1: In 1980 it seemed obvious that the only possible end to the Cold War was global nuclear war.
Evolutionarily, that's basically happening this exact moment.
Geologically speaking, I've already eaten tomorrow's lunch.
Time flies like Moby eating a banana tomorrow.
How many species could you say this of? I mean, Chlorella managed to kick off an ice age and that's a fucking plant.
Time flies like the fruit flies gestating in the banana Moby hasn't yet eaten.
As it would happen, Chlorella was in the car with us, and went back and wrote an itty-bitty blogpost on the chlorella internet about her own existential dispair, smeared in green.
I always delight in pointing out the profound awfulness of premodern humans to back-to-nature types.
My coping mechanism after the election was to listen to history podcasts, specifically Byzantium and Ancient History. I find it weirdly comforting to learn we had horrible leaders and most of (one specific part of) the world died and we muddled through. So even though I usually agree with heebie-geebie (Comey!), she is wrong about this: learning about the history of humans is comforting, not depressing.
It made me feel less responsible for saving humanity. I generally don't feel responsible like a 20 year old feels responsible, but it still felt like I could step back and shrug that I personally hadn't crashed our Titanic world.
Who was it that recommended War Before Civilization? ajay? Very eye-opening.
9: In the past year I've gone through The History of Rome and the first third of Mike Duncan's sequel project, Revolutions. I've enjoyed it and I suppose there's some comfort in learning we're not alone in our bad decisions, but thinking about failing political systems is a bit iffy in its therapeutic potential.
It's about as comforting as 'the earth won't be destroyed by climate change, just humans (and various animals and plants) will'. Which, when I write it out, doesn't seem comforting but is what prevents me from screaming at people about climate change constantly. Long time frames are pretty comfortable to me. Like Rome collapsing was horrible, but it's not like Rome is a uncultured backwater now.
Huh. The fact that it will specifically harm anthropic interests makes me more screamy/shouty, not less.
11: yes. Thanks! Glad it's gone down well.
I dunno, looking at the grand sweep of history makes 2017 politics seem pretty good. I mean, yes, Trump's unacceptably bad on a lot of axes, but he's no Hong Xiuquan.
"Not as bad as the Taiping Rebellion" is the damningiest of damning with faint praise.
He's not even going to be as disastrous as Yeltsin was for Russia, probably. And look! Russia's come bouncing back in no time!
14: Hong Xiuquan was closer to standard Christian theology than Trump.
I thought we'd established Trump is secretly Muslim?
I'm currently reading The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914. It's a nice reminder of how much my life would have sucked, given who my ancestors were, if I had been born in the early 19th century instead of the late 20th.
On the other hand, global warming. I guess you win some, you lose some.
I have also been comforted by reading a lot about history recently. Some of those civilizations also died out completely due to climate change! So like us.
Looking for history book recommendations actually. Anyone have a favorite book on the Thirty Years War, or the Hundred Years War, or the days of Owen Glyndwr? Something under 400 pages? And not so much about the details of battles, but about the political angles and personalities?
On the other hand, I learned this morning, Prince Harry is marrying a black girl from almost my neighborhood, meaning that the British royal family is now tied inexorably to the Baldwin Hills Mall. Also her dad was the DP on Married With Children, tying the family to Al Bundy.
There will probably never be a better opportunity in history to play Montell Jordan's "This Is How We Do It" at a royal wedding in Westminster Abbey, and for that we should be grateful.
21: Huh. The race angle is going to play most interestingly in UK politics, no?
23: I'm not sure it will, actually. Just read a long spread in the Evening Standard on it, and it made no mention of her race at all. I mean, the Guardian is all over it exclaiming "what will the MASSES think?" but the MASSES don't really seem to mind. Most people probably wouldn't place her as black (or rather mixed race) unless they were told.
What about the historical link between marrying divorced American women and royal Nazism?
24 last: True, I didn't. Still interesting though in terms of the choices taken by the editorial establishments.
Sometimes you have to hedge your bets, Mobes.
I must have seen 50 pictures of Meghan Markle over the past year and would never have guessed she wasn't white until yesterday's news led to the obligatory thing where everyone on social media goes on a preemptive hunt for any scraps of racism from random idiots that can be bemoaned. I wonder if Prince Harry knows.
This is maybe the single stupidest thing to feel local pride about ever, but I do anyway. This is how we do it. Fly a Laker car flag from the royal carriage.
Wedgwood is good on the Thirty Years' war, also on Charles II.
28 is also me.
I was pretty happy that nobody was mentioning that she's divorced--that was rather a big deal a few monarchs ago--but then the Spectator had to go and be shitty about it.
She's half white but grew up in a very nice but definitely heavily black neighborhood.
Seconding Wedgewood.
I liked Peter Wilson's book on the Thirty Years War, but it misses the "under 400 pages" criterion. By long way.
I'm interested how my mom will handle non-white royalty, but not interested enough to find out.
35: how did she take to "Coming to America"?
I was pretty happy that nobody was mentioning that she's divorced--that was rather a big deal a few monarchs ago
I think that ever since Wallace Simpson, "divorced and a fascist sympathizer" has been the bar to clear. Markle seems to be pretty safe unless photos of her wearing a swastika armband turn up.
Also don't forget that Harry is not King, unlike Edward VIII: he is only fifth in line (after Charles, William, George and Charlotte) and pretty unlikely ever to be King. So who he marries is less of a constitutional issue, in as much as it could even be one.
36: I haven't seen it and very much doubt she has. She also despises Americans.
And on the race thing, British society is just less upset about inter racial marriage than US society. A third of kids in London with one non white parent also have one white parent.
34.2 0 maybe I should read it anyway. It's the only book that comes up when you search for "Gustavus Adolphus" that isn't either self-published or over 120 years old.
She's not Catholic, is she? Some standards must be maintained!
They're cool with that now! Supposedly.
40: I know. I was thinking (wrongly?) that support for the monarchy correlates pretty closely with (UK standards) racism.
44: it probably does, at least in the white population. In the BME population I'd expect racism and anti-monarchism to go together (both signs of low assimilation). But the white racists will be stifled by their instinctive monarchism so no one will dare say anything. (The republicans will hate her, not because she's black but because she's American.)
Shouldn't being a princess be sufficient reason for the republicans to hate her?
British republicans being white collar lefties who hate America?
45.last, wait, won't republicans hate her because it's a royal thing quite apart from whether an American is involved?
"republicans" used here in the obsolete-for-centuries sense of "not monarchist"
49 That's how I've always understood it in the British context.
48: that's why they'll hate the wedding. Being American makes her, personally, hateable as well. Because 47 basically
Fuck the republicans, then. Also she went to Immaculate Heart, so she was taught by left-wing nuns who are now in a complicated real estate battle with Katy Perry.
My mom seriously is going to lose her shit every time this princess opens her mouth. I very slightly regret that I won't be able to watch the wedding with her.
Why would anybody watch a wedding except as a suffering-payment to be allowed into the reception?
The republicans I work with all rolled over and waver their paws in the air at the thought of her. The carpet was quite squelchy with wee. The most republican sentiment expressed was by people who were disappointed there wouldn't be a bank holiday for the wedding.
As for the divorce thing, that was overcome by Charles. Harry was not a party in her divorce, the way that Charles and Camilla were in each others. Society came to terms with that soon enough.
I don't think "American" matters at all in the present fever dream of British politics. Had she been a German, or better yet a Muslim ...
People who feel, and I quote, "ever so English".
Thirding Wedgwood on the 30 Years War. It misses the 400 page limit by a mere 100+ pages. Still, some might call it a big subject and worth that many. Anything short would just be a precis.
56 to 54, but apparently 55 as well.
WRT the Thirty Years' War, the volume edited by Geoffrey Parker is solid, and I think under 400 pages, though not exactly satisfying. Also, not exactly about the war, but I really enjoyed this paper on the reputation of Westphalia in International Relations.
52: Ooooo *those* nuns??? Now there's an angle I can get enthusiastic about!
52, 61 I never thought I'd be googling nuns + katy perry but here we are.
It has been announced that the wedding will be a low key affair inside Windsor Castle, so bad luck to those who were hoping for the Abbey. I'm taking bets on the title:
Too cool to take a title: Evens
Duke of Sussex: 4-1
Duke of Albany: 5-1
Duke of Clarence: 7-1
Other: 20-1
I'm pleased to know that Wedgwood holds up after all this time. I first read her on the 30 Years War about 45 years ago, and - well you can't exactly enjoy reading about the 30 Years War, but I thought it was good. Also recommend her bio of Sophia of Hanover.
Obviously, she should be the Duchess of Denver and write mystery novels while solving crime in her spare time.
She would be a Duchess, but the title is traditionally conferred on the bloke. When Princess Charlotte of Cambridge grows up and marries her girlfriend we'll see how they play it.
If it was me, I'd insist on Duke of Dunstable.
I don't think Wedgwood is truly reliable as a history at this point, but it is still absolutely definitely the best book to read about the war for the first time in English.
Vicomtesse of View Park seems like a good title. If she'd grown up a few miles away Harry could literally be named the Fresh Prince of Bel Air.
She would be a Duchess, but the title is traditionally conferred on the bloke. When Princess Charlotte of Cambridge grows up and marries her girlfriend we'll see how they play it.
"Duchessess of Inverness"
67: there are two villages called Ellington in England, one in East Anglia and one in the Borders. Worth a shot, surely.
The ungenerous side of me would really like to see the Home Office make her jump through all the usual hoops required to obtain a spouse visa and naturalize as British, including repeatedly requesting detailed information in impossible-to-provide formats, losing her documents, and mistakenly instructing her to leave the country immediately because she's unqualified to stay. I did wonder whether she'd be excluded by the "no recourse to public funds" clause, but as Harry gets his income from the Duchy of Cornwall rather than the Civil List she does manage to clear that criterion.
Why can't she be the Duchess of Cornwall then?
There could be a competition to determine the Duchess of Cornhole. An American would probably win that also.
There already is a Duchess of Cornwall, and anyway that's a bit of a special duchy. They'll give Harry a different one as a wedding gift, like how they made his brother Duke of Cambridge. From chris's list, I'd guess Clarence.
"Princess Henry of Wales" would be her title, by the same logic as "Princess Michael of Kent. Who knew? If Harry is made "Duke of Somewhereorother," as seems likely, she's also "Duchess of ..."
"Princess Meghan" is right out, alas, as she is not of Royal Blood.
As for the divorce thing, that was overcome by Charles. Harry was not a party in her divorce, the way that Charles and Camilla were in each others. Society came to terms with that soon enough.
Genuine question, are there non-cranks who actually think Charles should not take the throne on this basis? Or are the "but she's a divorcee" people just applying a double standard? I tried to look over that oh-so-ratioed Spectator article but it was paywalled.
Although before the text disappeared that article too, like 55, seemed to jump to the Charles/Camilla thing rather than Charles/Diana. Did Charles and Diana not divorce too? Is there a real historical reason divorce (once) affected a woman's ability to become queen but not a man's?
It's a heck of an improvement from beheading.
"Princess Meghan" is right out, alas, as she is not of Royal Blood.
What's that got to do with it?
From the wiki page on her family: "Today's Spencers are direct descendants, albeit illegitimate, of the House of Stuart, with the family boasting at least five lines of direct descent from the Stuarts; and from them, the Spencers can trace their ancestry to other royal houses such as the Bourbons, the Medicis, the Wittelsbachs, the Hanovers, the Sforzas, the Habsburgs, and the Houses of Howard and Boleyn through Mary Boleyn, Mistress of Henry VIII of England."
83: well, if you don't believe in divorce, second marriages aren't valid, therefore she can't be queen because she isn't really married to the king. But there's no barrier to a divorced woman being queen in her own right. If Liz had dumped Phil in 1951, say, she'd still have been queen in 1952.
It is relevant here that Henry VIII did not believe in divorce, and would have been horrified if anyone suggested he get one. What he believed in was *Annulment*, like the RC church. Take no notice whatever of the piece in a British newspaper which asserts otherwise.
Until the ,strike>mid-nineteenth century (from memory) 1857 it was impossible to get a divorce without an act of parliament. This naturally limited demand as well as supply.
There was a huge, gigantic fooferaw all through the last part of the nineteenth century and the first part of the twentieth when radicals in Parliament wanted to make it legal to marry your deceased wife's sister. It took from 1842 until 1907 before the resistance of the Church to this breach of levitical law was overcome. That might be said to be the moment at which England stopped being a Christian nation by its constitution. Certainly that's what the Archbishop of Canterbury at the time said, since parliament had passed a law so clearly contradicting the Bible.
In all this, the problem is not divorce, which the church can gloss as separation, but remarriage, which makes it clear that the old marriage has ended. That's also of course the sticking pint for Catholics as communion.
Fortunately, Diana is dead, as is, now, Andrew Parker Bowles, so that Charles and Camilla sneak under the bar, although they didn't of course when they got married. But even then, the church lawyers will opint out that they just had their marriage blessed, not celebrated, in church.
All this is now just being used as a way to be beastly about the gays.
88.1: Right. Second marriages are valid only if your first marriage was to a cousin or you were too drunk to remember.
Leviticus 18 (KJV) says: "Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time." Seems like it should be okay, Biblically, if the first wife is deceased?
Honestly, when you put it like that, it seems just plain decency practiced by everybody excepting people who write beer commercials.
Maybe there was an trend toward keeping the mummy of the deceased wife in the tent?
89
You can also always claim the groom couldn't get it up. I think the Borgias annulled like, 45 marriages based on that principle.
That works less well after you have kids.
Italian sperm will find a way, I guess.
85. Diana, Princess of Wales was only called Princess Diana by ignorant journalists without a copy of Debrett's to hand.
Today's Spencers are direct descendants, albeit illegitimate, of the House of Stuart
And I'm a direct illegitimate descendant of the House of Plantagenet, but it doesn't matter for shit because all those lines got written out of their rightful position in the line of succession in 1701. Unless Princess Di was a descendant of the Electress Sophia, I don't see how she gets an exception.
Ah, I see. Sorry for the incorrect (well, irrelevant) info.
Yeah, 97 makes sense.
That's some arcane rule-making if you can be X, the Y of Z without being Y X of Z.
We're probably overdue for a Jacobite rising in any case.
I guess it doesn't matter because I don't recognize the 1701 Act of Settlement anyway, on account of it robs me of my rightful place as number 62,011,068 in line for the English throne.
101.2: well, there is an important distinction between being a Texas state senator and the senator for the state of Texas.
You could have a Bavarian named Franz. He spent part of WWII in Dachau, so you don't need to worry about the Nazism like we do.
104: No one should be considered similar to Ted Cruz until proven guilty.
a Texas state senator and the senator for the state of Texas.
Only because Senators exist at both state and federal level, which would create confusion. If it was Governor there wouldn't be a conflict.
All the blah blah Bagehot bullshit about the need to maintain the crown's role in the Constitutional system or whatever is out the window anyway since you idiots decided to let your big questions be decided by 50% majority referrendum like a damper, shittier California. Harry, the greatest Briton, should take the throne and our Hollywood Schoolhouse/Immaculate Heart daughter of Hollywood should be your queen.
Of course, on the ground, the sex lives of the Anglican clergy can be pretty complicated. I have one friend, call him Henry, extravagantly heterosexual, who was engaged in theological college to a fellow student (call her Katherine) but jilted her shortly before the wedding and fled to the US, where he married a divorcee named Anne, had a child, and worked as a software developer. Then Anne ran off with her yoga teacher, and Henry took up with, but never married, Jane Seymour. She dumped him after five years, though they remained friends, and he felt the call of God again.
There was some difficulty about allowing him to continue his training, because of Anne's divorce, but eventually he was accepted, ordained, and married again, to Anne of Cleves. Anne of Cleves didn't take to life as a vicar's wife at all, and there were loud and noisy scenes in the local pub, followed after a year or two by a very messy breakup in which she smashed up the vicarage kitchen door with an axe.
He settled into single life. At this point, Katherine of Aragon (remember her) read a newspaper article about him, which discussed the complexities of a vicar's sex life. She was by then divorced, and with a child of her own. She got back in touch. Next thing anyone knew, he had moved across the country to be close to her, and they were married and living in a vicarage there. That one lasted almost six months, until she went back to her own home.
Next he took up with Catherine Howard, a very nice woman who claimed also to be a witch, and worked as one of hs churchwardens. They never married or even lived together, but everyone, including the bishops, knew about their relationship which was entirely public and semi official. That lasted ten years, and we all started to believe it was permanent.
About a month ago, he dumped her (her version) or she dumped him (his version) and they officially split. Next thing I know, he is sending me pictures of Catherine Parr, a woman priest in another country, who had invited him to help her get the English right on her PhD thesis. I believe it is now close to idiomatic, but will, as he will also, be thoroughly polished in the coming months.
If only to keep the aliases straight, he'd better stop here.
108 is absolutely right.
Also. Good grief. Henry sounds like he has impulse control problems.
It's probably just a run of bad luck.
Or good luck, if he isn't one to take emotional upheaval to heart.
Why would you smash the vicarage door with an axe if you were married to the vicar? You'd have a key.
110: Pray God that this sort of thing was not the reason the Flip-Pater first took to referring to the filthy wretched damned dirty apes Episcopalians as "the competition."
Someone needs to watch The Shining again.
Not you too, Charley. The moon landing was not faked!
She'd moved out, and wanted to get back in and collect her stuff.
112: it's more that he kept marrying women who didn't want to be queens vicar's wives. Except for Catherine Howard, who wanted nothing more, but by that time he was determined never to marry anyone again.
[Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke. Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke. Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke. Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke. Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke. Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke. Don't make a "More tea, vicar?" joke.]
More coffee, tea or me, vicar?
[Damn it! But not bad.]
118: I had a conversation with someone from China today about different conspiracy theories in different countries. He said one conspiracy theory in China is that the US faked the moon landing. I had to sheepishly admit that's one we have too.
114: actually, he did suffer tremendously during the divorces. And, I believe, when things went south with Anne Boleyn. And he didn't so far as I know leave (or have beheaded) any of these women for the next one.
I can't wait until we fake a return to the moon with modern computer graphics and cinematic pacing sensibilities.
One of my aunts left her horrid husband (phys as well as mental abuse) with two small babes in tow nigh on 40+ years ago, moving in with my grandparents and taking up once again regular attendance at their Methodist church. New pastor had been installed whilst aunt had been out of state living with horrid husband. After a few months, aunt moved in with pastor, his wife and pastor's-and-wife's children. After a few more months, pastor moved out. Aunt and formerly-pastor's-now-my-aunt's-wife have been together ever since. 💘
Returning to the subject of the impending apocalypse, it turns out that you can predict from the study of the cars in 50m Google Street view pictures the racial and political makeup of US cities down to precinct level, whatever that is. I haven't read all the paper yet, but the thing that leaped out from the abstract was that the ratio of pickup trucks to sedan cars predicts voting outcomes in presidential elections at a better than 80% rate.
124 is sweet. Although I'm not sure why heterosexuality resolving itself into homosexuality strikes me as sweet? People found greater happiness? The pastor was probably happy that his wife could be happy because he's a feminist?
the ratio of pickup trucks to sedan cars predicts voting outcomes in presidential elections at a better than 80% rate.
This would also work with ratio of country music to other music, or ratio of camo-patterned clothing to other clothing.
Or ratio of white skin to not white skin.
Pickup truck ratio is a strong predictor of Republican voting unless you're in a middle-class Mexican American meighborhood.
I first visually resolved the emoji in 124 as some cherries, and wondered if it was a Goblin Market reference.
The pastor was bitter, but eventually participated, grudgingly, in minimal child support and raising responsibilities. I offered the story as testament to romance as thread i thought could use it.
About 10 years ago, grandfather had died and aunts had moved to new house, we went for Thanksgiving. Grandmother (astonishingly repressed, cold cold ice cold Methodist lady, now very dependent on aunt & aunt-in-law) tagged along on tour of new house. Aunts included "our bedroom" in tour, only one bed in evidence, grandmother turned nary a snow white coiffed hair. So, Methodists - singing chops & massive capacity for denial. How much self-interested vs. unable to accommodate cognitive dissonance? Impossible to say. So many "eccentric" persistently single or ambiguously same-sex-long-term-not-necessarily-acknowledged partnerships in that side of family, included those informally adopted in (& by the ice queen!).
Pickup truck ratio is a strong predictor of Republican voting unless you're in a middle-class Mexican American meighborhood.
It still works if you take elevation of the pickup into account. Raised pickups trucks are Republican, low-rider pickups are not.
I have neither romance nor a pickup truck to report but my ankle surgery was a success and now I rest and elevate like my life depends on it. Two weeks with crutches and no driving and then I'll be released into a boot or something and start physical therapy.
my ankle surgery was a success
Congratulations, and I am still somewhat stunned at how much time and now surgery it has taken to get your ankle better.
Yeah, turning your ankle is usually not this dramatic but I must have done it just right to really mess things up. And now I'm having a hard time being thrilled about TWO WEEKS ON CRUTCHES WITH NO DRIVING AND NO BATHS. But after that I can work really hard and maybe be largely functional after the following six weeks or so. I don't think I can stand to live with my parents for two weeks, so I'll have to figure something out but of course not yet.
But the internal brace I got was described as being like a corset for my ligaments. It tightens and stabilizes then for good PLUS now I can have a kinky ankle and a vanilla ankle.
On the OP- I like to think of the big picture, in which the world is a terrarium, and the human species ALMOST figured out how to live sustainably in it, but not quite. Now there are way too many of them, and it's beyond the capacity of the terrarium, and extinction is inevitable. Oh well! Hopefully some other species, somewhere in the universe, is doing better.
139: We're just a dry run for the corvids. They are taking note of our mistakes right now.
Very good ankle news, thorn!
Also endorse ume, up there, re process for la markle taking up uk residence. One doesn't begrudge them personal happiness, but in the current circs all the smoothing of bureaucratic hassle & displays of opulence a bit much.
I just learned the only important thing about Markle. She was on Fringe. She was the FBI agent who appeared in the first two episodes of season 2, and then disappeared forever without explanation.
Yeah, I think Harry should move to LA. Why should she be the one to have to sacrifice her career?
Glad your ankle is finally on the mend!
Hurray, Thorn! Rest and elevate! Words to live by.
Of course, on the ground, the sex lives of the Anglican clergy can be pretty complicated.
Of course! Although actually, I have to admit that I had no idea. 110 is hilarious.
And I second 109.
124 would presumably be just as heartwarming if pastor's wife (and kids) had moved out? I'm sure she wouldn't have been bitter. Not for long anyway.
It's the only book that comes up when you search for "Gustavus Adolphus" that isn't either self-published or over 120 years old.
Kirby, Northern Europe in the Early Modern Period, may have what you're looking for if what you're looking for involves Sweden as a once major power.
146: I bet they even expect her to give up going to cons to meet fans. The British royal family is the worst.
Though hey should give in to Halford's secret desire to be ruled and just name Markle the Duchess of Los Angeles.
Once life was about orgasms and getting high; now it's just rest and elevation
I love the detail in 110 that the churchwarden was also a witch. That pukka Old (Very Old) European sense of Christianity spread thinly over the toast of paganism.
On the princess subthread, I think it's worth going into the different levels of monarchism in Britain.
There are people who really do care and equate it with patriotism. They exist. They aren't common, but they exist.
There are people who are consumers of monarchy. They enjoy it as celebrity entertainment, sometimes voraciously. There's some overlap with the first group, but less than you might think. They really, really love royal weddings. They are a minority, but a big one and a spendy one.
There are people who hate the monarchy and want a republic, and they spend far too much time telling anyone who will listen how much they DON'T CARE ABOUT THEM until it becomes painfully obvious that they actually care quite a lot and would be furious if someone took them away and they'd have to learn to hate something else. They are rare, but they exist, and they are hard to miss because they are noisy.
And there's the great majority who don't care very much. This group overlaps with the consumers - some of them enjoy the show - and with the republicans - some of them are willing to entertain their arguments, but they don't see it as a priority.
In a poll taken yesterday, 52% reported being indifferent to the news.
I liked the Guardian editorial's lede: "Prince Harry and Meghan Merkle are getting married. That's nice." Being the Guardian, though, they didn't own it and stop there but kept writing a lot of other boring stuff.
(The Evening Standard actually headlined its editorial that she was "the perfect choice for Harry, monarchy, and country".)
143.2: also endorse Ume. Even though she presumably doesn't have to go through the process, it would be rather splendid if she said "No, I want to". Noblesse oblige. And then issued regular updates on how she was getting on.
That poll: https://twitter.com/SamCoatesTimes/status/935565993371414530
52% indifferent, 39% delighted, 4% disappointed. I suspect the 4% are probably the racists you're looking for.
157 is an excellent summary, but omits a small number of people like me who would much prefer a parliamentary republic, but believe that realistically any successful republican movement would end with a presidential model because politicians are greedy bastards. And who look at a few existing presidential republics and think, "OK, if a clown show monarchy is the price we pay for not living in one of those, so be it."
How long ago was it that Prince Harry got into trouble for going to a fancy dress party as an SS Gauleiter or something like that?
Basically this is the "a United Republic would be fine if we had, say, Ceremonial President David Attenborough shaking hands with visiting heads of state and unveiling statues and things, but people being people we'd end up with Ceremonial President Nigel Farage" argument.
I am completely convinced by the 163/165 argument, especially since Britain has gone like 350 years without any civil wars or violent changes of government, but discussions about proper titles or tradition make me yearn for the cleansing fire of revolution. A few million dead is a small price to pay for no one to be able to call themselves the Duke of East Fuck You.
It must be nice to be royalty and get the version of the Pokemon Go app that doesn't crash every ten minutes.
165 is basically the political version of antidisestablishmentarianism, no?
SEE, WALT, THAT'S AN EASY THING TO SAY.
OT: Is anybody else wondering if Matt Lauer is especially horrible or if NBC is especially diligent about such things?
110. You should send that the Philippa Gregory, who has been mining that vein for years and could probably use some new ideas.
142. After we are gone it would be nice if the beavers or bears took over. Crows are just too weird.
I recently watched the Anastasia animated movie with my kids, and I kept interrupting it to lecture them on how the Romanovs were worthless pieces of shit.
I once asked someone who went to school in the Soviet Union what they learned about the "kulaks". She clearly hadn't thought about it for years, mumbled some words, and said "They were bad." She couldn't really explain why. (To be fair, Americans would probably respond similarly to the question "Who were carpetbaggers?")
I know someone else who went to the school in the Ukraine just before the break-up of the Soviet Union, and when she learned about the Russian Civil War, she couldn't figure out if the Reds or the Whites were supposed to be the good guys. She said her teacher insisted that the Reds were the good guys, but couldn't really explain why.
I recently watched the Anastasia animated movie with my kids,
There's an animated film about the Russian Revolution now???
Naw, naw, naw, Brad. You cannot say that you like Pocahontas. The genocide of my people is turned into a cartoon musical? With a singing raccoon? I mean, think about it, dog. The real story of Pocahontas is about a bunch of white boys who come to my land, bribe the corrupt Indian chief, kill off all the warriors and fuck the Indian princess silly. Would the white man make a story about Auschwitz, where the inmate falls in love with the guard and they go off singing love songs with dancing swastikas?
174: Quite possibly my favorite thing ever.
171: I don't know jack myself, but I've been told he's been talked about as a problem for a long time.
And it's the only way it makes sense: if this really was the first complaint ever about him and NBC fired him two days later, they'd be extremely strange.
I think the temptation to watch morning TV is the worst part of retirement, so this is in my zone of ignorance.
I agree with 163/165 and this is why we need constitutional reform in the US and to install Harry and Meghan as our new King and Queen.
Canada seems to really have this down right though. Distant monarchy and well-chosen governors general.
The one thing i envy about QEII's life is the combo of handmade shoes *&* someone to break them in for you. Oh the divine heaven! When i expressed this to the better half one day he was horrified - "wearing shoes after someone else has, how disgusting!" I counted just the right beat and replied "how middle class of you, darling" for which i was rewarded with an entirely deserved "touché!".
This inconsequential exchange powered by what in my experience is the overwhelming attitude of most British people towards the monarchy - mild persistent embarrassment at their existence coupled with hair trigger defensive unwillingness to see them seriously run down.
What about people who can't afford their own bowling shoes?
Though hey should give in to Halford's secret desire to be ruled and just name Markle the Duchess of Los Angeles.
Generally, noble titles for non-British (or in some special cases Dominion) places implies that they're given for conquering or at least winning a battle in those places, like Wellington's subsidiary title, the Marquess of Douro. I'll have to check IMDB to see if she was in Battle: Los Angeles.
163/165: Maybe you could politely ask the Irish if you could borrow Michael D. when they're done with him?
Yglesias convinced me in a Vox article that parliamentary republics are better since the monarch knows they're inherently illegitimate and will do everything possible to avoid upending their sweet gig. Conversely, an elected president is probably a politician, will have a sense that they're legitimate and will want to meddle. So the monarch is the focal point of a weird reverse Omelas.
She's conquered Halford's heart. What more is needed?
181. I would give my eye teeth for Michael D in whatever outward facing position he chose. It's a thing I don't understand about Irish politics, that the Taoisigh (Which Wikipedia tells me is the plural) are almost all a waste of space at best, the Presidents, at least in the last 30 years or so, tend to be the sort of people one would happily entrust with the future of the human species.
174: Made in 1997. My stepdaughter likes it, mainly for the albino bat, Bartok.
It has an interesting take on the Russian Revolution --
In 1916, Tsar Nicholas II hosts a ball at the Catherine Palace to celebrate the 300th anniversary of the Romanov dynasty. His mother, the Dowager Empress Marie Feodorovna, is visiting from Paris, and gives a music box and a necklace inscribed with the words "Together in Paris" as parting gifts to her youngest granddaughter, the 8-year-old Grand Duchess Anastasia. The ball is suddenly interrupted by the sorcerer Grigori Rasputin, the former royal advisor of the Romanovs until he was banished by Nicholas for treason. Seeking revenge, Rasputin sold his soul in exchange for an unholy reliquary, which he uses to place a curse on the Romanov family, sparking the Russian Revolution.
That's what we were taught in school.
Generally, noble titles for non-British (or in some special cases Dominion) places implies that they're given for conquering or at least winning a battle in those places
Not always. Bernard Fergusson was created Baron Fergusson of Ballantrae and the Bay of Islands, Ballantrae (in Scotland) because it was near where he grew up, and the Bay of Islands in New Zealand because he was Governor-General there and liked the sound of it.
He had previously expressed, in verse, a desire for a different title, which he liked the sound of even more:
Dub me now the Faqir of Ipi Offer to make me Sheikh of Fao I would remain inert and sleepy Just the same as you see me now. Lion of Judah? Shah of Persia? Paramount Bey of Timbuctoo? If I'm to be roused from my inertia I must be the Wali of Pusht-i-Kuh.Come the Peace, if a grateful nation
Desires to honour my thoughts of gold
Parliament's thanks or a decoration,
Even a pension, leaves me cold.
Let me be seen in public places
And Society papers in '52,
"Snapped with a friend at Goodwood Races,
The popular Wali of Pusht-i-Kuh".
There are presumably more extant copies of the Disney version than of any actual history. Peep-step is just ahead of the times.
187: Yes. Self-deprecating British civil service poetry is the fucking worst.
188: Not a Disney movie! Made by renegade ex-Disney animator Don Bluth. But your point still stands.
And let's not even talk about the #problematicity.
189: that's Bernard Fergusson who wrote that. He wasn't in the civil service, he was a Chindit.
186: Yeah, I fudged it a bit with "Dominion" in there; see also Baron Rutherford of Nelson. And let's not even get into the fact that Nova Scotia has a separate peerage.
Whatever, fuck them too. I also like the sound of the Bay of Islands.
I clicked on 174 and the background was an ad for Star Trek Discovery so I thought that's where the quote was from and man has the franchise gotten dark.