A Repost on Cultural Appropriation of the Worst Kind

Below is my traditional repost on Thanksgiving. I know my long-suffering six readers will find it a bore, but I have a house full of relatives and dogs, and I have been put in charge of the Thanksgiving meal. I am not a good cook, at all. So this is going to be a challenge. In the past we did as the Pilgrims did, have dinner at an Indian casino (That is what they did, right?) but, despite my being in the land of the great and much persecuted and maligned Cherokee, there isn't one nearby, so . . . . Turkey cooking bag here I come! Deep political thoughts will have to wait.

Happy Thanksgiving to all, and belated Happy Thanksgiving to Canada.

Feathers 

Yes, feathers. Not the figurative kind that fill leftoid heads, but the real kind that cover birds. We are going light today. Our topic is feathers and how they nearly produced a civil war in the Diplomad clan, and how echoes of that strife apparently will reverberate on the 4th of July.

As the six regular readers of this blog are painfully aware, during the Reagan years I served for a time at the UN in New York. We loved New York City, even with all its inconveniences especially with two rambunctious boys. Schooling was a problem as the local PS was, well, pretty bad. When two of the vastly overpaid teachers at the school told us that they would never send their own kids there, we decided to yank our boys out and send them--at considerable cost to the Diplomad bottom line--to private schools. One went to a school run by Irish Catholic nuns, who wanted no parental involvement, "Thank you very much, but we know how to do this." The older son went to one run by strangely liberal, yet oddly conservative Jews who wanted lots of parental involvement in the school as long as the parents did what the school wanted. Hey, it's New York. Live with it.

Well, as it does every year, the Thanksgiving holiday rolled around. You must understand we had spent most of our lives overseas. The boys had been born in Spain, and hardly had been in the US. Educated abroad, they--God help me--had grown to love soccer football soccer with both of them becoming (and remaining to this day) rabid fans of Spain's La Furia Roja. Their grip on Americana was a bit weak. Please remember that as this saga proceeds.

Another piece of background you will need. My Spanish wife hates, detests, abhors, loathes, etc, feathers and any creature sporting them. She shows a special wrath for chickens, turkeys, ducks, and geese. She cannot stand the thought of fowl on the meal plate. I have seen her blanche and break out into a cold sweat at fancy diplo dinners when served quail, duck or some other feather-bearing beast. It is not funny; better said, she has no sense of humor about this matter. My efforts to convince her that chicken tastes just like iguana have had no positive effect. Whenever we go to a restaurant, regardless of what she orders, she insists on, ahem, grilling the waiter on whether any foul fowl was involved in the making of her pending meal, "Uh, no ma'am, our salmon is, uh, salmon. It's a fish, not a bird." "Yes, yes, but the rice and the vegetables, were they cooked with chicken?" I am used to it by now.

Thanksgiving Day in New York, 1985. My older son, then about six was in a bad mood. I asked what was wrong, "You have no school today. Mom is making a nice Thanksgiving meal. What's wrong?" He glared at me, "The Pilgrims did not eat paella! They ate turkey!"

Explanation. Given the Diplowife's aversion to feathery creatures, our overseas Thanksgiving Day meals consisted of seafood paella. My wife had, ahem, implied in some way . . . oh, heck, she flat out told the kids that the Pilgrims ate paella with the Indians. Maybe she was thinking about Cortez and Pizarro, I don't know, but anyhow the kids had gotten into their heads that paella was the meal on Thanksgiving. Now in NY, the older boy had been asked the previous day to make a presentation at school on Thanksgiving. He, of course, reported that the English Pilgrims sat down and shared paella with the Native Americans. This caused a bit of a commotion and, I guess, led to some considerable ridicule, or what the politically correct nanny-staters now would label "bullying."

He was furious with us. He refused to eat paella and demanded a turkey. Even my wife was shocked into submission by the uncompromising fury coming from the tyke. It was Thanksgiving Day. I had to find a turkey in Manhattan! I dashed out of our building on the upper east side. All of the supermarkets were closed. A turkey! My kingdom for a turkey! I wandered the cold, darkling desolate concrete canyons, my despair growing and threatening to overwhelm me. I had let down my kids! The wages of sin, the consequences of falsehoods! God give me a sign that You will allow me to redeem myself . . . Wait! A deli! Still open but about to close! I ran in! Turkey sandwiches! They must have a turkey somewhere! A bizarre negotiation followed in which I finally convinced the suspicious Pakistani owner of the "Jewish" deli to sell me a whole kosher turkey at the price per pound of the sliced sandwich meat. I paid him a fortune--in cash--for a small bird about the size of a Chihuahua, and ran like the Grinch with my turkey under my arm.

My kids had turkey that day, and every other Thanksgiving since then has featured a big bird on the table. My wife refuses to sit anywhere near it, and has her own separate fish-based meal.

This will be an issue on the Fourth of July. The Thanksgiving paella got moved to Independence Day. The kids, now grown, of course, alas, are starting to make noises of impending rebellion against paella and in favor of hot dogs and other beast meat. The Diplowife mistrusts hotdogs, even the kosher all-beef ones, as stealth chicken missiles. She does not want anything with the potential of bearing fowl touching our BBQ grill or being anywhere near anything else that might be cooking. It appears that we might have a split Fourth meal. One side of the family eating chicken wings and hotdogs, and the other with the paella. Now that I think about it, this seems an appropriate metaphor for what is happening to our country.

The Progs Vs. Democracy, Part Million of a Zillion

I have prattled on at some length and frequency about the danger posed by the progs to our Republic and to Western civilization. I don't want to be a one-note musician but . . . . . .

The midterms. They are history now. The results as reported officially were a mild set-back for the Republicans and a mild set-back for the progs. Neither side got what they wanted.Note, however, that the prog side did what it always does: it sought to cast into question the verdict of the voters. First, of course, as we have discussed many times, they have arranged it so that we don't really know who is voting, where, and how often. How nice. They reject any talk of fraud and refuse to allow any meaningful investigations into the fraud that is so clearly going on. To ask that the voting system be protected and be a valid conduit for American citizens' views, gets you labelled a racist and a vote-suppressor. The progs roundly reject calls for voter id, and even where it does exist, they issue drivers' licenses and other official ids to non-citizens anyhow. But even that is not enough. The expansion of early and absentee voting has opened even more avenues for prog fraud.

The great failing of the Republicans and conservatives, in general, is that they have lost control of local institutions such as universities, schools, courts, and, more to the point of this little essay, local government most notably election boards. Hence, we see the immediate and loud calls for recounts and other such measures to overturn the announced results when all the other instruments of prog fraud have failed to produce the "proper" electoral winners and losers. The most dramatic example in the USA in recent times was the instant rejection of Donald Trump's electoral victory in November 2016. We saw the usual calls for the abolition of the electoral college, but beyond that calls for recount in those states where Trump was not supposed to win (the bricks in "the Blue Wall"), demands that duly elected electors of the Electoral College refuse to vote for Trump, and even before he had taken office, calls (which continue) for his impeachment, and/or the invoking of section four of the 25th amendment to the Constitution. Other progs have called for a military coup, and, of course, we have seen the mayhem on our streets by the Antifa thugs of progdom. It seems that only those elections which produce the right result are legitimate.

But, alas, it is not only in the USA where we see this prog adversity to elections that produce the wrong result. The ongoing Brexit mess in the UK is another prime example of how the progs and their global elite buddies seek to pervert the will of the voters. In a stunning victory for the principle of freedom and national determination, in June 2016, British voters decided they wanted their country back and expressed their clear will to leave the smothering EU. As noted in my post of June 27, 2016,  the opponents of the will of the people wasted no time in launching a counterattack. The vote barely had been tabulated when prog calls went out for a new referendum because the voters were too stupid to understand what they had just voted for. We saw all sorts of stories in prog media of how British voters didn't even know what the EU was, and on and on.

As predicted by this humble blog, that was only the beginning of the counterattack. The UK's PM, the inept and duplicitious Theresa May, never favored Brexit, as befits a member of the pampered elite, and engaged in obvious foot-dragging and desultory negotiations with the EU Mandarins. Instead of keeping it all simple, to wit, the UK had the upper hand, the May government did what prog elites always do in these cases, they made Bexit into a complicated mess, something which the great unwashed would never be able to understand.

The negotiations with the EU have produced a 550 page monstrosity of a potential agreement. We, in effect, see that Britain must seek the permission of the EU to leave. It must pay billions of pounds, comply with all sorts of EU norms, apparently surrender its border with Ireland, have no say in EU decisions, etcetera, etcetera. We'll see how the Leavers respond, but unless the Leavers can do something, this stinking turd of fake Brexit will be presented to the Parliament and probably to the people. It will be defeated, I think, and then . . . . well, "Blimey! We stay in the EU!"

Democratic norms are such a bore . . .

A Variety of Things, Good, Bad, Embarrassing, and Awesome

It is, of course, November 11, and the one hundredth anniversary of the end of the war to end war.  Here in the USA we now call November 11, Veterans' Day, and try to honor the service of all our veterans in our way too many wars and quasi-wars.

President Trump is in Paris for the commemorations and, according to the press, had to sit through some pompous exposition by Macron on the evils of nationalism. Macron might do well to reflect that France would not be in quite the mess it now finds itself as home to thousands of jihadis and other malcontents, if France's ruling elites had shown a little more concern for nationalism. He tried to make "nationalism" sound evil and to make some sort of distinction between it and patriotism. All that rings hollow coming from the "Euroelite" that has caused so much devastation at home and abroad, and which threatens to put a stake into the heart of the Old World. Macron, of course, also has returned to the old subject of an EU army. I have written a great deal, in the Old Diplomad 1.0, about the insanity of an EU army when the Europeans won't even pay for NATO. It's just another fevered dream of the Euroelite. All this drives home the long-standing Diplomad dictum, "Never listen to the Europeans." To listen to them will bring you Libya and other insanities.

Here at home, there can be no longer ANY doubt, if any existed, that the Democrat Party, the world's oldest continuously operating party, is nothing but a power-mad and criminal organization. The party of slavery, Jacksonian genocide, civil war, Jim Crow, the KKK, treason, and lynch mobs, continues its traditions. Once again, we see the vast resources of the Criminal Party marshaled to steal an election or two. Once again, we see the calls for endless recounts, the sudden apparition of "lost" boxes of ballots, the "accidental" destruction of records, and the insistence on non-citizen votes being counted. It is not enough to have the foreign and the dead vote, and living Americans vote more than once. No, we have to keep counting and counting until the sum is the "right" one, i.e., the Criminal Party wins. This has got to stop. As I have noted repeatedly, I have a lot of experience as an election monitor and could never certify our elections as clean and fair. It's a national embarrassment.

On the good news front, I got in a lot of range time this week.

I took my Spanish sister-in-law to the Triangle Shooting Academy in Raleigh, and, after the appropriate safety briefings from the terrific staff there, let her blast away. She went from visibly shaking when I pulled out my S&W MP AR-15 ("I have never seen that type of gun!") to shouting with delight as she put an enormous amount of expensive .223/5.56 ammo downrange. We had to go shooting two days in a row, as she, who had never held, much less fired a gun in her life, noted, "It is addictive!" She also got to shoot my .22 Ruger target pistol, my new Sig P320 9mm, my two S&W MP 2.0 one chambered in .40 and  the other in .45, one of my beloved Colt Government Model 1911s in.45, and two of my revolvers, the S&W .357 mag and "Dirty Harry's gun," the magnificent S&W .44 mag. Her favorites? The AR-15 and the S&W .45--she was actually very good with that one. She bemoaned how in Spain it is virtually impossible for a law abiding citizen to own a handgun, "You have to be a criminal or a terrorist to have one." She carefully wrapped up her targets and had me write on each the date, the make of the gun, the caliber, and the range distance (most of the hand guns at 5 meters, the AR-15 at 20 meters). I got her on video just in case the Guardia Civil needs it. I also spent this morning cleaning the guns, and ordering more ammo. She and the Diplowife are in New York City today and will be watching the Veterans' Day parade.

OK. Off to walk the dogs and reflect on the perfidy of the so-called Democrats.

Thank you veterans!

And . . .We Have Barney!

As this little post is being drafted it appears that the Blue Dems will take control of the House of Reps and are going to gain over 30 seats, maybe 35. The Red Reps will keep the Senate and expand their margin by (it seems) three seats. So, in my most humble opinion, we saw neither a Blue wave nor a Red tide; we got us a Purple Barney.

Under normal circumstances, yesterday's results are OK for everybody. We have split government of a sort that the Founders seemed to prefer. Nobody has too much power, and everybody has to make deals to get half of a loaf.

Not bad, except . . . these are NOT normal times. There is an element of craziness and mob rule in the Democratic party that is (understatement) troubling for the future of our country. The first order of business will be to put an end to uncovering the scandals of the FBI, CIA and DOJ. We will see an attempt to revive the dying Russia! probe. We will see lots of loose talk about impeachment of Trump and Kavanaugh and anybody else they don't like, and endless impeachment investigations. We will see an end to legislated border security and efforts to put an end to election fraud. Forget coming up with a reasonable federal budget, and there will be an effort to cut the military. I have no idea what will happen with the new NAFTA deal which requires House approval.

On the good news side: If you had to pick one chamber to control, the Senate is the one. The GOP has that and more comfortably than the numbers alone would indicate. There are no McCains or Flakes unless newly elected Senator Mitt Romney decides to take on the "maverick" role. That means the effort to transform the judiciary into protectors of the Constitution can continue. That's a good thing. It also means no impeachment effort will prosper, also a good thing.

So let's see how President Trump handles Barney, a creature naturally disposed to primeval swamps.

My suggestion? Not that anybody is asking or that President Trump needs my advice, but I would call Congress into session today. Ram as much of my agenda through the lame duck session as is possible. Hope that Paul Ryan, perhaps one of the biological fathers of the GOP loss in the House, doesn't come up with some reason to stall and muddy as he did on health care.

To bed.

A Little Lightness

No politics. I can't stand watching the commentators on what might or could or will or would happen in next Tuesday's midterms. All the speculation about which voter base is more motivated and what it all means, is just flat boring and tiring. We'll see what happens; we'll see if we have blue wave, a red tide, or something Barney purple, instead.

I am in DC right now, having driven up from NC; sitting in my hotel room while the Diplowife and her sister visiting from Spain raid a nearby TJ Maxx. We will be seeing the two DC kids in a couple of hours. The Diplodaughter just snagged a pretty good gig at the White House working on foreign aid issues. She's waiting on her security clearances; I suggested she just go get the ones pulled from Hillary . . . guess it doesn't work that way.

Anyhow, we spent several very nice days at our little house in Wilmington. We have pretty much repaired it and it's almost back to its glory days.

Wilmington, NC is a perfectly delightful town.  It has a lot of old Southern charm which still resists the invasion of university students, a growing film industry, and expats from around the USA and the world.  The Diplowife, Diplosisinlaw, and I took the two Diplodogs to the beach. These big bad boys, although born in California, had never seen the ocean much less been on a beach. It was pure joy to watch them react to the waves as they went from terrified to being in love with plunging into the somewhat frigid waters.

Here we see the Diplowife auditioning for a role in "Beastmaster, Mistress of the Waves and Wags."

As noted, it was a relaxing non-political joy to watch these guys racing up and down the beach in their duel with the waves. Dogs are the best.

Anyhow, that's it for today.

Signing off from the Great Imperial Capital.