Tea at Trianon: Our Homeless Veterans

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

Wednesday, June 27, 2018

Our Homeless Veterans

From Lifezette:

There were about 40,000 homeless veterans on any given night, according to U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development in 2016; they comprise 11 percent of the country's homeless population, according to the National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. Plus, of those 40,000, about 25,000 are able to stay in a homeless shelter — but about 15,000 of them have no shelter at all on a nightly basis, according to the Military Times. Consider some of the reasons former military personnel wind up homeless — especially after they've undergone traumatic experiences. One out of every 10 veterans who served in this country's war on terror suffers from substance abuse once back home, according to the Department of Veteran Affairs. (Read more.)