Things are going so badly. I mean, did you ever think we’d be stressing over Greenland? Greenland? It’s like suddenly having to worry about cottage cheese. Anyway, things are going so badly I think we need a new photo of my grandniece Maeven right away.
In lieu of a poem today, here’s a post by John Scotland of the Dull Men’s Club (UK):
Midweek dullness. With no work booked in, and dry weather in prospect, I walked just over two miles to the nearest village, by an old farm road, past the French Prisoners’ Bush. This took me to the village hall, where the locals were having a coffee morning, with vast amounts of home baking. I had a cheese scone, a plain scone, and a Viennese thingie with my coffee.
Making my way back, I took a slight detour to look at the site of the Auld Kirk of Lindean, one of the alleged sites which is claimed by some as the place where Sir William Wallace was appointed Guardian of Scotland in 1297 / ’98. No proof, of course, he didn’t scratch ” Wallace woz ‘ere ” with the point of his sword, or anything like that. Anyway, I picked up a decent size fallen branch that was lying on the road, and brought it back for firewood.
The newly installed woodburner isn’t lit just now, it’s turned out to be a surprisingly mild day for mid January. Stay dull, good people.
Marion Cochrane: Lovely. Hope the ladies’ home baking doesn’t end up in heartburn.
John: It was excellent, and they gave me a small bag of plain scones to bring back for my girlfriend ( she was busy walking doggies this morning. )
Nigel Andrew: Magnificent.
Vivian Comer: A larger than life-size statue of Sir William Wallace watches over the city&county drinking water reservoir in my Baltimore Maryland USA neighborhood park. Thank you for sharing your morning walk, coffee&scones
Steve Price: Oooooh, wood.
I added this photo of the Baltimore statue for the gang:
Remember during Trump 1.0 a whole spate of articles appeared urging us not to dismiss his supporters as brainless losers, but to respect them and try to appreciate their positions? Can we agree now that was all a huge crock of sh*t? Those f*cking morons have broken America. Even the polls showing Trump sinking continue to show him with 35% or so. These idiots still don’t see anything. I remember Barney Frank responding to a question once by saying, “Madam, talking to you would be like talking to a table.”
A recent obit in the NYT brought a Holocaust story to my attention. The woman who died was Hessy Levinsons Taft. She was 91 and died in San Francisco. In 1934, Hessy’s parents were opera singers in Berlin and arranged for a well-known photographer, Hans Ballin, to take her portrait. She was 6 months old. Here it is.
So her folks kept it on their piano, and one day their cleaning lady mentioned that she saw the photo on a magazine cover. And it wasn’t exactly Ladies Home Journal. It was a pro-Nazi publication Sonne ins Haus, or Sun in the Home. WTF??!! They ran to Ballin to find out what was going on.
He told her the Nazis invited him to submit photos for a contest to find a baby representing the epitome of the Aryan race, and Hessy’s was among those he included in his submission. Goebbels chose the winner: Hessy.
“But you knew that this is a Jewish child,” Hessy’s mother told the photographer.
He replied, “I wanted to allow myself the pleasure of this joke.”
The photo went viral, to use the current term. It appeared everywhere: in ads, on postcards, in people’s homes. Hessy’s parents were terrified that if the truth got out they’d be killed. So they kept Hessy as hidden from public view as possible and eventually fled. Only in 1987, as her parents advanced in age, did Hessy put the story out.
The family kept three copies of the magazine. Hessy donated one to the Holocaust Memorial Museum in DC, and another to Yad Vashem, Israel’s official Holocaust memorial center. Her children kept the last copy.
In retrospect, Hessy was pleased with how things turned out. “I thank him [Ballin] for having the courage to do that, as a non-Jew, to challenge his own government. It was an irony that needed to be exposed.”
Hessy is survived by her children, Nina and Alex Taft; four grandchildren; and her sister. Rest in peace, Hessy.
A neat story in a minor league newsletter I get listed the oldest minor league stadiums. I’ve been to two! One was Nat Bailey Stadium in Vancouver. (Hi Joe!). And the other is in Reading PA (Hi Chris!).
The oldest is in Daytona Beach FL, Jackie Robinson Ballpark, which opened in 1914 as City Island Ballpark. In 1989, 75 years after it opened, it was named after Jackie Robinson. This rechristening was in honor of the events of 1946, when Robinson played at the park during spring training. This marked his first appearance as an active player in the Brooklyn Dodgers organization, more than a year before his epochal Major League debut. Here’s how it looks today:
Gosh, Karoline Leavitt just gets sexier and sexier as the lies grow bigger and bigger. It’s a reverse Pinocchio effect. In response to a question about ICE, she asked reporter Niall Stanage “Why was Renee Good unfortunately and tragically killed?”
Stanage replied: “Are you asking me my opinion? Because an ICE agent acted recklessly.”
“Oh, okay, so you’re a biased reporter with a left-wing opinion,” Leavitt said. “Yeah, because you’re a left-wing hack. You’re not a reporter. You’re posing in this room as a journalist. And it’s so clear by the premise of your question. And you and the people in the media who have such biases but fake like you’re a journalist. You shouldn’t even be sitting in that seat.”
She went on: “Do you have the numbers of how many American citizens were killed at the hands of illegal aliens who [sic] ICE is trying to remove from this country? I bet you don’t. I bet you didn’t even read up on those stories.”
“I bet you never even read about Laken Riley or Jocelyn Nungaray or all of the innocent Americans who were killed at the hands of illegal aliens in this country. And the brave men and women of ICE are doing everything in their power to remove those heinous individuals and make our communities safer. And shame on people like you in the media who have a crooked view and have a biased view and pretend like you’re a real honest journalist.”
Did you hear that, Stanage? Shame on you.
According to ICE’s own data, ICE is currently holding over 68,900 individuals and has made over 352,000 arrests.
Hubba hubba.
See you tomorrow, Chatterheads.
The Wellington Files 