Christian Mølsted, “Paa kanoner og pokaler” (On guns and cups), 1925, Private collection.
The painting depicts the episode 27th july 1714 in which the Danish frigate Lövendals Galley commanded by Danish-Norwegian officer Tordenskjold encountered the Swedish-owned, former English frigate De Olbing Galley on the west coast of Sweden. After a long fight, the Danish ship ran out of gunpowder, and the ships then simply parted after a toast between the two opponents.
Peter Jansen Wessel Tordenskiold at the age of 30 was killed in a duel by Livonian Colonel Jakob Axel Staël von Holstein 12 November 1720. Tordenskiold was armed with a rapier, while von Holstein used a heavy broadsword (of the type “Karolinerverge”, “Karolinska sword”).
An awful lot in the life of a nation depends upon Fate. At any given time, Destiny may or may not have delivered to either or even both parties struggling for political power the kind of leader who can be elected.
When one party or the other is reduced to candidates wholly lacking that certain special quality, that combination of good looks, speaking ability, personal stature, and charm we expect in a president, that unlucky party and its supporters are staring electoral doom in the face.
in 1980, the priggish scold Jimmy Carter wound up facing a veritable demigod in the person of Ronald Reagan. I was shopping in a used record store on 7th Street in NYC, and overheard a couple of old Jewish radicals building themselves up to pull the GOP lever for the first time in their lives. “Reagan was head of a labor union.” observed the first reassuringly. “And, you’re right! You know, I’ve heard he was a communist back in the 1930s.” added the second. It was easy to predict that Carter would wind up a smoking hole.
Our turn came in 2008. George W. Bush failed to participate in the defense of his own foreign police, and was leaving office in disgrace. The market crashed six weeks before the election. And, there we were: running wrinkly, geriatric, and inarticulate John McCain (who was not even our guy) against the Magic Negro who talked like a smooth Ivy Leaguer, whose election would, it seemed to the public in general, heal America’s racial divide forever, and whom the worshipping and adoring media puffed up to a level of popularity resembling the Beatles in 1965.
So, this year, the unlucky democrats have senile Joe Biden whose popularity in office is getting to resemble that of the Asian Flu, and whose gross financial chicanery and corrupt abuses of power become more evident every day. Kamala, ugly, inarticulate, rancidly leftist, and dumb as a rock is basically useless as an alternative. When democrats think further down the list of possible candidates: Hillary again! Michelle Obama! they shudder with good reaon.
So, along comes the dark horse from Ancient Camelot. None other that Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.
In his favor is the fact that he is a maverick and an outsider. Personally, I like the fact that he is a keen falconer. However, he is, alas! a tree-hugging enviro whackjob, a back-to-the-Stone-Age, Luddite friend of Greta’s. He has also got a major bee in his bonnet about Coronavirus vaccines. So, he’s crazy like a Berkeley, California beatnik as well as crazy like a fever-swamp-dwelling Alt-Right buddy of Pat Buchanan, all at the same time.
But he’s working this gravel-voiced Mr.-Smith-Goes-to-Washington shtick that is not entirely ineffective. You can just bet that the K Street back room pros are soiling their drawers at the prospect of him as a spoiler Third Party candidate.
He has one other really interesting and distinctive signature feature, which I think needs real investigation.
It may be part of some kind of deliberate and calculated Mr. Smith act, but every time we see him, he’s wearing a worn and gnarly, incredibly narrow, early 1960s vintage club tie. If you watch “Dr. No” (1962), you’ll see James Bond wearing similarly narrow ties.
The one in the photo above, forsooth! has a Skull-and-Crossbones emblem. RFK Jr. went to Hahvahd, so he cannot possibly be a member of a certain society headquartered on High Street in New Haven.
And, he’s clearly got more than one necktie of the same vintage. He himself was born in 1954, so it’s hard to imagine that he was shopping at J. Press when he was between 6 and 11 years old. By around 1966, the music had changed, boys were growing long hair, and ties were growing much more generously wide.
So, we have a mystery here. Is it possible that RFK Jr. is such a hippie dippy boho pothead that he never ever bought a necktie of his own while at Georgetown Prep or Harvard or as an adult? Has he laid hands on some New Frontier Yale man’s antique tie collection? If so, who could it be? Sargent Shriver went to Yale, but he was Keys, not Bones. I’m not aware of any special connection to John Kerry, and I just can’t picture Kerry holding on to early’60s ties.
If any readers of mine are journalists attending RFK Jr. press events, do ask about the ties! Inquiring minds want to know.
Issues & Insights identifies the key flaw in the Alarmist narrative.
The United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is quite certain Earth will be in trouble if the global temperature exceeds pre-industrial levels by 1.5 degrees Celsius or more. But how can anyone know? According to university research, “global temperature” is a meaningless concept.
“Discussions on global warming often refer to ‘global temperature.’ Yet the concept is thermodynamically as well as mathematically an impossibility,” says Science Daily, paraphrasing Bjarne Andresen, a professor at the University of Copenhagen’s Niels Bohr Institute, one of three authors of a paper questioning the “validity of a global temperature.”
Science Daily explains how the “global temperature” is determined.
“The temperature obtained by collecting measurements of air temperatures at a large number of measuring stations around the globe, weighing them according to the area they represent, and then calculating the yearly average according to the usual method of adding all values and dividing by the number of points.”
But a “temperature can be defined only for a homogeneous system,” says Andresen. The climate is not regulated by a single temperature. Instead, “differences of temperatures drive the processes and create the storms, sea currents, thunder, etc. which make up the climate”.
While it’s “possible to treat temperature statistically locally,” says Science Daily, “it is meaningless to talk about a global temperature for Earth. The globe consists of a huge number of components which one cannot just add up and average. That would correspond to calculating the average phone number in the phone book. That is meaningless.”
There are two ways to measure temperature: geometrically and mathematically. They can produce a large enough difference to show a four-degree gap, which is sufficient to drive “all the thermodynamic processes which create storms, thunder, sea currents, etc.,” according to Science Daily.
So if global temperature is unknowable, how can the IPCC and the entire industry of alarmists and activists be so sure there exists a threshold we cannot pass? Of course the IPCC says it knows the unknowable. In its latest report, released this month, it yet again maintained that the global temperature must “kept to well below 2º C, if not 1.5º C” above pre-industrial levels to avoid disaster.
A few years after the University of Copenhagen report was published, University of Guelph economist Ross McKitrick, one of the report’s authors, noted in another paper that “number of weather stations providing data . . . plunged in 1990 and again in 2005. The sample size has fallen by over 75% from its peak in the early 1970s, and is now smaller than at any time since 1919.”
“There are serious quality problems in the surface temperature data sets that call into question whether the global temperature history, especially over land, can be considered both continuous and precise. Users should be aware of these limitations, especially in policy-sensitive applications.”
Nous sommes des dégourdis,
Nous sommes des lascars
Des types pas ordinaires.
Nous avons souvent notre cafard,
Nous sommes des légionnaires.
From the Yale Alumni Mag 1974 Class Notes:
I have been honored and grateful for a stream of communication from —- ——— – one of our class Vietnam vets – about the passing of Vic Corcoran [SM] in Tahiti on March 23rd. It appears Vic eschewed the “grim professionalism” Kingman Brewster claimed to see in us and led a life that more belongs in a novel than in the class notes.
According to —–’s emails, Vic, who had previously turned down the opportunity to swim in the 1968 Olympics, carried his aquatic skills both to Vietnam and, in 1979, to the French Foreign Legion special forces as a “reconnaissance swimmer” where he specialized “offensive nautical intervention” for the balance of his career, including eight months of the Gulf War, ultimately receiving the Croix de Guerre which I understand is more or less the equivalent of our Silver Star.
Vic retired to Tahiti and ultimately passed from cancer. —– wonders if the cancer was connected to exposure to Agent Orange.
After a life of activity and adventure, Victor (“Wick”) died March 22, 2023 of a brief illness at age 72.
Victor graduated from The Hotchkiss School, CT, where he was an All-American breast stroke swimmer; Yale University (swimming team); and The Ocean Corporation, TX for under water construction.
He served in the French Foreign Legion in parachute and then scuba regiments. Tours of duty included Corsica, Djibouti, the Central African Republic, and the Persian Gulf in Operation Desert Storm, including acting as liaison to the French General and US Gen Schwarzkopf. He retired as Master Sergeant, having received numerous decorations.
Before the Legion, Victor worked as a commercial diver, including on oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico and the North Sea.
After the Legion, he served as a security officer on French cruise ships. He retired to Tahiti, where he enjoyed hiking, swimming, and sailing.
Victor had a wonderful sense of fun, made friends easily, and saw the good in people.
Predeceased by his parents, Victor Francis Corcoran and Merrill Holmes Corcoran. Survived by family in Nice, France: Son, Alan Victor Corcoran, Daughter, Alison Kate Corcoran, and Granddaughter, Cailey Kahila Mjot;
Also family in Rochester, NY: Brother, Christopher H. Corcoran (Mary), Sister, Melissa C. Hopkins (Ed), nieces, nephew, and cousins.
Victor was buried in Tahiti after a military funeral. The family plans a memorial service in Penn Yan, NY. Instead of flowers, gifts may be made to the YMCA of Greater Rochester, 444 East Main St., Rochester, NY 14604. Rochesterymca.org/donate.
The Brown Daily Herald celebrated Perversion Pride month with a poll that produced spectacular results:
The Herald’s Spring 2023 poll found that 38% of students do not identify as straight — over five times the national rate. Over the past decade, LGBTQ+ identification has increased across the nation, with especially sharp growth at Brown. …
The Herald first surveyed sexual orientation in its Fall 2010 poll, in which around 14% of respondents answered that they were not straight. That number has more than doubled since. …
Brown’s queer community is much greater than the national average among adults. Gallup polls from 2022 found that only 7.2% of adults — and 19.7% of those aged 18 to 25 — identified as LGBTQ+.
“One in Four, Maybe More.
One in Three, Maybe Me.
One in Two, Must Be You.
One in One, No More Legacies”
What would America do without its top elite institutions?
