All Purls. No Swine.
Well, it's twenty-three years ago today since President GW Bush announced it: https://youtu.be/FuwZSAmZ5G0 An unequivocal response to what was, at the time, thought to be a great evil which must be confronted. I'm not sure the reasons for it were wrong, and I wish that the West had dug in, had not lost its nerve,… Continue reading Operation Iraqi Freedom–Twenty-three Years On
Two trucks loaded with bombs detonated, killing a total of 307 people, 241 of whom were American military personnel, dozens of whom were French military, and a few of whom were civilians and (not important) a couple of the attackers. I'm not sure we've ever dealt with it, or even come to terms with it,… Continue reading Forty-Two Years Ago Today, in Beirut Lebanon
I doubt that there are many British females of my generation (so sue me, I'm a Boomer, perhaps the last generation with some fairly comprehensive understanding of historical facts, context and consequences that the world may ever see), who wasn't stirred to her bones, in her youth, by the story of Bonnie Prince Charlie and… Continue reading Speed, Bonny Boat: At least Bonnie Price Charlie Didn’t Have to Worry About the Quangos or the Disatrously Incompetent CalMac Ferries, Back in the Day
Is it possible to defend Western Civilization without defending, and standing for, Christianity and the West? I happen not to think so. Sadly, some of the more disheveled among my own generation appear to disagree with me. Every time I see some half-wit, lack-wit, want-wit, fuck-wit, or any other sort of missing-wit propounding the notion… Continue reading For the (Remaining) Men of the West
My darling Auntie Pat died at the age of 99, in December of 2022. Prior to that time, she'd been the focus of several posts I've written, both here and on Ricochet. This particular one came about on the 75th anniversary of D-Day, on June 6, 2019, a time in which Donald Trump was the… Continue reading D-Day +81: Spent With Auntie Pat, of Blessed Memory
Axios has obtained and released lengthy excerpts from the audio recordings of Joe Biden’s October 2023 testimony before Special Counsel Robert Hur. Here’s just one: https://youtu.be/ugM76taxz2E And there, you have it. A focused, direct, 20-second's worth of question followed by over four minutes of painful, incoherent, and irrelevant rambling. Eventually, as Biden winds down to his… Continue reading A Walk Down Memory Lane: And the “Empathy” Myth
It took place 50 years ago today. I was twenty years old, and in college. I don't pretend to an exhaustive understanding of the history, but I remember it as the end of the Vietnam War, and as what has become, in the popular understanding, the largely undeserved disgrace of the United States. I knew… Continue reading The Fall of Saigon
A repost, because it matters: Here dead we lie because we did not choose To live and shame the land from which we sprung. Life, to be sure, is nothing much to lose; But young men think it is, and we were young. —A.E. Housman I think of Alfred Edward Housman (1859-1936) as my “hometown”… Continue reading Uniquely Human Memories–2024
At the time, it took a little while for "breaking news" to encircle the globe. Unsurprisingly, though, Hawaii addressed it in a timely fashion, in an "extra" edition of the Honolulu Star Bulletin, on Monday, December 7 itself: The sub-heading reads, "SIX KNOWN DEAD." There would turn out to be more than 2,300 dead U.S.… Continue reading December 7, 1941: A Date Which Will Live in Infamy
Today, November 12, 2024 is the 70th anniversary of the closure of Ellis Island, once the foremost inspection and processing station for prospective immigrants to the United States of America. Untold millions passed through its gates during its 64 years of operation, and it stands today as a museum highlighting the history of the United… Continue reading Ellis Island, A Personal Retrospective