Welcome to the VE Day 75th anniversary edition of the sheltered-in-place non-essential Mark Steyn Show, with a few thoughts on how we got from there to here, plus the latest developments in United States vs Flynn, a poem for Mother's Day, Corona and consumption, and a punk-ska-rap-Latin-Europop finale.
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Thanks for the mention of Millie Small, it brought back happy memories of my parents enjoying her follow-up 'Sweet William'. The Queen echoed her father's VE Day mention of those still fighting. They included Lieut. Bill Sherratt of 5th Indian Division Signals on his way back down the road to Mandalay heading for Rangoon to join the force being assembled to retake Malaya. That turned into 5th Indian Divison being first ashore at Singapore to take charge of the Japanese surrendering there of course.
I'm sure Kipling's Burmese girls were quite as beautiful as the girls I remember in Malay during and after the Emergency. I apologise for going on about it again but it's good to celebrate our few victories from time to time. It's sad to think of so many girls in Malaya now covered Sharia amours.
Mark replies:
I'm with you on those covered Malays, Nigel. These are not small losses.
Some years ago when my oldest son was still active duty I would gather my younger children before the lap top and we would read the names from the list the Military Times posted of the young men and the occasional young woman who had died that week in the war on terror. We would say a prayer at the end of the list and I would remind my kids to live lives worthy of their sacrifice. "They died for you, protecting you, without ever having ever met you." I would remind them. During WW II the American public was very aware that we were at war and they were aware of who our enemies were. Now we have enemies, people who hate this country, in congress and in various government institutions. Veterans I know say, "Never forget" when they refer to the brothers they lost in war. It often seems to me that the whole western world is in a state of amnesia when it comes to the sacrifices made to secure their comfort, safety and freedom and the value of the world their ancestors built.
I wish President Trump would put General Flynn at the head of the NSA. The NSA has all of hilary's emails and every 'lost' document and communication ever created by anyone in or out of the government in the U.S. It would be good to have someone competent there running things.
I cannot, sadly, recommend my home state of California ... however, the next-door states are in play. Anywhere in Arizona; Nevada has both Lake Tahoe and Las Vegas.
Also (in fantasyland here), Vancouver Island. Anywhere in Canada that appeals to Mark. We could travel by rail!
Rail appeals to me, too, Barbara! Have you ever taken the Durango-Silverton single gauge trip? That one is awesome. Best to go when the snows are coming on in October but before the train closes down for winter and you really get to see the ice and snowy deep ravines far below the tracks. Also, north Rim of Grand Canyon is supposed to be off the beaten track and far from the maddening crowds. The train, a little touristy but fun, from Williams, Arizona up to the south Rim of the Grand Canyon is a bit of a kick. If only there was a way to get up to North Rim (a shuttle?) to take both sides in all with a single visit.
Yes! I'm with Jennifer on this one! Hawaii would make a great spot in between the United Sates mainland and Australia to have a Mark Steyn party. Cheers!
The adjective eclectic was created for the noun show , preceeded by the name Mark Steyn .
Regarding the final obituary of Millie Small, I remember the first Jamaican ska band I saw live, The Skatalites. It was in the late 90s. The look of pure joy the older gentleman playing an upright bass exhibited the entire show was something I'll never forget. I've never seen anyone happier doing his "job".
That was pure joy hearing her sing, George! I hadn't heard this lollipop song for fifty years, or at least thirty. Hard to wipe a big smile off the face listening to her sing "Fi-ya" and "De-zi-yah."
Covid-19 might be the 21st century consumption, but the dynamics of viral transmission - including "super-spreader events" - are well recognised and should be mitigated so the US avoids looking like Brazil as the country "reopens". (Walt Trimmer still favours "let it rip", which is arguably not a great look for Trump in an election year.) It's too bad America ever closed in the first place: if only Fauci and the CDC had implemented on a limited scale the same measures they're now introducing to control the widespread infection to which they contributed (with public reassurances that community transmission was not occurring - as late as Feb 29 - and that the virus "was not a major threat to the US").
A guest on Tucker Carlson yesterday highlighted Fauci's epic fail, whereby citizens "put their faith in one doctor" - who missed it! - for two critical months. As for the CDC's incompetent testing fiasco during the early phase of exponential spread (from NPR): "Three weeks is an enormous amount of time to allow cases to accumulate without knowing about it," said Nuzzo, of the Bloomberg School of Public Health. "If we had had sentinel surveillance [activated] in a number of cities, we possibly could have caught it earlier and possibly intervened before the case numbers exploded." (See "Why The Warning That Coronavirus Was On The Move In U.S. Cities Came So Late" - Lauren Sommer, April 24, 2020)
PS. Increasing evidence that masks - particularly in close proximity in enclosed spaces - are important, being the key difference between (say) the packed NYC and Tokyo subways.
San Antonio has a Riverwalk. Built as part of flood defenses in the 1930s, it is invisible from the street level of a grotty city, but might be a great venue for the Mark Steyn Club Cruise. A flotilla of cruise boats chugging along, hotels and bars all around and The Alamo close by.
The Demarxists on the city council will be upset to hear hate speech such as Kung Flu Fighting and Chinese Virus being joyfully expounded, and I am sure Chick-fil-A will happily do the catering to put a bug up the council's arse.
I'm sure that the people we most want to see in orange jumpsuits will skate, but eventually there will be lower level scapegoats who may serve a little time while CNN saves them a seat at the table of the righteous. The best we can hope for is that Emperor Obama's legacy will be tarnished even a little bit. The best revenge? Putting President Trump into the White House for four more years!
Janet, I'm not sure what the underlying pathology is behind this, trying hard not to self analyze, but when I read through your comment I burst out with an evil sounding laugh and thought to myself, yes, that would be the best revenge. (Like Tucker's evil sounding Whahahaha!) And for trying to destroy and undermine President Trump's first four years as POTUS, the persons who stand convicted before a judge should get to choose between very long sentences or eight more years of DJT in the White House.
fast isn:t good and fools no one
Mark wasn't kidding about the Chinese virus consuming Brazil. That's one of the few places where the infection rate is increasing rapidly. Look for favorite footballers and samba musicians in the coming Last Calls, I am sorry to suggest. In a simultaneous outbreak of candor, Russia is also admitting to an accelerated infection rate. They do seem to have the candor under control at least, reporting a mortality rate of less than one percent--the only country with over 100,000 cases to be anywhere near that low. If you feel an ague coming on, you might look into the Areoflot timetables for the next available flight. Don't take a window seat, however; and if you're hospitalized, insist on a room on a lower floor.
Judt a minor correction TheAllan's adopted Edgar and lived in Richmond VA.
Mark replies:
You're right on the Richmond thing, Chris. My apologies. It's Edgar who was the Boston boy. But my Poeographies say the Allans never actually adopted him.
This pandemic is another tool in the cancel culture that we live in. Being forced to apologize for being selfish for opening up a beauty salon, being arrested in an empty park with your children, being lectured by the latest Brit wanker copper of the day on how you're killing people, and so on and so forth. This is no longer about saving lives to them but about being able to use a deadly disease as yet another opportunity for them to virtue signal to us all on how we should live our lives even if we're not capable of financially able to do it as they do. To them, dying in your home of starvation and poverty is moral and justified. We along with the millions of others who have lost our jobs and are desperate for a paycheck are just the tributes to the COVID-19 volcano god that the left has decided to appease.
But then again, the gods that the left worship are all volcano gods. Be it sacrificing women who are victims of rape in the name of defeating Trump in the latest election or allowing governors who wore blackface to represent because of their extreme pro-choice stances, they are like the professional sports team that needs their star player that has just been accused of molesting children to play this season because their team is nothing without him.
Volcano gods — nicely put. It's always great fun, though, when one of our virtue signaling bettors unwittingly blurts out something that is actually true or just plain common sense and becomes a burnt offering themselves.
The percentage of Americans who meekly went along with this tyranny is overwhelming Brian and has set a terrible precedent for when the left resumes power. Believing or at least pretending to believe that this planet will be uninhabitable in 9 /12 years will justify just about any draconian measures they can dream up. Ilan Omar is submitting a bill that would codify suspension of rent and mortgage payments until this crisis is declared over. When would that be one might ask? What about repercussions for landlords and financial institutions? This view is very consistent with leftist ideology. Charging rent is ipso-facto exploitative and immoral. I fully understand that those who have lost their jobs must not be evicted and most states have offered suitable protections for renters. But this proposed law is open ended and little more than a cheap stunt. The press is going all out now to delay re-opening of America indefinitely. The clear goal? So wreck this economy that Trump has no chance in Nov.
My first name is pronounced e-lee-suh / ɛˈli sə . If you use Spanish vowel sounds, you'll have it right.
I am sorry about the cruise. Perhaps change to a dude ranch in Wyoming or Montana. That's a pretty area of the country. South Dakota is pretty too. Maybe we should reward states that handled this virus well by supporting their tourism industry.
Stay safe. Stay as free as the state allows.
Montana sounds wonderful. I've been there once before, and I'd be willing to try to save to go there again if it meant listening to Mark live and meeting other Steyn club members. I've never been able to afford a cruise yet anyway, not on a nurse's income.
This club has helped me maintain my sanity. Thanks to Mark and all the posters on here
"Resolve as a people to do nothing unworthy of those who died for us."
Where to begin?
I'd nominate something in Florida but not until the hurricane season is over. Hotels should be eager to please. Besides that's when all the Canadians come down here anyway.
Mark, I went to the Browne George Ross website. Jeffrey Mitchell is copying your look!
A touching and fit memorial for this 75th anniversary of an historic time. And I so appreciate the forgotten details that let us know that even in Those Days the world was real, full of real people.
My fiance and I will dearly miss this cruise, our intended first, but we know we are quite lucky to live in a free country, free to express ourselves, free to be happy, and to know others who appreciate the same. And Mark, your hard work and the work of your staff and associates does not go unnoticed.
My dream Steyn Club adventure would be to rent an old English Manor house, or Scottish castle near a waterway perhaps, or lake, so we can go out and row a boat, learn what there's to know about fishing, ride some horse trails, sample the local brews, wander about some old Roman fortress, explore some famous graveyards, have a little tea, browse in some rare bookshops, do some landscape paintings, share some pub fare with other fellow Steyn Club members. Maybe even have some of Mark's talented musician friends surprise us for a little trip back in time to the good old rock 'n roll glory days, anything at all, or just to kick back and do nothing much but look up at the stars at night, do some lawn bowling by day, or a pick up game of cricket or lawn tennis. Just something to get out in the fresh air and nature and learn anew how to enjoy one another's company. No expectations!
Great idea, Fran... the Scottish Highlands!
Have you thought of Carcassonne, in Occitanie, F.? Not sure whether it's still there, but there was a nice boutique hotel inside the citadel, the river nearby makes for nice strolls, and the village was quite cool. Some touristy stuff, but nice weather and tons to do. Stunning views from the parapets. There used to be some nice hotels in the old town of Rhodes, too, if your preference is for swimming and strong sweet coffee with even sweeter baklava after kleftiko or kalamarakia; even nicer weather. Outdoor tables rather than spectacular views, but it used to be really quite nice. Not sure what refugees have done to it, though. Well, just a thought. I get carried away.
Aye, in the lands of the clan Yousef.
Kate, I have a thousand and one more ideas, but I had to stop somewhere.
No, S., I hadn't thought of that place but I like anywhere that's not here! I think I drove through there once on a circuitous three-day wild adventure from Paris to Chartres to La Rochelle through the Bordeaux region to Nice. It might have been two days. The good old carefree college days!
Me too!
Wars have been fought and entire regions ethnically cleansed in the Balkans, over lesser slights than your mispronunciation of the Macedonian Language.
Ahh, but that was in the old days, before we became globalists and took over the international trade of rigging elections.
Wasn't the Queen magnificent with her VE anniversary speech. How we will miss her when she is gone.
I suggest the Fairmont Chateau Montebello Hotel Resort on the Ottawa River for the dry land Mark Steyn show. Especially as we missed the peak of fall leaves on the first cruise. The chateau is on land of the first Bishop of Laval and later bought by Papineau.
Re: FBI [fat,bald and ignorant ] old Morry Amsterdam line [ Al Capone's favorite comedian ] The mantra about " lower-downs " not knowing AND supporting the rife corruption throughout our legal system should be attacked as a right-wing virtue signal. Total lie. They know and wallow in it.
Skytop PA it's in north East pa it's on the historic record, activities winter & summer 5600 acres. Lovey place to while away a week
The Stranglers! Super band. The Pistols decried them as hippies, because they could actually play. Sad.
There are 13,000 sworn agents on the FBI's books.
Not one has honored and upheld his or her oath whilst the leaders have run roughshod over the law these last 30 years. They are all unfit for office as dog catcher. The FBI is an appalling secret police force.
Understated but correct.
Close 'em down! Too many of such agencies anyway, and they multiply. No one can be fired and budgets cannot be cut. Unlike the rest of us.
April 8th, 1945 was just another day of combat on Okinawa. The battle would go on for another month and a half. For some reason my family's war was the War in the Pacific and we paid a dear price.
I would also note that the Royal Navy and the navies of Canada, Australia and New Zealand joined the U.S. Navy in the fight and were stuck by kamikazes as well. VE Day was not the end of WW2.
No, VE-Day definitely was not the end of WWII. My father was very strongly led to understand that he would be involved in a landing on the Japanese mainland. The atom bombs saved him from that. An invasion of Japan would have been at least five times worse than Normandy was - and the Normandy campaign was horrific.
yes, Walt ; although the US navy suffered most of the losses as their numbers were far greater.
The Australian army, supported by the US navy and army air force, launched a major operation against the Japanese in Indonesia in July 45.
This is to take nothing away from 8 May 45 . My wife is Dutch.
My family's war was in New Guinea and Indonesia .
Cheers.
Very sorry to hear that the cruise has been cancelled. One alternative I hope you'll consider is a white water rafting adventure out here in Arizona in early fall. The weather would be great, and the daytime excitement, plus the evening sing-alongs 'round the campfire would be an uplifting bonding experience for members.
There are a lot of Club members up here along the I-5 corridor. We could book a meeting room at a Holiday Inn and have a great social gathering of maybe 20 or 30 members (and their spouses.) Maybe we could pick a hotel near an outlet mall or a casino. We would be so happy to see Mark he wouldn't even have to develop any new material. Food for thought.
Sounds good to me. Maybe get some fly fishing in too.
Oddly enough, I can do zodiac stuff in the Antarctic and South Georgia and I don't get sea-sick off Argentina, but white water rafting... Count me out.
Those would be good options as well :)
Walt, you could take small groups of non-US Clubbers to the rifle range you mentioned!
You bet. Rifles, pistols and shotguns.
Another Stellar show, Mark.
You've help keep me Sane through this whole Authoritarian flexing of government muscle Power And Control micheghas.
Thank you.
Mark replies:
Thank you, Bob. My pleasure.
When I heard Mark say that Poe married his 13 yr. old cousin, Jerry Lee Lewis popped into my mind. I checked online and sure enough Lewis had married HIS 13 yr. old cousin. I hadn't thought about that since 1957 or so. Great Balls of Fire!
It's over folks - given the hysterical media wide outrage that blew up across the country today I see no possible way out of this ongoing collective insanity. The CDC is doing precisely what the FBI, CIA, NSA and too many other government entities to mention did to this president - undermining him in public with no fear at all knowing full well the democrat party working hand in hand with the press and social media giants will have their back 100%. For me there have been two sickening revelations in these last terrible 4 months. First off - how quickly our sheep like populace will knuckle under and surrender their constitutional rights with barely a whimper of protest. The demonstrations taking place now are too little and far too late.The second shock is how deeply corrupt are our national health organizations. The CDC and NIH are leaking like sieves and the press is more vitriolic than ever in attacking this president for 'risking the lives of Americans' for overruling the CDC recommendations to keep the shutdown going indefinitely. One minor point worth mentioning - in the current quarter alone the treasury has borrowed $2.99 trillion on top of the projected $1.4 trillion annual deficit already baked in. I can't imagine what the 4th quarter will look like. The reaction to Gen. Flynn's exoneration
is nauseating it is so ugly and full of pure hatred. What has happened to the greatest country that ever was?
RAC - I'm in total agreement. Most sadly, your first three words are correct. It's over - it being America as a self-governing, limited-government nation. Look back through my comments here for the last several weeks. I've been saying it for a while. We'll carry on, of course, but let's not have any illusions about the kind of society we live in now. Frankly, I don't want to be part of it anymore - and I was about as proud to be an American as anyone you would ever meet. The whole approach to this has been backward. It should have been gradual restrictions to produce the minimum interference with people's lives and liberty. The virus would have been contained and probably barely a news story at all. Instead, it's a complete shutdown, then gradual "re-opening." Trillions of dollars of wasted government spending. (When in history has such massive money-printing ever ended well? Someone provide me with an example.) Twenty million jobs lost this month. Forty million unemployed. Government programs that are already hilarious boondoggles. Can you even imagine what infringements on our freedom are coming down the pike? Good thing "we're all in this together," as my favorite TV commercial says. I used to think this was all due to incompetence, but it is now clear it is being done deliberately to advance the leftist agenda of complete control over our lives. It's shutdown for the sake of shutdown. I'm hoping Alberta and Saskatchewan secede from Canada. I'll be heading there. Or maybe one of the remote Pacific Island nations. I'm dead serious.
I'm both fer and agin' ya, RAC. I'm with you on the continued efforts of the Deep State to hobble Trump any way it can. I would even add Comey's cry to the "career people" to stay as a dog whistle to the saboteurs in government to keep dynamiting the bridges. But I don't think we've all evolved into sheeple, thanks to the likes of Shelley Luther. (To paraphrase Isaiah 11:6, a stylist shall lead them.) More people every day are demanding back the rights they guardedly surrendered as the plague descended. One does what one has to in wartime, and whether the Chinese virus was a deliberate act or an honest mistake (could happen to anybody), people of any nation will act for the common good. Yet a wartime President is only as good as his Generals, and his lack of a Grant or Patton has hurt Trump considerably. President Obama liked to say he was smarter than his specialists; Trump knows he's not, epidemiology not being his strong suit, but he knows what the country wants and needs. If this is the low point of his administration, good; there's plenty of time. The road to the White House is littered with the sun-bleached bones of front-runners.
I imagine most conservatives totally agree with you Josh. Heaven help us.
Hey man - every evening watching Tucker I cringe when that public service bit is aired. The country has never been more divided and conservatives have never been more timid. Yes 'we'll get through this' as everyone is saying but what will it look like on the other side? Josh in his critical reply to me today is probably correct. His thoughts are pretty much mainstream on the right these days - I won't dispute that. We certainly have ruined our economy and fiscal system though and on that point I am quite sure.
May I respectfully nominate "And a stylist shall lead them" for comment of the year?
"President Obama liked to say he was smarter than his specialists; Trump knows he's not, epidemiology not being his strong suit, but he knows what the country wants and needs."
Trump is much smarter than his specialists. His ban on flights from China and proposed quarantining of NY State showed an insight into epidemiology beyond that of experts who first did nothing, then shut down the entire country indefinitely before cashing in on a treatment for which there is no compelling evidence.
PS. I've recently been a major disappointment to RAC too, Josh. That said, his pessimism is well founded.
I'm just happy to be a disappointment to someone not myself, Kate. And yes, RAC's pessimism is well founded; and yes, Trump is much smarter than his specialists.
There's an old adage that says B students hire C and D students as subordinates. A students hire A students as subordinates. Obama was an example of a B student. Trump hires A students when he can find them. Ones that see the world as he does are pretty thin on the ground in DC.
On top of that, they and Trump in particular are ratebusters in the old sense, proving to the American people that things can happen and a lot faster than the DC pols are capable of doing or willing to do. Of course, the key is that no one in DC ever wants to solve any of the problems; they want them to linger forever, so they have perfected the art of goalpost moving so nothing is ever solved.
Trump is discovering that a lot of these world-renowned experts are actually C students who needed to work some place where they couldn't easily be fired or contradicted. Lots of them in government and academia.
Dear Mark, since this is WK 8 of quarantine for me these 3x a week updates have become a life preserver, I listen to the show several times as there is always so much in each one - but no one will dissect Mr Comey quite like you do, if he thinks his game has been well disguised he's mistaken, you've left him pitifully exposed.
Personally I found your comment, when you lose your future, you lose your past, too" one of great depth, I'm in the middle of research right now and as I was listening to your show that one line just hit me, omg, it perfectly summed up something I've been trying to grasp in my project! - you are quite the marvel Mr Steyn! Mercy beaucoup, mon ami!
Franz-Josef. Franz-Ferdinand was the bloke in Sarajevo.
Mark replies:
Gulp. That's a kindergarten mistake, Owen. Truly I'm losing it. I'm correcting now.
You are still essential listening. One little mistake doesn't change that.
Truly. Still, no getting by you, O.!
Really like the sense of belonging to a club I just plain like.
What's one little mistake among Franz?
Good one!