the Soviets in the Russian Revolution, the Nazis, the Chinese Communists and the Cambodian Communists had not done the same thing in spades.
What we have in the West now is the result of more than seventy years of de-Christianization which was led, not only by atheists and agnostics, but by liberal Christian theologians. One cannot blame atheists and agnostics. They are what they are; fools. But liberal Christian theologians are to be blamed. They are to blame hard and heartily condemned. They are fellow travelers in the same way that many wealthy persons supported the Soviets back at the beginning of the 20th century or as actors support mere idiocy now. They saw a what they thought of as a "better idea" that was new. They still reverted Jesus, but not as the Truth. They saw, and still see Him as a Jewish version of Socrates and Plato; a man with some pretty good ideas. And when one is dealing with man instead of the Son of Man one can pretty much ignore the things that that man said in favor of the new flavor. Mohammed said a few (two nor three) things that make sense, so one might as well put an illiterate Arab trader on the same level as the Son of God.
Female genital mutilation is considered by the New Theologian, a sad thing, but excusable in the same way that women in the church were expected to wear a hat or veil (your writer remembers those days in Protestant churches). Abortion on demand, while sad according to the New Theologian, is also sad, but a woman's happiness is more important than a child. We all deserve to be happy, don't we? And same sex marriage is just a matter of courtesy to our gay brethren and sisters; they are nice people and are born that way. Meanwhile, if a dirty drunk stumbles into the New Theologian's church, is confronted by the New Theologian and the drunk says that he wants Communion the New Theologian will probably give the drunk the address of a rehab clinic and send him on his way despite the drunk saying that he can't help being a drunk. He was born that way.
The New Theologian kicks out the props of Western society while saying that he loves, not Western society or Jesus Christ, but the world. And this intellectually poor educated dope actually thinks that he's doing God's work by ignoring God's Word. After all, the New Theologian has a B.A., an M.Div and maybe a T.Hd. Jesus never made it to high school as far as we know. The old Scottish crofter, the American sharecropper, the mechanic, and the boy behind the plow read the Bible and studied it more in a year than the New Theologians does in a lifetime. And the reason that he comes up with such silly and destructive ideas and pronouncements is because he want to be liked and respected in the world at large. He has forgotten, or does not want to remember that Christians have three enemies; the World, the Flesh and the Devil.
The New Theologian is more dangerous to Western society than the atheist or agnostic because he operates under the cover of Faith. He is, in a sense, antiChist in that he misrepresents the teachings of Christ under the cover of Christ. And because so many people who regard themselves as Christians have no knowledge of the Bible or their faith, they will follow the New Theologian over a cliff like lemmings. And along the way they will do their best to change Western society to an anarchic and at the same time fascistic society while they insist that they are being "nice."
The odd thing is that back in the 18th century and before "nice" meant "silly." They condemn themselves with their own words and don't realize it. And they condemn us with their ideas and don't realize it.
Saturday, July 04, 2015
The Return of Men in Hats
As long time readers of this broadside are aware there has been a long running occasional feature called Men in Hats. The subject of the feature is, well, men's hats and men wearing hats. Sometimes there are histories of hats, famous men and their hats, and, as much of it as there is anymore, the culture of hats in the modern world. This is, in some ways, odd because your faithful correspondent usually wears only two types of hats (technically one type of hat and one type of cap) -- the straw boater between the Memorial Day and Labor Day and a beret the rest of the year. There is the occasional wearing of a cheap faux Panama hat worn during gardening, but really does not count because the gardening hat is not the public face of yours truly.
Be it known that this writer is a believer in men wearing hats; not as a fashion statement but more as a self-proclamation of identification and a completion of one's daily dressing. Back many years ago when your faithful correspondent was trapped in the jaws of the public school system in Southern California he came across a book in the public library entitled "Call Me Mister." At the time of the discovery the book was fairly old; perhaps first published in the mid-1950s, if not before. It was one of those books that nobody bothers to write anymore -- books for people transitioning between childhood and adulthood trying to figure out how they should present themselves to the world. It was a book about male etiquette, how to dress like a man and prepare to go out and apply for jobs and such. One of the chapters in the book dealt with men wearing hats. There was a sort of personality quiz in that section which, upon completion one received advice on, based on one's personality and aspirations, one chose one's hat. It was a bit of a sliding scale ranging from the trilby or fedora for the serious and business-like young man (for some reason the trilby was considered more serious than the fedora despite the fact that it is really a bit of a silly hat) to the pork-pie for the joker and happy-go-lucky type to the beret for the misfit. The summer hats followed the same line as the winter hats (panama fedoras and pork-pies) except for the beret which seemed to be a cap that one was to suffer with in the hottest days. The one hat, during the summer, that any type of personality that was considered good for any man, young or old, was the boater. And by the time the book was published the boater hat was pretty out of date in America. In fact, by the time the book was written hats, except for warmth in cold weather, were pretty much out of fashion. But the book made such an impression on your faithful correspondent as a callow youth that he has remembered and pretty much lived according to the teachings of the book.
So summer is here in spades and it's time to consider putting on your summer hat. One can't go wrong with a boater, whether an expensive Italian boater or a cheap Chinese boater. The boater always looks sharp, is cool and keeps one's mug out of the sun. And it doesn't make one look like one is a professional lawn mower.
Here's a history of the boater hat. This writer questions some of the facts in the article, but the writer of the article has a university education while yours truly only graduated high school, so he may have more facts than yours. At the end of the article is a photograph of the author wearing a really cheap boater and looking much more like Ted Cruz than he would probably like.
Loved and Loathed: The Straw Boater Hat, a history | Tragicocomedia
Be it known that this writer is a believer in men wearing hats; not as a fashion statement but more as a self-proclamation of identification and a completion of one's daily dressing. Back many years ago when your faithful correspondent was trapped in the jaws of the public school system in Southern California he came across a book in the public library entitled "Call Me Mister." At the time of the discovery the book was fairly old; perhaps first published in the mid-1950s, if not before. It was one of those books that nobody bothers to write anymore -- books for people transitioning between childhood and adulthood trying to figure out how they should present themselves to the world. It was a book about male etiquette, how to dress like a man and prepare to go out and apply for jobs and such. One of the chapters in the book dealt with men wearing hats. There was a sort of personality quiz in that section which, upon completion one received advice on, based on one's personality and aspirations, one chose one's hat. It was a bit of a sliding scale ranging from the trilby or fedora for the serious and business-like young man (for some reason the trilby was considered more serious than the fedora despite the fact that it is really a bit of a silly hat) to the pork-pie for the joker and happy-go-lucky type to the beret for the misfit. The summer hats followed the same line as the winter hats (panama fedoras and pork-pies) except for the beret which seemed to be a cap that one was to suffer with in the hottest days. The one hat, during the summer, that any type of personality that was considered good for any man, young or old, was the boater. And by the time the book was published the boater hat was pretty out of date in America. In fact, by the time the book was written hats, except for warmth in cold weather, were pretty much out of fashion. But the book made such an impression on your faithful correspondent as a callow youth that he has remembered and pretty much lived according to the teachings of the book.
So summer is here in spades and it's time to consider putting on your summer hat. One can't go wrong with a boater, whether an expensive Italian boater or a cheap Chinese boater. The boater always looks sharp, is cool and keeps one's mug out of the sun. And it doesn't make one look like one is a professional lawn mower.
Here's a history of the boater hat. This writer questions some of the facts in the article, but the writer of the article has a university education while yours truly only graduated high school, so he may have more facts than yours. At the end of the article is a photograph of the author wearing a really cheap boater and looking much more like Ted Cruz than he would probably like.
Loved and Loathed: The Straw Boater Hat, a history | Tragicocomedia
Friday, July 03, 2015
Bad People Bad -- Good People Ignoring the Bad Badder?
Please consider reading the following piece by Ashton Blackwell:
https://ashtonwblackwell.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/nothing-to-see-here-except-an-assaulted-baby/
And once you get to the link look at the first link she provides of an attack by several people upon a young girl holding a baby. It is rather disturbing for several reasons.
The first is that the girl, about 13, is attacked for no other reason than because she was sitting in a park or a school yard for no other reason than because the attackers thought she was in "their" space. For those who haven't clicked onto the link, the girl is white and her attackers are black girls. We do not have "whites only" spaces anymore in the United States, but apparently there are "blacks only" spaces.
The second reason that this is disturbing is because the attackers care not a wit for the infant.
The third, and perhaps most important reason that the video is disturbing is that someone actually filmed the incident and did nothing to stop what happened. If there had been an incident in which a black girl holding a baby had been attacked by white girls and it had been filmed by a white boy/man who had done nothing there would have been a brouhaha that would have tired out even the most seasoned CNN talking head. And why? Because, as Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal.
Some of us are given more rights than others and given excuses for bad behaviour than others by the government and the mainstream media. And the reason is not too awfully hard to figure out. It is racism pure and simple. It is racism of the worst sort. It is based on a racism that assumes that Black people, Hispanic people, Muslim people and gay people (your faithful correspondent realizes that Muslims and gays are not races, but he uses the term "race" in a loose sense such as the old writers used the term "the English race" or "American race") suffer from some biological defect that disallows them to act in a civilized manner in a civilized nation. In other words, those, to the government and media, are really not human; they are a missing link between base savage and civilized man.
The proper and civilized man and woman expects anyone in a civilized nation to act in a civilized manner. A New Guinea cannibal who has moved to this great nation is expected to quell is taste for human ribs in exchange for living in a civilized society. An Muslim is expected to be monogamous. A gay person is expected not to parade down Main Street with his dingus decorated as a candy cane.
If white trash acted in the way that the media portrays white trash as acting there would be shock stories of idiot progeny of incest littering the streets, dead people shot by 12 gauge shotguns regularly picked up after disagreements over whether Elvis is alive or not, and a bunch of guys named Cooter and and Hec and Gator would would make international news if they, wearing Confederate flags as capes, shot every black person, Muslim and homosexual within a mile radius of their shotgun shack. But there are few stories because these things rarely happen. But when they do the actors are rightly condemned , but not for the correct reasons. They are condemned, not so much because they did something bad, but because they are white people who did things that offend the sensibilities of American and European civilization. White people, apparently genetically, are supposed to know better. Minorities (except East Asians such as Japanese, Chinese and Koreans) are expected to think and behave one way and are given a pass. The rest of us are held to a standard that surpasses that of minorities. And the result is that some of the majority, a good deal of the majority, decides to follow the minority in thought and behaviour simply because it is a morally and legally easier way to go.
Ain't liberalism great?
https://ashtonwblackwell.wordpress.com/2015/06/26/nothing-to-see-here-except-an-assaulted-baby/
And once you get to the link look at the first link she provides of an attack by several people upon a young girl holding a baby. It is rather disturbing for several reasons.
The first is that the girl, about 13, is attacked for no other reason than because she was sitting in a park or a school yard for no other reason than because the attackers thought she was in "their" space. For those who haven't clicked onto the link, the girl is white and her attackers are black girls. We do not have "whites only" spaces anymore in the United States, but apparently there are "blacks only" spaces.
The second reason that this is disturbing is because the attackers care not a wit for the infant.
The third, and perhaps most important reason that the video is disturbing is that someone actually filmed the incident and did nothing to stop what happened. If there had been an incident in which a black girl holding a baby had been attacked by white girls and it had been filmed by a white boy/man who had done nothing there would have been a brouhaha that would have tired out even the most seasoned CNN talking head. And why? Because, as Orwell wrote in Animal Farm, all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal.
Some of us are given more rights than others and given excuses for bad behaviour than others by the government and the mainstream media. And the reason is not too awfully hard to figure out. It is racism pure and simple. It is racism of the worst sort. It is based on a racism that assumes that Black people, Hispanic people, Muslim people and gay people (your faithful correspondent realizes that Muslims and gays are not races, but he uses the term "race" in a loose sense such as the old writers used the term "the English race" or "American race") suffer from some biological defect that disallows them to act in a civilized manner in a civilized nation. In other words, those, to the government and media, are really not human; they are a missing link between base savage and civilized man.
The proper and civilized man and woman expects anyone in a civilized nation to act in a civilized manner. A New Guinea cannibal who has moved to this great nation is expected to quell is taste for human ribs in exchange for living in a civilized society. An Muslim is expected to be monogamous. A gay person is expected not to parade down Main Street with his dingus decorated as a candy cane.
If white trash acted in the way that the media portrays white trash as acting there would be shock stories of idiot progeny of incest littering the streets, dead people shot by 12 gauge shotguns regularly picked up after disagreements over whether Elvis is alive or not, and a bunch of guys named Cooter and and Hec and Gator would would make international news if they, wearing Confederate flags as capes, shot every black person, Muslim and homosexual within a mile radius of their shotgun shack. But there are few stories because these things rarely happen. But when they do the actors are rightly condemned , but not for the correct reasons. They are condemned, not so much because they did something bad, but because they are white people who did things that offend the sensibilities of American and European civilization. White people, apparently genetically, are supposed to know better. Minorities (except East Asians such as Japanese, Chinese and Koreans) are expected to think and behave one way and are given a pass. The rest of us are held to a standard that surpasses that of minorities. And the result is that some of the majority, a good deal of the majority, decides to follow the minority in thought and behaviour simply because it is a morally and legally easier way to go.
Ain't liberalism great?
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