Tea at Trianon: Meanwhile, In Talbot County….

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

Sunday, April 21, 2024

Meanwhile, In Talbot County….

In Maryland just like everywhere else the people formerly known as "liberals" are showing themselves to be quite rigid and tyrannical. From The Easton Gazette:

At 215 Bay St., Suite 7 in Easton, MD on April 17, 2024 the Board of Elections met in a meeting open to the public. They included in their agenda a time for “Public Comment” in which members of the community may speak. On their website, the Board of Elections has the following cryptic statement:

Public comment is not a Debate. It is not a question and answer session. It is not a discussion. It is not a conversation. If, after a public comment, a member of the BOE wishes to clarify by question, that is possible. With that in mind, the BOE thanks the public for your interest, welcomes the public to speak and requests that anyone who would like to speak please state your name for the record.

So it appears that public comments are welcomed as long as they are innocuous statements and do not demand too much information from the Board. At any rate, several citizens were present with questions and comments which they began to respectfully submit during the time set aside for “Public Comment.”

One citizen asked about the cameras above the two ballot drop boxes, which both appear to be attached to the buildings and are actually the buildings’ front door monitoring system. She asked if those were the cameras used to monitor the drop boxes as required by COMAR, and if so, were they retaining the videos for the required 22 months so they could be reviewed. The same person asked if the Board had addressed the issue of official emails going only to the Executive Director of the Board and not to the other members. (Read more.)