We're Trying to Help This Nation?

If the memory of this writer is correct, the country of Afghanistan has always been a basket-case. It have been, and may be, a great place to live if one were an Afghan, but as a real nation deserving the respect of the world it's a loser. It has been less than a nation or country than a geographical area populated by clans of the Hatfield-McCoy type.

Your faithful correspondent seems to remember that before the Russians invaded Afghanistan the president was assassinated in the parliamentary chamber by the member of a rival clan. The result was the crumbling of the country to the point that the USSR saw what they thought was an area of easy pickings. No one can explain what good thing that the Russians saw there, but they invested money and blood to try to get it. And they found that they were not fighting one nation, but a group of tribes.
The result of the Russian adventure in Afghanistan was the Taliban, which was created and supported by the Pakistani intelligence service.

The Taliban proved themselves to be despots worse than the previous regime by instituting the strictest versions of Sharia law, And even then they could barely rule the country.

When the US became involved in Afghanistan it seemed to have made the mistake that Afghanistan was a reasonable and somewhat united country. Instead it found that Afghanistan is divided and that the Afghanis are terribly corrupt. Instead of standing for values or ideas, they can often be bought. And it seems that Afghanis do not see the world the same way that the West does.

Consider the following:

FOXNews.com - Afghan Men Struggle With Sexual Identity, Study Finds

How can one deal with people like this?

So Long, Rocket Man

Our dear leader has apparently decided that that studying the nonsense that is known as Man-Made Global Warming is worth more of an investment than is the pursuit of pure space science. The man is an idiot.

Pamela Geller puts it in words much better than this writer can:
» Obama’s War on Science: Trillions for a Hoax, but Not One Cent for NASA’s Moon Mission - Big Journalism

Yodeling and Drinking Beer

Sometimes a hat is known by name but defies description due to the fact that the said hat is off several slightly different shapes.
An example would be the Tyrolean, or Alpine, hat.
The hats on both the left and right are Tyrolean hats, but the reader can see that there are slightly differences, mostly having to do the shaping of the brim and the dimpling of the crown. A third form of the hat, not shown, has a crease along the top of the crown along with two dimples in the front area.
Tyrolean hats were traditionally worn in the Alpine areas of Germany, Austria, Italy and France. In fact, to this day the dress uniforms of the French and Italian Alpine troops of their respective army include Tyrolean hats complete with feathers instead of the usual chamois brush as shown on the hat to the right.
It is not unusual to see Tyrolean hats covered with decorative pins. Originally each pin represented an Alpine mountain that the wearer had climbed. Nowadays the pins often represent towns visited or events attended. And the traditional Tyrolean hat was worn with a chamois brush ornament. These run from the size of large artist's sable brushes to the size of large shaving brushes.
The Tyrolean hat is a head warming hat. The brim is so small that it is useless for shading one from the sun.
One occasionally sees a form of Tyrolean hat worn by East coast businessmen. These are usually dark green of a finer felt than the traditional hat, have the three or four cord type hat band and usually have a small red feather.
The Tyrolean hat is a good hat for head warming and for style. It is not as heavy or serious in appearance than are the fedora, the bowler or the homburg. It is a somewhat more light-hearted and sporty hat and should appeal to those beginning hat wearers weaning themselves off the baseball hat.

Men In Hats

Here we have two images of the bowler/derby hat.
For those of a younger age the bowler may be identified with Charlie Chaplin, or Laurel and Hardy. Graybeards, while including the comedians in the derby wearing fellowship, primarily associate the bowler with the toff, such as John Steed of the Avengers, or with thugs, such as the turn of the century criminal gang known as the Plug-Uglies.
One rarely sees derbies worn nowadays except in Great Britain among the moneyed or in Bolivia among everyone. The Bolivians picked up the bowler habit from British railway workers back in the 1920s and have never given it up.
The bowler was originally developed as a sort of helmet for horsemen and game-keepers, and is still worn among the horsey set. It is also the hat the leveled the field, hat-wise, among the classes in England. Just a few years after the bowler was invented for the wealthy it was being worn by the poor and working class in London, and the wealthy. Before the bowler the wealthy wore high hats and the poor and working men wore caps or slouch hats. But, of course, it's not always the hat that one wears that defines the man, but the way the man wears the hat.
Who should wear a derby? Why not go with tradition? The toff, the villain, the jester and the horse rider. And the Bolivian.

Ready for a Little Brother?

As we are all aware by now, there was, this past Tuesday, a terrible earthquake in Haiti that resulted in many deaths (no one knows as of this date the total toll despite what the news channels claim) and horrible devastation.
Only the most heartless would not feel pity for the Haitians. And the nations of the world, and the United States, have responded to help Haitians try to recover and rebuild.
But consider this: President Obama, before even consulting with the president or prime minister of Haiti, decided to invest 100 million dollars in aid to Haiti. No other nation has pledge any where near that amount to Haiti. Mr. Obama deigned to send the Marines and the Army to Haiti with no authority from either the Haitian government or, more importantly, the Constitution.
One wonders if Mr. Obama would have pledged such an amount of money to a country affected by an earthquake is that country had been the Philippines, Albania or Mexico. We here at the Manor think not.
Your faithful correspondent is of the belief that Mr. Obama's over-reaction (massive amounts of aid are really the purview, in theory, of the United Nations) is due to two factors. The first is that Haiti is a poor and broken society that appears to be irreparable. Haiti is in the Caribbean, which, for better or worse, is often considered the US' pond.
This writer speculates that Mr. Obama will not only attempt to give aid to Haiti, but also fix Haiti. He will try to make Haiti into an effective and honest nation. And by doing so he will tie the United States to Haiti for at leat twenty years. In other words, he will make Haiti into a pseudo-colony. And do not be surprised if, within the next couple of years, you read in the newspaper that the government of Haiti appeals to the government of the US to be made a de jure territory of the US.
Finally, if you, the reader, decided to send some money to an aid organization to be used in Haiti, this writer would ask you to bypass the Clinton/Bush fund promoted by the President and the Red Cross. This writer asks you to investigate donating to the Salvation Army, Catholic Charities or World Vision simply because from those charities you get more bang for the buck.

Somebody Wakes Up

The ignorance of the slow incrementalism of bad ideas into a society and the average citizen's unthinking acceptance of the reassurances by the intelligentsia are greater corrosive elements to the soundness of a civilization than are attacks, violent or ideological, from without. The thin edger of the wedge, once it gets purchase into a fissure, is almost impossible to prevent from doing its work.

In Great Britain, for many years, the liberals, multi-culturalists, socialists and Islamo-philes, have been reassuring the average British subject that he has nothing to fear from the growing number of immigrants from Islamic nations or the radicalization of British Muslims. The idea was that British culture and society were much stronger than Islamic culture and that the Orcs would assimilate and become good and loyal Geordies and Cockneys and Scouses.

Well, the elites were wrong, and the average Brit has finally twigged that his neighborhood Muslim society may not be raising racing pigeons or arranging jumble sales to help out the needy:

Britons are suspicious towards Muslims, study finds - Telegraph

-The European Model

A few years ago, during the Danish cartoonist Mohammed scrapple, it was not unusual to hear or read someone state that the Danes are a brave people, despite the fact that Denmark folded to the Germans during WW 2 like a piece of cheap rice paper.
Well, some things never change:
Panic room saved artist Kurt Westergaard from Islamist assassin - Times Online
Imagine abandoning a five year old kid to save your own scrawny ass. That's a picture of our European "allies".

Being a Man in a World of Drones

As regular readers of these missives are well aware, this writer has long been on a campaign to educate about, and promote, the wearing of proper hats (not baseball caps or cricket caps except on the sporting field) by men. Be it known here, that while your faithful correspondent is of the opinion that hats with brims are really the best head wear for men in public, he will make allowances for the beret (among the arty, French and in trades where a brim is obstructive to one's work), the eight panel (aka "newsboy" ) and the Yorkshire (aka "sports car") caps.

Let us face the facts: a baseball cap on a grown man looks just damn silly, whether it is worn forwards, backwards or sideways, unless one is playing baseball, painting the house , or working a an Army mechanic fixing a real Jeep.

A proper hat on a man means that the man is a serious man. He is a man to be taken seriously. But only a man who knows how to wear a hat properly can be considered a serious man.

Consider this:

Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » The Way You Wear Your Hat – Listen Up, Hollywood, It’s Important

Or this:

Men's Hats: Fedoras, Porkpies and the Derby | The Art of Manliness

If you are a male reader of this pamphlet (this writer considers blogs as the modern form of pamphlet and flyer), and you do not have a proper hat, it would behoove you to get one; whether it be a fedora, pork pie, Stetson or derby.

This is the time for men who are men, and not drones controlled by women or the media or popular culture, to assert their manliness by wearing a man's hat (in the past only children did not wear hats). Men who are men and not drones, if they drink alcohol, drink beer, whiskey, rum, brandy or gin. They do not drink any mixed drink more complicated than whiskey and water, or a a martini. And men who smoke, chew or dip tobacco are not ashamed to do so, as long as they are discreet about expectorating unless in the presence of women or the clergy.

Real men do not trash talk and pose. They let their actions speak for them. For the past forty years the art of trash talking has become the norm, while actions come second. Consider rap and hip-hop. What is rap but a bunch of bragging and trash talk? What is hip-hop but the same in a softer mode?

This writer blames the current popularity of trash talk to the boxer formerly known as Cassius Clay. Mr. Clay was a wonderful boxer, but he was, during his career, mentally an adolescent. He was stuck in a period of life where what was once known as "chop fights" (the exchanging of verbal insults) was the norm. For the average male chop fights stopped in the ninth grade until Mr. Clay made it acceptable through the adoring reportage of sports writers. But since sports is the toy department of life, it can only be expected that sports writers admire childish things.

Consider this article concerning about the decorum and manliness of boxers of old:

Old Boxing Matches by Thomas Sowell on National Review Online

Fashion Kills

There was a time when a proper hit man was a properly dressed man.
Back in the day the hit man was usually Irish, Italian or Jewish, and said hit man wore either a single breasted or double breasted suit and a proper hat, whether fedora or pork-pie.
Nowadays it seems that any damn slob wearing saggy pants and a baseball cap worm backwards or sideways can be a hit man. It just shows how standards have fallen.
Consider the following:
Killer Hector Quinones Plunges to His Death After His Pants Fall Down - Sphere News
The Latinization of crime has done none of us any damn good. The next thing you know hit men will be attacking their victims with serapes and and machetes.

Remember This

The next time the government tells you how to handle your health concerns, remember this:

Men in Hats -- Trilby Edition

To the right we have a small photograph of Frank Sinatra wearing a trilby hat. The trilby was a hat identified with Sinatra, as well as Rex Harrison, as well as the stereotypical New York executive in the 1950s and 1960s.
The hat was named after a character in the novel Trilby by Georges DuMaurier, from which also came the character and concept of Svengali. Trilby, in the novel, was a woman and she was known for wearing the style of hat that was basically a modified Peter Pan hat with a creased and dimpled brim.
Nowadays, among hipsters and the hat ignorant the style is known as the skinny brim or skimpy brim hat, which is an insult to the history of the hat.
This writer has never been a big fan of the trilby since is a bastard child between a cap and a proper hat. But it's better than nothing.

Deterioration and Resistance

This writer, being by nature a pessimist, usually sees the glass as neither half-empty nor half-full, but as polluted by the dictates of the political elite of the nation.. These self-perceived Solons see themselves as the wise men and women, almost Platonic philosopher-kings, dealing with, and governing, a populace, that is, at once, easily led and unruly, as well as being rather stupid and irresponsible. The stupid part of the equation has been a proven by the last few election cycles by the very fact that the voters have deigned to install these creatures into elective office.
To the majority of these elected aristocrats the citizens of this great nation are not so much a collection of individuals and free men and women as much as they are numbers, a collective beast that must be whipped into submission or children in need of "education" and "direction"; whenever the reader hears or reads a politician or "opinion-maker" appeal to the need for the government to "educate" or "direct" the people be sure that what is really meant is that they are attempting to take another chip away from your freedom. If we are lucky we'll have freedoms the size of a toothpick when once our freedoms were of the size of a might oak.
Consider just three matters that are being argued in Congress:
1.) The national health care scheme. What this amounts to is that you will be forced to, through governmental mandate, through your taxes, pay for abortions whether you are morally opposed to it or not. And that you will be forced to buy some sort of health insurance. If you do not do so, you will either be fined or jailed. In other words, you, as a purportedly free individual, will be taxed or charged for the very act of breathing. Unless of course, you have no money. In which case you will get a free ride on everyone else's back.
This racket is based on one thing and one thing only. Our elected leaders see the populace as children instead of adults. Their actions, like many other legislative actions by Congress over the past fifty years, have attempted to negate one of the traditional definitions of adulthood: personal responsibility and the the willingness, often complainingly, to suffer the consequences of not being responsible for one's actions. More and more the government has decided that it is responsible for the citizen and the citizen's welfare by acting as the parent.
We were once a nation of independent men and women in a nation that celebrated the rugged individual. Now, it seems, we are supposed to let Big Gov make our decisions for us and wait for our government issued Big Wheel to go to work with.
2.) Certain members of the United States Senate have been investigating the possibility of regulating the Internet and bloggers by holding bloggers to the same standards of libel as traditional print publications. This writer is the first to maintain that libel and the spreading of falsehoods is a bad thing. These things are sins. But your faithful correspondent also realizes that the blogosphere, as well as the Internet, is the new Wild West and he prefers it that way. The difference between the blogosphere and traditional media is that traditional media are 1.) money-making entities and if they could get away with it they would tell lies all the time 2.) The blogosphere is more of a conversation than it is a fact factory. 3.) The blogosphere is much more self-policing than are the traditional media ,i.e any statement is open to sniping by those who disagree.
If Internet conversations are restricted by libel laws it will not be long before private, oral conversations will be so regulated. In other words, if you say, during lunch, that your boss is an idiot, you may find yourself being sued by said boss assuming that he can prove that he is not an idiot, which is pretty unlikely.
3.) The discussion of the expansion of "hate speech" laws means that Big Gov will come down on one like a ton of bricks for saying yet another "naughty" word.
Here's the question: does one have the right to hate? Does one have the right to hate a group, an individual or a concept? Is one guaranteed by the Constitution to say what one feels or thinks? If not, what is the use of the Constitution? Where will it end?
The Grand Republic has been for all too long infested by termites that eat away and eat away and eat away from the inside while we have been led to believe that they are building. It will all collapse, not with a big bang, but a sigh, all too soon.
Consider this article from the English newspaper The Daily Mail. The English Greatest Generation finds itself what the Second World War was worth the blood, sweat and tears:
'This isn't the Britain we fought for,' say the 'unknown warriors' of WWII | Mail Online
There are three documents that made the United States: The Bible, the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of the United States. All three deal, each in their own way, with the freedom of the individual and the responsibility of the individual, and the limits of government. Our beneficent masters seem to have jettisoned all three documents in fact, if not in word, and have replaced them with a combination of Bismarkian/Marxist amalgamation on the European model. In other words, the people we have elected to represent us seem to want the United States to become Scandinavian Europe without the sexy blond women.
So what is to be done? One word: Resist. Resist with your vote. Resist with your voice, Resist with your actions. If your elected representative is an enemy of your freedom hold them in contempt and let them know that you do. THEY are the servants. YOU are the master. You asked for a whiskey soda and they brought you a New Coke. They serve at your pleasure and they know what is good for you instead of following your directions. If you had a gardener who ignored your order to dig up a patch of tulips because he thought that to do so would ruin the look of your garden you would not hesitate to fire that gardener in a minute. Elected officials are supposed to be maintainers of our liberties, not creators of Niceville. Washington warned that governmental power was like fire; a useful servant and a dangerous master. Our leaders have been playing with fire and the citizens are the ones who have been burned
Get angry. Learn to hate those who would deny you the freedoms that so many generations of American have shed blood for. Learn to hate with the hot burning hate that Samuel Adams hated those who hated thoise who wanted to limit his freedom and plunder his purse. Don't say, when someone has been elected to represent you who you disagree with, "I disagree with him politically, but I wish him well." Instead say, "I hope he's a miserable failure. I wish the worst for for his political career and I hope that he is soon back working as an insurance agent."
Support candidates that support liberty as this man does:
YouTube - Congressional Candidate Lieutenant Colonel Allen West
This writer has been re-reading The Gulag Archipelago. It is a chilling and troubling book. Not only for the experiences of the Russian populace, but for the possibility, slowly, slowly, like water eroding granite, that the same thing may happen here. One day, while walking down the street, you may find someone yell out to you (someone you've never met), "Hey! Mike!" and when you stop and turn around to see who has called out, find yourself being bracketed by a couple of large men who grab your arms and escort you to a future form of Lubyanka. You'll ask, "What did I do?" And you'll be given no answer.

DUMB!

This is just plain stupid. The British government has always treated its soldiers badly unless said soldiers were officers. This story just goes to prove that they still treat their Tommies crappy. Why would any self respecting Limey join the British Army?

Army ban The Soldiers singing in uniform on TV | The Sun |News|Campaigns|Our Boys

Any Backlash Yet?

This correspondent, in his last post, offered several instances of outrages against Christians perpetrated by Muslims in foreign nations that were apparently backlash against allegations of bad behavior by Christians. In none of the instances had it been proven, in fact, or by judicial decision, that the crimes were committed by Christians. But the Muslim majority assumed the worst against the Christian minority and lashed out in revenge.

Now, in Turkey, we have something that goes beyond backlash. We have a faction of the Turkish military planning the extermination of all Christians in Turkey.

Keep in mind two things when reading the story below:
1.) Turkey aspires to become part of the European Union and insists that it is a European nation and not an West Asian nation.
2.) Turkey attempted to wipe out all Armenians living within Turkey in 1915 and, even until this day, the government denies that the Turks perpetrated such a crime.

Now, let us face the facts. The only thing that is European about modern Turkey is the Hagia Sophia (formerly known as Saint Sophia's Cathedral), which, while built by the Christians of Asia Minor, has been a mosque since the 15th century. The Orcs pretend that the building is an example of Islamic art, but the only thing they have added to the edifice are minarets. Turkey was, before the Islamic invasion, a stalwart Christian nation called Byzantium. But forced conversions, exile and death resulted in Turkey becoming a Muslim nation and a backward nation

Also keep in mind that the Armenian genocide is a proven historical fact that Turkey denies ever took place. The very fact that a faction of the military and intelligentsia would think of exterminating Christians shows that Turkey has no place in the EU or NATO, for that matter.

Ask any Greek or Armenian what to think of the Turks and you will have a pretty good idea was the proper attitude toward them should be.

Here's the article:
Turkish Military Planned Attacks on Christians

No Backlash?

As those who have the memory of a flea may recall, such organizations such as the Council of Islamic American Relations and the American Muslim Council cautioned Americans about the idea of backlash against Muslims after the terrorist act by the Muslim Major Nidal Hassen in which he killed 13 American soldiers or civilian employees at Fort Hood, Texas. These tools of Islamic nonsense assured us that such a backlash would not only be unChristian or unJewish, but unIslamic.
Well, some people and organizations lie for their own benefit, as is evinced by the following:
Egypt Muslims burn Christian shops: police
And the following item makes one wonder about the "religion of peace":
Priest Is Shot Dead in His Church in Russia - NYTimes.com
We all, in this great Republic, deal daily with with people who are neither Christian not Jewish. It's a likelihood that the guy you buy your six-pack of PBR at the local liquor store is a Buddhist, a Confucian or a filthy atheist. But one can be pretty much assume that one's clerk holds to the ideas and the ideals of the United States unless the clerk is a Muslim (and why would a Muslim sell booze to one since booze is an anathema to the average Muslim? It appears that money is more important to them than religion).
This writer has long held the opinion that Islam is incompatible with the ideals of the United States. Consider this:
Islam is not compatible with a republic

Sometimes You Just Want to Puke

As those in the know are well aware, this writer is a veteran of the United States Navy, that his father was a World War II veteran of the United States Marine Corps and that his great uncle was killed in World War I while serving in the United States Army in France. The ancestors of your faithful correspondent have served as soldiers or sailors in every major war this great nation has waged except the Mexican and Spanish-American Wars since the French and Indian War in the 18th century.
The Nibs have always believed in the American ideal as defined by the Founding Fathers, and during the past fifty years the Nibs have seen the American Ideal and character ruined.
Apparently, the enlightened of our cousins across the Atlantic have seen the same problem. The US and Great Britain have seen their nations ruined. Be afraid.
'This isn't the Britain we fought for,' say the 'unknown warriors' of WWII | Mail Online

A Thought and a Couple of Links

It's been a bit more than a week since the shooting at Fort Hood perpetrated by Maj. Hasan. The Obama administration , the Department of Defense and the Army refuse to call this outrage an Islamic terrorist attack. This refusal on the part of the government and official military shows that we are being lead by men without chests.

But be that as it may, it should be noted that in every expression of disassociation from the act, and sympathy for the victims, every Islamic association that this writer heard or read warned against the American populace against "backlash" against Islamic-Americans. It has always been such with Islamic associations. A Muslim in the US does something bad and the organizations say that they are not at fault and that there should be no backlash. There is never a statement that the associations and the mosques will make it a point to educate Muslims about how to live peacefully in the US. They are like the parent with the wild eight year-old who refuse to discipline the brat after it has killed your cat; "Don't blame us. We didn't do it. And don't hold it against us. It's the kid's fault. But don't fault the kid because he's a wild child and you're a mean person if you even yell at us or our dear child."

Here's what Islamic associations and mosques in the United States should do if they want to be believed by the American populace. They should renounce the whole concept of Sharia law in the US, and they should teach a tolerance and even respect for the other religions in the US. They want tolerance from Christians, Jews, Hindus, Buddhists, etc., but they never return it. It's all a one way street with the Orcs, and the further that we, as a society, follow them down that road the harder it will be for us to turn the society back into a liberal (in the classic sense of the word) and Judeo-Christian society.

The road to socialism is much the same -- a one way street. For those readers who had the sense to read trash fiction during the 1960s/70s, there was a writer they remember named Dennis Wheatley. Wheatley wrote history, mystery novels, science fiction novels, occult novels and just novel novels. In the 1950s Wheatley wrote a piece that he hid in an urn at his house that was intended to be read by generations after his death. He died in 1977 and the essay was discovered a few years after his passing. Here is Wheatley's essay. Read it and weep:

BBC - BBC Four Documentaries - Dennis Wheatley

The national character and culture have, during the past forty-five years, undergone a more rapidly accelerating coarsening and vulgarization. Examples of this regrettable trend are modern basketball (now a contact sport), Rap and hip-hop (there's nothing more romantic or entertaining than screeches about rape and cop shooting while being locked inside a bass drum), movies (Transformers an A movie?), television (The Simpsons, et al) and beer commercials.

At this time this writer will address beer commercials. The average beer commercial has something to do with either men acting like idiots or men trying to pick up attractive women. Most try to be humorous, abut usually end up being just stupid. Now, admittedly, the ingestion of too much beer at one sitting results, usually, in stupid behavior. But most people use beer as a beverage for relaxation or as a social lubricant. Brewers like to add taglines to their commercials that say; Drink Responsibly. Perhaps the brewers should advertise responsibly. The attached commercial for Miller High Life (the starter for a campaign that never came to fruition fro some reason) is an example of a beer commercial that attempted to go against the growing tide of the "Whaaa's uuuup?" nonsense that beer commercials have become.

YouTube - Miller High Life Girl in the Moon

Men In Hats -- Fedora Edition

Among those who know nothing about detective literature or haberdashery the fedora is considered the hat of the hard-boiled detective. Like many public assumptions, this one is wrong. Consider Mike Hammer with his pork pie hat or Shell Scott wearing no hat at all.
The association is due to the time when the classic hard-boiled detective novels were written. In those days most men living in cities wore fedoras. The connection of the gumshoe and the fedora is tantamount with Encyclopedia Brown and trousers.
But be that as it may, the fedora is almost the perfect hat for a man. It always looks good, even when beat up. It is a serious hat. It is a hat that can reflect one's mood. It protects the wearer from sun and rain.
The best colors for the fedora are a dark gray or an olive, both with a sateen hatband. Black fedoras are favored by Chasidic Jews, so, unless one is a son of Abra and one would be better off wearing a pork pie.ham this writer would suggest that you limit one's self to gray or olive. Fedoras or primary colors are just silly

A Couple of Palate Cleansers and Some Meat

We here at Bloody Nib Manor are ever vigilant for encroachments on the rights of the citizen, and the just plan idiocy and silliness exhibited by the government and popular culture. But even we, despite gallons of coffee and pounds of No-Doze, do require relief from manning the ramparts.
Here are a couple of palate cleansers that amount to not much, but are interesting:
YouTube - DeFord Bailey - Fox Chase
YouTube - Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee - Fox Chase
And filling in for your faithful correspondent and the ever-lovely Lady Nib is Andrew Klavan with some interesting comments in the present circus:
Pajamas TV - Klavan on Culture - How To Have Sex
Pajamas TV - Klavan on Culture - FLASHBACK: Is Barack Obama Jesus Christ?

Polanski

As usual, this writer is behind the curve on breaking news. But your faithful correspondent has decided to make a short notation regarding the recent arrest in Switzerland of the movie director Roman Polanski.

As those who pay attention to the news are well aware, there has been, in France and the entertainment industry, support for the man despite the fact that he raped a thirteen year old girl some thirty years ago. Excuses have been cut and rationalizations have been made for this little creep having raped, via drugs and drink, a thirteen year old girl.

And those who have made excuses for the man's criminal behaviour have stated that his behaviour is excused by his status as an artist.

This modern idea of the artist as outside the norm of civilized behavior originated with the French. Look at the French intellectuals' consideration of De Sade as a serious philosopher, Genet and Celine as a serious novelists, Mumia Abu Jamal and Jack Abbot as serious thinkers. Al the previous mentioned men were criminals, but they could write well.. Ergo, the ability to write well means that the writer's talent overrides his criminality. And the same attitude holds true for the intelligestia's support for the Polish pedophile midget.

In other words, we live by the law and they don't.

Unrelated Links

Swine flu has been in the news lately. In fact, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services, Kathleen Sebalius, has even given us a lesson about the "proper" way to sneeze to avoid spreading the flu. (The "proper" way to sneeze, if one does not have a handkerchief or tissue, is to sneeze into one's sleeve, according to the DHHS; never mind the idea that you may be wearing a short sleeved shirt)

Your faithful correspondent is not a doctor. Nor does he play one on television. But it seems to him that all this swine flu talk is a bit "chicken little". One would think that those in control seem to see a modern version of the Black Death coming over the horizon and that state workers will be going from door to door daily collecting the dead in wheelbarrows.

This writer remembers the last outbreak of swine flu and remembers that more people were harmed by the vaccine than by the disease. One can never be too careful, but one can be too fast in being too careful.

The following article carries on the panicky claims by those in the world health and money grabbing industry:

Swine flu could kill millions | World news | The Observer

Has it ever occurred to anyone in a position of authority that perhaps the best way to deal with out-breaks of the swine flu is quarantine to prevent the thing from spreading to other areas? And perhaps quarantine of ares that have not had any cases of the swine flu. There were four locations in the United States that did not have any cases of the Spanish flu in 1918 and the reason they did not have any cases of the flu was because they prevented anyone from outside their areas of authority from entering their towns or commands until the flu had run its course

Egypt, in an attempt to prevent an outbreak of swine flu, as well as stick it to the Coptic Christians in that benighted nation, several months ago ordered the slaughter of all pigs and hogs in Egypt. They have reaped the rewards of their idiocy and one cannot help feeling a sense of schadenfreude. In instead of dealing with swine flu they will find themselves dealing with cholera and stench and trash:

Belatedly, Egypt Spots Flaws in Wiping Out Pigs - NYTimes.com

We here at Bloody Nib Manor have not been regular attendees of the cinema for quite a few years, and have always held to the view espoused by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius that the words "actor" and "whore" are almost synonymous. This is not to say that we did not have our favorite movie stars. We are only human, after all, and sinners by nature. The ever-lovely Lady Nib was especially fond of Tyrone Power and Sam Elliot, while this writer was especially smitten with Ava Gardner (a crazy chick if ever there was one, but those green eyes...) and Catherine Zeta-Jones. We grew up in the days when "stars" pushed the box office receipts. People would go to the movies to see their favourite star. Nowadays "star" status seems to mean less and less to the movie going public. "Stardom" seems to mean popularity in cheap magazines (US, People, Okay!, National Enquirer, et al) more than is means in pulling in money for the movie studios:

Box Office Poison

The nation seems to have become a nation of awful gawkers at the lives of people who really don't account to much in the life and direction and culture of the Great Republic. "Stars" seem to reflect the worst aspects of the national character and, this writer believes, are popular because they show that despite their fame and fortune, they live lives that are more low and paltry than the average American. The guy working at construction or the gal working as a hairdresser can look at the "star" and say to his or her self and say, "My life may be rather boring and my marriage may be a little rocky and my kids may be a little bratty, but my life is a lot better than this or that 'star' who is a drunk/addict/adulterer/just plain idiot."

It's similar to the popularity of Julia Roberts, Jennifer Aniston and Sara Jessica Parker among women. The Hollywood studios and publicity machine sold these women as beautiful to the public, when in fact, if any or all of the three had been cashiers at the local Wal-Mart nobody would bother to give them a second look. Women like them because they think that if Julia, Jennifer or Sara are considered "babes" then they, who look a bit horsey or plain, are just as beautiful. Most men do not find Julia Roberts or Sara Jessica Parker beautiful, or even attractive. And Jennifer Aniston appeals to men who think she looks like their junior high school girlfriend.

While writing about actors and actresses let this writer be clear as glass about something. Most British actors and actresses working in Hollywood are insufferable. There are a few exceptions. Gary Oldman and Tim Roth come immediately to mind. The problem with the Brits is that they pretend that they, in their performances in Hollywood movies, are practicing a form of "art".

Two examples are Hugh Laurie (he of the television program "House") and Kate Beckensale (she of the movie "Van Helsing", several other vampire movies and the new movie about a monster in the Antarctic). This writer remembers when Laurie and Beckensale acted in British productions ("Much Ado About Nothing", "Emma")and small American movies (Beckensale in the "Last Days of Disco") in which they portrayed characters instead of caricatures. There is no acting art in American television series and there is no art in performing wearing rubber body hugging suit that appeal to latex fetishists. Laurie says that he misses Great Britain, but he still works in the US. Why? Money. Not art.

Beckensale, several years ago, stated that she was going to return to Great Britain because her child started using the word "elevator" instead of "lift". But she's still living here. Why? Money. Not art. Whenever you here an actor, no matter what the nationality, talk about their "art" be assured that what that person is saying is that since that person considered his or herself an "artist" that person should be paid more than another actor/actress who considers acting a job. In other words, the long green, as is evinced by their actions, is more important than their "art". And if that isn't a whore this writer does not know what the word means. A busker outside a subway station has more dignity.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

Back in the days when your faithful correspondent was a wet-behind-the-ears youth there were two stores for men that were considered the plus non ultra for men: Brooks Brothers and Abercrombe and Fitch.

Brooks Brothers specialized in clothing the proper man with tailored suits, overcoats, custom-made shirts and hats, as well as accessories. The style of clothing was conservative, but classic. One could be married in a Brooks Brothers suit and buried fifty years later in the same suit. But since this writer never had the ready cash to give his custom to Brooks Brothers for a suit or shirt, the only Brook Brothers items he own are two bow ties and a pair of suspenders.

And now that this writer is a middle-aged man with expendable income he finds that Brooks Brothers has really become not much more than an Old Navy with virgin wool.

But times changes and one gets accustomed to being called a stick in the mud for wearing a double-breasted pin-strip suit instead of a pair of baggy dungarees and a dirty sweatshirt to church.

Abercrombe and Fitch was, at one time, the complete outfitter. It was a combination of Brooks Brothers and REI co-op and more. If one intended to go on safari in Africa one could be outfitted with clothes, guns, tents, portable kitchens, first-aid kits,maps for the journey. The same held true for treks to Tibet, fishing in New Zealand or dogsledding across Antarctica.

Now A & F has become a rather gay-ish trendy clothing store of metrosexuals and the women who love them. Instead of serving the needs of the explorer or adventurer of the physical world it seems to service the desires of those who are not quite such about the state of their sexuality. The catalogues and ads seem to feature an inordinate number of gay looking men, so one a=can only assume that the company is trying to appeal to the sexually confused. And the company's attention is well known.

So one wonders why this young woman, who claims to be a religious Muslim, would want to work there? Could it be a set-up for a lawsuit to prove the "intolerance" of a company?

Tulsa World: Teen at center of rights suit

Government Waste

One sometime wonders what "archeology" really means. We here at the Manor assume that it those site deserving of an archeology study should be akin to the received definition of "antique", meaning one hundred years old or older.

Well, apparently the term "archeology" means a the study of a "culture" or occurrence of near forty years. But that's what happens when "Baby Boomers" (among which this writer is a member, unfortunately) defines what is and is not historically important:

Groovy artifacts from 1960s Marin County commune sorted - Sacramento News - Local and Breaking Sacramento News | Sacramento Bee

Let's face it. All that nonsense that went on in the late 60's and early 70's in popular culture was all nonsense and would best be forgotten. Archaeologists would be much better employed searching for bearing and skateboard wheels on Venice Beach. Who remembers hippies as anything but freaks? But kids are still skateboarding on your stair rails.

Hot Air Links and More!

Up until about thirty years ago the model for the television cop show was Dragnet starring, and created by, Jack Webb. At the time the show was being first broadcast it was a favorite among the thin blue line in Los Angeles because it was, compared to much of the competition, realistic and always showed the LAPD in a good light.

Jack Webb passed away many years ago and the television cop show has descended into soap opera with murder. But from beyond the grave Joe Friday gives Our Dear Leader a little dose of wisdom:

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Quote of the day

The "health care" debate goes on and concerned citizens who doubt the viability of the proposed health care plans have made it a point to attend town hall meetings to express their opposition to the various forms of health "reform". Here a young woman challenges her congressman to take her money after expressing her skepticism toward anything that the Congress or White House attempt to push through:

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Video: Constituent lectures Congressman on executive power

When this writer was an apprentice machinist and a young journeyman in the trade he worked in a shop making parts for both civilian and military nuclear reactors. In order to perform the tasks he was required to have several security clearances -- one from the Department of Defense and a second from the Atomic Energy Commission. Despite the fact that your faithful correspondent had already been issued a Secret clearance while in the Navy, an investigation of his background was performed, including conversations by the investigators with people this writer had never spoken to. The investigation was a lot of work to assume the various governmental entities that this writer was not a Communist, a Nazi, a member of the Industrial Workers of the World or the Sons of the Rising Sun.

The One decided to appoint another czar (I fell sleep in the good ol' USA and woke up in pre-revolutionary Russia. In spades), and apparently didn't even bother to have the man's background investigated. Or perhaps Mr. Obama, in his almost divine wisdom, decided that the man's communist background was meaningless and that the Yankee public was such a bunch a rubes that he could hide the fact that the man he named as a czar was a goddamn nut.

Charles Krauthamer has a few things to say about the deal:

Hot Air » Blog Archive » Krauthammer: Van Jones Truther allegations “devastating”

For the past couple of months there has been a crisis of sorts in Honduras. Basically the story is this:
The man who had, up until recently, Zelaya, been president of the nation decided that he had the right to change the constitution of Honduras so that he could run for another term as president. The Honduran constitution is adamant concerning presidential terms. The number and length of presidential term cannot be changed at all by anyone including the president or the legislative branch. When Mr. Zelaya decided that an exception should be made in his case the Honduran Supreme Court decided that Mr. Zelaya was violating the Constitution and should probably, for his own good, take a vacation in neighboring Nicarauga. Some people, most of them outside of Honduras, have decided that the removal of Mr. Zelaya was not an enforcement of the Constitution but, rather, a coup. Among those who think that Mr. Zelaya was given a bad deal are the Messiah and Lady Hillary.

Mr. Zelaya is a man heavily influenced by Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, who is influenced by Fidel Castro of Cuba. In other words, Mr Chavez (a man who is not loathe to shut down radio and television stations that are critical of his Marxist agenda) is a Mini-Me to the Beast of Cuba (Castro), and Mr. Zelaya is a acolyte of Mr. Chavez. Or to put it in the terms of the popular culture and preceding metaphor, a Micro-Me. Or an imitation of an imitation, which is the most flattering form of flattery.

Our Dear Leader seems to forget that one of the great platitudes mentioned in the United States is that we are a country not of men but law. The Honduran Supreme Court and Congress have followed the law. Mr Obama wants the nation to hitch its self to a man. Perhaps in the same way that he wants the United States to hitch its self to him instead of the Constitution, which he has violated many times in the past nine months.

The National Review has a good essay concerning the problem:

Stop Bullying Honduras by The Editors on National Review Online

We here at the Manor are considering mounting a campaign called, "Buy Your Congressman and Senator a Skateboard." The whole idea is based on the idea that if we, as a public, can convince our elected rulers to take up skateboarding we can expect either one of two things. The first is that the clumsy will fall and break their necks (or at least their hips). The second is that they will discover that there is something more fun than sticking their noses into other people's business. Then they might leave us alone.

This Is Interesting

Many years ago a man named Oswald Spengler wrote a book entitled The Decline of the West.
The economist Thomas Sowell has sounded the same warning in a lot fewer words:
Suicide of the West? by Thomas Sowell on National Review Online

The Psuedo-Parasites Among Us

If you've been half-awake during the last fifteen years you may have noticed that among the younger consumers of popular culture there is, among the lovely youth, a fascination with, and love for, vampires.

Your faithful correspondent traces the start of this fad to Anne Rice's novel Interview With the Vampire and the motion picture made of the same novel starring Tom Cruise, Brad Pitt (or was it Val Kilmer?) and Kirsten Dunst (what kind of proper name is Kirsten, anyway? Is it a misspelling of Kristen? An atheist form of Christine? Is the male form of the name Kirstofer?). It was with the publication of the novel that the character of the vampire became a romantic figure instead of a parasite, a freak, or just plain damned.

Since that time Tom Cruise has become a Scientologist, Brad Pitt hooked up with a freaky bird (Val Kilmer has pretty much disappeared) and Kirsten Dunst became Spiderman's girlfriend. And a vampire ethos and culture emerged.

We here at Bloody Nib Manor are no strangers to the spooky. The name of the Manor, itself, sends shivers of fear among the urchins polluting the streets of the Eastside. But the fear inspired by Bloody Nob Manor has nothing to do with vampires. We just host various prosaic ghosts; Tudor ladies carrying their heads under their arms, mad monks searching for chaste maidens to despoil, a pearl-eyed phantom mastiff roaming about in the garden. But we have no vampires and will not host vampires despite our nieces' love for the Twilight series of novels,

We will have no truck with blood-suckers simply because vampires are nothing more than leeches, ticks, fleas in human form. There is nothing romantic about a damned being that wants nothing more than to take an involuntary transfusion from one whether that being look like Louis Jourdan or Barbara Steele.

But, of course, we at Bloody Nib Manor tend to be of a more Victorian sentiment and outlook than the average Goth/Neo-Vampire. The Victorians had their problems, but they had some sense. They realized that evil is evil no matter how pretty it looks.

Now, in the United States, we have people who want to be, or pretend to be, vampires. In this writer's opinion these people, if they were to see a real vampire (an impossibility since there is no such thing as a real human physical vampire; psychic and emotional vampires are another matter), would find themselves surprised to find that their vampire was more of a wolverine than Tom Cruise.

But people are stupid and they see what they want to see and pretend what they want to pretend. An example would be Renaissance Faire re-enacters who do not seem to realize that if they had lived during the Renaissance they would more likely be scrambling to provide bread on the table than being a knight, queen or lord.

At the end of this post is an article and television report about Neo-Vampires in Tampa Bay, Florida (of all places) who meet monthly to celebrate their vampireness. If one watches the video one will see a group of rather unattractive Goth girls and the men who want to take advantage of them. The women would be much better off, if they insist upon wearing fishnet stockings and corsets, to re-enact the Moulin Rouge during the fin-de-sicle in France. At least then they might get their portraits painted by a midget instead of giving their blood to a freak more interested in getting a shot of leg. And the guys with the black clothes and fake choppers will get a shot of leg from these silly girls.

V is for voracious: Vampire culture unveiled - St. Petersburg Times

ObamaCare/Swine Flu Vaccine

The Mexican swine flu first reared its head in April. And almost immediately medical researchers and labs began working to develop some sort of vaccine while at the same time telling us that the Mexican swine flu had little or no chance of developing into a flu of epidemic proportions like the 1917/1918 Spanish flu. Their actions belied their words. They were afraid that the Mexican swine flu would follow the pattern of the Spanish flu; a short and mild first appearance followed by a period of apparent dormancy which is followed by the flu boomeranging back like gangbusters, more virulent and widespread than ever.

Why bother to develop a vaccine for a flu that was claimed to be a milder and more benign flu than the seasonal flu? The answer is that researchers, despite their first words, are scared of the thing.

So the wise men and women in the medical/pharmaceutical industries have been working overtime trying to come up with a vaccine that, once it is developed, will be promoted, perhaps even required, by the government. The work on the vaccine has been going on since April and the result has been this:

Swine flu jab link to killer nerve disease: Leaked letter reveals concern of neurologists over 25 deaths in America | Mail Online

Now, let's consider the various governmental health care schemes proposed by the executive and legislative branches of the government (the judicial branch has yet to stick its oar in the matter, but that will come with time). Whatever the proposal presented, one problem is that no proposal has been thoroughly thought out. If one listens to the various Solons pushing this gag, one is reminded that speed of passage of a health plan, any health plan, is of the essence. Never mind the details or the cost.

Is the race for a Mexican flu vaccine a living metaphor for the various federal health care plans that must so speedily be passed? This writer thinks that it is. The need for speed, in both cases, seems to have overcome the requirement for safety (safety in regards to Obamacare means you're monetary and health safety). No one politician, to this writer's knowledge, has read, or even understands all the facets of, the health care plan they are flakking. They want a plan. Any plan even if it means that a person has to wait six months for cancer surgery or if the cost is so high that the initial phases of the plan will be paid for three generation from this day.

Speed in governmental action is required in only one instance. That instance concerns national security from foreign threats i.e., declarations of war when the U.S. has been attacked. The nation has survived with what some politicians have called an unacceptable, or even inhumane, health care system for over two hundred years. Another year or ten won't make any difference.

And one thing that must be pounded into the heads of our elected masters is the question of whether the federal government has any Constitutional authority to mandate any national health plan. Once that they understand that their is no Constitutional authority perhaps they'll abandon the whole idea and go back to excessive drinking, woman chasing and bribe taking, and just leave us the hell alone.

The nation does not need a self-administered case of GBS.

Bits and Pieces

Those of you who know this writer are aware that he is not, nor has ever been doctrinaire anti-union. Both his grandparents on the maternal side were union members (in one case the Garment Workers' Union and in the second of the Teamsters) and that he was involved in the attempted unionization of a machine shop some twenty years ago. He was also, at one time, a member of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World). This writer sees the value of unions in certain cases. Those cases have to do with fair wages, safe work places and the representation of the worker, as a whole, when dealing with management and the shop owner.


But, since the days of your faithful correspondent's union activism it has turned out that several unions have decided to become unofficial arms of the government instead of representatives of the worker. A case in point is the SEIU. To be honest, the SEIU is a union that represents people who, if they had any damn sense, would use their jobs as janitors, hotel workers and maids, as a way to work themselves up into something better. In other words, they have made permanent jobs of jobs that were once performed by men and women attending college and working the jobs to pay their way through college or between high school and entering the military.


Now, in the administration of The One, we find that the SEIU has become an unofficial arm of Obamaism by acting as enforcers against the free speech of citizens at Town Hall Meetings who oppose the various permutations of ObamaCare.


Now the SEIU has taken to violence in an attempt to silence those who oppose the various forms of socialized health care while raising the image of mine workers in Matawon fighting Pinkertons; a silly comparison. But many unions have become silly. They worry more about the wealth of the union leaders than the well-being of the members. Also note, many members of the SEIU are unable to speak English, meaning that they are illegal aliens and are easily led with the promise of another few tortillas in the bento box.

If this writer were a young man he would not consider becoming a member of the CIA. The reason is not because he has a prejudice against spycraft, but because it has turned out that, from one presidential administration to another, one is never quite sure whether one will be awarded a medal or charged with criminal activity. The Justice Department of the Obama administration seems to have decided that it will prosecute CIA interrogators of Al-Queda and Taliban operatives using waterboarding as a method. There has been not beatings, no electrical shock, no starving. There has been the placing of soaked towels over the faces of the questioned. It is not unusual for members of the American military to have undergone such treatment. Waterboarding is not torture in the same sense that beatings or electric shock are. But The One and his DOJ seems to have decided that it is.

If you're a CIA agent it's probably a good time to get out.

Here's the story: Criminal investigation into CIA treatment of detainees expected - Los Angeles Times

Men In Hats

As those who are familiar with your faithful correspondent are well aware, this write has, and has had for many years, a dim view of the gutter press. The definition of "gutter press", in usage here means daily newspapers and news weeklies such as Time magazine, Newsweek and US News and World Report Few news items, of national or international import can be written accurately about in less than a month after the event. There is just no time for proper analysis and contemplation. Newspapers and news weeklies are good for such things as "screamer" stories i.e., "7-11 Victim of Robbery", "Dead Sharks Found in Trash Bin", "House Burns on Broadway".

But someone at Time magazine has deigned to write an essay about the importance of men wearing serious hats instead of baseball caps. And he also mentions the silliness of the "stingy brim" hat that is often worn by male hat wearers on the East Coast. A proper hat has a purpose (in fact several purposes). It shades, it protects and it decorates. The "stingiest brim" hat that an adult male should feel comfortable wearing is the boater. A hat, a proper adult hat, is more than a fashion statement, but it is also a statement. The statement is that the wearer is a man who realizes the importance of protect of the noggin and face from either heat or cold and that he aligns himself with a certain type of point of view -- the fedora being the hat of a serious man, the porkpie being the hat of the less than serious man, the homburg being the hat of the very serious man with money, and on and on.

Here's the link to the article: In Praise of Serious Hats - TIME

National Health Care Scheme

Here is a link to a video of a man asking his senator a series of cogent questions regarding the proposed national health care scheme:

YouTube - US Soldier Demands Apology From Senator Claire McCaskill at Town Hall

But, of course, we should all keep in mind that for The One and his cronies the Constitution is really nothing much more than a wax nose to bend and shape as they like.

And I might prove to be a valuable thought experiment to consider how, once ObamaCare goes into effect, how the government will insist that you eat, drink and exercise in a healthy manner so that you will not drain the resources of "the people." Say good-bye to your Mountain Dew, pork rinds and put on your running shoes because The One is concerned for your health. Big Brother will be watching you. And get rid of that skateboard. It's bad for your health.

Link-O-Rama

Global warming is one of those topics that waxes and wane depending more upon what other items are in the daily news cycle than what the actual temperature is at any particular time. If there isn't a beer summit, talk about a "learning moment", a particularly gruesome murder or Megan Fox saying another stupid thing, then the Global Warming stories come out of the freezer of the news rooms and we are subjected once again to hair-on-fire stories about migrating whales not knowing whether or not to turn left or right when they get to the Equator because of the suspected rise in the water temperature or ducks not flying south for the winter because the weather in Canada at the beginning of winter has suddenly become a balmy 34 degrees.

Here are a couple of stories dealing with Global Warming. One taking a look at the theological aspects of the theory and the second having to do with the unintended consequences of legislative idiocy:

Global warming is the new religion of First World urban elites

Getting Around the EU Ban: Germans Hoarding Traditional Light Bulbs - SPIEGEL ONLINE - News - International

As our town-criers will never let us forget, Senator Edward Kennedy is a physically ill man. It is almost as if we have been put on notice that we should be on a death-watch and we should stand that watch with the same sadness and sense of the passing of a great fount of wisdom that Socrates' students had when they witnessed his death by hemlock. But we should not let this anticipation of the death knell for Senator Kennedy blind us to the fact that he was, and is not, a particularly good or wise man. His passing will be a sad thing for his family and friends, but the nation will have lost nothing more than an old-style Boston politician who was a bully, a shallow thinker and a man who took upon himself (and was granted by a fawning press) the characteristics of a Medieval
baron; a womanizer, a drunkard, a bellowing buffoon, a perpetrator of manslaughter. And like many of the worse barons of old, Senator Kennedy has never really done anything to earn his position except have the right family connects and the right name. If he had not been of the magic litter of old Joe Kennedy (much of whose wealth was made through boot-legging) he would have ended up as a local ward heeler at best.

If the above appears rough or cruel, just keep in mind Senator Kennedy's treatment of Judge Robert Bork. Mr. Bork has shown himself a good and honorable man, a much better than the man who destroyed his reputation in the public's eye.

Here's a link to a story recounting the Chappaquiddick affair that showed Senator Kennedy's true character:

Chappaquiddick Revisited by R. P. George and D. Quinn on National Review Online

Here is another story of the "My Husband is an Uncaring Lug Who Doesn't Talk to Me the Why I Want Him To, But I Love Him Anyway" type. What's different about this one is that it appears to have been written under the influence of something:

My husband is a snail and I can't whisper - CNN.com

So there you go.

Eric Sevareid

In this writer's last post regarding the passing of the news man Walter Cronkite, reference was made to the news man Eric Sevareid (who's name was mis-spelled due to this writer's ignorance of the spelling of Norwegian names).
Mr. Sevareid was not so much, in his later years, a news reader or news man as he was a televised essayist. He was one of Murrow's Boys and spent much of World War II as a correspondent in the Asian Theatre, and as a European correspondent in Europe after the War.
Mr. Sevareid was a literate man of the type not seen on television today.
Below are two links showing Mr. Sevareid. As you watch them ask yourself if any news man or woman would take for granted the literacy of the viewing public that Mr. Sevareid did.
YouTube - Eldridge Cleaver returns to the U.S.
YouTube - Eric Sevareid Farewell Nov 30, 1977
While watching and listening to the videos of Mr. Sevareid your faithful correspondent was reminded that at the time the broadcasts were first made there was talk of professional boxing in the United States dying out because of the lack of a fan base. Boxing was considered brutal and barbaric.
Nowadays boxing looks tame compared to Ultimate Fighting.
We did not know it then, but, apparently we were experiencing a breather before the barbarians crashed through the gates. Guy Grand (refer to the novel The Magic Christian) has proven his point and we continue to suffer for the media's appeal to the lowest common denominator. If the promise of the late 1970s had held truth there would be no such thing as the Jerry Springer or Maury Povitch shows except as local programs produced by local stations looking for the leftovers from the networks.
How far we have fallen. And we continue to fall.
When will we hit bottom?

Walter Cronkite

The television news reporter/reader Walter Cronkite passed away this week. The man lived a very long life. He died at the age of 92.
For some reason, the news organs of the nation have deigned him the "Dean of Television news", when, in fact, his real claim to fame was being one of "Murrow's Boys" during WW II. Mr. Cronkite's fame lies much with his longevity i.e., he outlived his contemporaries. John Cameron Swayze was, if anything, the Dean of Television News because he was there first.
But, a generation and a half grew up with Cronkite on the television at six o'clock in the evening, so he got the title.
And, while Mr. Cronkite was a good news reader, and ad-libber, he was, during his on-camera career, no more special than the new readers on the other television networks. Chet Huntley and David Brinkley, and Eric Severide were as good or better. Severide was especially good. He was a news reader who, in his reading, demanded some thought from his audience. Cronkite, on the other hand, appealed to the middle-brow who took his word for Gospel.
But, let's face it. What is a television news reader but a herald or town crier standing in a village public square ringing a bell and crying that five sheep have been stolen from Mr. Jones' field or that a footpad is abroad?
We here at the Manor hope that Mr. Cronkite rests in peace, but we do not feel that his death is the death of journalism.

Porkpie Hats

Your faithful correspondent has never been a big fan of the porkpie hat.
In modern times the porkpie hat has been indicated by two elements.
1.) The crown of the porkpie hat is round with a round crease around the top of the hat instead of a longitdutinal crease. In other words, the crease on a porkpie hat follows the crown. In other words, the crown of a porkpie looks much like, when looked at from above, the crust of a pie.
2.) The brim of a porkpie hat usually narrow. Occasionally the brim of a porkpie is wide, as is the case of Buster Keaton or the old comic strip character Hipshot Percussion, but mostly the brim is narrow.
Wearers of the porkpie have been Gene Hackman in his character of Popeye Doyle in The French Connection, Buster Keaton in many of his films, and Mickey Spillane.
Mostly the porkpie has been worn, in movies and television, by characters who are rather questionable in
morals, but not really bad. They have been men who have not quite figured whether they want to be real criminals or law abiding.. In other words, they are apprentices who haven't quite made up their minds whether to be bankers or three card monte men or zoot suiters.

What's Wrong With This Picture?

In the past few weeks the following events have taken place:
Iranians (many Iranians) have protested against the results of their national elections claiming that that the results, given by the government, have been bogus. The results of the protests have been the disappearances and deaths of more than a few protesters.
The validly elected government of Honduras decided to eject the president of the nation because the president was violating the Honduran constitution.
Uighers (natives of Turkmenistan which is in the area now known as Western China) have protested and have been victims of Han Chinese suffered under the anvil of Peking for the reason that they (the Uighers) have demanded fair treatment. The result has been the disappearance of more than 1,500 Uighers and the deaths of more than 150 of the same.
What's wrong is that out Dear Leader had protested the constitutional action of the Honduran congress and supreme court while ignoring the situation in Iran and in Western China.
In other words, The One seems to think that the overthrow of a nation's constitution is a more favorable action than the exercise of protest against violators of human rights.
Once again. Follow the money.

America's Loss

Some people consider the residents of the Manor as Luddites despite the fact that we regularly use computers. The reasons for these accusations may be due to the fact that this writer prefers to use manual typewriters or pen and ink for his serious writing, that we do not have an automatic dish-washer, our (by contemporary standards) overuse of commas, semi-colons and dashes, or the fact that we have neither cable nor satellite television.
Your faithful correspondent suspects that the main ground of accusation lays with the television matter. The idea of receiving television signals over the air and not paying for the "privilege" seems, to some, as quaint as the idea of sitting in the front room (called by those with aspirations of appearing sophisticated the "living room" or by others, mostly long dead, "the front parlor") listening to a Philco or Dumont radio waiting for John McCormick to start singing Ave Maria.
But, believe it or not, we here at the Manor at one time received cable television back in the days when we, and MTV, were young. We saw the first Michael Jackson music videos. In fact, this writer's brother The Honorable Mister Daniel, worked with Mr. Jackson as a sound editor on several of Mr. Jackson's early music videos. And to tell the truth, during our days being connected to the cable teat and thereafter, we have never been particularly enamoured of Mr. Jackson. He was a good dancer, but no Fred Astaire, a decent singer of his type (meaning of the frenetic hard breathing style) and an entertainer who depended more on technology than real talent. In other words, he was a busker who made a lot of money and fooled a lot of people.
Mr. Jackson died this past week and the world seems to have gone into the type of mourning that is saved for the trivial. The same type of thing happened when Diana Spencer, John Belushi and James Dean et al died. The logic behind this mourning seems to be based on the idea that the dead were mis-understood., when, in fact, the deceased were really not much more than parasites.
To paraphrase Bryan Suits, entertainers and celebrities are remora and the public is the shark. Celebs feed off the public and really never give anything of value back to the public and the culture. Celebs, including Farrah Fawcett, Ed McMahon and David Carradine, as well as Mr. Jackson, Elvis, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens and others, were nothing more than officially sanctioned court jesters, actors or talkers. They made us laugh, tap our feet or were nice to look upon and they expected money in exchange. Meanwhile, the guy or gal you work with who tells good jokes or stories that make you think or laugh five days a week gets nothing but a pat on the back; and the guy you work with is working at a job of work making something.
There was a day when professional entertainers were suspect by the public. And the reason is because entertainers fed off the lower desires of the public. Music and story-telling were a part of daily life among one's peers and done to pass the time, not something done to make more money than the audience.
It is a sad thing that Mr. Jackson died at a relatively young age. But the man was a pederast and a man who, probably without knowing it, strove to lower the datum of civilized behavior during a time when the criterion should have been raised. Not to put a religious bent on the matter, but Mr. Jackson, Mr. Carradine and Mr. Belushi were evidence of de-evolution. They appealed to the basest part of the human experience. Ms. Fawcett, while pretty and a sex symbol for some, was, in reality, on the level with Nell Gynne and Lillie Langtry.
Billy Mays, America's greatest pitchman, died today. If you do not recognize the name Billy Mays perhaps you might look in your pantry and find a bucket of Oxy-Clean, a bottle of Orange-Glo or a tube of Mighty Putty. Mr. Mays, with his solid body and square bearded face and cry, "Billy Mays here!" was the cause of a lot of scrambling for the remote control by certain segment of society, but his death, was, in fact, a much greater loss to the Great Republic than was the death of Mr. Jackson. Billy Mays was an example of a man who had come from nothing and had risen to a level in his various pitches in county and state fairs, and television that he had made for his various employers something to the tune of a half billion dollars. When one sent money to a phone number that Billy Mays announced for a product one could be assured that one would soon get a tangible thing in one's hand within as week or two. Billy Mays, whether the products he pitched were good or bad, Mr. Mays carried on a long, long tradition of medicine men in America in a way that Mr. Jackson did not. Mr Jackson sold himself. Mr. Mays sold something you could use.
So when the funerals of Mr. Jackson and Ms. Fawcett (at the Taj Mahoney: this writer did not know that she was a Catholic) take place this week, please remember Billy Mays. He was better, in his life, for the nation, than the others.

Men in Hats

Summer time is here, unfortunately, and the weather has gotten hot. What is the man man of style to do to find relief from the oppression that unrelenting sunshine presents to one without wearing a pith helmet?
The answer is: The Boater. Among the uninitiated the hat is called a "straw hat" (too broad a term) or a "skimmer" (a slightly different hat -- skimmers are worn by students at Eton).
Unfortunately, the boater has taken a beating from popular culture. It has become a vaudeville staple for hoofers, an institution (in its foam plastic incarnation -- a truly blasphemous creation on the level with the plastic green derby worn by drunks on St. Patrick's Day) at political conventions and pizza parlors, and a joke when the crown is punched out by a comedian.
But the boater is a serious and useful item of headgear for the man. It's lightweight, offers shade, and looks good when worn properly. When worn level and square the hat says that is a serious man not to be taken lightly, as in the photo above of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. When worn with a sideways tilt the wearer comes across as a bit of a rake or a joker. When worn tilted back one appears either young or as a sailor (the boater was based on the canvas and tar hats that sailors wore in the 1800's).
The boater is one of the few men's hats that women can wear and not look ridiculous. But a woman wearing a boater can only look not silly if she is either wearing a middie blouse and long skirt or a striped pullover and sailor pants. Preferably the ribbon on the hat should be long and drape over the back of the hat. Hot pants, Levis and mini-skirts never look good with a boater.
So, if you are suffering from the oppression of summer weather, consider buying yourself a boater. It's a great hat and works well.

Not Your Dad's ....

This writer is an occasional reader of blogs and websites containing reviews of beer and pipe tobacco.

The interesting thing about the reviews is the constant refrain of, "This isn't your Dad's beer". or "This isn't your Dad's pipe tobacco."

The unstated implication is that you Dad had no taste at all in matters of beer or tobacco because he drank Miller High Life instead of Hog's Head Summer Special Ale, and smoked Carter Hall in his pipe instead of Frog Morton or Three Noggins. In other words, your Dad was a dope and a philistine and a tool of corporate America and the blanding of beer and tobacco.

Well, guess what? You're wrong. Your Dad was a man. A real man. Your Dad was a Stoic in a way that you, the reviewer, aren't. Your Dad took what was there and made the best of it. He wanted beer and he chose Schlitz over Hamm's. He wanted pipe tobacco and chose Velvet over Prince Albert. His beer and pipe tobacco needs were satisfied by easily available products and he didn't pretend to be a connoisseur. Your Dad knew what beer and tobacco were for; relaxation and fellowship. He did regard beer and tobacco the same way that a Frenchman regards wine and cheese. Your Dad had no time for such nonsense. He was a working man and a family man, and any time he had left over was spent doing manly things like fishing, hunting or working on the car.

Your Dad didn't bother to spend the extra money to buy a six pack of St. Pauli Girl unless he was a German, or buy a can of Balkan Sobranine unless he was an Englishman. Your Dad drank American lager or pilsner, or smoked American Cavendish or Virginia blends. He didn't bother with the foreign stuff cost too much and the experience only lasted five minutes after the last quaff or puff. And he figured that the extra cost was not worth the experience.

Your Dad was a guy who helped build the nation. He wasn't a dilettante. He worked to make the highways or airplanes or buildings that you use to buy your fancy beers or tobacco. And he probably never has had the chance to engage in you little hobbies. You Dad drank Rolling Rock or Pabst and, smoked Sir Walter Raleigh or Prince Albert, and he was satisfied. He didn't bitch about the beer being "thin" or the tobacco having a bite.

Your Dad, probably without knowing it, was a student of the Roman philosopher Epictetus, while you seem often to be a student of Epicurus. Ask yourself which philosopher's teaching will result in a strong nation.

Next Sunday is Fathers' Day. If your Dad is still living call or visit him and tell him how much you appreciate what he has done for you and that you pray that you will be the man for your children that he was for you. And if your Dad has passed on take the time to remember him and thank the memory that you have of him. Crack a Bud and fill your pipe with Barking Dog and try to live up to what your Dad was.

And if your Dad was a jerk, an idiot and a rounder, make it a point to be a better man. Fancy beer and fancy tobacco will not make you a better man than your Dad. It'll just make you a snob.

Be Careful of "Students of History."

Have you ever run across someone who claims to be a "student of history" who makes stupid claims? The example of Dan Brown in his novels comes to mind. Not only are his contentions ridiculous, his history is awful. The most cursory study of the Knights Templar will show that the Templars were real Christian knights and not adherents of Gnostic "wisdom" or that the Italian sculptor Bernini could not have been a member of the Illuminati because he was long dead by the time Adam Weisphat concocted his scam.
Our Dear Leader (the One, the Anointed, the O), has several times in the past claimed to be a "student of history". One example that comes to mind is his claim that the automobile was invented in the United States. As any car head can accurately state, the automobile, as we know it, was invented in Germany by a man named Daimler (he also invented the motorcycle). The O also spoke, in a praising manner, about the Model T Ford as if the solution to America's energy and pollution problems lies with the Model T. Truth to tell, the Model T was, for its engine size, a gas hog, gross polluter and so unsafe in its construction and features as to be considered more a dangerous toy than a mode of transportation.
The One, in his bum kissing Cairo speech, spoke again as a student of history. And he either lied or showed his ignorance of history:
Pajamas Media » Obama Flunks History at Cairo U
And add to the false claims of the Muslim world the fact that chess was not invented in Iran or the Arab world. It was invented in India.

The Difference Between Then and Now

There was a time when actors, singers and such behaved with a modicum of class and politeness. Now it seems that now the sign of affection to the public by a professional performer is to give it the finger. Instead of the public giving the finger back by not buying the product by the performer it seems to crave a big "F--- you" from their favorite star.
What the heck happened? The actor, the singer, the performer, is coming to the public with a begging bowl held out. In a logical world the performer would be performing on a street corner or in a park and would pass the hat to get the reward for their labor. Instead, the performer feels owed and the public is insulted. The world has truly been turned upside down.
Consider this article about times past and times now:
Big Hollywood » Blog Archive » Hollywood, Music, and the Death of Class