The Daily Grand and Sundry

“Never fight a land war in Asia was reputedly advice given by General Douglas MacArthur to President John F. Kennedy, in 1961″

“Never fight a land war in Asia” ,VIZZINI’s (played by Wallace Shawn) advice to THE MAN IN BLACK (played by Cary Elwes) in the Rob Reiner’s brilliant film, THE PRINCESS BRIDE (1987).

From MacArthur to VIZZINI, from the American Caesar to THER PRINCESS BRIDE, it is common knowledge, Never Fight a Land War in Asia, yet here, in 2010, the United States is not just fighting one but TWO Land Wars in Asia, how dumb can you get?

It is 2010, the age of IPHONES, IPODS, IPADS, Wireless Internet, Sex Changes, Cloning, Birth Control, Designer Babies; in an age in which every tradition known to Man has been or is about to be jettisoned,  we, the most powerful  nation in the history of the world, have kept faith with the most stupid tradition of all, fighting colonial land  wars in Asia, not just one colonial land war in Asia, but TWO.

Can any nation get dumber that that? I mean VIZZINI is smarter than our policy makers.

How did this happen? That Americans tossed aside real wisdom in order to fight Colonial Land wars in two countries, but what is even worst, in two ARTIFICIAL COUNTRIES.

Artificial you say?

IRAQ

“Biden’s trip comes at a sensitive time for Iraq. The newly elected parliament is scheduled to meet later this month for the second time since the March 7 vote, but vying political factions remain deadlocked over which bloc has enough support to pick its new leaders, including prime minister.”

There are no Iraqis; it is not an organic country. It is a country of Kurds, Sunni Arabs, Shiite Arabs, Christians, lumped together by Winston Churchill, who created it, perhaps a wee bit tipsy.

As soon as American troops pull out, Iraq will tear itself apart, then the United States will have to make the decision whether to re-invade or just let it devour itself.

The only true Iraqi is the American soldier who died for it.

Churchill  sat at a map of the Middle East, looked at the dismembered Ottoman Empire, and  neatly drew (Churchill was a very accomplished painter, a much better painter than his contemporary Hitler, who wanted to be a real painter before he became a Nazi) the borders of a new nation, Iraq.

Why would Churchill create Iraq?

A blood debt, The Hashemites led by Prince Faisal( the guy played by Sir Alec Guinness in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA) fought with the British against the Turks durng World War I. Their reward, was to be the acknowledged masters of Arabia. Good deal.

Except, also living in Arabia at the same time, was a blood thirsty, illiterate war lord, Ibn Saud, who had the ambition of conquering Arabia and making it the only country in the world named after a family. He did, and the end result was and is Saudi Arabia.

Churchill owed the Hashemites a Kingdom, maybe Syria?

Alas the Syrians told the Hashemites to keep on moving.

So Winston, carved out Iraq for Faisal, and to his warrior brother, Abdullah, he gave TransJordan, now Jordan.

The creation of these Nations, Iraq and Jordan could fit into the narrative of THE PRINCESSS BRIDE… ”The two rival kingdoms in THE PRINCESS BRIDE are Florin and Guilder. These are the names of two former Dutch currencies, the Florijn and Gulden.”  Iraq and Jordan have more in common with FLORIN and GUILDER than reality.

A devotee of President George W. Bush once asked me to submit a draft of a speech he was to give about W. He admired W’s pluck, and the draft was to see if I could book the job as a ghost writer.

Alas for my ghost writing career, I am not a devotee of W, and I do not admire him.

The instructions to me were to compare W to a  war leader. It was insinuated that the War Leader be Winston Churchill.

George W. Bush is no Winston Churchill, he is not even a VIZZINI; but I had to find a historical war leader with whom to match him.  I needed a criteria.

1-George W.Bush is the son of a President of the United States, who was a real war hero, so our comparable war leader had to have a famous war hero relative.

2-George Bush was a pretty good politician, who was elected Governor of Texas twice, and President of the United States twice. So our comparable war leader had to be a good politician.

3-George W, Bush started a war with a country far across the sea, which was not bothering nor threatening his interests. That had to be the same situation with the comparable war leader.

4-After his initial military victory,Bush imposed a new system of government on the defeated nation, and imposed a foreign leader. That should also be comparable.

Who do we get?

A vainglorius, poppingjay runt, Louis Napoleon of France, Napoleon III.

1-Like W, he had a famous relative, he needed to measure up to; a relative who was a bona fide war hero, his uncle, Napoleon.

2-Napoleon III was a good politican; he had been elected President of the French Second Republic,before he overthrew the Second Republic to declare a second empire.

3-He invaded a country, Mexico, far across the sea, which was not a danger nor threat to him.

4-By force he overthrew the legitimate government of Mexico and installed, with French troops, a new form of Government, with a foreigner, Maximilian  as Emperor(think Paul Bremer). Like W, he even had the defeated people hold a vote on the issue; like W, he won the vote.

Napoleon III’s Mexican venture collapsed when he was forced to withdraw French troops; our Iraqi enterprise will collapse, within a year, after the last withdrawal of American combat troops. Then we will have to decide whether to reinvade.

The answer to that question is No.

Left to their own devices, the Sunni Arabs will defeat the Shiites again. If that does not happen quickly, a major bloodbath will ensue. The solution to that is the partition of the artificial, Colonial state of Iraq into Kurdistan, Sunni Iraq(may I suggest Iraq) and Shiite  Iraq ( may I suggest Mesopotamia).

Is that so terrible? Czechoslovakia, another artificial  country, created by colonial powers, around the same time as Iraq, partitioned itself into the Czech Republic and  Slovakia. Partition is sometimes best.

Iraq is the CREATION of Colonialism; it will begin to dissolve as an unitary state as soon as the American troops leave. There is no point even considering re-invasion to prop up this colonial travesty.

Partition of Iraq will have great benefits for America; an independent Sunni nation will be a counter balance to Iran; a Shiite Arab nation will be surprisingly viable and will stay independent from a Shiite Iran(Arab versus Persian).In fact, an independent Shiite Arab country on its border may entice Arab Iranians to think about leaving Iran to join their fellow Shiite Arabs.

An independent Kurdistan would be a pain in the neck to both Iran and Syria, perhaps even leading to the dismemberment of Iran, which is also a remnant of an Imperial past.

It was the stupidity of a runt  personality which led to the Colonial War in 2003; it would be more than stupid, it would be criminal if we fought a second colonial war in the near future to maintain an artificial state that does not want to maintain itself.

AFGHANISTAN

We need to withdraw from Afghanistan immediately

Afghanistan itself is another creation of Imperial Britain. It was created artificially by a line drawn on the map by an English Imperialist, in this case, Mortimer Durand.

There has always been a rump Afghanistan centered around Kabul; but the present configuration of Afghanistan is a fake, created by Durand when he sat in a room, and drew a line on a map which created modern Afghanistan. In doing so he  divided the Pashtun tribe.

Before the Durand Line, there was no border between Afghanistan and British ruled India(now Pakistan); so the Pashtuns could move easily around. Once that line was drawn, the Pashtuns were split between two nations, through no fault, nor  desire nor reason of their own.

That Readers is Colonialism, and we are getting killed to support that? in 2010?

The Taliban is Pashtun. The reason that the Pakistanis won’t come down on them is that Pakistan has many Pashtuns in its Army Establishment.

The solution, rather than fight an ongoing colonial war, is to jettison the Afghanistan of Colonial creation, totally.

Partition Afghanistan.

The Northern part, outside of the Pashtuns will be a new, safe, moderate, peaceful Sufi Afghanistan.

The Southern Part, the Taliban part, the Pashtun part will be allowed to join Pakistan; Afghan Pashtuns will be allowed to join their fellow Pashtuns and become Pakistanis.

Once the Taliban Pashtuns are in Pakistan, we will have a surrogate, the Pakistani army, and a nation with assets, to control, and contain them.

The Taliban was created by Pashtuns in Pakistan, let Pakistan have the job of finishing them.

The partition of Afghanistan would be a bold counter maneuver to a Colonial War which is  maintaining fake national borders, drawn by a British Colonialist.

We cannot afford these wars, cannot afford them in American lives nor American treasure, but that is not the issue. These wars are dumb, expecially dumb in 2010, when we are fighting them to support acts of Colonialism.

For our battered Homeland, immediately withdrawing from Afghanistan and supporting its partition is the smart thing to do. To do otherwise is to bring down on us the ghost of Talleyrand, who said about a Napoleonic misadventure, “It is worst than a sin, it is a mistake.” 

They never did use my draft speech about George W.

 VIZZINI in THE PRINCESS BRIDE

  Sir Alec Guinness as Prince Faisal in LAWRENCE OF ARABIA

 Winston Churchill, Creator of Iraq and Jordan

 Mortimer Durand of the Durand Line

 Ibn Saud, the War Chief who has a Nation named after him

This blog is dedicated to all my ex-girlfriends who kept Cats,those cat loving females who saw the wisdom of keeping cats. This blog is dedicated to the legions of my ex girlfriends who kept cats as familiars, smelly cats. This blog is dedicated to all you wiccans.

This blog is dedicated to a special ex girlfriend who indulged in delight as her cunning cat sat on the head board, staring down on me like some Egyptian God, growling an incoherent feline curse.

No blog in history has ever been dipped more in Schadenfreude (pleasure derived from the misfortunes of others)than this blog.

Your cats, your adored smelly adored cats, are giving you Schizophrenia.

That explains everything, why you did not appreciate my noble, knightly rational behavior…your cat was giving you schizophrenia. Take that Ms. Cat Lover, Take that, “if you love me you will have to love my cat”; take that Ms., “How can a grown man who has had adventures around the globe be jealous of a cat?”

Science is proving that I was not jealous of that vaunted cat, I just was ahead of my time in recognizing that said cat was an infectious  carrier of madness.  Snuggles is Typhoid Mary, or should I say Schizophrenia Mary.

“IF AN alien bug invaded the brains of half the population, hijacked their neurochemistry, altered the way they acted and drove some of them crazy, then you might expect a few excitable headlines to appear in the press. Yet something disturbingly like this may actually be happening without the world noticing.

Toxoplasma gondii is not an alien; it is a relative of that down-to-earth pathogen Plasmodium, the beast that causes malaria. It is common: in some parts of the world as much as 60% of the population is infected with it. And it can harm fetuses and people with AIDS, because in each case their immune systems cannot cope with it. … there is a growing body of evidence that some of those people have their behaviour permanently changed.

One reason to suspect this is that a country’s level of Toxoplasma infection seems to be related to the level of neuroticism displayed by its population. Another is that those infected seem to have poor reaction times and are more likely to be involved in road accidents. A third is that they have short attention spans and little interest in seeking out novelty. A fourth, possibly the most worrying, is that those who suffer from schizophrenia are more likely than those who do not to have been exposed to Toxoplasma.

Nor is any of this truly surprising. For, besides humans, Toxoplasma has two normal hosts: rodents and cats. And what it does to rodents is very odd indeed.

….Toxoplasma  cycles between its rodent and feline hosts, living out different phases of its existence in each. In cats, it resides in the wall of the small intestine and passes out of the host in its faeces. These are then picked up by rats and mice (and also by other mammal species, including humans), where they form cysts in brain, liver and muscle tissue. Eventually, if the parasites are lucky, their rodent host is eaten by a cat and the whole cycle starts again.

Unlike Plasmodium, however, which can rely on the natural behaviour of mosquitoes to spread it around, Toxoplasma’s rodent hosts have a strong aversion to helping it into its next home. Which is where, in Dr Webster’s elegant phrase, fatal feline attraction comes in. Rats and mice infected with Toxoplasma start wandering around and drawing attention to themselves—in other words, behaving in ways that will bring them to the attention of cats. They are even, Dr Webster’s work suggests, attracted to the smell of cats.

…The connection with schizophrenia was originally suggested in the 1950s, but only really took off in 2003,…. Dr Fuller discovered that people who suffer from schizophrenia are almost three times more likely than the general population to have antibodies to Toxoplasma.

….Another interesting correlation has, though, been discovered by Jaroslav Flegr of Charles University in Prague. ..he looked at the infection rate of people involved in road accidents. Both drivers and pedestrians who had been in accidents were almost three times more likely to be infected than comparable individuals who had not been. ….

All of these suggested effects are obviously bad for the individuals involved, but some researchers go further and propose that entire societies are being altered by Toxoplasma. In 2006 Kevin Lafferty ….published a paper noting a correlation between levels of neuroticism established by national surveys in various countries and the level of Toxoplasmainfection recorded in pregnant women (a group who are tested routinely). The places he looked at ranged from phlegmatic Britain, with a neuroticism score of -0.8 and a Toxoplasma infection rate of 6.6%, to hot-blooded France, which scored 1.8 and had an infection rate of 45%. Cross-Channel prejudices, then, may have an unexpected origin.

… it is just possible that a parasite’s desire to get eaten by a cat is shaping the cultures of the world.”

THE ECONOMIST

Cats transmitting mental disease, is the species of Man to be driven Mad by Cats? Are Cats the Fifth Column of Animal Revenge? Plotting with other senescent furry things to outwit Man? Are Cats creating a race of Reckless Men? Men to be easily destroyed by feral dogs and patient wolves?

What is happening when the thing we love to stroke, the thing that creates the purrs we love to hear, is driving us Mad?

Mayans believed 2012 was to be the last year of the Age of Man. As I look around, at the animals, the environment, our social and political miscalulations, only one philosophical statement stands tall in the face of this chaos.

This blog will leave you with that philosophical statement from BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD:

“”There’s something happening here

What it is ain’t exactly clear “

In the blog about President Obama, and General Stanley McChrystal on June 21, 2010,  I noted Colonel Marcel Bigeard, the legendary French soldier. As I researched that blog, I discovered , ironically, that  General Bigeard had just died a few days ago.

,  Colonel, later General Marcel Bigeard

How do you do an honorable obituary for one of the greatest soldiers of  the 20th Century, who was implicated in systemic torture.

He may have been one of the most interesting men of the 20th Century, look how much art has been devoted to him.

“The character of Pierre-Noel Raspeguy in the novels The Centurions and The Praetorians by Jean Larteguy is modeled largely on Bigeard,  In LOST COMMAND, the 1966 movie adaptation of The Centurions, Raspeguy was played by Anthony Quinn.

The character of Colonel Philippe Mathieu, played by Jean Martin, in the film The Battle of Algiers is widely believed to be a composite of Bigeard,  and Jacques Massu.”

Lets start with his decorations:

• Grand Cross of the Légion d’honneur
• Croix de Guerre 1939-1945
• Croix de guerre des Théatres d’Opérations Exterieures
• Croix de la valeur militaire
• Médaille de la Résistance
• Medaille des blessés (5 wounds)
• Distinguished Service Order (UK)
• Commander of the Legion of Merit (US)
• Grand officier du Mérite Sénégalais
• Grand officier du Mérite Togolais
• Grand officier du Mérite Comorien
• Grand officier du mérite Saoudite
• Officier du Million d’Eléphants du Laos
• Honorary Legionnaire de 1ère classe of the Foreign Legion

He has been granted a total of 25 citations, including 17 palms.

He had no officer training, unlike most French officers he did NOT go to the French West Point, The École Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr. He had no social advantage, no connections, no fancy law degrees, no wealth. The son of a poor man, he could not get out of the Draft, and was called up. If you ever see the film, LOST COMMAND, watch how carefully Anthony Quinn establishs the Bigeard character  as a poor man bedazzled by wealth, who obtains upward social mobility because of his bravery, the savage among the effete.

He entered the Army as a Second Class(the lowest rank possible); he left the Army as a General. How did he get from Private to General? He fought.

During the German defeat of France in 1940, he was captured by the Germans and made a Prisoner of War. He escaped on his second try, finally making it to England. There he became a paratrooper,a para.

He was a ruthless and brilliant killer; so much so the British, who have this understanding of what it  takes  to be a ruthless and brilliant killer, parachuted him, as commander of a team of four, into Occupied France to wreck havoc on the Germans. Which he did ruthlessly and brilliantly.

Bigeard made his name at DIen Bien Phu.

“Bigeard … returned to Dien Bien Phu on March 16, 1954, parachuting in to reinforce the now besieged garrison. …. Bigeard was heavily involved in the fighting for strongpoints Eliane1 and Eliane2. Towards the end of the battle he was promoted (along with other commanders) to the rank of Lieutenant Colonel. This was in some way seen as a thank you for his valiant command of his troops before the expected massacre at the end of the battle. Bigeard entered captivity after the main garrison fell on May 7, 1954 and was repatriated 3 months later. Approximately 16,500 French Union troops fought at Dien Bien Phu, Bigeard was one of the few (less than 3000) who returned.”

Now we come to the point where everything Marcel Bigeard did influences 2010 America, and the Wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

http://gerrymaxeyworkshop.com/blogging/?p=76

Before we go on, it is important that the Reader remember this, General Massu and Colonel Bigeard defeated the FLN Insurgency in Algiers. They won militarily. Regardless of what Matt Damon tells us, the Paras won by using Torture.

“A key participant in the destruction of the FLN’s organization during the battle of Algiers 1956, Bigeard applied concepts of counter-insurgency warfare which he articulated in his work Manuel de l’officier de renseignement (Intelligence Officer’s Handbook). Among these concepts was the acceptance of the use of torture against suspected insurgents to gain information. Many of these same concepts would later appear in the seminal book La Guerre moderne, by Roger Trinquier.”

So here is the question, the officers of the United States Army have been tasked to defeat two Third World Insurgencies, to win…..the handbook to winning over Insurgencies endorses torture, should they torture? How important is winning? To the nation? to your career? To your troops? I can assure the Reader, General McChyrstal has read the Handbook of Marcel Bigeard.

Marcel Bigeard is the man who put the Devil on our side.

“French general Marcel Bigeard, best known for his role in France’s colonial wars in Indochina and Algeria, died Friday aged 94, his wife said, as mixed testimonies came in for the controversial figure.

…Bigeard died in Toul, the northeastern town where he was born, after recently being hospitalised twice for phlebitis, or inflammation of the veins, his wife said.

“General Bigeard was for the French the incarnation of the heroic figure of the fighter,” said President Nicolas Sarkozy in a statement issued on a visit to London to mark the 70th anniversary of Charles de Gaulle’s radio appeal to his compatriots to resist the Nazi occupation.

A former leading Algerian independence fighter however criticised Bigeard for not apologising for France’s torture of Algerians during the war of independence.

“Until the last minute, I thought he was going to acknowledge his actions and present his apologies” to Algerians for his conduct during the 1954-62 war of independence, when Bigeard led a colonial paratroop division, said former liberation fighter Louisette Ighilahriz.

“For us, the name of Marcel Bigeardis synonymous with death and torture.”

But Henri Guaino, a special advisory to Sarkozy, said he believed that Bigeard  accomplished  the mission assigned to him in Algeria “with lots of intelligence and lots of humanity.”

Bigeard first earned his spurs in the fight against the Nazis in World War II.

Called up in 1939 at the start of the conflict, he was captured by the Germans who invaded France in the following year but later escaped to north Africa, from where he was able to rejoin the fight.

Bigeard was to return to the issue of torture in Algeria when he published his memoirs in 1999. Referring to bomb attacks carried out on French civilians by the FLN, he wrote: “Was it easy to do nothing when you had seen women and children with their limbs blown off by bombs?”

The following year he caused more controversy by referring to torture — which in Algeria involved electric shocks to the genitals and waterboarding — as “a necessary evil”.

Bigeard was known to be  “Colonel Mathieu”, the brutal French parachutist depicted in Gilles Pontecorvo’s 1966 film “The Battle of Algiers”, which was banned in France for five years after its release.

But Bigeard always denied accusations that he had himself ordered torture sessions.

Bigeard was born into a working-class family in Toul on February 14, 1916.

Wounded five times in battle, he was one of France’s most decorated soldiers, having among other awards the Medal of the Resistance, the Grand Cross of the Legion of Honour, the British Distinguished Service Order and the rank of Commander of the American Legion.

He also wrote 15 books.”

Once in Paris, I made a point of visiting a Gaullist ceremony at which I knew General Bigeard would be. I shook his hand.

The girl I was with translated my respect for him.

His grip was strong, his eyes alert. Like a great priest, he spotted the Devil in me,(all great soldiers can spot the Devil in other men). He was a man you would follow into battle.

Yet, on the way back to the hotel, all I could think about was a statement Jimmy Cagney once made about his acting.

Cagney was asked, how did he bring to life such dangerous characters as CODY JARRETT in WHITE HEAT?

Cagney replied, ” I come from a poor neighborhood, so I understand the characters, I always bring a touch of the gutter to my portrayals.”

General Marcel Bigeard bought a touch of the gutter to military service.

One more interesting point, General Jacques Massu  also lived to be 94; Death itself was afraid of these men.

“I liked your list of movie villains, but you left out the best of the lot, the sophisticated evil that is Alan Rickman in DIE HARD.”

You are so half right;Rickman was sensational in DIE HARD, as he was playing the fey maniacal racist in QUIGLEY DOWN UNDER.

The one I regret not listing is Moses himself, Charlton Heston, for his great turn as the villainous Cardinal Richelieu in Richard Lester’s version of THE THREE MUSKETEERS.

 Charlton Heston as The Religious Villain.

Richelieu was an interesting man; he was a Cardinal of the Catholic Church, a real Cardinal, but also the First Minister of France.  Richelieu, a Prince Cardinal of the Catholic Church, authorized the spending of Catholic French money to pay Protestant mercenaries to kill co Catholics during the Thirty Years War. That is like Cardinal Mahoney paying Arizona Sheriffs to check the papers of illegal Mexicans. 

Heston nailed him. The purpose of an actor, in a historical drama,  is to make the audience understand how these historical figures THOUGHT, not what they did; we can glean that from history books, but how they thought.

The following in an interview with Heston concerning his brilliant portrayal of Richelieu.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PwhSYnrOnCk

From President Obama’s remarks  introducing Elena Kagan as his nominee to be a Supreme Court Justice:.“a court that would be more inclusive, more representative, more reflective of us as a people than ever before.”

 OBAMA’S  DIVERSITY FOR THE SUPREME COURT

Ms. Kagan is a woman.

55% of the United States population of 310M is female, that is a pool of 170.5 Million females from which to draw a female Supreme Court Justice.

“If President Obama gets his way, the Supreme Court will have three women justices for the first time. But the focus on this historic moment for women in the law has obscured another defining trait shared by this trio — all were raised not far from the No. 2 subway line that connects those three New York City boroughs. (The first female justice, Sandra Day O’Connor, grew up in the wilds of Arizona.)

Surviving the city’s obstacles and soaking up its energy are among the experiences that helped Ruth Bader Ginsburg of Flatbush, Brooklyn, and Sonia Sotomayor of the South Bronx ascend to the Supreme Court, and made Elena Kagan of Manhattan’s Upper West Side Obama’s nominee.

That the high court could end up with three products of Gotham makes complete sense — even if it’s also a pure coincidence, said Ann Kirschner, dean of City University of New York’s Macaulay Honors College, which draws brainy public school students from around the city.

“When you mention a French woman it sets up certain reverberations,” Kirschner said. “She’s chic, she’s Chanel, she knows which wine glass to use. The New York woman — she’s a striver, she’s a tummler [Yiddish for someone who shakes things up].

“And now,” added Kirschner, unapologetic about her New York chauvinism, “she’s a Supreme Court justice.”

New York chauvinism is Diversity?

OBAMA’S  DIVERSITY FOR THE SUPREME COURT

Ms. Kagan is Jewish.

52% of Americans identify themselves as Protestant. ( 161.2 Million American  Protestants)

24.5% of Americans identify themselves as Roman Catholic (76 Million  Catholic Americans)

1.3% identify themselves as Jewish (4.65 million Jewish Americans) 

With Kagan there will be six Catholics, and three Jews on the Supreme Court.

No Protestants will be on the Court, 52% of the population will not be represented.

That’s Diversity?

OBAMA’S DIVERSITY FOR THE SUPREME COURT

As Dean of the Harvard Law School, Kagan barred military recruiters from the Law School because of DON’T ASK, DON’T TELL.

There are 24.5 Million Service Veterans in the United States(From the  Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006.)

1.7 million,The number of veterans who are women. (From the Statistical Abstract of the United States: 2006.)

With Kagan on the Court there will  be NO members of the Court who has served our nation IN HARMS WAY, but there will be  one who barred the Military, in violation of the Law.

OBAMA’S DIVERSITY FOR THE SUPREME COURT

Kagan Graduated Harvard Law School.

“Harvard Law School . Some 149 sitting United States federal judges are Harvard Law School graduates,including five of the nine sitting justices of the Supreme Court of the United States (Chief Justice John G. Roberts and Associate Justices Anthony Kennedy, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburgand Antonin Scalia)”

With Kagan confirmed, SIX OUT OF THE NINE SITTING SUPREME COURT JUSTICES WILL HAVE GRADUATED HARVARD LAW SCHOOL.

The other three  sitting Justices (Thomas, Alito and Sotomayor) come from Yale Law.

Number of Law Schools

“Law schools are nationally accredited by the American Bar Association (ABA), and graduates of these schools may generally sit for the bar exam in any state. There are 200 American Bar Association accredited law schools, divided between 188 with full accreditation and 12 with provisional accreditation.” 

200 Law Schools, and only 2 has Graduates on the Supreme Court, that is 1%.

That’s Diversity?

“Why should we care? When you virtually exclude all but two of the nation’s … law schools as sources for justices, it not only reduces the number of outstanding candidates but guarantees a certain insularity in training and influences on the court. This bias is not only elitist but decidedly anti-intellectual.” Jonathan Turley

“At age 50, Kagan would be the youngest member of the court and the only one without previous judicial experience. She also would be the fourth to have grown up in New York City, after Justices Antonin Scalia, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Sonia Sotomayor. Kagan grew up in Manhattan and graduated from Hunter College High School.

She would be the third justice in a row to have gone to Princeton as an undergraduate. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr. and Sotomayor were also Princeton grads. Her appointment would also leave the court without a Protestant for the first time. Currently, six of the justices are Catholics and two are Jewish, as is Kagan.” 

THE  OFFICAL PORTRAIT OF THE HARVARD LAW SCHOOL SUPREME COURT

Our governing elite, our governing oligarchy is getting too cozy with themselves,  too ossified, too incestuous, too nepotistic.

We now have 2 Californians, four New Yorkers,  two from New Jersey and one Southerner  on the Court, none from the Mountain States, nor New England, nor the Mid West, nor the Plains States. For the Court, 46 states do not exist; that is Diversity? 

Sandra Day O’Connor grew up in Arizona and worked on a cattle ranch; with Kagan on the Court, the West will be represented by  two urban Californians, no one  from the land nor the Farm. No one on the Court will  understand Water or Food,  and their importance to the American future. That’s Diversity? 

With Kagan on the Court, we will have  Justices who have  known poverty, alleviated by the Government, poverty but not hardship. discrimination but not cruelty. As gifted intellectuals they have always been masters or mistresses of their universe; they have never been victims of  a cruelty they could not appeal nor circumscribe.

That is what distresses me most about our Judicial  elite. They have never had to survive in a non intellectual world, survival by force of character, a world in which the bond of your word means more than your resume. We currently have an elite which  has never gone to war, nor into the fields; whose only credential is attendance at Harvard Law School.

To put this in terms President Obama will understand, with the appointment of Kagan, the Supreme Court is fielding  a team with six Harvard point guards and three Yale shooting guards. Not one power forward who has experience in doing the dirty work, not one Justice William O. Douglas. In baseball terms, we now have nine Ivy League batters. This team is not only not Diverse, it is a bad team, incapable of rendering justice. 

Dean Ann Kirschner  proudly compared fellow New Yorker Kagan to a French woman, “When you mention a French woman it sets up certain reverberations,” Kirschner said. “She’s chic, she’s Chanel, she knows which wine glass to use. The New York woman — she’s a striver, she’s a tummler [Yiddish for someone who shakes things up].

In France the ruling class have one thing in common, a common alma mater, École nationale d’administration. That  has led France to have policies marked by an intellectual arrogance, inflexiblty,  and lack of moral grounding. The prime example being the French support of the Hutus who conducted the Rwanda Genocide. The reason for that  French support was the French elite trying to counter balance Anglo-Saxon influence in Central Africa. Only an in bred elite would allow genocide, only an in bred elite would tolerate genocide for such a STUPID reason. Only an ossified elite could develop an outdated , clueless  sophistry like that, so out of touch.

Our nation seems bound and determined to emulate everything which is bad about European governance, the lack of fresh views.

Our current Supreme Court knows Debating Societies, subways, intellectual salons, urban poverty, academic excellence, cloistered sophistry, networking, apple polishing. They do not know America, to know America the Court must have Diversity, not Obama  Harvard based Diversity but real Diversity.

Maybe the ideal Justice for our time is not another  Jewish woman, who grew up in an urban environment, and who went to Harvard Law School, but  someone from the West,  who has sweated with the working men  and women in the fields,  picking fruit. 

Why not appoint a  white male Scottish Presbyterian from the State of Washington? who saw this as a young man, when he worked as a fruit picker in the fields:

“I worked among the very, very poor, the migrant laborers, the Chicanos and the I.W.W’s who I saw being shot at by the police. I saw cruelty and hardness, and my impulse was to be a force in other developments in the law”,  Justice William O. Douglas

Can’t Obama find someone for the Court with more than just a resume, but also with a soul?

My date wanted to see an old fashion Romantic film, so I took her to see THE YOUNG VICTORIA, starring Emily Blunt. The movie was about Queen Victoria when she was young, hence Young Victoria. It was a pleasant Masterpiece Theater film; that said Ms. Blunt’s performance was outstanding.

One of the problems I have with American actors is that they have significant difficulty in portraying historical/period  pieces. They are all so modern; they literally cannot inhabit a character who does not want to be liked, just respected.

One of the film’s producers was Sarah Ferguson, the former Duchess of York; and the film reflects that, it is so Royalist. We then went back to my date’s place and watched THE QUEEN on AMC; featuring Helen Mirren’s towering performance as Queen Elizabeth II in crisis, because of the death of her ditzy former daughter in law, “THE PEOPLE’S PRINCESS”, the vapid Princess Diana.

THE QUEEN is UBER royalist.  I had four hours of Royalist indoctrination on one Saturday. I felt I had sucked on Fergie’s toes the whole day, just like that commoner in the ancient tabloids.

My God, what has happened to anti Royalist film making?

I grew up on anti Royalist filmmaking. Remember RICHARD III, starring Sir Laurence Olivier as King Richard III of England. Now that was a honest telling of kingship, murder everyone to reach the throne, including your nephews. And while you are at it, don’t forget to rape The LADY ANNE, and when she is played by Claire Bloom, who can blame him?

There was Viveca Lindfors playing Catherine The Great in the film THE TEMPEST, which is an adaption of Pushkin’s Russian novel, Капитанская дочка, (THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER). Catherine is shown as a modern woman outsmarting the dumb Russian serfs, so she can spend all their money (check out the Winter Palace).

The most honest, heartfelt, insightful protrayal of royalty I have ever seen was the Royal Family in the French film, LA MARSEILLAISE, directed by Jean Renoir(son of the painter). The film starred his brother, Pierre Renoir as King Louis XVI.

Louis XVI was portrayed as a befuddled, suburban father, much like Tim Allen or Ray Romano, or Ozzie. That was the point, there is no greater argument against the DIVINE RIGHT OF KINGS, than a befuddled monarch. God may give us evil kings, like King Edward “Long Shanks” in BRAVEHEART, or good kings like HENRY V, complex kings like King David,or better still King Saul, lying kings like Alec Guinness’ portrayal of King Charles I in CROMWELL, but God ain’t gonna Divine Right a befuddled king.

Now a tidbit for my indie film maker friends, Renoir financed LA MARSEILLAISE by subscription of the French people, the public sent in money. But then again, that is why he was Jean Renoir. It is a great film.

In the film, THE QUEEN, there is a lot of news footage of the massive crowds in 1997, that poured into the streets to mourn Princess Diana. How innocent we were.

All those people spontaneously poured into the streets to mourn, to cry, to grieve….without one iota of fear from terrorists. Watching those historical scenes of the people gathering, reminded me how, just 13 years ago, innocent people, going about their business ,ruled the world.

“Crowds at Princess Diana’s funeral: A million(people)”, just 13 years ago, one million people could pour into the streets without going through metal detectors, looking for Arab bogeymen, or distrusting their neighbors. It is amazing  how far down we have come in such a short time.

But grandiose royal funerals seem to harken disaster coming in four years.

In September, 1997, the one million strong Princess Diana funeral occurred, which was more than the funeral of a Royal but the funeral of an Age Of Innocence; four years later, we had 9/11.

In the spring of 1910, there was the grand and grandiose funeral of King Edward  VII of England, attended by millions of innocent people. Four years later, we had 1914 and World War ; which really killed off an age of Innocence.

So let me predict,

Four years after Queen Elizabeth II has her funeral, all hell will break loose..

King Edward VII’s funeral, 1910

SIDEBAR

The following Royals attended King Edward’s funeral:

“Uneasy lies the head that wears a crown.”

“ The Bizarro World (also known as Htrae) is a fictional planet in the DC comics universe. Introduced in the early 1960s,In the Bizarro world of “Htrae” (”Earth” spelled backwards), society is ruled by the Bizarro Code which states “Us do opposite of all Earthly things!”

1212- THE CHILDREN’S CRUSADE, Earth Style

“ A boy began preaching in either France or Germany claiming that he had been visited by Jesus and told to lead a Crusade to peacefully convert Muslims to Christianity. …he gained a considerable following, including possibly as many as 30,000 children. He led his followers south towards the Mediterranean Sea, in the belief that the sea would part on their arrival, allowing him and his followers to march to Jerusalem, but this did not happen. Two merchants gave “free” passage on boats … They were then either taken to Tunisia and sold into slavery, or died in a shipwreck on San Pietro Island off Sardinia during a gale. ”

2010 -The Bizarro World’s Children Crusade of Baptists

PORT-AU-PRINCE, Haiti – “Ten members of a U.S. missionary group who said they were trying to rescue 33 child victims of Haiti’s devastating earthquake were charged with child kidnapping and criminal association on Thursday, their lawyer said.

Group leader Laura Silsby has said they were trying to take orphans and abandoned children to an orphanage in the neighboring Dominican Republic. She acknowledged they had not sought permission from Haitian officials, but said they just meant to help victims of the quake.

The children taken from the group, ranging in age from 2 to 12“

First Impression, why do Baptist missionaries from Idaho, have to go to Haiti to save children?. If they want to save young souls, I can supply them 33 names of children in desperate need, from the Bed-Stuy, Watts, East L.A., East St. Louis, and if necessary, Little Haiti, who would love a chance to live in the pastoral and SAFE fields of Idaho.

Are we, as Idahoans, as Americans, so successful in caring for our own at risk chidlren, we can take off to Haiti and save THEIR children?

Of course the kids in need in Compton, and Harlem don’t have all star concerts on CNN for them. Are they less tragic because they are the victims of man made tragedies?

Who is the good man? the one who cleans up his neighbor’s house before his own? the one who feeds strangers before his own children? We are not discussing charity here, we are talking a zero sum game, where the food and care is stripped from our own to be given away in grand gestures, whose only purpose is to win accolades from CNN.

I understand several rock stars are going to do an updated version of WE ARE THE WORLD for the Haitians…..

Make sure you tell our Lakota friends, on the Cheyenne River Reservation,that the rock stars intend to sing for Haiti.

EAGLE BUTTE, S.D. - ”A fierce ice storm hit the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation overnight Jan. 20, coating roads ,toppling electrical lines and forcing shops and schools to close….

Several shelters and distribution centers were set up around the reservation, and an 8 p.m. curfew was imposed after some looting took place last week. At the height of the outages, about 14,000 people in the region were without water — most of them on the impoverished reservation that covers an area larger than Rhode Island and Delaware combined.

About 8,000 people live on the reservation, among the rolling, grass-covered prairies of north central South Dakota that includes Dewey and Ziebach counties. The tribe says unemployment on the reservation is at 80 percent.

More than half of Ziebach County and 38 percent of Dewey County lived in poverty in 2005, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.”

It is 3,072 miles from Idaho to Haiti; it is 850 miles from Idaho to the Lakota Reservation,

It truly is a Bizarro World.

From The Economist 

Why are the French so prone to suicide?

IT IS the country that invented the 35-hour working week, prides itself on its joie de vivreand whose president extols the merits of measuring happiness, not just national income. That makes the string of 24 suicides at France Telecom all the more chilling . Yet what is perhaps most striking is that the suicide rate at the company is about average for France.

The French suicide rate is 14.6 per 100,000 people, according to the OECD. Men are particularly prone: 22.8, against 7.5 for women. This puts the suicides over 20 months at France Telecom, which employs just over 100,000 people, in line with the national average. More people take their lives as a share of the population than anywhere in western Europe bar Finland and Belgium. The French suicide rate is over twice that in Britain and 40% higher than in Germany and America.

A recent mental-health survey suggested that two-fifths of French people suffer from serious depression at some point in their lives. The French swallow more anti-depressants per head than the Germans or British. One in ten French people claims anti-depressant medication on their public health-insurance.

How to explain this existential angst? France offers its citizens unusual comforts, with first-rate health care, long holidays and sit-down lunches, protected jobs and generous welfare. But the veneer of security masks much uncertainty. Job-protection rules discourage permanent job creation, so the young drift on temporary contracts. Unable to shed staff, firms give employees meaningless jobs instead, to try to nudge them out.”

There is no sociological reason for this, this all has to do with the future of men. France created the metro sexual, the male fashionista. This is the future of men all over the world, as men try and fail to cope with a feminized society.

The French in their rationality, and anti tradition, and anti religion were the first modern people. In fact you could say, the French were the future; so now the whole world can see the future, broken down males killing themselves. .

But if you must get sociological, let me submit this, these suicidal males come from the first generation of males raised by single mothers; the first generation without fathers, the first generation spawned from the sexual revolution; the first generation that did not know Family as THE institution.

France: “Since the late 1970s, the proportion of single-parent families has increased by more than 50 per cent.”—Single Mothers in an International Context, 1997.

For more than a century, the marriage rate in France was relatively stable (at around 7.5%), until the beginning of the 1970s. Before that decade, the French believed in the importance of marriage, and nine out of ten people were married before the age of fifty.

 in 1986, … a marriage rate of less than 5 percent. .

Consequently, the number of single people increased. These people were not to be confused with those who were single “despite themselves” (Sullerot 1984), those men, either farmers or farm hands, who were unable to get married due to the lack of perspectives inherent in their economic and social situations. These new single people were made up of urban men and women, of whom most were part of the working community and came from affluent social backgrounds. Culturally and economically privileged, many were more inclined to enjoy their freedom than to rush into marriage and assume the responsibility of a family. Because marriage was not seen as something to aim for, these people deliberately chose to remain single.

This upsurge in the number of single people contributed to an increase in the number of people living alone, which doubled between 1968 and 1990, going from three to six million.

 the number of births out of wedlock also rose substantially. In 1997, four out of ten children were born to parents who were not married.

The act of getting married has ceased to be the act that establishes a couple in France; that role has been replaced by living together: In 1997, 90 percent of new couples started their life together in this way, and more than half of the women (53%) who give birth to their first child were not married.”

What modernity has meant for French men, is work, as a drone in telecommunications companies, (which are dominated by female salespersons), no families, no responsibilities, no traditions and no honor.

Modernity breeds uphappy women and suicidal males. 

This social engineering of the last thirty years is a ship wreck.

.

“SPRINGFIELD, Ill. – The Illinois Supreme Court has ruled that a Jewish husband and wife were within their rights to disinherit any grandchildren who married outside the faith.

Chicago dentist Max Feinberg and his wife had set up their estate to disinherit any grandchildren who married someone who wasn’t Jewish.

Four of their five grandchildren wound up marrying spouses who were not Jewish and weren’t allowed to inherit. Some challenged that in court, arguing that wills shouldn’t be allowed to interfere with people’s marriage choices based on religion.

The state Supreme Court rejected the challenge on Thursday.”

The legal issues concerning this case is of no interest to this blog; the demographics of this case are of great interest to this blog.

Eighty per cent of the dentist’s grandchildren married outside the faith of Abraham.

In 1290, Edward I(the wicked old king in the film BRAVEHEART) expelled the Jews from England;in 1306 Philip The Fair, King of France ( the same king who destroyed the Knights Templar)  expelled the Jews from France; in 1492 the Most Catholic Kings of Spain, Ferdinand and Isabella expelled the Jews from Spain;  and we all know about Hitler’s expulsion with extreme prejudice.

But now, the religion which was the fountain head of the Peoples of the Book (Judaism,Christianity,Islam) is losing 80% of its grandchildren.

So the real question from the Court case is, will the Jewish religion go the way of Zoroastrianism?

In ancient times, Zoroastrians was the mightiest religion on earth. 

“Zoroastrianism (pronounced /ˌzɒroʊˈæstri.ənɪzəm/) is the first monotheistic religion to have been entered in recorded history, which is based on the teachings and philosophies of Zoroaster, the religion’s prophet and founder. “

It was the religion of the Persia of Darius, Xerxes(the wicked king in the film, 300) and DariusIII (the king who fought Alexander the Great) , the Parthians,and Sassanids.

“However, after the Muslim conquest of Persia, Zoroastrianism (was) quickly marginalized, with some Iranians willingly converting”

“In 2004 the number of  Zoroastrians worldwide was estimated at between 145,000 and 210,000.”

 India’s 2001 Census found 69,601 Parsi Zoroastrians. In Pakistan they number 5,000, mostly living in Karachi, they have been reinforced in recent years with a number of Zoroastrian refugees from Iran. Anglo America is thought to be home to 18,000–25,000 Zoroastrians of both South Asian and Iranian background. A further 3,500 live in Australia (mainly in Sydney). Iran’s figures of Zoroastrians have ranged widely; the last census (1974) before the revolution of 1979 revealed 21,400 Zoroastrians.

In the Indian census of 2001 the Parsis numbered 69,601, representing about 0.006% of the total population of India, with a concentration in and around the city of Mumbai. Due to a low birth rate … demographic trends project that by 2020 the Parsis will number only about 23,000 or 0.002% of the total population of India. The Parsis would then cease to be called a community and will be labelled a “tribe”. By 2008, the birth-to-death ratio was 1:5 – 200 births per year to 1,000 deaths.”

We may be living in a time in which the Jewish commmunity returns to being the Jewish tribe.

Ron Reagan, President Reagan’s son, is now a radio commentator; he was a guest on the September 9, 2009 edition of HARDBALL, commenting on the heated health care debate, and Rep. Joe Wilson yelling at President Obama, he said this;

“…..This isn‘t just a political disagreement.  This isn‘t just business as usual in Washington and the usual back-and-forth. 

Something very wrong and disturbing has been happening out there in the country, and we need to try and put our finger on it.”

What is it out there? That needs to be feared?

In my opinion, it is this; we, as Americans, are about to be caught in a riptide of history, a riptide as old as history itself, of the people of the old time religion versus Pharaoh Akhenaton, of the Macedonian shepherds against the Athenian city dwellers, of the Taliban in the hills against the sophisticates of Beverly Hills, the Saudi versus the Hashemite, Primo de Rivera against Garcia Lorca, William Jennings Bryan versus Clarence Darrow.

We live in a time in which an intellectual predicate is being laid for a civil war. And if not a Civil War, then a Time of Troubles, and if not a Time of Troubles then an era of an American OAS — or Organisation armée secrète.

The vocabulary of political discourse has hardened; verbal  Civil War is in the air. The Zeitgeist of civil conflict is all around us. What has been missing, up to this point, is the military man. In the same atmosphere before President Kennedy’s assassination,  there was Major General Edwin Walker; in the same climate of social change in France, there was General Raoul Salan, the founder of the OAS.

This quote was sent to me by an English friend who found it at the website of the TELEGRAPH,UK;

 ”Van Jones was just the start: now we need a Yekaterinburg of ALL the Czars

As I suggested in my headline there can only be one sensible solution to this embarrassment of Czars, and its one that Bolsheviks on both sides of the Atlantic will be cheerily familiar. Think Czar Nicholas II. Think Yekatarinburg. Think July 1918. Its the only language these people understand.”

James Delingpole, telegrahph.co.uk;(James Delingpole is a writer, journalist and broadcaster).

Yekaterinburg is where the Czar and his family were herded into a cellar and executed en masse by a Communist firing squad. It is NOT a civil reference in political disputes. 

Many of my friends think Rep. Wilson yelled at President Obama because of racism. You may factor in Rep. Wilson’s racism, as your world view sees fit, but I want to go beyond that.

The rage against Obama is because he is so modern, so urban.The rage against him is the rage of the Highlander, the Macedonian, the Taliban against the hip, the modern, the sophisticate. It is the rage of people who live by sweat against people who live by wit. It is the rage of people who can not do ridicule, nor satire, nor farce, nor witty repartee, but can shoot.

This ante bellum situation has to be defused, but  how to do this?

The President must de-modernize himself. Modernity is manna for the viewers of Jon Stewart, and Keith Olbermann; it is the revenge of the witty on the brawny. But modernity is bad for modern leaders of non modern countries,(just ask that modern leader, Dr. Mohammed Najibullah).

The President should make no mistake about this, America is not a modern nation. There is only one Christian country in the world in which a Taliban like organization could live, thrive and prevail, and that country is the United States of America.

The President, for the good of the unity of the Republic, must de-modernize himself as soon as possible. To do this, I suggest you look to the best Liberal/Left wing political leader of our time, Tony Blair. The effete attorney de-modernized himself by participating in a war caused by a blood feud between the House of Bush and the House of Saddam Hussein. He supported a war of vendetta; how more un modern can you be? But because of that support he broke the back of the Tories for the life of his tenure as Prime Minister. If you are atavistic, you can no longer be effete. Brown is modern; he will fall.

That said, this nation does not need any other wars, so Mr. President, here are some  cut rate steps to de-modernize your image.

One-Take all 2nd Amendment issues off the table.

Gun owners are like PETA supporters; and  just like PETA supporters love dogs of all breeds, NRA members love guns of all calibers. Think of the rage among PETA supporters if you announced that the White House would start serving dog meat at meals; that is the rage of gun owners when you tell them their guns are not safe. They will never accept change, even beneficial change, unless their guns are protected. You must not be any threat to guns.

Two-Pick a Christian church in Washington, DC. There are these constant rumors you are of the Islamic persuasion, and yet you have not picked a church in Washington, DC. to dispel those rumors. Rectify that. 

Pick a church as old time religion as possible, Baptist, Pentecostal would be best, stay away from the Unitarians and Episcopalians(way too modern).

Three-Invite Rep Wilson and his kids to dinner with you and your kids. Show a John Wayne film, such as RIO BRAVO or RED RIVER for after dinner entertainment, or perhaps EL CID starring Charlton Heston, which is about Christian-Muslim cooperation against Islamic fanatics.  

SIDEBAR

Pharaoh Akhenaton

“He is especially noted for attempting to compel the Egyptian population to change their traditional ways.”

Former President of Afghanistan Dr. Mohammad Najibullah’s body, surrounded by the Taliban. ”Dr. Najibullahandhis brother were in the UN compound in Kabul, protected by international immunity laws. Soon, a special Taliban unit of five men designated for the task by Pakistani intelligence ISI, breaking international immunity laws, dragged Dr. Najibullah  and his brother outside of the UN compound. The Taliban tortured him, then bundled his brother and him into a pick-up truck and drove them to the presidential palace.

The Taliban cut off Najibullah’s   testicles then dragged his body behind a jeep. Then they shot him and his brother, hanging their mutilated bodies from a street lamp outside the presidential palace for two days.”