Posts Tagged → day
Wow, Columbus Day
Now that a long term study of Christopher Columbus’ DNA has revealed that he was a Sephardic Jew from Spain, and like hundreds of thousands of other Jews also likely a refugee of the 1492 Spanish Expulsion and then the Catholic Church’s Great Inquisition, we have to ask: Columbus Day, now what does it really mean?
By way of background, upon ending the imperialist Muslim “Moorish” occupation of Spain, in 1492 the newly victorious Catholic Spanish Queen Isabella (“Jezebel” in English, Eezavel in Hebrew, one of the most notoriously evil and violent queens of the Hebrew Scripture and Jewish history, and just so was that Spanish namesake queen) dictated that all Jewish citizens of Spain had to convert to Catholicism or get out. Like leave their homes, money, possessions, and just exit the jurisdiction with the clothes on their bodies.
The history of the Spanish Expulsion is well documented, and for our purposes here we will simply use it as the starting point for Christopher Columbus’ career. He, like almost all of the Spanish Jews, cast about for ways to get out of the coming inferno. Forced conversions were bad enough, with small children taken from their parents to be raised as Catholics in convents and monasteries. But the fallout of even the slightest suspicion that the poor Jewish person had not completely and absolutely accepted Catholicism was really bad.
In sum, tens of thousands of innocent Jews were tortured, robbed, and then burned alive by the Spanish government for the simple reason that they were suspected of having retained some loyalty or interest in their former religion, the religion of their ancestors for thousands of years, and their wealth could also be taken. Bad stuff, really evil stuff, very much the low point for the Catholic religion.
Talk about reparations! What would the descendants of the survivors be owed by Spain or the Vatican today?
[The wild excesses of the Catholic Church, such as the Great Inquisition, kick started the Reformation, resulting in the creation of Protestant Christianity, which “protested” the really bad behavior of the Church at that time, at every level, targeting not just Jews but anyone who dared question Church doctrine]
For several months I have been reading “Jewish Pirates of the Caribbean” by Edward Kritzler. This is not a long book, but it is nowhere as whimsical a read as its catchy title suggests, and so I have slogged from one mass auto de fe to another, each set in a different part of Europe or the Caribbean, or South America, or Mexico, or New Mexico…Everywhere the Jewish refugees from Spain and Portugal ran, they were then hunted to the death by the Spanish Inquisition.
To say that the persecuted Jews got tired of this shitty treatment is an understatement, and quite a few of them took to the high seas to attack the Spanish treasure ships bringing slaves, gold, silver, and gems from South America, as well as sugar, rum, spices, and slaves from the Caribbean to Spain. Quite of few of these Jewish pirates who were focused on revenge against Spain made great names for themselves.
One such pirate was named Sinan the Great Jew (see his picture below), who after losing everything his family had built up in Spain for 1,450 years, pledged his seafaring skills in the Mediterranean Sea to the Ottoman sultan. All Sinan wanted were ships and crews to get revenge on the Spanish, and in turn he gave all of his loot to the Ottoman Empire. Sinan lived a long life and never felt satisfied that he had made the Spanish truly pay for their crimes.
So in this 1490s mix of cruelty and ethnic refugees and revenge is Christopher Columbus, who has always been suspected of being a refugee Jew, simply for the timing of his trip and the fact that his ships (Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria) were overwhelmingly crewed by Jewish refugee sailors.
In recent decades, an attack on Christopher Columbus by the political Left has centered on his taking of slaves among the Caribbean Indian tribes, and the fact that he was “white” and somehow treading on someone else’s land. Leftists fail to explain that literally everyone in the entire world took and sold slaves back then, including the Caribbean Indians, including the Africans, including the Arabs, inculding the Turks, and that the entire history of humanity is one migration after another.
So the question is, will the fact that Columbus is now proven to have been a Jew, and himself a refugee from oppression and persecution, somehow change the perception of Columbus? Will his story now be told as no longer the oppressor, but the fleeing oppressed?
It is tough to say why Columbus’ religion and refugee status should have any real impact on how he is taught in history books today. Yes, the Italians who have been so proud of him will probably now disavow him.
A big irony is that Jews like Columbus and Sinan only existed because the Italian Romans fought, enslaved, persecuted, and ethnically cleansed the Jews from their homeland in Judea/Israel starting in the year 67 CE and ending around the year 135 CE. Massive quantities of Jewish slaves were brought into Italy, where they slowly and surely rebuilt themselves into Jewish religious communities and kept their religion and culture going.
Despite being ethnically cleansed from their homeland and enslaved by the Italians, the Jews regrouped and saved themselves by migrating to northern Italy, Spain, and France, reaching soaring heights in science and business, only to be expelled by greedy Spanish thieves who had a recent war to pay off. Spain remains the ass backwards sh*thole of Europe today.
Columbus still has a holiday named after him here in America. I wonder if Iran, Hamas and Hiz’b’alla, and the political Left will try to do in his name, now that he is a known Jew. Or will the Left stick up for him, because he was an oppressed refugee? Guess it is still complicated being Columbus.
Jews being burned alive in ovens, while a madman waves a crucifix about
Sinan the Great Jew, expelled from Spain for his religion, he became a lifelong pirate specializing in taking Spanish ships
Sinan and the famous Ottoman pirate Barbarossa fought together against the Spanish
Ah, a public burning of innocent, tortured Jews? The whole town turned out to watch. Lovely
Do you miss sunshine and long days? I do
We are in the shortest days of the year right now. The winter solstice will be in just a few days, December 21st, the shortest day of the year. We all see it, we all feel it, especially here in central Pennsylvania, Upstate New York, Michigan’s UP, Canada, and I am sure in Russia, too. Just when you feel like the day is about to begin, like your formal work day ends and you are ready to do something fun, it’s actually dark outside. Gloomy. Usually cold, windy, and raw, because it is Winter, after all. Darkness now comes at four o’clock in the afternoon, and by 6:00 PM dinner time, everyone is yawning and stretching, ready for bed, feeling like it must be hours later than it actually is. Because of the early darkness.
I don’t know about you, but this early darkness business is just wearing on me, and I am feeling ready for some happy sunshine and those longer days where I can actually do something fun or productive after working hours. My mind keeps skipping to June and July, when the sun doesn’t set until 9:00-9:30, and we spend all afternoon outside, either doing yard work, or gardening, or just enjoying the nice weather and long days to get stuff done at a leisurely pace. Sundays can be spent barbecuing in the back yard with friends or family….ahhhh, that sunshine and daylight is just so rewarding.
This small fact keeps my chin up: We are about to turn the corner on daylight. In just four days, every day will be getting longer and will have more daylight. This gives my mind something happy to hitch onto. I miss sunshine and longer days, and in fact, they are just about to start.
Hang in there, folks. I know you miss sunshine just like I do. Spring will be here before we know it, and with it all the happiness and relief from these long, dark, dreary, cold days. From yeccchh to yay, coming up soon.
Hang in there.
An apple picker I know has an early morning sunrise and stretch on a farm
In worship of the binary Mother goddess
Though this may be impolitic among the impolite society of the politically correct, I will today, Mother’s Day, testify to my worshipfulness of the Mother goddess.
So high has her self-denying patience been throughout my life, and especially my adult life, that I may see and call her a deity.
First she bore me, and my own, for nine long sweaty, uncomfortable months. Then in great pain, and long discomfort after, she birthed me and mine into this world, a gift, for better or for worse, to do with as we will, as we all might, our best, or best of our intentions.
Then, in great diligence and self-deprivation she watched over me and mine, warned me of the hot stove, bandaged my thrice-burned fingers, and held that same hand many years thence as I wound my way along a zig-zagging path, two steps forward and one backward, of mine own choosing, of all our own choosing.
Finally, she acted as grand-mother or grand-mother-in-training to mine own and her own, never once breaking the chain she forged with love.
Motherhood is both miracle and a curse. This miracle is of course obvious to all but those who would joyfully kill the fruit of the womb both on the tree and after it has fallen to within reach, unimaginable as this may be. Motherhood is a curse when those it has borne would kill all who follow in their path, or who show such unappreciation for the gift of life as to behave in ways that make the mother goddess sad for what she has borne to the world around her.
With all due disrespect to the anti-binary anti-Motherhood anti-child among us, Motherhood and her fruit is all that is good on our planet. Motherhood’s nurturing instinct from the moment of conception to the last of any of her breaths, is the best of human kindness, its quintessence.
Motherhood is the ultimate binary: A choice between good and evil, right and wrong, human and inhuman. Just like there is no kind-of pregnant, there is no kind-of Motherhood, no kind-of-fertile. Among all things human, the good and the bad, Motherhood is all-good; her motherly love is fertility itself. Everyone human knows this, and has known this since the dawn of our species.
Today the rainy streets and roads here are all but abandoned, silent testimony to the powerful instinct of humans to be with Mother, with family, to avoid unnecessary distractions. We all worship her, rightly so; or we should, anyhow.
An ancient “Venus” fertility figure from the dawn of human time, showing the special relationship between Mother and all who come from her. Among the many human civilizations around the planet, only materialistic Westerners have degraded Mother, and motherhood, and her fruit.
Sometimes a threesome just sucks
Welp. Primary Election Day is now behind us. Thank God.
Yesterday’s bright moment was Andrew Lewis running and winning against a large part of the GOP establishment in the 105th State House District.
It lies around out through Harrisburg’s eastern suburbs and could easily swing “RINO,” but yesterday it did not. Proving the power of staying positive and of doing door-to-door, Lewis impressed so many voters that many of them eagerly relayed to us volunteer poll workers their happy experiences meeting him at their home’s front door.
That said, much of yesterday’s political outcomes were unfortunate, for those of us who trust and hope in We, The People and who have learned not to trust the GOP establishment.
Woody Allen once quipped “I believe in relationships. Love between two people is a beautiful thing. Between three, it’s fantastic.”
Well, sometimes that truism just doesn’t hold water, and nowhere was this observation more evident than the results from yesterday’s political threesomes in Pennsylvania.
As we political watchers and participants have seen repeatedly, and as I myself have experienced as a candidate for office, three-way races can and often do allow liberal Republicans to prevail. And in fact, it now seems that the threesome approach is a significant strategy for GOPe candidates.
Yesterday, Dan Meuser won the PA 9th congressional district election (he lives in the 8th District) through the benefit of the two grass roots candidates (Halcovage and Uehlinger) each siphoning off sufficient votes to allow the establishment candidate to get the plurality. There is some question out there about whether Uehlinger was, in fact, a conservative, or even a Republican; despite getting in the race first, his campaign seemed the least organized. Halcovage was not terribly organized, either, and did not respond to important questionnaires from interest groups. Firearms Owners Against Crime advised voters to select only Meuser of the three candidates.
Actually, Meuser may have obtained more than 50% of the vote, which is an indication that he might have won on his own merits (e.g. he was the only candidate deemed acceptable on Second Amendment rights to FOAC). All his negatives notwithstanding.
One lesson for sure comes out of that particular three-way race: If you cannot present yourself as an organized, credible candidate, then please spare everyone the drama and do not run.
People who wake up on some Thursday morning and say “What the heck, I am gonna run for office” have every right to do so, but recognize that there are consequences to this. Better to have a one-on-one clear choice for the voters. We will almost always have an establishment candidate, so pick the one best grass roots candidate as The People’s champion, and chase off the rest.
In the PA governor’s race, liberal dark horse Laura Ellsworth knew she had no chance of winning. I mean, with liberal policy positions like hers, she should run as a Democrat (she said she would not accept money from the NRA). But run she did, and though she obtained less than 20% of the vote, she siphoned off sufficient votes (especially in Western PA) from true conservative and US Army veteran Paul Mango to get Scott Wagner the plurality.
Mango is from western PA and would have otherwise obtained most of Ellsworth’s votes.
Yesterday I was a volunteer poll worker from 7:00 AM until 7:35PM in the Harrisburg area.
What I heard from GOP voters (and mostly from women over 50 years old) at several different polls was that they were angry at both Mango and Wagner for all the negative ads. They knew Ellsworth was liberal, but they were voting for her as an alternative to the two boys engaged in distasteful roughhousing.
Wasn’t this a variable we were picking up from women voters weeks ago? Yes.
Did someone pay Ellsworth to run? One asks, because she knew her chances were very low to nil, that her liberal ideas and policy positions are way out of synch with the vast majority of Republican voters.
Ellsworth the Spoiler has now burned her bridges with about 40% of the state’s Republican super voters, which even the most obtuse political nerds would expect as a logical outcome.
So why else was she in it? One cannot help but wonder if she was paid to play the spoiler. It was done in the last race I ran in….by someone involved in the race she ran in…so…
When we look at Idaho’s primary yesterday, a similar scene unfolded. The unlikely liberal GOPe candidate beat the conservative, by way of siphoning of votes by a third candidate who himself had no hope of winning.
Folks, the only way these third candidates can run is if they are independently wealthy and just yee-haw running for office; or, they are willing to sacrifice their name in one race by trying to build it up for a future run at some other office; or, most likely, they have “other” sources of income or promises made to reward them for playing the spoiler in the current race.
So, as we move into a more experienced and savvy grass roots political landscape, begun just ten years ago as the “tea party,” we are learning that our own strength can be used against us judo-like by the same corrupt political establishment we are trying to defeat.
Threesome races may look democratic, and it is true that every American has the right to run for office. But sometimes appearances can be deceiving. Sometimes those threesomes are designed to undermine the conservative grass roots candidate, and to help the plain vanilla milquetoast establishment candidate win.
Sometimes political threesomes just plain suck. And not in a good way. They can be designed to exploit the big-hearted nature of so many grass roots activists, so that their enemy, the GOPe, can win.
Lesson learned.
Fathers are important
Thank you to all the fathers and father figures out there, working to hold together a family, to provide a voice for kids to rely on. There’s no substitute for family. Happy Father’s Day.
From here on out, it’s all downhill
Yesterday was the Winter Solstice. The shortest day of the year. In a winter-dreary location like Central Pennsylvania, it also marks the beginning of longer days, leading to sunnier days. From here on out until June 21st, it’ll be easier sailing.
Sure, we’ve burned half our firewood and we expect the balance to be gone by February’s end, but just knowing that our friendly neighborhood sunlight will be filtering in more often is a reason for hope. And no, annual trips to islands and warm beaches just do not seem to break winter’s grey grip.
Thank you to our Veterans!
Armistice Day, Veterans Day, commemorations of values that are rapidly slipping out of mainstream America. Let’s keep those flags flying high!
And yes, I am working on an analysis of what the hell happened last Tuesday night. Good God, what a disaster. Thank you for the prompts, dear readers.
PA-17th Cong. District Update
Many supporters of my 2009-2010 Republican campaign for the PA-17th Congressional District are asking what my plans are. Will I run for Congress again?
My answer is that I’d like to run again, but it depends on what the PA-17th looks like after redistricting. That process is happening now and several reports have the district as we have known it divided up into several different pieces. Harrisburg, where I reside, may end up in Congressman Platts’s district, while Dauphin County is further divided among other current members of Congress.
Until the proposed plan is unveiled, I can’t give a complete answer. In 2010 our election results were an impressive 24%, out of four candidates, on just $11,000. Our amazing volunteers, like Carl Fox, made that difference.
So please check back here soon. I hope to have an answer shortly. And thank you for all your encouragement and support!
Wishing you a glorious Independence Day holiday,
Josh