Noted with Pleasure: The Mindless Iconoclasm of Our Age, by Fr. George Rutler.

Statuae delendae sunt.

Published back in 2017 in Crises, the author essays the then nascent trend, now in full swing, of the liberal [sic]-left  expunging those parts the American legacy they find “problematic,” which seems to be most of it. While the scope of whitewashing (to pardon the expression) is vast, pulling down, knocking down or blowing up statues of personages deemed offensive is a particular favorite, going back to the dawn of civilization and otherwise. Fr. Rutler takes a stroll down Damnatio Memoriae Lane, as it were, surveying personages once enjoying public esteem, losing it and the consequential destruction by iconoclasts of their representations.

Some excerpts:

Protestant iconoclasts did much damage to art in the sixteenth century, and Puritans did worse in the Cromwellian period like a battalion of post-Vatican II liturgists, smashing some of the world’s most glorious windows, and leaving the cathedrals pockmarked with their contempt. The Eleanor Cross erected in London in the thirteenth century and destroyed in 1647, had its second restoration in 2010—but at considerable cost. Not content with beheading their own king, French revolutionaries decapitated the twenty-eight stone kings of Judah on the west façade of the cathedral of Notre Dame.

***

There are some historical figures who made big mistakes because they also took big risks. [Theodore] Roosevelt grinned as he said in Paris at the Sorbonne in 1910: “It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds…” But in recent times, dilettantes who have never ventured into the arena actually want to pull down the statue of Teddy in front of the Museum of National History. [This has now been done–ed.]

***

The vandalism by those who would plant themselves on moral pedestals is highly selective. There have been no protests about a statue of Lenin on La Brea Avenue in Los Angeles, or one on Norfolk Street in Seattle, or one on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, notwithstanding the more than 60 million humans whose deaths he engineered, and the pall of misery with which he blanketed much of the world. As for race, there are untouched statues of Margaret Sanger whose eugenic symbiosis with the National Socialists set in motion the annihilation of millions of African-American babies.

Kamala’s Otherization.

From Fox News:

Twitter blows up over Kamala Harris introducing herself with ‘she/her’ pronouns, description of her clothing.

Admirable as our Vice President’s strivings for inclusivity, diversity and equity, ensuring safe spaces for all in the aftermath of the overturning of Roe v. Wade and its effects on the disabled are, she nonetheless in a speech given at a conference recently exercised serious misjudgment by failing to recognize the implicit bias against the differently-visioned when describing the gender-based item of clothing she habited in terms of its specific color identity, blue.

By doing so Vice President Harris committed micro-aggressions and violence against those who do not engage in color-specificationizing regarding their visionally characteristic behavioral paradigms, a class who suffer under the yoke of their neo-colonialistic, opprobriumatically and obviously neo-slavistic oppressors: the visionally-privileged, who further their suppression and victimization of this class by the employment of the cruel hate word in their description of them, colorblind.

Such insensitivity, for shame! Not presidential material.

“Just Let Them Be Kids!”

They’ll stop only when stopped.

The Wokes’s campaign to ruin childhood scored a short-lived conquest last week when Crayola, the crayon maker whose customer base is mainly kids aged two to ten, decided it would be just ducky to use the creature seen above in a PR campaign on social media. According to TheBlaze, Crayola

. . . shared images of a transgender model on its social media accounts. Crayola promoted Julian Gavino AKA The Disabled Hippie, on the crayon company’s Facebook and Instagram pages to celebrate ‘Disability Pride Month.’

‘Julian Gavino, (he/him) a fashion model, writer, and activist who identifies as a transgender man,’ Crayola wrote. ‘He was born with a progressive neurological condition. Julian is passionate about advocating for his respective communities. As someone who grew up not seeing anyone who looked like him in the media, Julian is determined to normalize disabled and trans bodies in the fashion world.’

[snip]

Crayola posted three images of Gavino, including one where he is wearing a leopard-print jumpsuit and another with a lime green jacket with a chain bra as well as latex pants and high-heeled boots.

With all the good will in the world for the physically disabled, your correspondent Bickerstaff wonders how someone high up in the Hallmark Company, the sole owner of the Crayola, which in addition to greeting cards is a major producer of movies stressing family values, okayed this project. Did anyone involved in it stop and ask, even fleetingly, is it appropriate to pitch to those in their single digits, “(he/him) a fashion model, writer, and activist who identifies as a transgender man” who’s goal is to “normalize trans bodies?”

The answer is likely yes. Probably even more than a few at the company questioned the wisdom of the project, but kept it to themselves lest they face the wrath and retribution from pagan clerics in Hallmark’s Diversity and Inclusion Department (or whatever it’s called), departments that are now de rigueur at all US corporations.

Fear is the engine of the Wokes. Even though they consist only a tiny segment of our society, because they have most media, social and traditional, in the palms of their hands they usually get their way. They have the power to wreak holy hell on dissenters and cow them into submission.

Happily, though, this particular scheme of the Wokes seems to have fizzled, for they failed, as they usually do, to consider the opinions of a group that vastly outnumbers them, the public at large. Reactions to Crayola’s campaign were swift and furious, no doubt because it was clearly aimed at children. A flood of negative comments rained in, many calling for boycotts of Crayola, and the commenters did not mince words. Via TheBlaze, a sampling follows.

Stop! Children need to be protected from this! It is sad when I want to go against the school supply suggestions and NOT buy Crayola. Get off the woke bus. Go woke, go broke.”

Kids don’t need to be taught about sexual preference or changing genders while trying to color.

I guess I’ll be switching the brand of crayons I buy for my children.

Stick to crayons.

And this one must have stung.

Our kids don’t need to be pushed through media and this is messed up. I support LGBTQ but I don’t support pushing our children in these ways. JUST LET THEM BE KIDS!

It now appears all of Crayola’s ill-conceived social media postings have been pulled. No doubt its creators are licking their wounds, but be assured, they’ll be back. For it is the goal of the left and has been for years to force the young into adolescence quicky as possible and to keep them there long as possible, which explains the behavior of so many in the colleges, media and, increasingly, corporations.

We should remember though, the good and decent still outnumber by far those emotionally stunted and superannuated teens. In time, the former will become sufficiently fed up with the destructive behavior of the latter and put a stop to it. It won’t be pretty, possibly violent, but will happen.

Now She Tell Us: Dr. Birx Says Covid-19 Vaccines Were Never ‘Going to Protect Against Infections.’

So just what then was their purpose?

From the Epoch Times:

‘I knew these vaccines were not going to protect against infection. And I think we overplayed the vaccines. And it made people then worry that it’s not going to protect against severe disease and hospitalization,’ Birx, the White House COVID-19 response coordinator under former President Donald Trump, said during an appearance on Fox News.

Not that long ago however, Dr. Birx said of the  Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccines,

‘This is one of the most highly-effective vaccines we have in our infectious disease arsenal. And so that’s why I’m very enthusiastic about the vaccine.’

Yet she now says,

‘So, that’s why I’m saying, even if you’re vaccinated and boosted if you’re unvaccinated, right now, the key is testing and Paxlovid.’

Indeed, and wouldn’t that have  been the appropriate counsel two-and-a-half years ago, obviating lockdowns and closings of so many of our country’s businesses, particularly small ones, many never to re-open? Or the closings of our schools, thus our children losing two formative years, never to be made up, of their educations? Or the utterly ridiculous mask mandates, despite evidence appearing early on they offered little or no protection from COVID, just as we are now learning about the vaccines?

And for what? Basically a flu epidemic, potent, but hardly the worst the world has ever seen, e.g., the Spanish flu or, more recently, the Asian flu of the late ’60s (your correspondent when in his early teens caught that one–as did at least a third of his classmates. He has never had flu since, by the way. Anyone care to hazard a guess why that might be?).

Your humble servant Bickerstaff is disinclined to believe in conspiracy theories, but it does seem striking in an election year the severest lockdowns were those in states controlled by Democrats. This then provided the pretext for ignoring or eliminating safeguards to prevent election fraud, e.g., vote harvesting, mail-in ballots, multiple voting etc.

Also striking is concomitantly, an ageing political hack, a zero to begin with, now well into the negative numbers and obviously going gentle into that good night, could nevertheless reap 81 million votes, thus claiming the presidency.

Just coincidences? Who knows, but it is unnerving there isn’t a single Democrat in our present administration even remotely competent yet there are any number of them hugely proficient at making it easier to cheat at elections. It’s as if they don’t know how or want to do anything else.

There Goes the Neighborhood.

It’s not just rich New Yorkers who find Greenwich so attractive.

Comes word your Tatler’s hometown is seeing a sharp increase in crime these days and it’s not just the bored and spoiled scions of billionaire hedge funders smashing mailboxes or drunk driving daddy’s Lamborghini at 100 mph on North Street before barreling into their country club’s pool.

No, this is more serious. Miscreants from NYC have discovered there’s gold (figuratively–usually) to be had in the chic and pricey stores on Greenwich Avenue. With easy-on, easy-off access to Interstate 95, the pickins are choice and usually easy, In this latest heist though, a good Samaritan came to the rescue of a woman being robbed outside the Apple store, a favorite of the criminal class who visit Greenwich’s shopping district, and tried hard to nab the perp.

Nonetheless, the robber got away, but there is sufficient evidence to assume he’ll be busted eventually and no doubt released shortly afterward on his own recognizance (Connecticut’s courts are as lenient as New York’s these days). The local paper has declined to reveal the suspect’s hue so identifying him should be much less burdensome.

With events like these occuring more and more often in Greenwich, a conundrum is facing many of Greenwich’s newer residents who virtually all, despite their great wealth, range politically from liberal to radical left. Despite their being exemplars of capitalism, Wall Street bankers and the like, they are the same people who, when living in the City enthusiastically supported the reforms [sic] of its last mayor, Bill de Blasio, possibly the dumbest politician in America. This cretin defunded the police, eliminated bail, decriminalized most quality-of-life offenses and other idiocies. When the predicted results of these changes materialized with astonishing quickness, returning New York to the David Dinkins ’80s and ’90s,

the millionaire and billionaire leftists with children began to flee what they had wrought and Greenwich was their number-one destination. Sadly though, those radical chic-ers  brought their political baggage with them and Greenwich, which used to be one the most solidly Republican strongholds in the nation, now has a majority of Democrat voters, who already are pushing the same tired progressive agenda so dear to them.

Your Tatler (who also fled New York in the de Blasio years, but chose to go west instead), wonders how the arriviste monied commies of Greenwich will deal with its rising crime rate. Will they at last get wise and perhaps reconsider the wisdom of soiling their own nest? Or will they pretend as before none of it is happening until this idyllic suburb has declined enough to compel them seeking out fresh territories on which to spread their ruination. Your Tatler’s money is on the latter.

Is Life in Prison without Parole Possible for a Misdemeanor?

This would certainly be the test case.

From the Daily Caller:

Ocasio-Cortez, Members Of ‘The Squad’ Appear To Have Been Arrested In Front Of Supreme Court.

Democratic New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and other members of the far-left group “the squad” were escorted away from the Supreme Court Tuesday afternoon during a protest.

In several videos posted on Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez can be seen with her hands behind her back being held by police officers who appear to be escorting her away from a protest in front of the Supreme Court. 

Of course, your Tatler being of charity, ten years hard labor would certainly be satisfactory as well.

Another Gem in Free Verse by America’s Favorite Poetess, Kamala Harris.

Perhaps her deepest and most moving yet.

Despite the odds and the obstacles,

We push to move forward,

That we are guided by what we see,

That can be, unburdened by what has been.

***

Big news! Your Tatler’s been outdone. The good souls at the The Federalist now offer downloadable inspirational posters containing pearls of prose by the Bardess of Embassy Row.