Uncommon Commentary #459: A Sheep in Wolf’s Clothing

It’s been said by some persons that we need “a new strategy” to beat the ISIS, but the word “new” doesn’t belong in that phrase.  The purpose of the “pin-prick” campaign by President Yo’Mama[see the list of domanisms]'s administration’s is not to inflict defeat upon the Islamists but merely to mollify the US public (and it’s failing even in that regard).

Miscellaneous Musing #71: This May Be Unpleasant, but She Was No Peasant

A television series called Ripley’s Believe it or Not!, hosted by Jack and Holly Palance, aired in the 1980’s.  According to one episode, the French government’s own records prove that Joan of Arc was still alive years after her supposed burning at the stake, and that she was of royal rather than humble lineage.  I don’t know whether this information is correct, but, if so, I’m not surprised, for I had always found the tale of this putative saint (whose canonization did not take place until 1925, half a millennium after her lifetime) to be rather an odd one.  Why should God care who won a war between the forces of the King of England and those of the King of France?
In feudal Scotland, it was the prerogative of the clan chief, even if the chief were female, to lead the clansmen in battle.  Rarely, as you might expect, did a woman actually do so; what she would typically do is lead them to battle, delegate the command thereof to a male subordinate, and then station herself outside the battlefield but close enough to it so that she would still be visible to her troops.  Nevertheless, since high birth was considered to be more important than one’s sex, she could command them personally if she so desired.  This principle may be the key to understanding how the legend of Joan of Arc developed; French propagandists presumably took what was already a phenomenal occurrence, military exploits by a member of the gentler sex, and embellished it with fictions about her being an ignorant peasant girl given a divine mission to liberate her country, in order to make it seem that God was on their side.  God is on the side of the victims of armed conflict, not necessarily that of the victors.

Uncommon Commentary #458: A Foundation of Lies

The author of Clinton Cash will deserve a medal if his exposé causes Hillary [sic] to lose next year’s presidential election.  He has found a pattern of donations to the quasi-charity called the Clinton Foundation, and/or payment of absurdly high speaking-fees to Bill Clinton, by foreign entities that had dealings with the US Department of State during Mrs. Clinton’s reign over Foggy Bottom.  These correlations don’t prove corruption, but there’s clearly enough evidence to warrant a government investigation; anyway—this is my snide remark for today—, the mere fact that Bill received such exorbitant remunerations for his addresses suggests that those remunerations equated to bribes of his wife as Secretary of State.  How much money would you pay for a speech by a blathering windbag like Bill Clinton?

Miscellaneous Musing #70: Black, White, and Gray

Would the Baltimore riots have taken place had the thugs known that half the police officers who have been charged with crimes relating to the death of Freddie Gray are Black?

Uncommon Commentary #457: The Winner of This Contest Deserves No Garland

It is not necessarily perverse or pusillanimous to criticize the organizer of the “Draw Muhammad” contest, and the participants therein, as having provoked the terrorist attack in Garland, Texas. (In Islam, it is forbidden to portray the founder of the religion.) We ought not to be cowed by Muslim threats of violence, but neither ought we to antagonize Muslims without good cause. (I shall here expound this last statement.  Several years ago in Australia, Islamic immigrants were demanding to be governed under sharia instead of the civil law that applies to nearly everyone else in that country.  Prime Minister Rudd rightfully refused the demand, telling them—in a reply that I consider to be extraordinary on the part of a Labourite—that it is the responsibility of recent immigrants to assimilate to established Australian culture.  In this case, a clash between Muslim and Western ideologies occurred, but it did so because it was unavoidable under the circumstances, as it often is in our pluralistic world.  In contrast, there’s nothing unavoidable about a “draw Muhammad” contest; the only reason why one stages such a competition is to intentionally infuriate Muslims.)

Uncommon Commentary #456: UC #455 Follow-Up

In my last-previous u.c., there appears the word “Nigger”.  I do not use the word as a racial insult, but merely refer to its use as such; some readers may, however, object to the mere fact that the word is spelled out. (If so, I wouldn’t know; as you may already have noticed, I don’t allow comments on my postings, because I don’t want the crackpots and libelers out there to have even more opportunity to make their opinions known than they already do.  Anyway, this is the Doman Domain; if you’re not a crackpot or a libeler, get your own weblog!) The current practice of avoiding “Nigger” either verbally, by calling it “the n-word”, or in print, by writing “n_____”, as if it were an obscenity that ought never to even be mentioned, impresses me as being counterproductive as well as priggish.  After all, how do we dissuade children from repeating the “n-word”, which they will likely hear used as a slur at some time, if polite society has never told them what the “n-word” is?

Uncommon Commentary #455: Carl Stokes the Furnace of Race Hatred

“Thug” seems now to be regarded, at least by many leftists, as a racially sensitive term; on CNN (to give the most absurd example of this usage), Baltimore Councilman Carl Stokes slandered critics of those persons who devastated much of his city, by saying “No, we don't have to call them [the rioters, arsonists, and looters] ‘thugs’.  Just call them ‘Niggers’.”  If “thug” comes to be viewed by the general population as an equivalent for the noun “Black”, the demagoguery of Stokes and others will backfire.
I’ll conclude by noting that “thug” derives from a word for practitioners of “thugee”, viz., ritual murder formerly committed for the appeasement of the Hindu goddess Kali; if anyone ought to regard this word as an ethnic slur, therefore, it’s not Blacks but Indians!