The Last Mitford

 Debo. From House and Garden:

The youngest of the Mitford sisters, Deborah, Duchess of Devonshire, was a beauty - elegant, down to earth, English to her very core and mad for all things poultry. Her beloved hens are a motif to be found throughout the sale, an astounding 40 lots are poultry-related.

She once hosted Oscar de la Renta at Chatsworth and presented her hens and their chicks nesting in glass boxes as the table centrepieces. After 54 years as chatelaine of Chatsworth she moved to the Old Vicarage at Edensor and the pieces she took with her were deeply personal, her style and passions condensed into this collection of belongings.

'Debo', as she was known to friends and family, delighted in downsizing, writing in Wait For Me!, her autobiography, "For me it is an unheard-of pleasure for the kitchen to be just two steps away and for it to be two steps the other way into the garden". Her interiors had a typical Mitford wit and style, a playful irreverence. She mixed Meissen porcelain and fine furniture with cardboard cut-outs of Elvis - she was a huge fan. (Read more.)

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No, These Two Degenerates Are NOT The Parents Of Our Country

 Momala?" Oh, please. From Jan Greenhawk at The Easton Gazette:

In two separate interviews over the weekend, former shock jock Howard Stern and actress Drew Barrymore implied that Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are the "Father" in Biden's case and the "Momala" in Kamala's case, of the United States of America.

If it wasn't so stupid, it would be funny. Stern actually called Biden a "great father" in his interview. I guess Howard hasn't heard about Hunter or the fact that Joe showered with his adolescent daughter. One wonders if that was sarcasm or if Stern is just being paid off or blackmailed to say such a stupid thing. Then, he rattled off all of Biden's accomplishments. One problem, they were all lies.

I remember when Howard Stern was edgy and cool. He was the radio personality that said things no one else dared to say. That WAS a long time ago and maybe Howard has just lost it.

In Drew Barrymore's case, portraying Kamala as a "mother" to the country is not only ludicrous, but insulting to all mothers as we approach Mother's Day. Everyone knows Kamala's political career was not achieved by hard work and morals, but by serving the right "boyfriends" and having the right skin color. Yes, I said it. Kamala is the ultimate DEI hire. One could possibly forgive Ms. Barrymore since all she has known her entire life was being an "actress." She was emancipated from her parents at 14. That usually means your parents were not the best parental role models.

Since Kamala's poll numbers are so low, Barrymore must also have been paid off or extorted to say such a stupid thing. But, then again, being able to act does not imply intelligence, only the ability to imitate.

This is not the first time that Democrats have resorted to calling their Presidents "parents." In an interview with Oprah Winfrey, Barack Obama was affectionately referred to as the country's father. No surprise that Oprah would fawn all over Obama, but it is surprising that this tactic is now being used on Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It seems Obama is "getting the gang" back together in 2024 to push, or drag, senile old Joe across the finish line.

The effort is to make Biden seem like the calm, wise, grandfather who has kept this country going since 2021. Here's a link to Howard Stern's interview page. Have you eaten recently? You may want to wait to watch lest you go into diabetic shock. (Read more.)

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Crime Novels With a Sense of Place and Manners

 From CrimeReads:

Both of theses authors are excellent, well known, and in similar ways have staked out their turf. Jane Harper’s novels are set in Australia, beginning with The Dry, three of them featuring her detective Aaron Falk, others are stand-alone mysteries. Usually involving cold cases—not always murders, sometimes deaths resulting from tragic relationships—Harper’s slow-burn but cinematically rendered stories unwrap layers of Australian communities, family secrets, broken friendships that are defined by landscapes both beautiful and harsh.

Tana French’s stories are set in Ireland. Like Harper, she has a series of novels, The Dublin Murder Squad, beginning with her debut, In The Woods, that feature returning detective characters, with revolving points of view, and stand-alone novels with new characters. Like Harper, her stories are slow-burners: an inciting incident draws the reader in, and the long, deliberate development of her plots is sustained by the convincing details of place, characters, and the quality of French’s writing. (Read more.)

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A Notting Hill Townhouse

 
From House and Garden:

Bryan’s name is synonymous with hotel design; he’s worked on many of the most glamorous properties across the world – Claridge's, The Connaught and Kenmare to name a few – and imbued their private and public spaces with his deft blend of neutrals, pastels, artful furniture and craft. This style translates wonderfully to this house, where Bryan has in his own words “experimented with colour more as a studio than we have before.” Bryan is known more for his soft approach to colour, creating serene spaces with splashes of pale coral, light blue or washes of pretty pinks. “It’s really important to explore and experiment with colour,” he says, “because the outcome can be really powerful but still calm and enveloping. It can have a positive effect on you when you walk into these rooms.” (Read more.)

 

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DEI Conquers Stanford

 From City Journal:

DEI’s growth at Stanford has been fast. In 2021, the Heritage Foundation counted 80 DEI officials at the university. That number has more than doubled since then. Sophie Fujiwara, a recent graduate, explains that DEI has become “unavoidable” for students, with “mandatory classes” and “university-sponsored activities.” Left-wing students increasingly believed that this wasn’t enough. Following the George Floyd revolution of 2020, these students “demanded more initiatives and funding from the university for DEI-related subjects.”

Stanford’s DEI initiatives are not limited to humanities departments or race and gender studies. The highest concentration is in Stanford’s medical school, which has at least 46 diversity officials. A central DEI administration is led by chief DEI officer Joyce Sackey, with sub-departments throughout the medical school. Pediatrics, biosciences, and other specialties all have their own commissars embedded in the structure.

In the sciences, DEI policies have advocated explicit race and sex discrimination in pursuit of “diversity.” The physics department, for example, has committed to a DEI plan with a mandate to “increase the diversity of the physics faculty,” which, in practice, means reducing the number of white and Asian men. Administrators are told to boost the representation of “underrepresented groups,” or “URGs,” through a variety of discriminatory programs and filters. (Read more.)

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Men and Women as They Are: Mozart’s “Marriage of Figaro”

 Marie-Antoinette loved Beaumarchais and performed The Barber of Seville at her miniature theater at Petit Trianon. From The Imaginative Conservative:

Not only was it, of course, a safer course in eighteenth-century Western Europe to castigate women rather than aristocrats, but Mozart surely found more humor and irony in this aria, which was in keeping with the comic spirit of the piece as a whole. In a story that centers on the serial infidelity of a nobleman, and which the lead female characters are faithful to their lovers, Mozart has a manservant sing of the untrustworthy nature of women.

Moreover, it is likely that Mozart found a blanket condemnation of the wealthy an empty indictment, for he knew that wealth did not change the nature of men. But women were in their essence different from men—at least in some respects—in all times and places; indeed, the idea that women “all do the same” provided the title of the third of the Mozart-Da Ponte trilogy (Così fan Tutte). Thus, it was the battle of the sexes that Mozart found much more interesting and more primal than the battle of the classes.

And yet, Mozart and Da Ponte did not entirely shy away from class antagonisms; they added a soliloquy—the aria “Se voul ballare”—to the libretto, in which Figaro sings to the absent Count of his intention to allow him “to go dancing,” but promising that he himself “will call the tune.” Keeping in mind that Figaro‘s libretto is in Italian, the language of the Viennese nobility, it can be argued that Mozart was here speaking directly to aristocrats, warning them to behave themselves. This is true, but the aria should be seen more as a stinging admonition to an individual rather than a revolutionary clarion call, in that Figaro here—and throughout the opera—implicitly accepts his lower station. Had the Count been an entirely honorable man, Figaro would have no need to try to foil his master’s designs through manipulation. (Read more.)

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4 Sisters Kabob and Curry

 

From The Easton Gazette:

Now in Easton we are blessed to be able to taste the flavors of the Indian subcontinent in two places, The Bombay Tadka and more recently the 4 Sisters Kabob and Curry. 4 Sisters is a food truck with delicious traditional Pakistani and Indian cuisine, with the most fresh ingredients. I discovered it when my daughter won eight chickens, including three roosters, in a raffle. Since we wanted eggs that we could eat we had to look for homes for the roosters. I put "Free Roosters" messages all over Facebook and one of the ladies from the food truck responded, so we dropped them off there. I loved to see the words "American Dream" painted on the side of the truck. I had to know the story behind the family, and here it is:

The family’s story is one worthy of a novel and begins in Kashmir when owner and chief cook Shahida Perveen was a child, preparing food for her seven uncles. The family’s journey to the Eastern Shore began in 2001 when they left their native Kashmir, Pakistan to come to the United States. Like many immigrants seeking better opportunities, Shahida worked various jobs, including a 7-Eleven on Kent Island, while learning a new language and how to drive a car, and did some catering on the side. Ann created a contact list and every Thursday night they would text the menu for Friday pickup. Soon their list grew to over ninety customers and the family started looking for restaurant space in Easton but found nothing to suit their needs.

The women opened 4 Sisters Halal Meat & Groceries on Park Street in Easton selling spices and frozen foods. Realizing that most people couldn’t cook authentic Indian and Pakistani food, even with the seasonings, the daughters encouraged their mom to follow her passion of cooking her own food and started exploring the idea of a food truck affiliated with the store.

(Read more.)

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Stop Importing Foreign Hatred

 From City Journal:

After the October 7 attacks, thousands took to American streets to celebrate. Some explicitly praised the heinous acts of rape, beheading, and kidnapping of civilians. Among these demonstrators were many noncitizens, including those on student visas. Universities such as MIT refrained from suspending students who neglected their classes in order to protest, seeking to protect those students’ immigration status.

Policymakers can fight imported anti-Semitism by safeguarding American Jews from foreign threats, while reinforcing the value of American citizenship. The United States has a long-standing tradition of defending itself against perilous foreign ideologies. George Washington once expressed his hope that America might become a “safe and agreeable asylum to the virtuous and persecuted part of mankind, to whatever nation they might belong.” Washington’s emphasis on virtue is critical. Some of the earliest immigration restrictions aimed to ensure that only virtuous actors were admitted—excluding prostitutes, anarchists, and Communists.

Following World War II, these restrictions broadened to prevent members of totalitarian parties and violators of human rights from immigrating. Terrorists and their affiliates are barred from entering the U.S.; so are their supporters. Even today, such laws continue to result in the denaturalization and deportation of former Nazi officials who managed to enter America under false pretenses. (Read more.)

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