Wednesday, April 24, 2019

Vietnam: On the Cusp of a Tourism Boom, a Pristine Sapa of the 1920s



Interesting in that virtually all have bare feet and remind me of the Southern boys who went into the Army during WWII.

During the last decade of the 19th century, French colonists occupying northern Vietnam (then Tonkin) decided to conduct a census survey on the region’s ethnic minorities. The first convoys reached Lao Cai Province in 1898, and in 1903, Sapa Village was put on the map of Vietnam for the first time.

The name Sapa comes from two words, “Sa Pả” of the Hmong language; for much of the time when the French were here, the tiny town was known by the title Chapa, according to how the Romance language pronounces the Hmong name.

These black-and-white photos, taken almost a century ago, capture the decade when the nascent imprint of tourism started affecting Sapa. In 1917, a tourism center was founded there, a harbinger for the town’s future as a traveler hot spot. The first hotel, the Hotel du Fansipan, was established on the town’s main road, and a few others were under construction. In 1920, the Hanoi–Lao Cai railway became a reality, and hundreds of vacation villas were peppered across town.

More @ Saigoneer

AP History Textbook Questions Trump’s Mental Stability, Derides His Supporters as Racist

Via Richard


“In other words,” noted Starnes in his commentary, students exposed to the book in high-school history classes “are going to be taught that President Trump is mentally insane and his supporters are a bunch of irredeemable deplorables. Such descriptions would be laughable, but this garbage is being shoved into the minds of impressionable American teenagers.”
An advanced placement high-school history book aggressively critical of President Trump and his supporters is receiving new scrutiny, thanks to fresh exposure by Fox News commentator Todd Starnes and others.

Entitled By the People: A History of the United States, the history textbook published by Pearson Education and authored by New York University professor James Fraser was first introduced to classrooms in 2018. Its liberal, anti-Trump bias was discovered almost immediately in one of the book’s final sections, labeled “The Angry Election of 2016,” in which the author relates: “Most thought that Trump was too extreme a candidate to win the nomination, but his extremism, his anti-establishment rhetoric, and, some said, his not very hidden racism connected with a significant number of primary voters.”

Impeachment? This Is the Fight Trump Wants

Via Rick

Donald Trump

No one enjoys getting impeached, and if it happens to him, Donald J. Trump will be no exception.

On the other hand, it’s hard to imagine any potential target of impeachment in Anglo-American history relishing the fight more than Trump. He’d rather be done with the Mueller investigation in all its permutations, but there’s no one better suited to being at the center of a harshly partisan, deeply personal political and legal donnybrook that will ultimately be just for show.

More @ POLITICO

I Believe In God, Justice And My Mission Against Communism (RIP)

Re-post 2008 & 2011

Lê Văn Tống (September 1, 1945 – April 5, 2019), known as Lý Tốngwas aL Vietnamese American anti-communist activist.[1]

In 1965 at the age of 17, he served in the South's Republic of Vietnam Air Force. He was assigned to South Vietnam's "Black Eagle" Fighter Squadron.[2]

View ImageView Image

                                 In jail in Vietnam above

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The Last Action Hero 

(The link is now bad and a shame as it was excellent)

"Harrowing escapes! Crazed parachute jumps! Marathon swims! The wild misadventures of Ly Tong, bright hope and legendary hero......"

"......In 1980......(he)...... escape(d) from the re-education camp in (North) Vietnam and a journey through five countries, verified at the time by American diplomats, that was a virtuoso display of guts and ingenuity.

On his 17-month trek, he made his way by foot, by bicycle, by train and bus through Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand and Malaysia, breaking out of jails, threading his way through minefields, dodging security patrols and crawling through the jungle to avoid border posts. On his final leg, he swam across the Johore Strait from Malaysia to Singapore, where he hailed a taxi and presented himself at the U.S. Embassy."


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"If they think your family fought for the South, that's it." 


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I Believe In God, Justice And My Mission Against Communism

Bluegrass and Jazz: What Do They Have in Common?


If you’ve come across some of the other things I’ve written for Abbeville, you might have been exposed to my assertion that almost all of American music is Southern music.  Therefore, an obvious answer to the question of what do Bluegrass and Jazz have in common would be geographic origin. 

Yes, they definitely both come from Dixie, hallelujah.  And just as a little sidebar, it still blows my mind that not only do such diverse musical styles as Bluegrass and Jazz come from Dixie, but that they COULDN”T have come from anywhere else.  The ingredients that make up Bluegrass and Jazz are specific and unique to the South.  I know a lot of Yankees that try to claim Jazz as being from Chicago or New York, but they’re wrong.  Although Chicago and New York definitely contributed significant aspects to Jazz after its development, neither location was in possession of one of the key and vital ingredients to the birth of Jazz – a Creole population.  Without Creoles, Jazz would have never existed, and nobody else had a Creole population like the one in Louisiana.  Sorry, Yankees (not really).

White House Insider Information

Related image

William O. Stoddard of upstate New York was one of three personal secretaries utilized by Lincoln, joined by John Hay and John Nicolay. Stoddard had an adventurist personality and became one of the office-seeking multitude looking for appointment in Lincoln’s new Republican administration.
www.Circa1865.org  The Great American Political Divide

White House Insider Information

“Stoddard was high-spirited . . . And almost every man who can discover means for doing so is gambling in stocks and gold.” This game is fascinating, he says, because of “the sudden and unaccountable jumps and falls of what are called its prices, meaning the price of greenbacks. They are rather the pulsations of the public hope and fear concerning the national credit.”

To put the case as simply as possible, the new greenbacks the government issued in 1862 were not backed by gold, but they were placed on par value with bonds that were. The Union had not coin enough to pay its bills . . . It was patriotic to hold greenbacks, but even the truest patriot had himself and his family to feed. So rumors of distant battle, another Union defeat or embarrassment, would set many citizens scrambling for gold and speculators selling paper money short – or buying it in the belief a Union victory would send it soaring again.

The speculation that year was running insanely wild in New York and other financial centers, and I formed the idea that it was almost true patriotism to be what is called a “bear” in gold. I therefore went in, a little at first and then deeper . . . I had not the least idea that there was anything wrong in it for a fellow in my position . . .”

Stoddard had noted, as he did every day, the price of gold, selling at $132 per ounce, and it would go even higher if [General Ambrose] Burnside failed in Virginia. He had his eye on the stock exchange, especially the gold and currency markets, where he hoped to make his fortune.

Rumors of Lee’s rapid advance [into Pennsylvania] spread panic in the mid-Atlantic cities from Baltimore to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. The price of gold had been rising as the result of Union defeats; no the fear of a Confederate invasion spread to the financial markets as well. The price of gold was soaring, and Stoddard – the shrewd gambler – was “shorting” the metal and piling up greenbacks . . . [and] had made a killing in the gold market.

“Does the President take any interest in Wall Street gambling operations?” Stoddard asked rhetorically in his memoirs. “Of course he does, for the currency is the life of his policies.”

Over dinner one evening, they were discussing precious metals. “What is the price of gold this morning? Is it up or down? Lincoln asked his secretary. “Up Mr. Lincoln. The street is wild.”

“Well now,” the president replied, “they don’t know everything. If I were a bear on Wall Street, and if I were short of gold, I’d keep short. It’s a good time to sell.”

New York financier Clinton Rice testified that he made Stoddard’s acquaintance in 1862, when he told Rice “he enjoyed superior facilities for obtaining in advance all information of a political, official and diplomatic character likely to affect gold, stocks and other commodities. I entered into an arrangement with him [Stoddard] to furnish me telegraphic cipher dispatches.” Rice would use the information to invest in stocks or gold, and divide profits with Stoddard “share and share alike.”

As soon as there was “any important action of the Cabinet, or on receipt by the President or heads of departments of any important military or naval . . . operation” or diplomatic development, the secretary would wire Rice at once in cipher and the financier would place his bets. [Stoddard referred] to the “hollow” Union victory at Bristoe Station three weeks earlier, and how much the press had exaggerated the importance of the event. “I think I could run a gold line here better than anywhere else . . .”

(Lincoln’s Men: The President and His Private Secretaries, Daniel Mark Epstein, HarperCollins, 2009, excerpts pp. 100; 133; 135; 152; 172-173)

A Tale of Two Churches

David Hackett Fischer gives a relevant anecdote when speaking of Bruton Parish Anglican Church, in his 1989 tome Albion’s Seed (pg. 335): “The baptismal font is said to have been brought from the old church at Jamestown; George Washington stood as godfather to at least fourteen slaves who were baptized here.” Here is an image of the American tradition, such as it is, written large – warts and all: George Washington, Father of our country, standing in Bruton Church at Williamsburg, indeed at the old font originally from Jamestown, in the role of baptismal sponsor for 14 slaves as they were received into Christian fellowship.

A Review of Sacred Conviction: The South’s Stand for Biblical Authority (Shotwell Publishing, 2018) by Joseph Jay

Shotwell Publishing and author Joseph Jay have produced a wonderful short study of the theological divisions that existed between Northern and Southern churches in the antebellum period, and its contribution as a cause of the War Between the States. Many people are familiar with the divisions that occurred in some American Denominations caused by the issues of slavery and abolition, but they may be less familiar with the context of the debate at the time and its subsequent ramifications beyond denominational splits, making Jay’s work one of importance in my opinion. In the preface to Sacred Conviction Joseph Jay writes:

Notre Dame & Spiritual Warfare

Via Paul

KATIE HOPKINS WARNS AMERICA: DON'T BECOME LIKE THE UK: A dynamic speech at the Freedom Center's West Coast Retreat.

Via regenstein


At the Freedom Center's recent West Coast Retreat at the Terranea Resort in Rancho Palos Verdes (April 5-7, 2019), U.K.'s freedom fighter Katie Hopkins discussed the price she has paid in her battle for freedom in the UK -- and warns America not to become like Britain. Don’t miss the video and transcript of this dynamic speech below!

Transcript:

KATIE HOPKINS: (Applause) That was good.  That was good.  That was very beefy.  Okay, thank you.  Anyway, it's so fun to be here.  Thank you all for having me here.  Thank you in particular to David Horowitz, who I believe is the most inspirational freedom fighter of our time.  Absolutely.  Without David and his gorgeous team, I certainly wouldn't have a platform, and I can't tell you how grateful I am.  I have noticed however, David has become a little bit like the queen.  So, it's his 80th birthday year, and I don't know how many birthdays he's had so far, but I'm figuring by the end of the year, he's gonna have about eight, so he's kind of like the queen of the fight for freedom that we have here.

More with video @ Front Page

Trump Sends Warning to Mexico After Its Soldiers Draw Guns on US Troops in US 'Probably as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers'

Via Billy

Image result for Trump Sends armed forces sent to border


Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
 A very big Caravan of over 20,000 people started up through Mexico. It has been reduced in size by Mexico but is still coming. Mexico must apprehend the remainder or we will be forced to close that section of the Border & call up the Military. The Coyotes & Cartels have weapons!

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President Donald Trump sent Mexico a warning Wednesday in response to an incident in which Mexican troops reportedly pointed their weapons at U.S. troops.

“Mexico’s Soldiers recently pulled guns on our National Guard Soldiers, probably as a diversionary tactic for drug smugglers on the Border. Better not happen again! We are now sending ARMED SOLDIERS to the Border. Mexico is not doing nearly enough in apprehending & returning!” Trump tweeted Wednesday.

More @ WJ