Posts Tagged → america
Foggy Ireland
Ten years ago several young Syrian toughs confronted me on a boat in Mallaig, Scotland. Freshly imported into Scotland as supposed victims, they knew that they were untouchable, and they pushed everyone around, acting like they owned the boat. It irked the American crap out of me and I stood my ground. Been a while since I had a good donnybrook, which is always good for a man’s vasculature, and I squared off.
The captain walked over to me and quietly confided “Ya, ya kin take ’em, and we will all cheer you for it, but the coppers will lock you up and ship ya home, no matter who started it.”
So I drank that bucket of Syrian sh*t and enjoyed the quiet ride across the loch and to my hunt for red stag.
Not long after, Scotland had a Syrian prime minister who said wildly racist crap about the native, indigenous white Scots people, and he derided both Protestant and Catholic religion. The Scots had imported their own invading force, intent on destroying Scotland from within. No “Bravehearts” these.
A couple years later I toured the spectacular Worcestshire Church in Barmouth, Wales, (Bugs Bunny forever destroyed my ability to properly say or spell Worcestshire) and commented to a local man how sadly empty and un-used it appeared. Yes, he confirmed, the church sits neatly cared for and tidy, but the Welsh government acts to dissuade the Welsh people from attending church.
The following year, the government of Wales began removing public statues of white people, because white people statues somehow represent racism, they said, because apparently white people are inherently racist, they said. Or something nuts like that, they said. Whatever their nutty cause (imagine removing statues of black people because of their skin color…it is nuts), the Welsh government was making culture war on its own people.
England’s government has obviously gone to war against its own native people, importing millions of illegal, unvetted, unknown criminals from culturally opposing places, allowing them to run violent rampages daily against the native, indigenous people, and then arrests and harasses the victims of said rampages. Whether I am willing to submit myself again to this craziness, I doubt that I will even be allowed into England as a tourist at present. Thought crimes like those committed on this blog are officially deemed much more serious offenses than knifing people, and the British government is quite effective at tracking the different opinions held by others.
So one supposes that Ireland just had to join this war against native Europeans, and against its own native Gaelic speaking indigenous people, and so the Irish government began doing all the same things as the aforementioned “UK” member states. A stroll through Dublin a few years ago revealed more tattooed Pakistani men than native Irish on the streets, more Arabic spoken than English, or Gaelic, more new mosques than churches. As in Wales, the beautiful old churches sit empty. Irish coppers (Gardia) will indeed jail an Irish guy for stopping racial harassment and sexual violence by Pakistani men, while looking away at the Pakistanis’ crimes.
The official Irish Government war against Irish culture and people is well on its way. Despite countless generations of Irish fighting and dying to maintain their independence from Romans, Vikings, Angles, Saxons, Victorian England, modern British…the list of invaders and occupiers is long…now, Ireland is embarked on a foggy headed policy of self-erasure.
Conspiracy mongers dwell heavily on the unnatural coincidence of all of Western Civilization suddently and simultaneously committing “Harry Kary,” or ritual seppukku suicide. I do concur that it is odd as hell. But it is not some shadowy, secret handshake cabal causing this.
Rather, this “suicidal empathy” immigration policy is the inevitable result of too much material success putting too many people to sleep. Way way too many people in France, Germany, England, Wales, Ireland, Scotland, and America have too much, and thus take way too much for granted, and have too many creature comforts and food and ease of living, to realize that they cannot drain their own collective bank account for the benefit of myriad total strangers, without losing it all themselves.
The old adage about soft times making soft men, resulting in hard times, which then make hard men, tough men, making tough and sometimes brutal decisions about life and death, seems to be playing out here. I observe the America’s young socialist brats have no idea just how hard and tough the old Americans like me can be, will be, need be.
An Irish song comes to mind about the likely future, as told by the Irish past:
As down the glen one Easter morn to a city fair rode I
Their Armed lines of marching men in squadrons passed me by
No pipes did hum, no battle drum did sound its dread tattoo
But the Angelus Bell o’er the Liffey’s swell rang out through the foggy dew
Right proudly high over Dublin Town they hung out the flag of war
‘Twas better to die ‘neath an Irish sky than at Suvla or Sud-El-Bar
And from the plains of Royal Meath strong men came hurrying through
While Britannia’s Huns, with their long range guns sailed in through the foggy dew
Oh the night fell black, and the rifles’ crack made perfidious Albion reel
In the leaden rain, seven tongues of flame did shine o’er the lines of steel
By each shining blade a prayer was said, that to Ireland her sons be true
But when morning broke, still the war flag shook out its folds in the foggy dew
‘Twas England bade our Wild Geese go, that “small nations might be free”
But their lonely graves are by Suvla’s waves on the fringe of the great North Sea
Oh, had they died by Pearse’s side or fought with Cathal Brugha
Their graves we will keep where the Fenians sleep, ‘neath the shroud of the foggy dew
Oh the bravest fell, and the Requiem bell rang mournfully and clear
For those who died that Eastertide in the spring time of the year
While the world did gaze, in deep amaze, at those fearless men, but few,
Who bore the fight that the freedom’s light might shine through the foggy dew
As back through the glen I rode again and my heart with grief was sore
For I parted then with valiant men whom I never shall see more
But to and fro in my dreams I go and I kneel and pray for you,
For slavery fled, O glorious dead, When you fell in the foggy dew…
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Happy USA 250th at National Mall big success
Spending two days in the DC-area 102 degree summer heat is not usually something I choose to do, but I gladly did it this week. And I am here to report back two facts: 1) The USA 250th Birthday National State Fair Semiquincentennial Celebration on the National Mall was a big success, and 2) Everyone I met there at the National Mall, and then yesterday at Mount Vernon, was a conservative patriot. This I consider to be not a success, but a failure by the political Left in America. More on this in a moment.
First, let me report on the USA 250th Birthday National State Fair Semiquincentennial Celebration on the National Mall. It was a lot of fun and I am glad I went. They had an active rodeo ring and horse riding competition, with hundreds of active fans cheering from around the fence at any given time. They had a huge Ferris wheel, which we rode in, and got a unique view from and of the DC skyline. There was a long line to get onto this ride at all times, and the two young ladies we rode up with said it was their second or third trip on it.
The FIFA or Fifi or FAFO whatever whatever huge screen soccer watching area was jam packed with thousands of fans, most of whom wore American flag shirts, pants, hats, or draped a flag over their shoulders. America was playing Bosnia when I was there, and the fans were cheering lustily. The line to get in went around the block.
The empty part of the National Mall that people try to show as evidence that this event is not popular is empty because there is nothing happening there. The state booths and the activities are almost all down-the-way, or back the other way. Everywhere else I went there were lots of Americans showing lots of interest in the events and music and exhibits etc etc. The live music was constant, fascinating, and performed by really talented people. No matter where we went, live music was being played.
The Princess of Patience was able to find one frozen ice cream treat out of all the food being marketed. And as far as I could see, the food vendors were struggling to keep up with the constant demand. A lot of food booths had staff promising that the next food delivery was due at any moment, and the hot, sweaty visitors were lined up and waiting. Gotta say, “artichoke dip-stuffed jumbo pretzel” and “bacon-and-cheese stuffed jumbo pretzel” sounds like a lot of work to make, cook, and then deliver ready to serve.
How about selling just ye olde regular big salty soft pretzel, with lots of yellow mustard? Strangely, I looked and never saw just regular old burgers and hotdogs being offered. The food was all creative and fancy, semi-gourmet. That would put a kink in your cowgirl rope, if you were trying to serve up fresh food to a constant stream of hungry fair-goers.
The state booths were fascinating and informative. I stopped in at Guam and had a long, fascinating talk with the friendly reps there, both of them Native, one of whom helped the Princess of Patience charge her phone. I learned about the 80-year American military presence on Guam (still a necessity, due to Chinese imperialism in the Pacific Ocean), and how the Natives are developing their own identity and tourist trade. Similar to Hawaii.
Pennsylvania’s booth seems clouded in controversy, but you would not know that when visiting it. PA’s booth was the best of all that I visited, because it had so much interesting information, and because the fascinating exhibits linked our glorious history to our excellent present. Lots of framed historic American and Pennsylvania flags, antiques, a life-size copy of the Liberty Bell… who the heck scrambled hard at the last second to put all of that together into a coherent exhibit? Thank you very much to US senators John Fetterman (D) and Dave McCormick (R), and to the many corporate sponsors who under-wrote the costs.
It is disappointing that my own governor, Josh Shapiro, did not participate. This big event, our nation’s 250th, should be a bi-partisan celebration. A person’s hate for someone in politics should not outweigh your patriotism for America or your pride in the state you represent. It is tough not to see this as a childish tantrum, but then again, I have yet to have any Democrat friend or family member explain this phenomenon to me without them going immediately from zero to a hundred on the Angry Meter. And it is hard not to see that as a childish tantrum.
Support for America should not be partisan, or even politically questionable. Especially on our 250th birthday.
Which brings us back to the attendees. What on earth is happening in America that people’s personal hatred of a president is so corrosive that they will vandalize national monuments that he has had cleaned up, and that they will boycott a fun, informative, unifying “national state fair” on the National Mall, on America’s 250th birthday?
Every single person I met and chatted with (dozens) there at the National Mall was a conservative patriot. The attendees had a great pride in celebrating America’s 250th Birthday, and made real showings of that pride in their choice of clothing, hats, and words of happy encouragement with one another. That there was no one Leftist (who I saw) just there out of love for America or pride in America says a lot of bad stuff about the political Left in America.
Ditto for yesterday’s day spent at Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington. The place was LOADED with American tourists, Boy Scout groups, all wearing patriotic colors and clothing. We all stood in lines to see just about anything, and despite the 102* blazing heat, everyone was just as friendly, happy, and good natured as the audience had been the day before at the National Mall. How refreshing.
Mount Vernon has incredible updated displays and exhibits, with a significant emphasis on the roles and daily lives of African slaves there, and presumably also across the South, until 1866, when the Republicans took away the Democrats’ slaves.
The George Washington Grist Mill and Distillery was closed, I guess due to the high heat, but come on, people. On July 4th week? On the week of America’s 250th birthday? Something there stank of sabotage….NPS staff who cannot bring themselves to work for a president they disagree with. That was not professional behavior or being devoted to America, if not to the man who temporarily runs it.
I fear for an America that is once again divided into halves. One half, my half, is proud of America, happy to be an American, will work with anyone to advance our great nation forward. The other half (or third) is angry about America, at war with America as we were founded, constantly faulting America, trying to set us back, trying to subvert us, and is actively boycotting our great nation’s 250th birthday celebration.
One guy I spoke with on a train was headed out of DC for the weekend. He is a Democrat lobbyist, an attorney, wearing a fabulous Swiss watch, and more or less said that DC was being inundated with knuckle dragging backwoods types, people like me, I guess, for the 250th celebration, and he had to get out of Dodge in order to enjoy the holiday weekend.
It is curious to me that the political left cannot enjoy sharing America with others. Either the political Left has absolute and totalitarian control of America, or they are miserable boycotters.
Kind of like 1860, a LOT like 1860….which America lived through, and came through stronger, after everything got sorted out.
On the other hand, I and the millions of Americans like me wish you a Happy Independence Day and a Happy 250th Birthday, America!
I took all of the photos below. Any reproduction requires attribution, please.
President George Washington’s face, made from a clay mask while he was alive. In 1776 he lead America to freedom
George Washington’s grist mill and distillery, which made him more money than anything else he did. Washington made rye whisky, which is now coming back into vogue, and which I can occasionally enjoy
General George Washington crossing the Delaware River imposed on the Washington Monument on the National Mall
The Washington Monument, the National State Fair Ferris wheel, and the “Arc d’Trump”
The Arc d’Trump, the big Ferris wheel, and the Washington Monument at dusk, a once-in-several lifetimes view. Smithsonian Institution on the left
Washington Monument lit up in celebration of America’s 250th birthday, with a temporary “national state fair” building in front
American soccer player Malik on the JumboTron on the National Mall, with the US Capitol in the background. Pretty unique view
Earliest known depiction of Uncle Sam, on an 1876 Centennial celebration flag, welcoming “all nations.” Legally, not as an invasion force
My view from the Ferris wheel, looking at the so-named “Arc d’Trump” and the US Capitol in the distance. The soccer game JumboTron is visible in the distance.
People from around America inscribed their best wishes for America’s 250th Birthday
Your faithful author and the Princess of Patience
Two friendly all-American federal police provided me with a grand entrance onto the National Mall
Yours truly, visiting the Truth booth. Truth Social is the official voice of President Trump, because former Twitter couldn’t stand the truth
So-called “Arc d’Trump” has great symbolism, especially with the Ferris wheel and the Washington Monument in the background
Pennsylvania’s booth had the most amazing exhibits, including this old flag from my home turf
Copy of the Liberty Bell at the PA booth
Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday to President Trump (whose birthday coincides with that of one of my kids)!
Best president of my lifetime, best president since Reagan, and arguably much longer. Yes, President Trump’s strong personality rankles people’s sensibilities, but so did “TR” Theodore Roosevelt. To get great things done often requires great force of personality.
There are certain things I wish President Trump would do, like flat out ignore over-reaching courts, whose overtly politicized holdings on subjects like military justice, White House operations, and other executive branch prerogatives, are lightyears outside the judicial branch’s jurisdiction. The courts are a co-equal branch with the presidency and executive branch; not superior, stronger, or more authoritative.
There are certain things I wish President Trump would not do, like create a forced “deal” with Iran that no one buys, no one expects to last, much less work. Yeah, we understand the president feels the need to try something different than acquiescence or total war… but, this is not likely to bear fruit.
Nonetheless, I appreciate President Trump’s patriotic passion for a free America and prosperous Americans. No one else like him, which scares me. What will happen to America when this great protector is no longer in office?
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D Day May-Day, D Day Pride Day
Tomorrow is D-Day, the anniversary of the heroic Allied invasion of France’s Normandy beaches on June 6th, 1944, in order to bring offensive action against evil.
Movies like Saving Private Ryan have been made about D Day. Books have been written, patriotic marches and celebrations and interviews of veterans about it. Without the heroism of primarily American soldiers and Airmen, beginning on D Day and continuing through to after the end of the war, World War II would have been won by Nazi Germany, and the world as we know it today would not exist.
To my generation, D Day is well known, symbolic, inspiring. I have friends and family members whose fathers fought on D-Day, on the beaches, in the dunes, and up into the hedgerows. Some died there, all returned to America with painful memories of it, and some with the physical battle scars of their time there.
Yes, my generation knows all about D Day. It embodies the clearest example of Good vs. Evil. It was the day that the Western Civilization calvary came galloping in, at huge cost in blood and money, to save the day, save Europe. It is one of the most inspiring days in modern American history, and people my age can casually talk about D Day as if it happened just yesterday.
And yet, I worry about it, because D Day is fast becoming a minor footnote in the modern American education establishment. Because the far-left teacher’s unions run the American education establishment, there is a huge and mostly successful effort to erase positive history about America, and replace it with indefensible nonsense about “systemic racism,” and with adult sexuality that has no place among children. The modern American culture is rejecting D Day heroism and electing to office hyper sexual freaks who advocate for preying upon children.
So I am making a May-Day call for help on D Day remembrance, and I think we should call every June hereafter “D Day Pride Month.” The entire month of June will be devoted to educating Americans about the evils of big government fascism, like the Germans did in 1944.
Let us reinforce the good and positive things about America, our greatness, the acts of heroism and self sacrifice of our citizens that got our greatest nation to this successful point in human history. We need an antidote to the meaningless hedonistic physical crap (drugs, sex, aimless lethargy as a lifestyle of choice) that is just rotting out America into a hollowed husk.
Happy D Day Pride Month, dear readers!
You are reading this as a free American because of the self sacrifice and bravery of these American fighting men disembarking from this boat into a hailstorm of bullets and bombs on D Day, 1944. Remember that.
Memorial Day, does it fit in America any more?
Does Memorial Day fit into American culture any more?
I ask because our national culture is changing so fast, and diverging so hard from the values and principles that founded America. We have foreign-born elected and appointed officials who openly despise America (Khanna, Prayapal, Ilhan Omar, plenty of others, tons of judges including Juan Merchan), and who call our military personnel sacrifices “war crimes” against the foreign countries who still hold their loyalty.
The idea that Americans would mourn the death of our military heroes, whose deaths ensured our own freedom here at home, is not just foreign to a lot of people living in America, it is anathema. Even our own native born youth are being told that the American military is immoral and bad and terrible etc, and because our young people live extravagantly comfortable lives, they don’t question such an outrageous claim.
Our American teachers and college educators are largely tools of our worst enemies – China, Iran, Cuba – and they fill our young people’s heads with exactly the kind of rotten crap a nation’s enemies would say. Globalist moral relativity does not help either, because it is easier to say “America is no different than Iran’s violent theocracy” (or is worse) than it is to actually weigh out and think out and talk out the enormous differences.
Thus does America have pampered middle income White kids giddily marching down our streets alongside White-hating genocidal maniacs waving the PLO Hitler flag, and wearing the ultimate anti-Western jihadi fashion statement, the keffiyeh. Our own pampered middle income White kids wouldn’t know a heroic battlefield military sacrifice from an hour without internet service, so why should they mark this Memorial Day as something significant?
Not only is our broader culture changing, but our young men are changing for the worse, too. As a small business guy who works in the woods, I see it a lot. For every hard working rural young guy, there are now five lazy rural young guys. This is an inversion of the old rural-urban culture break, which now shows that for every five lazy rural guys, there are five hundred lazy urban guys. American culture is suffering, yes, but most of the military-age young men who should be riding to our national culture rescue via military service, training, discipline, and sacrifice are now themselves in need of rescuing.
Nobody embodies the lazy bitchy whiner limp wristed weak-ass little wuss American boy better than Nick Fuentes. His entire life is devoted to breaking cultural taboos by saying naughty and mean spirited things about people. And Fuentes is dragging down a lot of American young men with him.
A serious public ass kicking would benefit both Fuentes and his young followers, and therefore American culture, but somewhere an overly anxious urban helicopter mom is reading this and figuring out how to get at me and any other hard ass dad figure, if only to “protect” her son from the hard comeuppance every boy needs to experience either at home from a loving Dad, at school from fistfighting other boys, or in the military from a tough drill sargeant.
Speaking of messed up young men culture, Jeremy Boreing provides a compelling monologue here.
Remember, young men, you must be able to ride hard and shoot straight. Frontier grit and military sacrifice are what gave you this incredible nation you now enjoy. Do not squander it or allow others to ruin it for you. For America to succeed as the citizen-run republic it was founded as, all of its citizens must be politically and culturally engaged. Hiding behind a video screen or serving only one’s own personal enjoyments is not only not contributing to our national success, it is ceding hard-won battleground to our enemies.
To your enemies.
So saddle up, young men, and dust off your hidden manliness. Show us what you are made of, that old fashioned American frontier true grit and self sacrifice. Show appreciation for those who gave you what you now have here in America.
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Portrait of an American Man
Across America, tourists visit all kinds of special places, built and natural. Across America, university campuses are home to special academic buildings, donated by successful business people who graduated from those same colleges. Probably everyone who visits and studies at these places take them for granted, except the conservancies, land trusts, and other caretakers charged with the operations and maintenance jobs.
Here today, we look at one of these historic donors, who built and donated one of America’s most famous architectural statements. He was a successful businessman from humble beginnings in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
Back in the 1920s and 1930s, the heyday of department stores, which were the internet/ Amazon/ eBay of their time, his family went from owning small clothing, fabric, and hat stores to one big department store in downtown Pittsburgh. The enormous store was famous for carrying everything that every household required, in grades, qualities, and prices that every household could afford. Foods, clothing, fabrics for making clothing, pots, pans, utensils, firearms and ammunition, fishing gear, shoes, work boots…the list is endless.
Incidentally, in the 1970s State College, PA, where I grew up, the O.W. Houts department store, out at the Western very end of College Avenue, carried everything a family would need, including old coins, stone arrowheads dug up in the local farm fields, records, a wide selection of utility-grade firearms (where I got my first .22 single shot rifle and a 16 gauge single shot shotgun), clothing, shoes, food, etc. Next door was the Houts Hardware store and Lumber Yard. They sold nails by the pennyweight, tools, keys, and of course all kinds of locally sourced lumber.
Despite its relatively small size, the O.W. Houts department store and hardware store were absolutely core parts of the State College area lifestyle. And so we can imagine what the gigantic Kaufmann Department Store was like in Pittsburgh, many many times the size of Houts. The wives and daughters of coal miners shopping for calico two aisles over from the wives and daughters of coal mine owners shopping for lace and fur trimmings. 1920s Pittsburgh was a gigantic melting pot of iron, steel, and fifty different nationalities from around the world, and everyone got most of their necessities from the Kaufmann Department Store.
Edgar Kaufmann built the family business from the ground up, taking big risks and making big sacrifices along the way, and became exceptionally wealthy. His family upbringing emphasized giving charity, which he did in large amounts throughout his life. The one charitable donation he is best known for is Fallingwater and its surrounding Bear Run Preserve.
Below is Edgar Kaufmann’s portrait, done in 1929, and occasionally on display at Fallingwater, which is where I photographed it. It is filled with meaningful symbolism and clues to his personality and outlook on life. Below is my understanding of this statement.
Edgar is standing between two potent symbols, the (Christian?) alms bowl (charity) to his right, and the carefully shielded Middle Eastern crescent moon, on his left. This moon would be his own background, of the desert, partially obstructed by cloth, that is slightly pulled back to both cover it, and also reveal it by drawing the eye to it. Cloth being the most representative symbol of his department store’s biggest staple as well as its famous fashion statements.
He is holding a rustic walking stick in his dominant right hand, which puts emphasis on the importance of this simple cut branch. Yes, it is a humble symbol of hiking and the outdoor lifestyle, and it also has the V top for holding venomous snakes’ heads. The other venemous snakes in 1929 were the Nazis, and maybe this is his way of saying he would be seeking to catch them and pin them down. Or that he was at least aware of them in his life.
Edgar’s left arm leans heavily on the chair, perhaps a symbol of his never-ending work ethic stuck at a desk.
The chair’s right side, Edgar’s outdoorsy, charitable, artistic, manly, masculine, and muscular side, is well carved, carefully defined. Its left side is deliberately stunted and malformed, as if to say that his outdoors life and his charity work defined him best, and his boring work life was his least interesting aspect. Don’t we all have have different sides to us and to our personalities?
His sporty tennis sweater says all-America, while his shirt sleeves are pulled up to reveal his manly biceps. The tennis sweater is Harvard red, instead of the blue from his alma mater Yale. Something must have happened at Yale to make him upset with the school.
Edgar Kaufmann conveys an image of American masculinity straddling two worlds, one of which he must subtly hide. And the reason I picked this portrait to write about is because nearly 100 years after this was painted, America is back to that 1929 period, where American Jews have to hide their identity, lest they be hurt, abused, robbed, for merely being Jews. This is not a good reflection on Americans, that we have come back to this kind of un-American behavior.
Edgar was a political conservative, but a cultural libertine..another personality split some readers might relate to. He helped design, build, lived in, showcased, and then donated Fallingwater through his son, Edgar jr, for public benefit. Across America, so many historic tourist attractions and artistic buildings were created or donated by Jews, as were an awful lot of the donated buildings at universities. We should be celebrating this ethic, not picking on these people as a whole.
Edgar Kaufmann
Musical “1776” Two Thumbs Up
Please do not tell anyone, but I saw a musical play the other day, and I liked it. Humiliating to admit, yes, but our three readers come here for honesty, if nothing else. Today you get five doses of honesty: The musical “1776” was excellent, timely, accurate, entertaining, and all the other positive stuff that my movie and theater critic mentors Siskel & Ebert would say about it.
We saw it at the historic Walnut Street Theater in Philadelphia, America’s oldest longest-continuously running theater. Because the venue has a sane policy on weapons (have your carry permit available if anyone asks to see it), I was strapped. I was strapped because it is downtown Philly, where the Wild West can descend upon one in the blink of an eye.
The docents, volunteers, and paid staff were all nice and helpful. Before the show started, we could have raised Lazarus more readily than actually reaching a human being during operating hours. Weak spot, but probably a weak spot in all theaters. No one there answers the phones or the emails until after you have come and gone.
Look here, theater is not for me. Watching adults play dress-up and make-believe is usually overwhelmingly annoying for me. These are not mature people, and many of them have gratingly annoying personalities. It is impossible to take actors seriously, on stage or off. Now that TDS is ravaging Hollywood, I am reminded daily about how much I dislike actors. It seems that the kind of people drawn to acting all fall into the “Big Jerk” category of life.
One exception in my world exists for those live stage performances that are about meaningful, inspirational, true stories. Biblical stuff ranks “acceptable.” Political theater is almost always heavily slopped to the falling overboard-left, preachy, inaccurate, dumb, communist, and, thus, annoying. Best bets are on movies, where the nonsense and forgotten lines moments have been left on the editing room floor.
“1776” is about the writing of the Declaration of Independence over a one month period, however, and is, therefore, a ten out of ten in my book, any day. It involves the story of the delegates from 13 colonies, debating the break-up with Britain, in Independence Hall, in Philadelphia, in June and early July, 1776. The widely documented personal performances of Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and our own (local to PA) John Dickinson are performed admirably by the capable actors. Thank you!
Real focus is put onto the debate about slavery, which did occur in the actual Continental Congress, and how that hot issue was taken out of Jefferson’s first version of the Declaration of Independence. Depicting this on stage is especially important these days, as it is bizarrely considered “cool” by some to incorrectly badmouth America about slavery.
Fact: In 1794 America just about had a civil war over slavery. We also almost had a full civil war over whisky and taxes, then, too. But abolishing slavery was an early goal in our nation’s founding, and white people were ready to fight and die to end it, even as slavery was a full blown enterprise in the rest of the world. Eventually American whites got around to that fighting and dying thing, in 1861, when the insurrectionist Democrat Party declared separation from the rest of America, over keeping their slaves.
By 1865, the Republicans took away the Democrats’ slaves, and as we see even today, the Democrats never forgave them for it.
I digress.
That this was a musical without much singing was God’s way of showing me that beauty can occasionally exist in the darnedest places, including on a stage full of … feh… actors. That most of the singing that did occur was bawdy or silly really took the sting out of the musical part.
The actors said their lines well, performed very well, and entertained us audience people well, about an important subject. The Walnut Street Theater was clean, had no stray odors, and was a pleasure to visit. All the audience members upon whom I threw myself were friendly and gracious.
In another couple of months America, us, our nation, will celebrate its 250th anniversary since our founding. It is a really big deal. This play was timed to synch with our national celebration, and it fits well. If you find yourself going anywhere near Philly in the coming weeks or months, go see “1776.”
And go strapped, because the venue has a Constitutionally-minded policy on 2A concealed carry. God bless ’em. That was the only reason I set foot inside the theater…they actually believe in FREEDOM.
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America’s 250th Anniversary approaches… how many people care?
America’s 250th anniversary arrives this July 4th Independence Day. A huge milestone, an enormous achievement, a remarkable record, two hundred and fifty years protecting indivdiual rights as a constitutional republic.
I am excited about this event. But is anyone else?
When I drive around, anywhere, do I see extra American flags, extra examples of patriotism or excitement? Nope. Nothing.
The silence is deafening.
It seems that very few Americans are excited enough about our nation’s 250th anniversary to do much about it, to show their extra enthusiasm, or appreciation. Don’t you think this is odd? I do.
It may be that Americans do not know how to celebrate the 25oth. I mean, will we set off more fireworks than ususal? Wave more flags and banners and patriotic bunting than ususal? Hang flags from our vehicles? Drink more, war whoop more, or shoot tracers into the night sky more than usual?
One thing for sure, most Americans seem to take America for granted, as if we are too big to fail. So, they think, why celebrate something that we take for granted, that we already believe is due and kind of boring and unremarkable…
This is how cultures and nations end.
When a nation’s citizens cease being excited about their nation, and about its longevity in a world hostile to individual freedom and liberty, they cease valuing that nation. And when they cease valuing it, they cease protecting it, safeguarding it. They give it away, like give its citizenship and taxpapyer money to illegal border jumpers; they throw it away, engage in all kinds of self-destructive virtue signaling, like calling America bad names and unfairly criticizing her for ridiculous things.
America is not too big to fail, folks. And while there are a lot of folks trying to make America fail, like Barack Hussein Obama, we do not see a commensurate backlash against them.
Mad Magazine’s longtime cover was Alfred E. Newman, saying “What me worry.” Because he was an idiot. Because only idiots do not worry about the future, and stability, and the strength of national currency, etc. Has America become populated by a bunch of Alfred E. Newmans?
The lack of American flags and patriotic fervor about our 250th sure seem to indicate it.
Is this the American citizen on the eve of America’s 250th birthday? Really?!
Sometimes no deal is good enough
President Donald Trump, the best president of my lifetime and the modern day savior of American democracy, believes in capitalism. He believes in “The Art of The Deal.” He believes that most humans, given good choices to select from, will almost always if not always choose logical, reasonable, rational options.
It is with this earnest mindest that President Trump has approached the Middle East. And in some ways, his view on human choices and preferences has, in fact, borne out with the wealthy Gulf states (Bahrain, UAE, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait). These sparsely populated countries are exceptionally rich, and everything they do is centered on money. Money is the language that President Trump speaks most and best, because he is a capitalist. And it is piles of money that keep the rulers of the Gulf states in power.
So, money brings together some of President Trump’s foreign policy goals into alignment, or slight overlap, with the oil producing Arab Gulf states.
Where this money-and-comfort mindset and worldview fails is in the face of apocalyptic, genocidal supremacists like Adolf Hitler back then, or the jihadi Iranian Shia mullahs in the present. These people did not and do not speak the language of money or human comfort and happiness, other than to use these thoughts to move themselves forward on the chess board in the short term. Their currency is raw power and sheer domination and control of everyone in front of them, by any means necessary.
They are ruthless, whereas President Trump believes in choices and opportunities.
The jihadi/ Hitlerian supremacist view is contrary to President Trump’s view. The totally rational “Mutually Assured Destruction” doctrine that kept Soviet Russia and America from nuking one another in the Cold War does not apply in Iran, nor with any other Islamist country. There, money is only a means, not a goal. Lots of jihadis are happy to live in poverty, if it helps them achieve their measure of wealth in power and human subjugation.
Trump believes in kindness and human choices, free people making their own choices and reaching “deals” for mutual benefit. On the other hand, Jihadis believe in you, me, and Trump all on our knees (which is why the American and European Left share common cause with the Jihadis).
America was founded on individual freedom and choice, which are completely the opposite of Islam, and especially the jihadis within Islam. These two world views are incompatible; they do not overlap in a Venn diagram. To date, leaders like President Trump have managed to find points of contact between Western values and Islam where friction is least, but he has been unable to really find significantly overlapping areas of interest. The Abraham Accords came very close to bringing the Sunni Arab countries into a shared Venn diagram space with Israel and America, but those accords are pretty shaky. As soon as jihadis somewhere start their la-la-la-la yodeling thing, the Gulf states reflexively go into retreat. Culture is powerful.
With Iran, there is no compromise. Not because America does not want to, but because Iran’s apocalyptic, genocidal, fanatic jihadis do not accept any point of contact between themselves and anyone else that is not resolved 100% on their terms. And they will fight to the very end, even if they have to drag down their enemies with them into the abyss, to seek that end result.
President Trump is both a patient and loving man. That is clear. But he is also having trouble computing that anyone can be so different from him and from America’s hope and promise as are the Iranian jihadis. And so he keeps on trying to “make a deal.”
Mister President, a lot of us Americans, who are still squarely and absolutely in your corner, think you have tried more than is possible or than is even smart. You have done all that is possible to avert an absolute showdown with the Iranian jihadis, and they have been unable to meet you halfway. You must now accept that they are incapable of thinking like you, thinking in terms of mutual benefit. They do not think like that, or like you.
If the Iranian jihadis are allowed to stay in power in any way, shape, or form, they will return to their field of battle with America on their own terms. They will have learned from their mistakes since 2025, and they will adapt. Iran will find a way to destroy or damage America, one way or another, if they are allowed to remain in power.
You must finish the Iranian jihadi job, Mister President. If you love America as much as we all think you do, then you must make the unpleasant decision to wipe out the Iranian jihadis. It is us or them, and we elected you to protect Us.
We know that this is a difficult time for you, President Trump, and we stand firmly with you, at your side. Absolutely no one else in American politics has the strength of character that you have, and if you do not save America from jihadi Iran now, then we will end being apocalyptically victimized by them in the future. There is no art of the deal that you or anyone else can pull off that will avoid this; only military success right now will protect America.
USS Liberty…what happened and why we should know
In the heat of the Six Day War just fifty-nine years ago, an American Navy spy ship in the eastern Mediterranean Sea was strafed, bombed, badly damaged, and I think 34 US Sailors died as a result, with many others getting hurt and having lasting combat-related injuries.
Despite the documented history of friendly-fire incidents going all the way back to Greek and Roman naval battles, with not one being in common parlance or memory today, the attack on the USS Liberty has persisted and persisted and persisted up until right now, when it serves as a battle cry against the only reason anyone knows anything about it: Jews.
Israel’s ships and planes attacked the USS Liberty, by mistake, and thus has a special grudge and entire anti-Jew movement built up and carried on around the incident. That Israel is America’s only real and loyal ally makes the accusation carry even more weight.
No Jews, no news, goes the modern adage. Because the USS Liberty involved a handful of Israeli naval sailors and pilots, all Jews everywhere are despised, and the state of Israel became a criminal enterprise, this USS Liberty movement says. For the mistaken acts of some warriors in the heat of battle, all of their kinsmen everywhere must be hated, judged, cast out, and exterminated forever, says this political movement based on the USS Liberty attack. No forgiveness ever!
If you doubt me, go online anywhere the USS Liberty is discussed, like a YouTube or Rumble video, or a written article, and see for yourself. The comments sections are filled up with endless acid vitriol for all Jews, everywhere, and ditto for the existence of the state of Israel. As if this one brief incident speaks for the full character of every single one of the ten million Jews around the entire world, and for an entire nation.
Which is bizarre, because no other group of humans anywhere is judged entirely in its entirety for the acts of a few in the midst of an existential battle for survival.
Despite having a long, bad reputation as thuggish ruffians, the Irish today are beloved leprechauns. There is no hateful world-wide anti-Irishman anti-Ireland movement based on some anti-British massacre by Irish nationalists that occurred two hundred years ago. My own quip is that if you don’t have at least a tiny amount of Irish in you, you are not a real American. No one hates all of the Irish, certainly not Ireland as a nation.
Ditto for Germany, whose crimes against humans in World War One and World War Two were truly monstrous. No one hates all Germans everywhere, and no one calls for the dissolution of Germany as a country, based on its national actions in the early and mid-20th century.
Ditto for Russia and Russians, whose terrible crimes against Poland and Polish citizens for the past two hundred years, or its own extermination of Chechens just twenty years ago, could easily disqualify them from belonging to world civilization.
And so on, including South Africa, which today in 2026 is far more racist and Apartheid than the South Africa of 1986.
And so this reveals why the USS Liberty incident has persisted well beyond the regular shelf life of any other friendly fire example, including the inexplicable recent 1-2-3 tail-end shoot-down of three American fighter jets by a Kuwaiti fighter pilot two months ago. Three expensive American fighter jets that were protecting Kuwait from Iranian bombs and missiles, shot down from behind by a pilot whose deadly actions defy any scrutiny, except for a jihadi mindset against white infidels. But… crickets from the USS Liberty crowd.
Here is what is known about the USS Liberty attack: It was a friendly fire mistake, on a warship that appeared to have no flag and which did not respond to radio challenges or identify itself, during the intense Six Day War in 1967.
Yesterday, Roger Stone disseminated an essay about the USS Liberty. You can find it on his SubStack page. Stone takes a slightly different tack from the usual “hate-the-Jews” mob, in which he blames President Johnson (“LBJ”), Sec. of State Robert MacNamara, and others leading American government in 1967, for the USS Liberty incident, its alleged coverup, and the alleged failure to hold Israel fully completely and totally accountable. Which, of course, as all these conspiracy allegations go, in the end leads Stone to implicate all Jews and the entire nation of Israel….which is the same end result as the other “hate-the-Jews” mob.
It has been distressing to see Roger Stone grasp at internet clicks, and reveal a hateful side of him I had never detected before he wrote that Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Thomas Massie, and other open Jew haters, are just good America-first patriots, and anyone caught up in their hateful net deserves to be in it. Roger Stone remains a compelling victim of the Biden witch hunt, and his subsequent character reveals have been truly sad to witness (if you hate all Jews, not just the far left ones who damage America, but all Jews everywhere all the time, including the conservative ones, you have an emotional or mental problem; it is a sickness).
The most sober and thorough discussion of the USS Liberty attack is done by conservative commenter, Jeremy Boreing. His approach is slow, analytical, thorough, methodical, not flamboyant, not flip, not bombastic, not caustic. If you are interested in this sad moment in American military history, and in the failure of our American military to always fully care for our battlefield wounded, watch Jeremy’s video here.
Fifty nine years later, let us honestly remember and fully appreciate the service and sacrifice of our American Navy Sailors on board the USS Liberty. It is important to know the truth, because in truth bad accidents happen, mistakes happen on the field of battle, and it is best that we understand this reality and not defy it by dreaming up mysterious or nefarious explanations that prevent us from problem solving in the future.
USS Liberty after attack
The 1967 Six Day War was one of the great military successes of modern history. It was complicated, big, and messy
The symbol of an Israeli bathing in the Suez Canal was huge
Battlefield chaos in the Sinai Peninsula, and the USS Liberty was anchored just off this coast
The 1967 Six Day War was an all-out battle for Israel’s survival. Any and all threats were attacked. Including mistakenly percieved threats like the USS Liberty