I am sad to report this will be the last post for the indefinite future. The blog has never had a large number of readers, but their numbers were high enough to provide motivation to keep posting. Unfortunately, lately the numbers have dropped to near or actual zero, so it seems pointless to continue writing posts when my time would be more profitably spent practicing the organ.
I will not delete any posts and the blog will remain on WordPress should I ever choose to resume posting. Grateful thanks to those readers who stuck with the Taos Tatler. May God bless you all.
A refreshing change from the mealy-mouthed utterances of our current president. From the New York Post:
President-elect Donald Trump warned Monday there will be “all hell to pay [in the Middle East if Hamas does not release every one of the remaining hostages in Gaza before his inauguration next month.
Also, from another source, the New York Sun: “The president-elect threatens to ‘hit’ those responsible ‘harder than anybody has been hit in the long and storied History of the United States of America.’
A prediction: should Hamas inexplicably show some sense and release the hostages before Trump is sworn in, President Biden will claim credit for it, and his trained monkeys in the media will back him up. No mention will be made of Trump’s very believable threat.
Presidential Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre on the President’s pardon of his convicted felon son.
No. Read the president’s statement. Seriously, read the president’s statement. He said he believes in the Department of Justice. He does. He says it in his statement. He also believes that war politics infected the process and it led to a miscarriage of justice.
From Louis Carol’s Through the Looking Glass and what Alice Found there:
Alice laughed: “There’s no use trying,” she said; “one can’t believe impossible things.” “I daresay you haven’t had much practice,” said the Queen. “When I was younger, I always did it for half an hour a day. Why, sometimes I’ve believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.”
Much similarity to Ms Jean-Pierre, though the Queen is far more likeable, albeit fictional, than the Presidential Secretary.
If they manage this, Bannon tells me more than once, the Maga Republicans can rule for half a century. “If we deliver now, it’s upon us. They’ve given President Trump that. If he delivers on the economics of this … we’re going to govern for 50 years. It’s all there for us to lose.”
I was about to begin my doctrinal studies at King’s College, and it was dark when I arrived at our Capuchin friary in the borough of Peckham in southeast London. When I was shown my room, I immediately looked out the window to see my view over the next three years. Across the way, was a pub. Blazing above its door, in big red neon letters, was the phrase: “Take Courage.”
Bickerstaff, now far from the mayhem, still cannot help noting with sorrow the City’s collapse. Below, see a story from the New York Post, which is one of many in today’s police blotter, but representative of them all.
The Upper West Side has devolved into a Wild West atmosphere where anything goes, terrified crime victims and neighbors begging for more cops told The Post.
Criminals are more emboldened than ever in the ritzy nabe — with robberies soaring over 30% compared to last year — and carjackers so brazen they flashed their guns without concern on consecutive Sundays in broad daylight.
‘I have never felt so scared in this neighborhood the way I feel now, one of the carjacking victims told The Post this week.
And so it goes. Keep in mind this is just Manhattan. There are a plethora of stories like this in the outer boroughs too, but they usually receive less attention since they occur outside the City.
Bickerstaff’s family, with a few exceptions over the years, has had a presence in the City for well over three centuries, back to when it was called New Amsterdam. The first of us to arrive was a Huguenot seeking religious freedom. Bickerstaff was the last of his line to be that presence, but witnessing the swift decline, began entertaining the notion of leaving. The final provocation was the City’s leftwing voters (which is most of them) re-electing a bloody fool socialist, who in his first term substantially cut the police budget, favored slap-on-the-wrist penalties for hardened criminals and a host of other asinine acts. Enough was enough. It was time to go.
Bickerstaff has no regrets leaving New York, but still feels a twinge of sadness when reading, albeit from afar, the City he still loves descending into bedlam.
BREAKING: Republican Senators, Lisa Murkowski and Susan Collins vote “Yes” and confirm another Far-Left Judical Nominee from the Biden Administration.
Bickerstaff has long wondered why certain elected officials like the above insist on calling themselves Republicans when they consistently vote Democratic. The only possible explanation which comes to mind is, like bratty children they enjoy being contrarians, and causing upset among their peers.
It was tolerable, barely, in the past. Now however, there is an existential choice what direction we ought be headed, either toward the restoration and maintenance of the freedoms we have enjoyed in this nation, as stated in our Constitution, or the continued journey toward the hell hole of socialism.
Our newly elected president will need every genuine Republican vote (and those of the few Democrats still possessing an iota of sense) that can be mustered in the House and Senate. With the next up elections facing these pretend Republicans, they must be vigorously primaried and ousted, for the future of our country.
Your Tatler took the day off from blogging today, but as recompense (over?), is posting a piece from the New Liturgical Movement on a subject that some might say is more than a little esoteric (therefore, right up Bickerstaff’s alley). Titled The Power of Prepositions. It is written by the distinguished scholar Michael P. Foley,
Esoteric though it may seem, the piece is a fascinating exegesis on the difficulties of translating from the Latin into the vernacular those pesky little prepositions.
An excerpt:
De and Ex
The verse concerning the Incarnation has two prepositions denoting the relationship between Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit, and the Blessed Virgin Mary. The original Greek is:
THE TAOS TATLER. 