Airbrushing the Truth.

A pretty girl is like a melody.

They are indeed “laughing at us” (as no doubt their counterparts at CBS and ABC are) when making Lia Tomas, the shemale Ivy League swimmer, look more ladylike. It is not a laughing matter though, but another example of the transformation of this nation into a Stalinist woke republic, where laughter is banned, save for public shaming and executions.

While it might seem your Tatler is over reacting to a seeming peccadillo on the part of NBC, we must understand what is behind it. They did a digital makeover on the creature that is Lia Thomson in order to further a lie, that (s)he is a woman, despite having the obvious features of a man, e.g., powerful build, male genitalia, a lower speaking voice (a baritone, in your Tatler’s estimation) and, in this case, manly facial hair. NBC realized that and applied a digital depilatory to his face. Not yet satisfied, they also plucked his eyebrows, gave him daintier lips and generally made him into an adorable co-ed.

NBC’s mission is to persuade so-called “low-information voters,” i.e, those who get most of their news from television, a substantial number even today, to accept this creature as a woman. Studies show that this demographic is likelier to favorably judge political candidates by their looks. Lia Thomas is not a politician (yet), but a totem for the powerful forces in this country that want to destroy it by turning upside down all morals, logic and virtues that have been the hallmarks of Western Civilization.

Your Tatler was asked not long ago what would become of Lia Thomas after he’s moved on from college fame. He doesn’t have much to look forward to. Though an Ivy Leaguer and presumably possessing at least some brains, he doesn’t realize he is but a pawn of the radical left and once no longer useful to them, will be dumped. Just ask Cindy Sheehan.

I Wish They Wouldn’t Do These Things.

An ill-considered tribute to a great artist.

Ruth Slenczynska, 97, a piano great, has had a long and successful career. A child prodigy, she survived a rough childhood with a brutal paternal stage mother, who beat her with a wooden shovel handle when her playing didn’t measure up. Despite such awful treatment, she survived, seemingly unscathed. When she was only nine, and already performing in major venues, she traveled to Europe to study with three of the great pianists of the time, Alfred Corteau, Arthur Schnabel and Sergei Rachmaninoff, the latter taking her on as a pupil, his last. She would later perform around the world, in all major halls, establishing herself as a great artist.

She made a series of recordings in the 1950’s for American Decca, predominantly of Chopin, and they were well received. Your Tatler had some of those recordings once, and on them she displays a ferocious technique, as well great artistry.

With Slenczynska still alive, well and with it, a producer at English Decca (now under the same roof as its American counterpart) must have thought it a good idea to make a recording of Miss Slenczynska in her advanced years playing her favorites. It’s called My Life in Music (Decca 4852255) and it does a great disservice to the artist.

Continue reading “I Wish They Wouldn’t Do These Things.”

Stupid is as Stupid Does.

The President opened his mouth again.

From PJ Media:

Joe Biden embarrassed himself (yet again) on Thursday, proving once again that he should never try to riff during a public speech.“I just want you to know, I may be Irish, but I’m not stupid,” Biden quipped during the Annual Friends of Ireland Luncheon. “I married Domenic Giacoppo’s daughter.”

As it happens, the man who just insisted that he isn’t stupid confused his wife’s father and grandfather.

First Lady Jill Biden was born to Donald Carl Jacobs and Bonny Jean Jacobs…

Correction, Mr President: you were stupid and for a long, long time. Now you’re an imbecile and sadly headed downward.

Two-and-a-half years to go: Deus adiuva nos omnes.

Hard Szells.

Separated at birth?

The movie Marathon Man was brought to mind recently, specifically the horrific character of Dr. Szell, the sadistic dentist, ably played by Lawrence Olivier. Since the movie’s release in 1976, your Tatler has wondered if there were any connection between that character’s name and the only other Szell known to him, George Szell, the sadistic conductor of the Cleveland Orchestra.

A little research reveals there is indeed a connection. William Goldman, the screen writer of Marathon Man, was well aware of perhaps the nastiest conductor who ever lived and named his dentist, modeled after Dr. Josef Mengele, after him, saying later: “Szell…just saying it made me feel sadistic.” In a nice touch he gave his dentist the first name Christian, reflecting the fact the conductor Szell was Jewish. Time Magazine however (way back, when it was still read and readable) put it, concerning the conductor, in its typically dry way, “his outward manner suggests the average American idea of the typical Nazi.”

Whatever Became of the United Nations?

Has anybody looked around Turtle Bay recently?

Remember the United Nations? Or, if you are younger, have you heard of the United Nations? Believe it or not, once upon a time the UN was regarded as a big deal. By “regarded,” that is to say it was the great darling of the old-time liberal elite in this country, who actually believed the toothless organization could bring about world peace (seriously). Formed in the aftermath of World War 2, the UN originally comprised 51 countries whose purpose was the prevention of future wars, a preposterous idea even then, as included in that gathering of the world’s peace loving nations were the Soviet Union and the entire Eastern Bloc (each of the latter having its own vote, in addition to their superiors, the Soviets).

Nevertheless, for years the UN was the institution the United States and other western powers immediately turned to when there was trouble in the rest of the world, despite its only major “accomplishments” being the Korean and Persian Gulf Wars. Thus, for example, when Iranian revolutionaries invaded the American embassy in Tehran and took the entire staff hostage in 1979, the Carter administration chose not to take military action, rather to bring the matter before the UN. Your Tatler remembers hearing daily reports coming out of the UN about the arguments, resolutions, vetoes etc. (by the Arabs and commies of course) until after several long weeks, the UN finally managed to accomplish something: a resolution signed by all nations urging that “both sides show restraint.” Our ambassador at the time, Andrew Young, as well of course, the media, hailed that as a victory.

Nothing much occurred in the UN after that concerning the Iranian crisis, except for the vetoing of any measures with teeth in them. The crisis finally came to an end with the election of Ronald Reagan, who indicated he would take firmer action on the matter (joke at the time: Q. What’s black and glows in the dark? A. Tehran, the day after Reagan takes office).

Your Tatler could bore you to death (and himself) with a colossal list of failures the UN has chalked up over the years. Let it suffice to say the organization has little to show to for its credit.

Yet still, even up to a few years ago, the UN always would get some kind of mention as the various crises emerged over the decades even if just pro forma. Not so now. Though one might think the ignoring of the institution began with the Trump Administration, this writer seems to recall it began toward the end of President Obama’s reign. For all his flaws, he must have come to the conclusion many others did long before, the UN is impotent and just not worth wasting time on. Should Donald Trump become president in 2024, he would be wise to simply pull the US out of the UN, which would effectively kill it. It won’t be missed.

Having Another Crack at Permanent Daylight Saving Time.

It will fail like the last time.

Nearly 50 years ago, in April 1973, President Nixon (during an OPEC oil embargo, no less) signed a bill from Congress enacting a renewable one-year trial of permanent daylight saving time. It was much debated, with opponents in and out of Congress arguing it would lead to, among other things, children having to walk to school in the dark, putting them in danger (which turned out to be deadly true). Commuters complained, especially those in northern states, about having to go to work in the dark and construction workers complained of having to work in the dark. By the end of the trial there was little support for permanent DST and it was not renewed.

Now, our sages in Congress have passed another permanent daylight saving bill, only this time it’s not a trial so we’re stuck with it. Your Tatler cannot see how, come winter, all the problems of the first permanent DST will not recur, yet this time the vote was unanimous (not to mention it having huge popular support, even from people who should know better), which if nothing else, serves to show our Congress today is even dimmer than it was half-a-century ago.

A better solution would be eliminate daylight saving time entirely. There’s an old saw of the old Indian being told about daylight saving time and responding: “Only the government would believe that you could cut a foot off the top of a blanket, sew it to the bottom, and have a longer blanket.”

Compare and Contrast.

Holiness, whose side are you on?

From the Catholic News Agency:

After the legislature of the Mexican state of Sinaloa voted to legalize abortion up to 13 weeks (emphasis mine),the Diocese of Culiacán announced that Catholic politicians who voted in favor of the law will not be able to receive the Eucharist or be godparents.

In  a statement, Father Miguel Ángel Soto Gaxiola, director of the Culiacán Commission for Life, Family, Youth and Laity, officially announced that Catholic lawmakers who voted in favor of abortion that the decision to deny them Communion is “the recognition of the objectively unworthy state of a person to receive the Body of Christ.”

[snip]

In the letter addressed to Catholic politicians, Father Soto Gaxiola pointed out that “today we have many people scandalized by the public betrayal of the Church’s teaching on faith and morals by those legislators who call themselves ‘Catholic’.”

From the putative Paper of Record:

ROME — President Biden told reporters on Friday that Pope Francis had called him a “good Catholic” and said he should keep receiving communion, an unexpected development that appeared to put a papal finger on the scale in a debate raging in the United States’ Roman Catholic Church over whether the president and other Catholic politicians who support abortion rights should be denied the sacrament.

Cloward-Piven Redux.

To reform something you must destroy it.

Comes word the President’s puppeteers have decided he should decide to again open wide our borders with Mexico. The contrived rationale is somewhat complex (if you wish to slog through it, click here), but it hardly matters; the sole purpose is bringing in thousands or millions of illegals so to bring our already overloaded immigration system to a crashing halt.

The scheme of the Democrats bringing down governmental institutions by overloading them has a long history. It was the brainchild of a husband-wife team of social activists at Columbia University, Richard Cloward and Frances Fox Piven, in 1966. Their idea was to apply their plan to New York City’s welfare system, overloading and bankrupting it so the Federal Government would be forced to bail it out and fund it. Amusingly, Cloward and Piven claimed this would end poverty. The then bizarre notion found a receptive ear in the newly elected Republican(!) mayor of New York, John Vliet Lindsay, who hailed from an old New York family and had both movie star looks and brains. He probably did more damage to the City than any other mayor, before or since, including de Blasio.

Lindsay embraced Cloward-Piven with gusto. The one possible hitch in those days was, if you can believe it, the stigma still attached to being on the dole. He ordered city social workers to go door-to-door in poor neighborhoods and urge every person they encountered to sign onto the welfare rolls, stressing that regardless what they were taught or heard preached, there was no shame anymore receiving other people’s money, for as long they wished.

The campaign was a brilliant success, if you can call it that, and the percentage of souls on relief increased astronomically and remain at those levels to this day. No coincidence was the number of single-family households headed by women also soared; it was no longer necessary to have a man in the house. Along with the attendant woes of rising crime, gangs, dropping out etc., New Yorkers still pay the price of Cloward and Piven’s “reforms.”

Why our putative president and his associates have chosen to apply Cloward-Piven strategy to our immigration system, a seemingly suicidal move in an election year where democrat prospects look disastrous, is certainly puzzling .The only explanation your Tatler can come up with approaches the tinfoil hat category, but, for better or worse, here it is. The idea could be to get these zillions of illegals, using every conceivable manner of cheating the Democrats have so ably mustered over the years, onto the electoral rolls nationwide and have them “vote” democratic. If the scheme actually proves successful, things could get extremely ugly in the United States, but Democrat leaders long ago quit caring about the consequences of their actions, as well the reactions of their opponents.