Tea at Trianon: Life in Chicago: "An Orlando Every Month"

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Saturday, July 9, 2016

Life in Chicago: "An Orlando Every Month"

I thought Chicago had strict gun control laws. From Time:

The number of people killed in Chicago shootings this June has spiked by more than 50% when compared to last year’s data, with 416 killed or wounded in 333 shootings this month.The shootings have made this month Chicago’s most violent June in at least six years, DNAinfo reports. About 70 people were killed, with at least 61 of those deaths stemming from shootings. The site reports that Chicago could see 700 homicides by the end of 2016. “We have an Orlando every month in Chicago, and no one seems to raise an eyebrow,” Dean Angelo, president of Chicago’s police union, said during a speech to the City Club of Chicago Tuesday. This month’s Chicago shooting victims have been as young as 3-year-old Devon Quinn, who was paralyzed by a bullet that struck him while he was in his father’s car on Father’s Day. Since Wednesday afternoon alone, two men have been killed and at least nine other people have been wounded in shootings citywide, the Chicago Tribune reports. (Read more.)