Snapshots of a changing world:
~There she is, Miss Saudi Arabia:
Beauty season is in full swing and 30,000 camels have gathered for the second annual King Abdulaziz Camel Festival, the largest pageant in the Gulf.
Yes, indeed. One of the benefits of keeping all your womenfolk in head-to-toe body bags is that it frees up all the botox for your camel:
Twelve camels have been disqualified from Saudi Arabia's annual camel beauty contest after receiving botulinum toxin injections to make their pouts look more alluring.
When it comes to camels, I don't mind the Meg Ryan lips, but I draw the line at silicone humps. No word yet on whether this trend has spread to Saudi Arabia's Most Beautiful Goat pageant.
~The Oscar nominations are out. Jorge Ramos complains there are no Latinos, and Constance Wu that there are no Asians. If it adds to the gaiety, as a Canadian, I'm outraged by the lack of Canadians, considering that all these "American" movies are filmed north of the border. Maybe the media can find a Saudi to complain that there are no camels.
Meanwhile, Scaramouche identifies a more basic problem with the Oscar itself: He's a naked man, albeit glittering enough to see your reflection in - like Harvey Weinstein slathered in massage oil opening his hotel room door to Ashley Judd and demanding a rubdown.
~I heard this report on the BBC yesterday, and was profoundly depressed - not merely by the news story itself, but by the antiseptic way it was presented:
British mum Sally Evans had been worried about her teenage son, Thomas, as he was getting involved in petty crime. So when he converted to Islam and cleaned up his act she was relieved. However as she and her other son Micheal recount, they didn't realise he was getting radicalised until it was way too late. We hear how Sally and Micheal coped when they found out Thomas had joined Islamist militant group al-Shabab.
He's dead now, so that's that: just another short, wasted life. But go back to the sentence I highlighted: Why would a mum in High Wycombe be "relieved" by a son's conversion to Islam? I mean, how can you be so disconnected from your own civilizational inheritance that you think that's the answer?
Well, because Thomas was leading an all too typically soulless existence of modern western youth: in a gang, selling cannabis, getting into trouble with the coppers... If your life is empty, you're prey to anything that offers to fill it up: If you're lucky, it'll be some modish mumbo-jumbo like climate change. If you're not, it'll be something more hardcore:
He was meeting some Muslims there and he got interested in Islam through them. And eventually he started going to the mosque. And at first I thought, 'This is a good thing. It's really calmed him down. It's turned him back into the nice lad that he used to be...' I was relieved to find that he'd got this new path in life.
And then the problems started. No, not al-Shabab; it began more quietly, but just as tellingly: His mum and his bruvver put up the Christmas decorations and he refused thereafter to come into the front room. But his mother was determined to look on the bright side. So she thinks it's good news when he moves to Egypt to learn Arabic:
That'll be a good thing, living in Egypt for six months. Because he's gonna have to rough it.
Even after he "roughs it" all the way to Kenya, Sally tries to take an interest in Thomas, now Hakim, and his child bride, and his new job with these al-Shabab chappies:
I did ask him in one phone call had he killed anybody. And he never answered, he never said yes or no.
In the end, he killed between thirty and fifty people. Livelier than dealing drugs in High Wycombe. And back home a woman with as quintessentially English a name as "Sally Evans" goes to the mosque to pray for her lost son.
But who will pray for a lost England?
This is the dark version of Michel Houellebecq's Soumission: Islam is there because nothing else is. Because, when you destroy your own civilizational inheritance, you have no control over what incubates in the void.
In other news, Mrs May's ministry has just announced the appointment of Her Britannic Majesty's first "Minister for Loneliness", another manifestation of the dismal disintegration of family and social life in the UK. Perhaps a Minister for Emptiness will follow.
We laugh at the Saudis and their botox-pumped camels, but they are not as ridiculous as us.
~See you on the telly tomorrow evening, Thursday, with Tucker Carlson, live across America at 8pm Eastern/5pm Pacific - with a rerun at midnight Eastern. We hope you'll tune in. If you prefer me in non-visual form, do check out our latest Tale for Our Time - one of our bonus features for Mark Steyn Club members. So, if you've a chum who's into classic fiction, you might like to sign him or her up for a Steyn Club Gift Membership (and choose a personally autographed welcome gift - either one of two handsome hardback books or a couple of CDs).
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Mark:
Being a founding member of your club has brought me hours of information, dissertation, entertainment and cultural grounding that the public forum of of discourse so desperately needs. You might just be a salvator of western civilization, should you desire to robe yourself in that mantle. Your courage in fighting the Free Speech War should be lauded by every human who yearns to live life exercising their right to utilize their God-given gifts. Bravo!
You simply must read the new book: "The Innocent Woman" The Karen Lucchesi Story. It's hot off of the press just this week. This wonderful woman was set up by our own FBI and legal system in a witch Hunt. Rather than exhonerate her when her innocence was proven, they offered her a plea deal if she would admit her guilt and save their hides. She refused and fought back. The American Farscical Legal and law enforcement systems ignored her and sent her to the Federal Pen. From inside, she wrote wrote to the press about the deplorable prison conditions, and they attempted to shut her up by transferring her to a prison reserved only for the most violent and dangerous of criminals. Her father is the baseball great Frank Lucchesi, and this travesty of Justice almost killed the once rugged baseball great, put her family through hell, and cost her millions of dollars and the best years of her life. Those years can never be returned to her.
No one is safe, Mark. If the Spooks want to get you, they can deposit money in your bank account and then claim you were doing something illicit and set you up, like they did her. You should have her on your show, Mark, and also on Fox News.
Thanks for all that you do for freedom.
Jan Schiebout
Karen's book is not available on Amazon as I write this, but I did find this link from her website which fleshes this out a bit more:
http://wnitechnologies.com/sample/karenlucchesi/2016/03/01/pellentesque-odio-nisi-euismod-in-pharetra-a-ultricies-in-diam-sed-arcu-cras-consequat-4/
Mark's good friend, Conrad Black, had an equally unjust confrontation with the "Justice" system, which he describes in painful detail in "A Matter of Principle". One of the most memorable passages was his trip back to see the judge who had wrongly convicted him (based on a Supreme Court ruling,) and she had the gall to compliment him on his appearance, suggesting that incarceration had been good for him. She then decided he needed to complete the sentence anyway, as one minor charge wasn't reversed. Presumably, she had convinced herself that this was for his own good. Black's book will long outlive this dreadful judge and all the stooges in the DoJ, so he will get the last laugh.
Mark replies:
Agreed. That judge's re-incarceration of Conrad after the destruction of 95 per cent of the government's case was particularly repulsive.
If Mrs. May really wanted to improve the national mood, she might announce a new Minister for Wrapping up the Rotherham Rapes. How quickly might the Loneliness Domino fall if young women felt that their government was looking after their well-being above the needs of the immigrant population?
At the risk of sounding alarmist, a "Loneliness Ministry" has a rather more sinister undertone, considering the public views of some political figures. Tory (former) MP Matthew Parris has discussed at length a future where all citizens, having reached a certain age, will feel compelled to end their own lives for the collective good. "The stigma will fade, and in its place will come a new description of selfishness, according to which it may be thought selfish of some individuals (including potentially ourselves) to want to carry on..... We admire Captain Oates for walking out of his tent and into his death when he judged his enfeeblement was threatening his colleagues' chances of survival. That is an extreme case, but it illustrates a moral impulse that I expect to grow — and for the same reasons as it occurred to Oates: the good of our fellow men..... Life itself has its price. As costs rise, there will be a point at which our culture (and any culture) will begin to call for a restraining hand..... This is a social impulse which will grow, nourished by forces larger than all of us. I don't exhort. I predict." (The audio link for a related interview in 2015 in The Spectator seems not to work, unfortunately.)
Parris appears to favour a type of adaptive, evolutionary model of suicide for the common good (of the social-democratic state), not unlike Japan's Deputy PM, Taro Aso, who said that in order to relieve pressure on state health care costs, "...old people should hurry up and die; I would wake up feeling increasingly bad knowing that treatment was all being paid for by the government."
Then there are the "death booths" that Martin Amis proposed, for dealing with the "silver tsunami", so quite a few people are supporting a self-extinction policy; a sort of DIY "Logan's Run".
"A government big enough to give you everything you want is big enough to take away everything you have..." (Steyn, America Alone). At the risk of quoting Mark out of context, it would seem rather unwise to be on a government registry of lonely (and/or alone) citizens in the circumstances.
Yes. There's quite the coincidence to have loneliness pop up as the urgent issue in UK and today another article about Japan loneliness crisis. It's true enough to be convincing, but... not true enough for what will be suggested-suggested experts say less and less obliquely as the proposed solution?
Well, it might be drawing a long bow, yet presumably no one would suggest that Matthew Parris be appointed to this ministerial role if he were still in politics! Subtle coercion, as he favourably suggests, occurs with a shift in societal values when pragmatism prevails, but it's also not that difficult to imagine explicit incentives offered such that an agreed curtailment of projected life-expectancy would be a trade-off for an improved standard of living in the short term; a sort of voluntary redundancy package.
PM May should more fully institutionalise prosecution of Facebook and Twitter malcontents with a new "Ministry of Love" as in '1984' as well as a "Ministry of Truth."
Also brings to mind the thoughts of C.S. Lewis in Abolition of Man, I believe. The point there was "men without chests"....what is left when everything else is gone. And then yes, what DOES fill the vacuum?
I am praying for England, and indeed all of Europe. The answer is there if they will open their eyes.
Thanks...Bakoss
Just having finished Oriana Fallaci's 'The Force of Reason" I can state with great confidence that Europe is already lost. It's no longer a question of 'if' but of when the tipping point occurs. Oriana lays out the historical background of the long term plan to re-take Europe. Take a hard look at the democratic party today and you see the same ideology as the European left. You simply cannot cede our entire educational system and national media over to the radical left and expect to somehow prevail in the cultural war. Now you have to add the all powerful social media giants - all owned and run by leftists to the mix. The entertainment industry was lost decades ago. What's left? Fox news and conservative talk radio - on the national scene that's about it. Fox seems to be bending over backwards trying to show how 'fair and balanced it is' by having almost as many leftists on it's prime time lineup as conservatives. It's no mystery to me why the left and Islam have joined forces. It's the shared pathological hatred of capitalism. What does mystify me is the question of how the left sees the end game play out for them. Smart Islamists see western liberals in the same light as Lenin viewed fellow travelers in the west - useful idiots. When it finally dawns of them - if it ever does - just how much Muslims despise them it will be far too late. Ben Shapiro was 'allowed' to speak on campus (under high security of course) this week and counseling sessions were set-up to treat traumatized students. Who knew gentle Ben's thoughts could so wound these sensitive students. Don't laugh it off because this isn't just where we are heading - it's where we already are.
Mark, you might recall us from last year, when you were able to stop a muslim propagandist, Isam Zaiem (CAIR Cleveland) to speak at our Library. I thought he would try again, and, well, he is back: he is scheduled to speak at the Elder College of the local university on March 12. We need you to operate your magic again! My wife wrote to Chantal with all the details. We know you are busy, but could you help us?
Mark,
You know I love you to bits but, seriously, botoxed camels as the most important topic in Saudi Arabia right now?? Seriously???!!! You can do better than that.
Please, please (I've asked you before on several occasions) can you write about Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman - aka MBS - and his proposed changes in Saudi Arabia. These have the potential to change, nay stop, many of the problems from that region of the world, including Islamic terrorism, the Iranian threat, and the existential threats to Israel and the West. Just to name a few!
Maybe I'm being wildly and overly optimistic about MBS but I'd definitely like to hear your views. I think you'd be educating a much wider public on him and his plans too and that would also be a good thing, I believe.
Go for it, Mark!!
It's just me, but if I were touring Saudi Arabia, were short on time, and had a choice between attending a camel beauty pageant or attending a reception with Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, I'd choose the camel beauty pageant without the slightest hesitation.
Yes, yes, would much rather wander genially amongst a bunch of spoiled, over-groomed camels batting their luxurious eyelashes and puckering up those enhanced lips begging for a treat at any camel beauty pageant than watch the camel races where they strap little boys from poor Muslim countries like Bangladesh and Pakistan on the backs of the animals to scream in terror and pain to spook the camels to run faster. More pageants, no races please!
I agree. Camels are fine, but I would not enjoy seeing anything involving screaming little boys from poor Muslim countries.
I think it was the late William Sampson who wrote in his memoirs that the only good things about Saudi Arabia are that the sun always shines, there are no taxes, and women can't drive.
I read a book a few years back called "From Dawn to Decadence" - way too long, but the point of it is that the Reformation took place not just to correct the abuses within the Roman Catholic Church, but to create a more personal form of Christianity based on the individual's finding salvation through the intercession of Jesus Christ. Over time, if faith is a personal matter, then one is free first to choose not to attend church and then not to have faith, and finally not just religion, but moral behavior becomes a matter of personal choice. Rising material comforts, increasingly distracting sources of entertainment, and a state that constantly expanded with the consent of the governed did the rest. Decadence, once achieved, is hard to reverse. I'm not sure what "we" collectively can do. Government, education, the entertainment industry - even much of organized Christianity - remains under the control of secularists, some of whom seem to sense that something is wrong but believe that a more therapeutic, diverse culture with greater opportunities for self-expression and self-fulfillment remains the solution.
I see today that Mrs. May was able to parry-and-thrust with the Internet Sword -- her toothpick after she nibbled off the cocktail weenie. The Dangerous Content censors will fill the new employment slots, once they've learned English!
The jobs might be outsourced to a call-center in India though. No offense meant toward any Indians who typically speak impeccable British English, since American English was, according to Churchill, proof that we are two nations divided by a common language! (I don't give GB Shaw credit for the quote.)
If you ever choose a rock song for your Song of the Week feature, I would suggest John Mellencamp's "You've Got To Stand for Somethin'." That song immediately came to my mind while reading this piece. "You've got to stand for somethin' or you're gonna fall for anything."
One wasted life managed to terminate 30 to 50 other lives before assuming room temperature. This is not a winning formula for our side. Jordan Peterson, whom Mark mentioned a few days ago, has a marvelous new book, "12 Rules for Life", that addresses these issues on a clinical basis. His focus is on dealing with reality, and he's not shy about explaining how too many of us are immersed in fantasies. It's too bad Sally Evans didn't have the advantage of knowing how harmful her personal life-views would prove to be for her kids. But, of course, the whole point of progressive politics is to convince people that they can hold on to mythical moralities simply by voting for the progressive slate. Worse, the progressive slate encompasses pretty much all alternatives in the UK, however the parties might style themselves.
Here's your Song of the Week, "Midnight at the oasis, send your camel to bed."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlrKETxwRvM
Indeed, anything can fill a cultural vacuum. But did they (we) destroy our civilizational heritage, or was it simply not sustained and transmitted? Rand used to refer to "Intellectual Leaders" failing us, which is true, but possibly the failure was even upstream of them, as this Heritage was not identified, packaged, promoted and protected. "Western Culture" is such a leaky, debatable vessel to celebrate; the Christian churches carried their own baggage, and often puttered about in trivialities. Threats, wars and enemies seem to help us recall some priorities and spirit, but wouldn't we rather sustain our heritage without those messy, transient crutches? Yes, next to nothing, Islam offers a (false) purpose, some (hope of) power, and the clear message of superiority and freedom to kill (always fun). We may need to form a new "religion" or philosophy or cult that embodies our Heritage, and then sells it and promotes it and maintains it. Or do some big overhaul on the existing ones.
James
You're going deep here. I am reminded of a book from 13 years ago "How the West was Lost" by Alexander Boot, where he posits that "Western Culture" is actually dead and has been dead for quite some time. We are living in "Western Civilization", which is a product of "Western Culture", but because it has lost its root, "Western Civilization" can no longer be renewed and sustained.
I doubt that Steyn would agree with Boot that "Western Culture" has been dead for some time, but I'm sure they'd both agree on the necessity of a healthy culture to sustain a healthy civilization.
Regarding your suggestion that we find a new religion, cult, or philosophy, there is no shortage of options to pick from. For which option are you willing to risk your life and reputation defending? I love to read Ayn Rand's books and essays, strongly agree with 80% of what she writes, but find her "objectivism" odious. The Christian churches may all be rotten to the core, but every other alternative appears significantly worse.
The only thing surprising about the Sally and Thomas Evans case is that it is surprising. Islam makes demands on its followers, but its demands are very basic. Anyone can fulfill the requirements of Shahada, Salat, Zakat, Ramadan, and Haj: join the Mosque, follow the leader, and do as you are told. The intellectual, spiritual, and psychological demands of Islam are very minimal. They can do camel beauty pageants, but not cat albums. In its role, Islam thrives as the rubbish bin of civilization and culture. I fear that the situation will get significantly worse before it gets any better...
"Minister for Loneliness"....That's something right out of Monty Python. I guess it's office will be right next to the "Minister of Silly Walk".
Mark, the plot is not dissimilar to what thought was fictional satire; only even sadder because the self-immolating culprit isn't some third world import but an actual Brit. However, I would offer one addition to your insight. The Minister of Lonleiness isn't just a manifestation of disintegrating family and social life. It is a manifestation of the incredible and fatal hubris of the all-encompassing state. It is an unbridgeable gap from the idea that governments are instituted to do limited things to protect life, liberty, and property to the idea that they are capable of nurturing the soul.
Mr. Steyn; you often allude to the decline of western civilization but I don't recall you ever actually discussing what you perceive to be the root causes of that decline. I have most of your books, many of them read multiple times, I have been reading your columns for decades. You are very skilled at describing what is happening, and extrapolating into the future. I would like to know what you believe the historical events were that actually caused the decline, what attitudes and decisions, by whom, set this into motion. I am particularly interested in how you would describe this in the history of Britain.
I second your motion. WRT Britain, I suspect that, rather than conscious decisions, it had something to do with two devastating world wars which led to Britain's loss of empire, civilizational self-confidence, and the decline of faith, i.e., Christianity. What is clear is that western countries now wear "Kick Me -- I'm White" signs stapled to their backs.
Welfare, and it's parent socialism, creates an expectation that all will be provided, and frustration that they're still unfulfilled, leaving the victims susceptible to philosophies that demand conformity. The beneficiaries of welfare, both the recipients and their political masters, use control of the education system and media to infect others, creating a vicious cycle of decline.
I was in London 3 weeks ago after a 40-year hiatus. Back then it was a simple matter to find the Sherlock Holmes hotel on Baker St., the houses of Dickens and Dr Johnson. The site of the Globe Theater was much harder to find, but a plaque marked the spot. Now the Globe is easy to find, but the admission price is steep and the college girl guarding the gate would not even let me take a peek, But on the bright side, some of the guides were Muslim.
Took the top seat of a double decker bus all the way down Oxford St. I was shocked by the numbers of people in full Muslim garb and started counting. I reckon about 30% of the pedestrians were obviously Muslim. The woman clerk who sold me a scarf in Selfridge's was ... well, you know.
Westminster Bridge, once the most glorious walk in Europe, is now lined on both sides with ugly iron barriers 4 feet tall. Posters pasted on both sides advised me to "Resist Islamophobia". There was not even a hint of irony that the barriers were there because of one single practitioner of the religion of peace.
I doubt I shall ever visit Europe again. If they don't care, why should I?
That is utterly heartbreaking to read. I was an English major and, of course, have a particular love of Shakespeare. I've been to parts of Europe but never the U.K.--always wanted to save that for a special trip and not just pass through. The land I dreamed of exploring is all but gone.
Many schools aren't really teaching Shakespeare anymore. I've talked to some fellow English majors of the Millennial ilk, and they describe their Shakespeare classes as watching movies and spin-off productions--not actually reading or experiencing the plays themselves. They can't recite a sonnet or name their favorite play or character. (Mine are King Lear and Beatrice.) So they don't mourn the fact that the Globe is succumbing to the cultural demise--or the cultural demise itself.
What a mess.
I guess that's part of it being a civilizational suicide. No one's taking away Shakespeare; we ourselves are severing the ties. But, not I.
I suppose I can understand someone nominally Christian converting (submitting) to Islam, but how did a young man who became more Muslim than the Caliph miss the "Religion of Peace" message? Or was the opportunity to kill with impunity the lure to convert? Thomas--sorry, Hakim--didn't find contentment in 5x-daily prayers in the High Wycombe mosque or learning halal recipes to try with his new pots and pans. He found contentment--peace, if you will--in the killing fields of Somalia. Knowing, as he must have, the life expectancy of an al-Shabab terrorist to be brief, it is fair to say that his conversion became, in the end, suicide by soldier. He traded the nothingness of England's lack of faith for the nothingness of a toxic excess of faith, jihad--with a license to kill thrown in to make things even. The wonder is more young Englishmen don't take the deal.
Licence to Kill, indeed. The one characteristic common to all young male converts appears to be antecedent criminality, though neither Sally Evans nor experts the world over have figured that out yet.
Perhaps the Minister for Loneliness will suggest that lonely people visit their local mosque. They can meet people and maybe pick up a hobby or a child bride.
At the very least they could be issued Companion Camels.
Notice the salient fact about that Lads' home life? Any Father in the picture? To ask the question is to answer it. The welfare State has not only become the loco in parentis,but it has incentivised women to go it alone and become single mothers. What was once cause for shame is now the height of respectability. And don't think that Britain's education system can fill the cultural void that Mark rightly points out. Now that being white and British is almost a crime,you can guarantee that any education he received,especially in the humanities (if they still quaintly refer to it as that) would've been of the most faddish and useless kind. Whatever history he imbibed would've been designed to induce a sense of shame,guilt and obloquy. No doubt if the kid had have converted to Anglicanism,his Mum would've raised the alarm and called the authorities. There you have it folks-the purblind leading the totally blind. Britons shall never be slaves?.....
A very good point, Jeremy, and I'm reminded of a Steyn cross-reference on the hollowing out of the family, with the state as father figure. "Real Modern Family Not So Funny":
https://www.ocregister.com/2013/03/29/mark-steyn-real-modern-family-not-so-funny/
"Entire new categories of crime have arisen in the wake of familial collapse, like the legions of adolescent daughters abused by mom's latest live-in boyfriend. Millions of children are now raised in transient households that make not just economic opportunity but even elementary character formation all but impossible."
"The most reliable constituency for Big Government is single women, for whom the state is a girl's best friend, the sugar daddy whose checks never bounce. A society in which a majority of births are out of wedlock cannot be other than a Big Government welfare society. Ruining a nation's finances is one thing; debauching its human capital is far harder to fix."
Perhaps the British government should have listened to the Beatles when they asked, "All the lonely people, where do they all come from?" back in the sixties. They could have set up a ministry then and there!
Shouldn't there be more than one minister for loneliness?
An excellent point! Thanks for the laugh.
If the media would stop composing fiction instead of reporting, how different our lives would be!
Oscar Quotas? Rational people would lament the lack of a viewing audience for their desperate advertising by awarding movies no one went to, but this crowd gets media space for their contrived drama hoping that'll get people to tune in to watch them gush all over themselves for doing literally nothing to induce people to buy tickets to their horrible, dreary, ugly, re-tread movies.
The camels have one thing going for them, they're real and if it gets boring riding them around, one can eat them for actual sustenance.
"The one on the left has definitely had some work done."
Yes, she's such a tease.
Surely, you know of the Canadian Four Lads and "Istanbul"
Take me back to Constantinople
No, you can't go back to Constantinople
Now it's Istanbul, not Constantinople
Why did Constantinople get the works?
That's nobody's business but the Turks . . .
Mark replies:
Indeed. See here.
And even old New York was once New Amsterdam. The trouble is we know why Constantinople got the works. It happened in 1453. And while I suppose that was nobody's business but the Turks, it should be everybody's business that the people of many Western European nations are gradually and voluntarily submitting - with the connivance of the governing class - to getting the works from Islam. Honestly, Charles Martel might as well have stayed in bed, and the people of what was Constantinople could have spared themselves 800 years of resisting the Saracen tide.
Pre-membership post for me. No excuse. Endless apologies. I grovel in mortification . . .
Have you seen a dog show? Cow show? Car show? We seem to be wired to show off our property. Camel shows seem natural.
I can see puttying-up a caved-in car, but botoxing a camel?
It never ceases to amaze me how you can be so hilarious and dismal at the same time, Mark. I love it.
I have been wondering how Mrs. May's government is planning to tackle loneliness in the UK. Will all the single, elderly people be rounded up and forced into care homes for their own good? This would have the dual benefit of opening up housing for all those nice folks Mrs. May has invited from Calais.
Perhaps this is the Government's premise for creating the next level in public housing - Heartbreak Hotels.
Re: the UK's new Minister of Loneliness - "It's proven to be worse for health than smoking 15 cigarettes a day, but it can be overcome and needn't be a factor in older people's lives," he said.
I'd rather smoke an unfiltered (and unbotoxed) camel.
If there's a Minister for Loneliness, shouldn't there be an offsetting Minister for Gregariousness?
I (seriously) almost cannot swallow, for the lump in my throat after reading this.
+100. Mark Steyn in elegiac style. (and what have I done to help? not much, really)
I know! But there's always hope. Never give in! Never, never, never, NEVER!