Wednesday, February 18, 2004

 
Mel, Rose, Place


Now that it’s no longer fresh ‘n topical will hack out some reactions to NRO that took a half minute or so to formulate. That the Derberence to the possibility that a horse might learn to sing triggered the memory of Nikita Kruschev’s remark of “when shrimps learn to whistle” seems worth a mention only because it yielded a Googlewhack.
The steady er, dumbeat on the RedStarTribune about alleged reductions in federal, state, and local spending on education is such a man from Mars(where Kucinich is said to still be running strong)would expect a typical youngster to resemble the “feral child” of *Road Warrior.*
That nearly mute lil’ shrimp wielded a mean boomerang that killed the pretty-as-Barbie boyfriend of “Humungus” and lopped off the fingers of one of his toadies, establishing a sense of place ‘n plasma in a post-apocalyptic Australia. The blood, guts and gorey of some of Gibson’s movies are, for some of us, the only stuff that makes them watchable. Da bad guys of “The Patriot” and “Braveheart” are about as believable as those of the outre outback.
More than a few conservatives have some misgivings or at least a sense of lost opportunities concerning ancient and modern break-ups of Great Britain as well as the breaking away of the North American colonies, even if they are overall glad about the outcome of the U.S. War of Independence or the withdrawal from most of the much abused and incorrigible Erie. And conservatives certainly don’t support the continued “balkanization” of America. There seems to be less widespread opinion that if balkanization is inevitable that it is best that it be taken to logical conclusions with formal partitioning and as thorough and bloodless as possible exchange of populations caught on the wrong side of borders of countries that frickin’ celebrate their ethnic identity with names such as “Serbia,” “Croatia,” “Israel”, “Palestine,” “Ireland,” and one, suspects without knowing much about them, the various and Hun-dry “stans” of the former Soviet Union.
Peter Brimelow, who, with the exception of recent mention of the death of his wife by David Frum, gets mentioned about as often as, well, me, on NRO noted that the assimilation of immigrants into the American culture has long been long and painful, and that even the unification of England took centuries and is hardly complete. And one suspects that the scenes in the somewhat corny “The Black Rose” where the “Norman” king tries to instill a sense of patriotism in a rebellious “Saxon” probably don’t resonate much in the immigrant-celebrating “Cool Britania.”
Off the point: While one assumes no one in England regards themselves as “Norman,” those “energetic” descendants of Scandinavian “wolves of the sea”(a term used by the aforementioned Saxon)greatly influenced the culture and language of England. Andrew Sullivan and his cuz, John Derbyshire, as noted earlier linked to the wedding of a woman in Nice, France to her fiancee. I know nothing about him other than what was mentioned in the press release: he was a policeman named “Eric.” Which may have had nothing to do with the lingering influence of the Normans in Normandy where “Parts of the Cotentin peninsula are liberally sprinkled with villages whose names end in such characteristic Danish suffixes as -bec, -boel, -bu, gard, and -torp, whilst thinly disguised Danish personal names - Anquetil, Turquetil, Thouroude, Erec and the like -are common.”(1.) John Geipel also notes that “Some of the most venerable Scottish families still carry the Scandinavian names that were brought from Ireland by the Gall-Gaels, although Thorketil is hardly recognizable in MacCorquodale, Sveinn in MacQueen or Olaf in MacAulay.” Not too should be made of this given that the “Lakeland Norse” became “strongly Gaelicised in custom, dress, and speech.” Lutefisk and haggis may have little more in common than I don’t plan to eat either one of them. And Sweden produced Bjorn Borg,( a relentless player who rarely made unforced errors as he strove for back court perfection and who, for all I know, inspired the writers of Star Trek) whereas as noted by Professor Python, the Scots are the world’s worst tennis players.
1.”The Europeans” by John Geipel