Tidings (12)

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This is one of the many arguments in favour of free and unfettered expression. We get to learn who civilisation’s enemies are. The nasty leftists whom Suzanne Moore refers to do not “mean well,” and now, thanks to social media especially, both she and the rest of us can all see this.

Brian Micklethwaite, here.

Merry Christmas!
And may God bless us, every obe!

Every Kenobi. Sorry, OCD again.

Help me, Every Kenobi. You’re my only hope.

“Every Kenobi.”
Hey, What about us obe’s?

Joe Pass was an excellent musician.
Indeed he was, there is also Kenny Burrell Christmas album with a tasty version of Little Drummer Boy, and for something completely different, John Fahey’s The New Possibility, because I have been hacked by Russians, I am partial to his rendition of Russian Christmas Overture.

And this is your brain on identity politics.

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Apparently that identity ceased to exist.

I feel compelled to post a story which seems to have more relevance with each passing year. I beg forgiveness from our host, inasmuch as this was posted some years back on my blog which is now off-line. I rely on these pages to vent and pay David Danegeld every so often for the privilege. Occasionally, I slosh decent Bordeaux on the carpet. Our host tolerates this. Why, I do not know. [Insert Smiley Emoticon Here.]
Anyway, a Christmas story:
My father was born in April, 1917 in Rush Tower, Missouri to a world without electricity or telephones or antibiotics. He grew up during the Depression and participated in the Second World War. I am his oldest child, born in the 1960s, when he was in his late 40s .
As one might imagine, during my adolescence in the mid to late 1970’s, I was treated to numerous stories about life in the first half of the Twentieth Century, most along the lines of “walking five miles to and from school in the driving snow, uphill both ways.”
In the wisdom of my youth, I would smile and nod politely while trying to ignore whatever he was saying.
Of course, now in my dotage, I wish I remembered more of the stories and more of the details of those that did make an impression.
Here is one.
After my father joined the Navy as an officer during World War II, he was sent for a training course at Fort Dix, New Jersey and was to be there during Christmas. As a bachelor officer, he was required to stay on post while those with wives and families were allowed leave.
Nonetheless, it was not to be a completely solitary holiday. Recall, it was a different time and in the area there were families who offered to provide a holiday meal to servicemen who had no where else to go.
Dad was the recipient of such an offer.
And so, at the appointed time, he made his way via train and subway to an address in Brooklyn, New York. It was a multifamily flat, and Dad had been informed that the family had two small girls. He had stopped at a store and purchased some small dolls for the girls and a poinsettia for the lady of the house.
He arrived at the appointed time and discovered the following fact:
His hosts were Jewish.
Yet, as he walked into their home, he saw a small Christmas tree and smelled a turkey cooking. He told me, he’d only had turkey perhaps four or five times in his life prior to that, and those were of the “killed it m’self” variety.
The girls were there and they giggled a lot because, “I spoke with a funny accent. When their parents were out of the room, they asked me to say sentences, so that they could laugh. They liked the dolls, though.”
His hosts, whose name I’ve forgotten if I ever knew it, asked him about his life and his home, a place which to them must have sounded like Outer Mongolia. They had come to America from Europe prior to the war and now worried about not receiving word from relatives they’d left behind.
Dad told me, that at the time, he just chalked up the lack of communication to the war. He had no idea.
The other thing Dad mentioned was that they served him wine. Understand Dad was from the absolutely temperate wing of the Baptist denomination, for whom drinking alcoholic beverages was a sin. Yet he said he wasn’t going to turn down the hospitality of these people who had obviously taken the trouble to create a holiday for a serviceman they’d never met before.
There were more details, but alas, I didn’t take the trouble to listen closely. I am the worse for it.
Of course, it’s quite possible that my dad, being the Ozark hillbilly, bible-readin’, Christianist that he was, was full of crap when he behaved the way he did in 1944, and his hosts were indeed profoundly stupid in attempting submit themselves to an obviously so western, imperialistic imperative which required them to abandon their racial and religious heritage to kowtow to said bible-thumper.
Or not.
You make the call.
Again, Merry Christmas to all.

Jen, are you the Jen who used to be on balloon-juice.com. ?

and, if so (we’re getting to the important part here) are drinks Half Price?
Nice try.
Right, I’m heading out of town. Play nicely. Use coasters. And a merry one to you all.

I recommend the novel Krampus, The Yule Lord, by Brom.
And from Archdruid Report/Ecosophia, we have this:
https://ecosophia.dreamwidth.org/41708.html

Great story Sherman. Thanks for sharing.

Likewise.

…and his hosts were indeed profoundly stupid in attempting submit themselves to an obviously so western, imperialistic imperative which required them to abandon their racial and religious heritage…
A good story indeed, and in a similar vein, Christmas in Damascus.

My factoti, Connie and Bonnie, have instructed our accountant, J. Beresford Tipton, to drop you a small tithing for Boxing Day
Bless you, sir. May your enemies know frustration, like a dog biting steam.

Crime-fighting mishap.
Via Damian.

Are we sure those are Moslem ladies in the photo?
http://www.damascuscc.org/news/

Are we sure those are Moslem ladies in the photo?
“>http://www.damascuscc.org/news/
Ummm…dude, I think that’s Damascus, Oregon. Though not knowing where that is in relation to Portland…ah…never mind.

Are we sure those are Moslem ladies in the photo?
Damascus prepares for Christmas without mortar fire

I’m assuming Farnsworth’s image is not a recently-discovered photograph of that evening.
No that was really Damascus, this one, OTOH…

Enthusiasm.
SQUIRREL!!!

SJWs: We Must Ruin All The Things.
Cool. Now do “Closer” by Nine Inch Nails.

Jordan Peterson, commenting on phenomena . . .

Jordan Peterson, commenting on phenomena…
Heh.