The American Bonapartes

Jerome Napoleon Bonaparte, "Bo"

 From LBV:

Bo had actually been born in London in 1805 but his mother took him to her country when the French emperor annulled the marriage with his younger brother to provide him with an ancestral wife and make him king of Westphalia.

This meant the loss of the right to bear the surname, although decades later his cousin Napoleon III reversed that decision. Bo, who was assured of a comfortable life because his mother’s family owned prosperous commercial businesses in Baltimore, studied law at Harvard, although he never practiced as a lawyer.

He was president of the Maryland Agricultural Society and the Maryland Club, an exclusive entity founded in 1857 that four years later supported confederate cause and in the 20th century opposed Prohibition (the law outlawing alcohol).

But earlier, in 1829, he married Susan May Williams, a wealthy heir to the growing railroad sector and also a Baltimore native, whose millionaire dowry was able to do more than the promises to connect with the European aristocracy she was offered. (Read more.)

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Breeding Immortal Beings

 From Law and Liberty:

Progressive liberals might expect to hear a lot about religious patriarchs or religious dogma. Those were hardly mentioned. Conservatives might expect matrons of large families to talk about youthful socialization and the values of their natal communities. Perhaps these women were taught as girls to aspire to maternity, view homemaking as their central vocation, and spurn the careerism of modern feminism. I suspect that would have been a component of the conversation if the parameters of the study had been expanded to include women without college degrees. But it really wasn’t the story here. The women in Pakaluk’s study hadn’t spent their youthful years ironing and dreaming of babies, nor did they necessarily find deep fulfillment in quilting, cooking, and spreading pretty tablecloths. People might like those things or not, but women today don’t have eight children because hearth-and-home just feels like their niche. The impact of religious conviction is more subtle and complex than that: it doesn’t change the basic spread of costs and benefits associated with childbearing, but it guides people’s calculations as to what risks are worth taking, and what sacrifices and struggles are likeliest to pay off. 

In short: it’s about the children. This is the simple, compelling truth that shines through Pakaluk’s book. Women have large families because they come to appreciate that children are a tremendous good, justifying the immense pain and sacrifice that they cost their parents. No other social contribution has the same significance; no other pursuit is quite as meaningful. As one woman explains succinctly: “Nothing (else) is as good.” (Read more.)

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When Jerusalem Was Under Greek Rule

 From The Greek Reporter:

The ancient Greek period in Jerusalem lasted from 332 to 152 BC following the death of Alexander the Great and the dividing of his empire by his generals, the so-called diadochi. Alexander’s successors imposed the Hellenistic culture on their new subjects. For about a century and a half, interaction between the Greeks and Jews was regular and nuanced. Hellenism was also followed during their reign. This came to an end when Herod the Great became king. For the first twenty years after Alexander’s death, Judea was assigned to Laomedon but was fiercely contested by the generals. When the Wars of the Diadochi ended in the Battle of Ipsus in 301 BC, Ptolemy I Soter took control of Judea along with all of Palestine and Egypt, establishing the Ptolemaic dynasty rule until 200 BC. (Read more.)

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Highest of All Kings

 From A Clerk of Oxford:

The idea that gods dwell in the heights, in the sky and on the mountains, is one of the most ancient religious impulses. It's hardly difficult to see a connection between that and Christ's Ascension, and going on about 'rockets, haha!' feels like a deliberate attempt not to see it. Those silly people of the olden days found poetry in the feast rather more easily than their clever modern descendants do: in Ascension Day folklore there was 'a strong connection between the day and all things pertaining to the sky, such as clouds, rain, and birds' (Roud). Rain which fell on Ascension Day was said to be blessed - 'neither eaves' drip nor tree-drip, but straight from the sky'. The day was connected with holy water in other ways, including the custom of well-dressing and visiting sacred springs. This expresses a sense that the heavens and the earth are interconnected at the most essential level - as of course they are, whether you think of that power as physical or spiritual or both. The kind of preacher who apologises for Ascension Day is likely to call that faith superstitious, but it's infinitely grander, really, than a worldview which finds no wonder in the heavens. We are earthbound, tied to this sublunary world and its many sorrows - but this is one day when the imagination can soar to the sky. (Read more.)

More HERE. 

(Image source.) 

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What This DEI Consulting Firm Lied About Is Actually Evil

 From Matt Walsh. 

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On the Invention of Monsieur Dupin

 From CrimeReads:

In 1747, Voltaire wrote a philosophical novella exploring the theme of problem-solving, Zadig ou la Destinée, featuring a wise young man in Babylonia whose knowledge gets him in trouble but often ultimately saves him. In William Godwin’s 1794 novel Things as They Are; or, The Adventures of Caleb Williams, a scathing indictment on the so-called justice system’s ability to ruin lives, state-sanctioned investigators are disavowed in favor of non-traditional problem-solvers. In 1819, the German novelist E. T. A. Hoffmann wrote Das Fräulein von Scuderi, in which a nosy woman named Mlle. de Scuderi (who might be considered a predecessor of Miss Marple) finds a stolen string of pearls.

And no nineteenth-century detective lineage would be complete without Eugène-François Vidocq, a criminal-turned-criminologist who lived from 1775-1857 and who founded and ran France’s first national police, the Sûreté nationale, as well as France’s first private detection agency. His life inspired countless (swashbuckling) adaptations, including an American adaptation published in Burton’s Gentleman’s Magazine in 1828, entitled “Unpublished passages in the Life of Vidocq, the French Minister of Police,” which Poe very well might have read. Interestingly there’s a character in that story named “Dupin.” Ahem.

Poe had been experimenting with the conventions of detective fiction, himself. Many of his horror stories had also relied on the kind of third-act reveal, a twist—but one that is not figured out. Poe seemed to discover that the difference between a detective story and a horror story was the inclusion of a character who could make sense of the mysterious events going on. Horror stories are mysteries without someone to explain them.

I submit that in his stories leading up to the Dupin tales, Poe had been experimenting with “bad” or “failed” detectives, in this way. (Read more.)

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A Cute Kitchen Makeover

 

From Apartment Therapy:

Once the aesthetic was decided, it was time to demo the original kitchen. Kara ripped out the upper cabinets and patched the remaining holes (she and Robin did most of the renovation themselves!). After the cabinets were removed, the “old dingy cream” wall color was replaced with a shade of bright pink to complement the incoming wallpaper.

“I know mixing bold florals and checkered floors might seem unconventional, but I love how the contrasting patterns create a unique balance between retro and modern vibes,” Kara shares. “At the end of the day, our whole cabin is designed for the girls, and a bold pink kitchen is the hero room.” (Read more.)

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In Defense of Moms for Liberty

 From The Easton Gazette:

Our local chapter has scheduled and will offer an opportunity to ALL school board candidates to meet voters and answer questions in a forum in the fall closer to the election. Invitations will be sent to ALL candidates prior to that event. Being closer to the election will allow voters to get an idea of who candidates are right before voting. This makes for a more accurate, up to date view of what the candidates believe.  

 Mr. Johnson, who I suppose is pretending to share facts about Moms for Liberty, is wrong and biased in his portrayal of our group. He says we are controversial. I guess when you advocate for parents instead of unions and special interest groups, you are called controversial.  

As Mr. Johnson picks descriptors of Moms for Liberty, he uses biased, disproven descriptions from the Associated Press and an extremely biased liberal politics professor from Virginia. These descriptions don’t address the reality that Moms for Liberty supports parental rights which allow parents a seat at the decision-making table for the educational, medical, and mental health decisions made regarding their children. This is our main mission.  

Parental rights mean allowing parents the right to keep their children from being exposed to pornographic materials in school, taught racist doctrine, forced to be exposed to the opposite gender in bathrooms/locker rooms, or encouraged to undertake drastic hormone blocking treatments and mutilation of their bodies without parental knowledge or permission and without informed consent of the horrific side effects and lifetime disabilities. Moms for Liberty is dedicated to helping ALL parents be aware of what is happening in the schools so they can assert their rights in the educational decision-making process.  

Attendance at one of our meetings might have helped Mr. Johnson see or hear that for himself. He could have met our members, some of whom are local and state officials and talked to them about their views.  Instead, he relied on third party, biased opinions which portray us as a divisive group who undermines local governing bodies and Democracy. (Read more.)

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