Category Archives: Etiquette

IS Prince Harry Losing The Crown Jewels? Dah!

Britain, Christianity, Critique, Etiquette, Pop-Culture

Already Meghan Markle is making political statements against age-old English traditions. The head of the US Episcopal Church, not head of the Church of England, will officiate at the Royal Wedding ceremony, this week-end.

I did not notice the race card Mr. and Mrs. Markle are playing so crudely. Naively, I looked at the break in tradition this American woman has clearly forced, in smuggling an American man-of-the-cloth, when monarchic tradition calls for an english clergyman to officiator at a Royal Wedding.

In any event, whoever ends up wearing the crown jewels (or the pants) in Britain’s new royal family (I’m already betting the American Woman will); future royal babies born to Mr. and Mrs Meghan Markle are bound to be … nosy, if to judge from their parents’ probosces.

UPDATE II (5/8/018): ‘Howdy’: Back From Speaking To The Texas A&M Free Speech Forum About South Africa

America, Conservatism, Education, Etiquette, Free Speech, History, Ilana Mercer, Law, South-Africa

Has absence made the heart grow fonder? I hope so.

I’m back from speaking about South Africa at the Free Speech Forum of  the Texas A&M University, on the College Station campus.

A remarkable young man, the president of the Texas A&M Free Speech Forum, invited me to speak for reasons that astounded and gave hope.

The Forum, I was told, doesn’t seek out the conservative/libertarian speakers, who’re usually invited on campus by “the established, libertarian/conservative/republican groups.”

You know. That boilerplate content.

“It is not our place to host them,” I was emphatically informed by one so young.

“Rather, we provide a platform for those who would not be invited otherwise by these established libertarian/conservative/republican group.”

Check.

I was further told that the Texas A&M Free Speech Forum criteria are “whether one is an expert in his or her field.”

Oh! So what the hosts had in mind was not a power-point, low-information presentation, with lots of gory images and a few recycled facts, harvested from one or two online posts!

OMG!

Your history in the country as well as your seminal work, “Into the Cannibal’s Pot: Lessons For America from Post-Apartheid South Africa,” make you, in particular, stand out as the most qualified figure to present on the topic [of South Africa], in addition to specific requests to host you personally.

Imagine! A forum seeking thinkers who’re not part of the popular speakers’ circuit!

Here were young men who understood that those voices making the most noise about conservative freedom of speech denied were not necessarily the ones truly marginalized.

Having been given this opportunity, I aimed to provide a backdrop—the analytical foundation, if you will—for what’s unfolding in my birthplace of South Africa.

From land confiscation to the ethnic cleansing of the waning minority—I tried to explain why what’s happening in South Africa was baked into the political cake; was predictable, and was, to a large degree, the doing of the West.

The concept of white privilege was woven in as well.

To travel all the way to College Station, Texas, and not experience more of the “Lone Star State” was not an option. After driving from Austin eastward to College Station, we headed south-west to San Antonio, where we stayed for two days. Then it was a long drive back to Austin.

Other than the weather (brutal), Texas is a civilization apart. I live in a state in which the Yankee, busybody mentality dominates, as friend Professor Clyde Wilson would say. People are unfriendly, opprobrious, stuck-up, and, frankly, boring.

They tell you how to live. If they get wind of your beliefs—why, even if your use of the English language makes them uneasy—they will take it upon themselves to fix your flaws; to read you the riot act. Make you more “manageable.” More like them.

While civility and congeniality are generally not part of the Yankee repertoire; ordinary Texans, on the other hand—and from my brief experience—tend to be sunny, kind and warmhearted. I did not encounter rude.

As for telling you how to live; how do you like this sign? It’s from the ladies’ bathroom in  a Caldwell diner.

With two impeccably mannered, young gentlemen, who organized EVERYTHING:

Before.

The San Antonio River Walk is teaming with adorable, brazen birds. It sports zero barriers to protect the brats (people mind their kids):

The Alamo garden:

More later.

UPDATED (5/7/018):
Everybody was down with the birds scavenging leftovers. A restaurant put up a memorial to its resident duck, whose neck had been wrung by, as they put it, scumbag, human trash, homeless riffraff. In Washington State we have only honorifics for such scumbags .

Chapel at Mission Concepción, San Antonio:

This specter formed part of my address/lecture:

‘Indigenisation’ of the law:

UPDATE II (5/8): Jack Kerwick has as hopeful an encounter as I had. We discuss.

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No Excuse-Making Accepted. Great Symbol Of American Maleness, Tom Brady, Makes His Son French Kiss Him

Celebrity, Critique, Etiquette, Family, Gender, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Morality, Sex

Via NewYorkCBS: New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady is lying face up on the massage bed when he calls his son, Jack, back to his side. The boy had gotten away with merely pecking his famous dad on the mouth. Dad, the New England Patriot’s quarterback, expected more. Poor Brady Jr. looked decidedly uncomfortable. He gives dad a protracted kiss on the mouth and wipes his mouth with his shirt. Looks like the boy knew what dad wanted. Looks like Jack Brady did not enjoy the ritual.

There’s no debate. And this is not “parent-shaming.” Tom Brady’s conduct is indisputably inappropriate. Don’t talk about the “MeToo” movement if your liberalism has led you to eroticize your child and then justify it.


Tom Brady French-kissing his 11-year-old son

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Toilet Tidbits About America’s Favorite Immigrant Groups

America, China, Culture, Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Etiquette, IMMIGRATION, Multiculturalism, Technology, The West

Labour of lavs”* is a delightfully titled article in The Economist (an excellent source of global news for those of us who’re sick of the cesspool that is the American media, Left and Right).

“… In the past few decades China has done a fairly good job of supplying basic sanitation. Only 2% of Chinese still do their business in the bushes, compared with 40% in India; three-quarters have access to toilets which the World Health Organisation deems acceptable, up from less than two-thirds in 2000. But about 70m still use shared facilities, and 260m continue to rely on bucket loos, open pits and other grungy facilities. Some are literally lethal: last month police traced a huge blast in the port city of Ningbo, which killed two people, back to an exploding septic tank. …”

If toilet habits are so abysmal in China, just imagine what these are like in India.

MORE in “Labour of lavs.

* A combination of “lavatory” and the phrase a labor of love. The image is of a typical Chinese toilet.