Good or Bad for the Jews

"Good or Bad for the Jews"

Many years ago, and for many years, I would travel to Morocco to visit uncles, cousins, and my paternal grandmother. Some lived in Tangiers;...

Saturday, September 17, 2022

Heading Back

Tomorrow morning we take the train from San Sebastian to Madrid; we fly home to North Carolina Monday morning. We are eager to see our dogs as we have missed them a great deal.

This proved a busy trip to Spain, with the highpoint being the purchase of an old apartment in San Sebastian. Lots of negotiating; lots of paperwork; lots of bureaucracy; some minor glitches, but in the end all ended well. My sister-in-law will be supervising renovation on the place, mainly ripping out old wall-to-wall carpeting and trying to save the original wood floor. The building was built in 1941, with bomb-proof concrete, so the thought of moving walls is out. Floors and paint will have to be the core of the renovation. The apartment has a story which I want to believe is true, so I will. The owner told us that her father, some sort of local Franco regime official, hosted Randolph Churchill, son of Winston, at a lunch in 1946, at the dinner table being left behind. I did some rudimentary research and found that, indeed, Randolph Churchill came through San Sebastian in 1946, and that local officials hosted him and the British military attache for lunch. I have decided to believe the story told me by the ex-owner of my apartment, to wit, that that lunch took place in the flat and at the table now in my possession. I refuse to consider any research that shows otherwise. Period. End of story. A velvet rope is being put up around the table and guided tours will soon be offered.

Spain, a great place to visit and live in, is facing the same ravages that the rest of the West faces, and the same threat to its history, culture, and long traditions from the same sort of leftist loons now infecting all of our Civilization. We had a lunch with a close friend of my wife's in Madrid; she is a British-trained chemist working for a large US multinational drug company. She knows the US very well and was saddened to see what is happening there as wokeness goes ever stronger. She sadly noted that the same process is underway in Spain. She said that her son, about ten years old, came home from an expensive Catholic school and lectured her on her "homophobia." She told her son and the school that she does not consider homosexuality a fit topic for discussion with a ten-year-old, and, in addition, that nothing would convince her that that lifestyle is "normal." Exasperated, she told us, "I had this discussion with nuns!" At work she said her American company is constantly lecturing the employees on "diversity" and "inclusivity." It all sounded so very familiar and sad.

Should have mentioned, the San Sebastian Film Festival has begun. It's showing a bunch of films I will never watch. They are competing for the Most Woke title, I guess.

I should also have mentioned that Spaniards are being bombarded daily with Green nonsense and are facing monstrous energy bills. It has begun to destroy the local farmers who now face restrictions on grazing, use of chemical fertilizers, and diesel. It's insanity.

Well, I will be heading back soon. My son is already telling me I must watch Tucker Carlson who, per my son, has been nailing it every night. OK. I will give his show a try.


28 comments:

  1. I'm fine with written rhetoric, but I can't justify the possibility of being influenced by the mechanisms of spoken rhetoric any more than I want to potentially have my objectivity tarnished by social media validation. I don't feel influenced when I watch or listen to such shows, but I'm conservative and protective about my own objectivity.
    We still have hope as 'wokeness' is trumped by the rebirth of recognizing the crucifixion.
    That hope plays out in the burgeoning homeschool movement, as public schools have clearly shown that even the wise counsel of the supreme court will be ignored out of hand.

    - reader #1482

    ReplyDelete
  2. I recommend starting with Tucker’s opening monologues. That’s where the meat is.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Interesting to hear that you are buying in Spain.
    A few years ago I read with interest your fondness for Wilmington NC.
    This actually informed our retirement decision. Next thing you know, you moved to Raleigh...
    Now you are moving at least part time to Spain.
    I would really like to learn your thought process.
    BTW we moved to Southport, NC.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ha! Yes, we do have a wonderful house in Wilmington and another in Raleigh. Love both places.

      Delete
    2. I used to own water front property there. First went to SP in the early 60s when it wasn't 'discovered'. Since then it was gradually discovered and as usual with nice places, rendered nearly unlivable. My grandmother is buried there and visiting her grave is all that brings me back and then only briefly. Wish you could have lived there decades ago.

      Delete
  4. It sounds like your wife's friend works for Eli Lilly in Alcobendas. Great scientists. Unfortunately, Lilly has gone all in with every DEI initiative that a large multi-national company can do.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I watch the talking head programs on the tv until my wife kicks me out of the room for my commentary. What I want to see is people demanding a debate on how we got into this position in the first place. We have spent a fortune in Spain, defiling the landscape with windmills and acres of fields with solar panels. My monthly bill testified to that long before this energy crunch (Putin’s fault of course). Why aren’t heads rolling?

    ReplyDelete
  6. I believe the Churchill story. It is on the mark enough to actually be true. It sounds like that Madrid Catholic school has adopted the woke "Strike through version" of the bible which eliminates all that pesky non-woke rhetoric from the book. Leviticus is a much shorter read as an upside. I swear the left wants a lot of us to die, in either starvation in the 3rd world, and food riots in the rest. But, for some strange reason they seem to believe that they will be unaffected. Tucker is good entertainment, but also remember taking him too seriously leads to the same kind of echo chamber that most of the left has become.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Have hope, leftist to not breed. The future will be bright.

      - reader #1482

      Delete
  7. To: Dip &Dipstirs(sic)
    I sent Dip's Post to a pair of teachers who
    coincidentally arrived in Spain yesterday...
    I told them about other 'News from Spain'
    which, Dip shared, such as, the exchange
    rates, weather report (Sunny), & where to get
    a great steak, in San Sebastian! Back Story is
    the Male Teacher has taught HS Spanish for
    30 years or so, but never came to Spain, maybe
    twas the "Rain" therein~~~ but the Wife, a teacher
    of the Blind, had a vision, and thought she, better
    get Him on over here/there, while the getting was
    plausible, so she bought the tickets in advance,
    Bless her Heart! That's the scoop! And, ASAP
    I will let them know to skip the Film Festival~~~

    Furthermore:
    [Diplomad's] Post [above] which
    I shared with the teaching pair...
    and wrote by way of introduction
    The Post "came to me yesterday via
    San Sebastian, so Nan (the teacher wife)
    or anyone else in the Fam, please feel free to
    fwd your comments or questions to me OW, if you
    have any. I do believe you'll find his (Dips) post,
    attached, quite interesting, humorous,
    simpatico, and very much like the person
    he is, a Diplomat. So, I'll not parse, nor edit,
    his wise and caring words~~~ OW
    To Wit:
    Saturday, September 17, 2022
    "Heading Back"
    [See Above]
    {{{{{{"The Smoking Lamp is Lit"}}}}}}
    ~~~~~~~~~Let's Roll~~~~~~~~~~~

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Safe Travel Dip & Wife & all other ships at Sea~~~

      Delete
  8. Godspeed back Dip, and if ever get to Spain would pay for the table tour

    ReplyDelete
  9. Tucker is must-see television right now. Heads and shoulders over the others.

    ReplyDelete
  10. theconservativetreehouse.com has run a lot of Tucker Carlson's stuff if you want to check out his latest monologues and interviews.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I forgot to mention that I've lived in Spain since 1992, all because of a holidaying Spanish girlthat I met in Buenos Aires and then married after I moved here.

      Delete
  11. Tucker is the only TV I watch except for college football in season. I subscribed to Fox Nation to watch some of his long form interviews. The monologues are the meat of his program,

    ReplyDelete
  12. Have been holding you in prayer since your loss. We lost our beautiful daughter late in 2015, so I know the sorrow and pain. Your purchase in a new apartment will bring small joys back to build new memories upon. That does not diminish your lost but having joy given now is a gift from God. Keep you and family in prayer....

    ReplyDelete
  13. Re "wokeness" about the sexual revolution in schools, I'm convinced they're trying to groom the vulnerable young for exploitation. I spent two years in Bangkok, where I wanted nothing to do with the sex industry (I am loyal to the Mrs., thank you), yet couldn't avoid noticing it everywhere. There were lots of ponytailed forty-something Western men, knowing they were riddled with HIV/AIDS, out for one last fling with partners as young as they coul find them (of either sex). Worse, some of my EMbassy colleagues simply couldn't understand why I would have absolutely no interest in watching a khatoey show. Back at home, teaching ESOL in a high school, I've heard that some of the kids I've taught were trafficked over the border.

    On the one hand, we wring our hands over promising girls being derailed by pregnancy (whether brought to term or aborted); on the other, we are now supposed to encourage the vulnerable young to explore your sexuality". We are told to be "allies" to the LGTQRSTUVWXYZ, yet again, wring our hands over the suicides of the young, their infection with STDs, and think nothing of poorer families having to shuck out fortunes for "transitions" that will likely end in regret or suicide, even when a boy--to-girl is sending the message by his clothes that he thinks the proper role of a girl is as a slut.

    Re your friend's remonstration with nuns over teaching a ten-year-old about homosexuality, I recall the days of the O maladministration. We sent someone to Uganda to remonstrate with them for keeping law against sodomy on the books. I wonder how that might have gone over with some Anglican or Catholic Ugandan official who might honor the memory of some 40-odd Baganda youths (evenly divided between the two communions), who, unwilling to be sodomized by their lord, King Mwanga II of Buganda, were martyred by being burnt to death in the 1880's?

    Already China is telling its own youth and the non-Western world that our country invented homosexuality and is inflicting it on the rest of the world. Not that I have any admiration for Communist China, but...

    Will my American, on the day of judgement, hear God apologizing to Sodom and Gomorrah?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. It is a terribly sad state that values are being given up right and left, providing fodder for dictatorships under Xi and Putin, who falsely claim to be maintaining values of worth that the west discards.

      - reader #1482

      Delete
  14. I bet the Diplodogs will ecstatic to see you again!

    ReplyDelete
  15. Ãœberdeplorable Psychedelic Cat GrassSeptember 19, 2022 at 10:33 PM

    Visited San Sebastián when living in Spain…man was (hope it still is) a beautiful city. I had a few run ins with ETA, too.

    ReplyDelete
  16. This "wokism" is a dire threat to our civilization but I think it's far darker than just the LGTQRSTUVWXYZ brigade or the Green fanatics with their climate change but is a part of an organized campaign to destroy the West in Europe and USA and ANZAC. It is part of the great reset, like the Covid overreaction, to finish us.
    Ultimately, the long-term aim is to replace people of European heritage with people of African and Asian descent.
    This Marxist / Wokeist philosophy is to soften up our attitudes in order to stop us doing anything about mass third world immigration. We can clearly see that in UK and it seems that it is rapidly occurring elsewhere, too. In Europe it is known as the Kalergi plan in which Kalergi clearly states that the peoples of Europe should interbreed with Asians and colored races, thus creating a multinational flock with no quality and easily controlled by the ruling elite.
    It is happening all around us. I despair.

    ReplyDelete
  17. And while our Host makes his way back home
    to hearth and hounds Comes now a
    flashback to the generous support
    given by many, and received
    by the Canadian Truckers~~~
    but was extremely mishandled
    by the 'rats @"Go Fund Me!
    & the FOOL aka Trudeau

    But may I now introduce the
    The heroic 'Alone Ranger'
    who w/ a Big Bag of Silver
    strode into the stnkin GO Fund ME mess...
    And delivered the Goods: $12 millions+
    to the Patriotic Road Warriors who needed
    relief, by Jacob Wells from the
    Give, Send, Go, Platform!

    Here he is from the Warroom via Rumble!
    to share the truth about his intervention:

    Jacob Wells Discusses Give Send Go Platform And
    Role It Has Played In Fighting Government Tyranny~~~

    https://rumble.com/v1kqw2p-jacob-wells-discusses-give-send-go-platform-and-role-it-has-played-in-fight.html

    On Watch~~~
    Theme compliments of
    William Tell & the Maestro
    "Let's Roll"

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. VIA MOZART
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uUpDG680uew

      Delete
  18. Diplo, great to hear from you and I for one do not dare to doubt the luncheon story.

    However I still cannot believe - and have been denying it for the past ten minutes - that you have not been at least an occasional watcher of Mr. Carlson. He's worth your time, in that he is always insightful and sometimes is downright hilarious. He at least almost always seems to be having fun.

    ReplyDelete
  19. I sometimes wonder whether God has decided to eliminate certain genes from the human race and is doing it in the most humane way possible -- with widespread birth control, growing numbers of homosexuals, and the "trans" movement...

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Liberals do not reproduce... as this author has mentioned.. they love humanity but hate people... so there's no surprises here.
      Yes... there is a certain amount of 'idiocy filtration' going on in the long term that should bring us all hope.

      - reader #1482

      Delete
  20. Tucker Carlson and Jesse Waters have been hammering issues like 16-inch naval rifles. Well worth your time.

    ReplyDelete