An Afghan woman pleads with US troops to allow her inside the airport grounds to flee the Taliban.
The US Embassy in Afghanistan under the direction of Joe Biden on Wednesday sent out a second security alert to stranded Americans in Kabul:
“THE UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT CANNOT ENSURE SAFE PASSAGE TO THE HAMID KARZAI INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT.”
You are on your own.
More @ Survival
The Continental Palace....where Graham Greene wrote the Quiet American. The new Italian owners ruined it walled in the ground floor, open porch where you could watch pretty girls bicycle by in their Ao Dais on the way to school while you had a cold drink.
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The carts here are owned by the individuals who are taking a nap (12 to 2) in front of the coffee shop that is only open mornings. They go down streets calling out what they are willing to buy since nothing is wasted in Vietnam. You sort whatever you are finished with into different piles such as cardboard, metal, glass etcetera and when the appropriate person comes down your street, you have a buyer.
Live and let live. This is the one male from the group above who evidently didn't want to nap alongside the women, so laid down in front of the hotel. No one will say a word to him.
Two shots above from the last time I went to Saigon in 2016 and 2017 for five months.
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Can you hear the snores?
The vast majority of animals spend a great amount of time napping...why not humans?
Studies overwhelmingly confirm the many virtues of a mid-day snooze, and yet as workplace cultures homogenize around the world and people increasingly become little more than tiny cogs whirring, whirring, whirring in an insomniac widget machine churning out useless nodules and niblets, the nap is becoming a lost art.Still, Vietnam's nap culture remains strong. Even if you aren't given a chance to curl up beneath your desk at noon for a satisfying sliver of sleep, you have certainly had to awake a tạp hóa worker, seen a construction worker catching some shut-eye on the job site, or been infuriated by banks and businesses closing every afternoon for company-approved siestas.
These photos taken in the 1950s, 60s and 70s and collected by Flickr legend manhhai showcase just how endemic the habit is on the streets here. Have a peek and then grab a pillow. You deserve a nap!
More @ Saigoneer
He published his findings with the observation that there were more authentic British folk songs to be found in Appalachia than in Britain.
Here’s something to blow your mind – Maybelle hired a very young Chet Atkins to be her electric lead guitarist in the new group, and Chet ALWAYS took a back seat to Maybelle’s playing. Trust me, that’s unheard of.
When I was a kid, we had a bully in school who delighted in picking on the girls, for some reason. No matter what they accomplished, this moron always chimed in with something like, “Not bad for a girl.” It was definitely not intended as a compliment. The obvious implication was that no matter what the females think they’ve achieved, they’re still in the minor leagues of society, and will never measure up to the boys no matter what they do. Second-class citizens all the way. That’s why I’m not a big fan of having separate lists, contests, or rankings of achievements based on gender (or anything else, really). That stupid kid made me realize that girls should never accept being measured up in any kind of lesser way than the boys, or else it justifies his position of, “not bad for a girl.” And that’s where Maybelle Carter fits in. Maybelle was not a great “female guitar player.” Maybelle Carter was a great guitar player, period. I realize that there aren’t a lot of iconic female guitarists out there to recognize, so it’s important to note the social significance of Maybelle’s accomplishments. However, I don’t think it is hyperbole to suggest that there would be no guitar bands of the 60’s and 70’s without Maybelle Carter.
More @ The Abbeville Institute
While we’re watching all the terrible chaos break out in Afghanistan, His Fraudulency Joe Biden and the Democrats are also serving up plenty of chaos right here at home.
That’s not to say we shouldn’t keep an eye on Afghanistan, not with thousands of American civilians trapped behind enemy lines after a jihadist takeover. But let’s do two things at once and remember all the chaos Joe Biden and the Democrat party are wreaking on the home front.
More @ Breitbart
Via David
For the last week or so, I have been living in the middle of a construction zone. In defiance of the climate scientists, Lake Erie and its fellow Great Lakes decided to grow instead of shrink.
While the scientists re-checked their data, the entrepreneurs got to work building sea walls. Through my lakefront windows, I have been watching one entrepreneur and his crew build me a wall. This is no small job. It’s a six-figure project that involves several major pieces of equipment. My favorite is the truck-mounted boom pump that receives the concrete from a mobile concrete mixer and distributes it through its mantis-like arms precisely to where it needs to go.
More @ The American Spectator
Brock: Hope all is well with you and yours.Appomattox
Courthouse was the end of the Civil War, but the beginning of our
national reconciliation. I wrote about it for our second piece on Civil
War history: I've
long loved the story of the surrender at Appomattox and what it says
about the men who fought on both sides of the War Between the States.
Give it a read and let me know what you think. As always, links are
appreciated. ~~Sam-PS:
We're launching a separate clothing company. We're not being public
about the connection between the two companies for the moment, but any
eyes you can get on these by linking is greatly appreciated: https://libertasbella.com/
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Lee's Surrender, By My Great Grandfather, April 9,1865, 156 Years Ago
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The Battle of Appomattox Courthouse is considered by many historians the end of the Civil War and the start of post-Civil War America. The events of General Robert E. Lee’s surrender to General and future President Ulysses S. Grant at a small town courthouse in Central Virginia put into effect much of what was to follow.
The surrender at Appomattox Courthouse was about reconciliation, healing, and restoring the Union. While the Radical Republicans had their mercifully brief time in the sun rubbing defeated Dixie’s nose in it, largely in response to the Southern "Black Codes," they represented the bleeding edge of Northern radicalism that wanted to punish the South, not reintegrate it into the Union as an equal partner.
More @ Ammo.Com
Via Billy
Meanwhile in Australia police pepper spray children for not wearing masks pic.twitter.com/L0ZPhUH8c6
— 🦋𝕂𝕖𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕖🦋 (@WinterAsh12) August 17, 2021
Part of Australia’s Mandatory Covid Quarantine Center’s Master Plan Blueprints
In late 2019, before the China-virus was known to the world, very few – if any – people could have even imagined that a civilized western nation would be building facilities that government thugs would be forcing citizens into against their will.
More @ The Gateway Pundit
Twitter indicated Tuesday that it will not kick the Taliban off its platform like other tech giants, such as Facebook and Youtube, have elected to do after the group took over Afghanistan amid the withdrawal of U.S. troops from the region.
While a Twitter spokesperson would not directly say whether or not they plan on banning the terror group, they did say in a statement obtained by Mediaite that the tech giant would “continue to proactively enforce” its rules on the “glorification of violence, platform manipulation and spam.”
More @ RTM
Newsom only needs to garner 50% of the votes against the recall to stay in office, but because of the way the election is run, Elder does not need to gain 50% of votes to win. He only needs to obtain a plurality among Newsom challengers if Newsom loses.
Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom took aim at the Republican front-runner, talk show host Larry Elder, in California’s recall election as polls show Newsom’s support weakening.
Newsom attacked Elder by aligning him with Trumpism during a campaign event at a Mexican restaurant Saturday.
More @ RTM
Ngo Quang Truong was widely considered one of the most honest and capable generals of the South Vietnamese army during the long war in Southeast Asia. General Bruce Palmer, in his book The 25-Year War, described Truong as a “tough, seasoned fighting leader” and “probably the best field commander in South Vietnam.” General Creighton Abrams, who commanded American military operations in Vietnam from 1968-72, told subordinates that he thought General Truong was capable of commanding an American division.
RISING STAR
Ngo Quang Truong was born December 19, 1929, to a well-to-do family in the Mekong Delta province of Kien Hoa. After he graduated from My Tho College, a French colonial-run school, Truong attended the reserve officer school at Thu Duc. He graduated with Class 4 and received his commission as an infantry officer in the Vietnamese National Army (VNA) in 1954. After graduation,Truong went immediately to airborne school in Da Lat. Upon completion of parachute training, he was assigned as commander of 1stCompany, 5th Airborne Battalion. He helped rebuild the battalion,which had been decimated fighting alongside French forces at the1954 Battle of Dien Bien Phu.
More @ History Net
The opponents of Southern heritage often repeat the trope: “You lost, get over it.” One of them told me that it was “ironic” that we honor both the US and CS flags.
But of course, the postbellum states of the CSA were annexed into the reunited USA. They were forced back into the Union. Therefore, thirteen of the stars on today’s Old Glory represent Confederate states.
American history is incredibly inclusive as well as intricate.
And to this day, when there is a war to be fought, the South is always over-represented. And when Yankees retire or go on vacation, they usually go South rather than North. I don’t blame them.
There’s no actual irony in honoring the past. History is complicated. We embrace our ancestry and heritage. This is how normal people in the real world live. That’s why there are statues of the defeated Scottish rebel Sir William Wallace, not only in Scotland, but also in England (he is a UK hero today). That’s why there is a statue of the rebel General George Washington at Trafalgar Square in London. That’s why there are statues to the defeated Hawaiian Queen Liliuokalani (and other pre-American royals) in Hawaii (and their state flag includes the symbol of the defeated mother country of the United States: Great Britain). The state flags of New Mexico and Oklahoma contain symbols of defeated native peoples (“You lost, get over it,” right?) – many of whom are veterans of the United States – even though their ancestors took up arms against the US.
Is that ‘ironic’ as well?
Another talking point about Confederate heritage is that they “took up arms against the United States!” As the kids say, “Well, duh!” In fact, some of the most honored American Indians fought against, and even slaughtered, a lot of American soldiers – including the famed veteran of the War for Southern Independence, (Brevet) Major General George Custer and 267 other members of the US 7th Cavalry, at the Battle of Little Bighorn, while wounding 55 more. They stripped, scalped, and dismembered the bodies of the American dead. And yet, these Indian warriors are also part of our common American heritage, honored on coins and stamps and in museums, and they hold a special place of honor among American Indians to this very day. And we, as a nation, erect statues and monuments in their honor. In 1993, Hollywood made a movie honoring the Indian warrior and combatant against the United States, Geronimo, as an “American Legend.”
Our modern USA is a complex tapestry of many heritages. And that includes our Confederate heritage.
And as for losing in battle, our fathers and uncles were defeated in Vietnam. There are many who believe the Vietnam War was not a good cause or an appropriate use of American military force. But of course, we honor these men as our countrymen, our relatives, and as part of the tapestry of American history and heritage. And we especially honor the fallen with a memorial wall in DC. The surviving veterans and family members of the dead – even those who believe the cause was less than righteous – reverently visit that memorial. What kind of person would tell the family members who honor these men, “You lost, get over it”?
Would they say that to visitors to Auschwitz? Would they say that to the descendants of slaves? Would they say that to a mother whose children were killed in the line of duty as first responders? Perhaps so.
Our country has not only lost its history and its heritage, it has lost its soul.
