Yesterday I learned that R Lee Ermey (“Gunny”) died at the age of 74.
Ermey joined the Marines when he was 17 years old and spent fourteen months in Vietnam. Many years later, he started an acting career. His biography states that he appeared in a few bit roles such as The Boys in Company C. His breakout roles was as Gunny Sgt Hartman, in Stanley Kubrick’s classic film Full Metal Jacket.
From then, he went to perform in over sixty films. Unfortunately, this all came to a grinding halt in 2010, when he offered some tepid criticisms of President Obama. To put not too fine of a point on it, he was blacklisted. This is ironic because he voted for Obama in 2008. After that, his acting career dried up.
It’s also ironic because the Hollywood mythology states that blacklists are bad. Well, I guess it’s all a lot of hogwash.
Which brings me to my final point: Ermey’s defenestration confirms the fact that the left is way more totalitarian than the right could ever hope to be. Truth be told, we’re seeing a lot of that now when the progressives are on the warpath against anybody who disagrees with them.
Ermey was just a case in point. He, like Paula Deen (who voted twice for Obama) saw their careers flushed down the toilet faster than you can say Jackie Robinson. Voting for Obama did not absolve Deen from the cardinal sin of being a Southerner who had a thriving business empire built upon Southern culture. If that’s not totalitarianism, nothing is.
I imagine we’ll see more of this sort of nonsense in the immediate future as the left continues its derangement. In the meantime, please enjoy this clip from Full Metal Jacket:
He was excellent, great character actor.
The Michael Cohen raid probably crosses the line of what Trump can tolerate and remain in power.
They raided the office of his lawyer.
There is a reason we have courts and lawyers and rules about who can access whose personal information. The word “attorney” comes from the word for jousting/dueling and is related to tournament. We have attorneys so that we settle things according to the rule of law rather than brute force. Attorneys replaced knights in the contest for whose “truth” prevails. Once that rampart is breached, we are very, very close to Hobbes’ Warre.
War is not about who’s right, it’s about who’s left.
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/lawyers-for-michael-cohen-say-raids-took-everything
Lawyers are the last line of defense before violence ensues.
Methinks we are about to cross the Rubicon.
Full Metal Jacket. A disturbing illustration of not only how easy it is to bring out the killer within us, but that very few are immune to such demons over taking our soul, under such horrid conditions. This movie is probably the darkest of dark comedies ever made.
This madness, in realty, is the dark vision, the extreme right has for our children(not theirs) in endless foreign wars, feeding the insatiable war machine.
As to leftist blacklists and totalitarianism what’s new? So far it only affects the social and monetary for some. The only thing worse than that? They have NO LIMIT, how viscous , and how far the leftist will go to promote their ideology. They kill their own without hesitation.
The 2nd amendment is the fine line, the equalizer. It is our only and last defense to tyranny finally overcoming us, without any defense.
Best example? Nuclear weapons, which have equalized, and made all the world’s big boys, realize that starting world war 3, would not be profitable. Americans bearing arms keep our powers that be from going too far as well.
Support the NRA. As an American of Greek heritage, MOLON LABE. I will never stand blindfolded against a wall, or upon the deck of the gallows, as many Greek and Russian Orthodox have in the past.
Rest in peace Gunny.
A Baptist Army Chaplin has been accused of violating the non-discrimination against homosexuals even though he was following the Army’s own protocol and the directives of his sponsoring denomination when he reschuled a marriage retreat after a young lesbian soldier wanted to participate.
The Chaplin withdrew from conducting the retreat and referred the whole thing to another Chaplin who would do it with the young woman’s participation.
The Chaplin was even reprimanded for stating his belief to the soldier.
The Constitution provides no protection if the government ignores the limits to it’s power.
True that. BTW, we can expect more of this type of totalitarian nonsense from the Gaystapo.
Gunny must have been diagnosed with unconscious bias against blacks, Democrats and Hollywoodites and needed a timeout.
Starbucks closing down reminds me of the Screwtape letters. Who knows what will happen to all the sugar-caffine junkies who payout stupid amounts of money for undrinkable swill with metro-sexual names. What are they going to do?
I have a conscious bias against anyone who seriously uses the term “unconscious bias”; who teaches such newspeak garbage; who participated willingly in the NWO show trials now ongoing. Too bad Gunney’s not around to set them straight.
Does Dick’s Sporting Goods have Starbucks in them? They ought to.
If people do not have bias, they have the mental acuity and descision making capacity of a slug.
I do wonder whether anybody but white people has “unconscious bias”?
MB
I am also very upset about Starbucks closing down for some more cultural political junk they have no business using their product to promote certain agendas.
They tried a couple of years ago to get people to talk about race issues over some cup promotions or something. Everyone thought it was obnoxious and they pulled the promotion
I have to disagree with you a bit
Starbucks is a great product. I love it. My woman loves it (and she gave me the heads up they are doing this shut down stunt)
If you know how to order a certain way, you can cut the prices down quite significantly.
If you find that your coffee doesnt taste right, consistency can be a problem. But you can always have your coffee remade. They never refuse. And if you are still not happy, you can call the customer service line. I’ve had a lot of money given back – credited on my Starbucks card
I’m not a spokesman for them. I just like the coffee
I also appreciate that Howard Shultz purposely made Starbucks to be a transition place between work and home. As such, it’s a great meeting place for friends, family, churches, casual business, etc
Starbucks has gotten unfair untrue press sometimes. However, Starbucks does also stick their nose in business they shouldn’t sometimes. This is one of those times
But, personally, I think this is because they are headquartered in Seattle. And therefore have many unsavory Seattleites running the show
Seattle
Home of the
Over-educated yet totally ignorant cold-hearted closed minded unfriendly uninteresting snob alternative self-congratulatory Christ hating Islam and Commie loving church intolerant morose lefty-loosey tree hugging abortion enthusiastic white guilter wiccan vampy pixie-dusted rudie fruity granola munching SJW hipster d-bag snot-techie yoga dorks
NEEEUUUUURRRDS!!!
Or so I have heard . . .
Too bad that area had to be Starbucks launching pad
BJS Went to Starbucks once. Tasted like my idea of swamp water. Eighth Day Books has far superior coffee and it is free.
Coffee is a matter of taste boys, so as long as not bitter, or too light, I’m good.
Anyway, today, the two arrested at the Philly Starbucks, are telling their side of the story. Seems they came into Starbucks, sat down at a table, did not want to order drinks, when asked, then asked for the bathroom key, denied, and told the bathrooms are for paying customers. Then asked to leave if not buying drinks. They protested to employee/manager that they were there for a quick business meeting, and would not leave, so manager called cops to have them leave. They would not leave, and protested, when asked by police, and thus arrested.
Now the race card is in play, and ironically ultra P.C. Starbucks the victim, and must go into re-education camp mode with their workers, with and during closures, lest they are perceived racists by the race baiters and profiteers. Notice since Trump, many on the left have become victim to their own totalitarian policies?
So the question is, do business owners have the right to ask non-paying squatters to leave their business, and if ignored, wrong to have police remove squatters. Finally, if squatters are black, do business owners deserve the racists label, and should be driven out of of business by professional protesters, harassment, and threats by the P.C. police?
Dino, it’s wonderful (in a Schadenfreude kind of way) to see the Left eat its own.
Saves us, a lot of trouble, George!
Apparently Starbucks across the nation will now become the equivalent of public libraries. No need to buy a thing. Just take a seat, enjoy the couches, tables, WiFi, and restrooms free of charge. Great way to keep the homeless warm, cozy on plush couches, internet informed, access to basins and toilets. Great for homeless shelter overflows too!
Meanwhile paying customers stand, wait, or leave with cup in hand. Maybe never return. Starbucks might be setting themselves up for permanent closures in most urban downtown cities. Great for local coffee shops.
Dino, 4 yrs ago I think it was, Starbucks started this cheesy campaign to “talk about race”. This was after Ferguson. It only lasted 72 hrs, before I could go in and ask them why they had no stores in Greenwood (the traditionally black area of Tulsa).
Maybe I’ll finally have my chance.
They are very selective in their location decisions..
Usually right next door or across the street from a mom and pop coffee shop. Mainly for that reason I choose not to buy their product.
My father-in law owned a breakfast and lunch coffee shop, by the university. Allowed the kids a table for a cup of coffee free refills and for half the price of Starbucks. Made good money and sold it for big bucks.
If any kids squatted a table without a purchase, he didn’t need cops to get rid of them. Just him and a big kootalli. Plus his customers would back him up as well.
Agree with you about the coffee part, Dino. Not too light, not too bitter. Recently learned this tid-bit about coffee is that you have two basic beans one is the Arabica and the other is Robusta. Robusta actually is stronger caffeine bean Arabica smoother considered better quality. Explains the Folgers instant coffee kick that Starbucks doesn’t quite have Folgers no doubt is Robusta (Taster’s Choice etc.). A qualm of mine with Starbucks one I went to when I had need of wifi connectivity which was pretty good better than Whole Foods was that they would not accept 100 Dollar Bill, what’s up with that? Big chain like that, not enough in the register? Last I heard, Ben Franklin is American currency. Almost seems “unconstitutional” to me. Perhaps get some black guys to buy a house coffee and if they don’t take the 100 say what (?) are you racially profiling (?) think this is dope money or something? So they take the 100 but for the next white guy in line sorry we do not accept hundreds. Dollar Tree and Dollar General will break a 100 I’m pretty sure but not Starbucks Chipotle I am sure does. I see in this something not quite right with me an attack on “currency” (?) cashless society agenda who’s next Target (?) have to see if McDonalds will take the bill, get a Big Mac, still kind of like those once in a while. “Use it or lose it” saying I remember hearing.
Sergeant could have benefitted from reading some Psalms referencing Fear in the Lord and therefore having a more reverential approach to that which is deemed Holy.
Christ is Risen! Cy,
I did not care for the sergeant’s speech myself, especially the hard on reference, but movies are what they are. Nothing Holy in 99% of movies. So we must go into movies expecting the evil and vice of the world, otherwise the movie would not seem real. God works in mysterious ways, like having a Saint, right in the middle of the original sin city, San Francisco of all places.
BTW, Folgers never let’s me down, and even though I like strong dark roasts, I just end up putting too much sugar and cream. FYI, Peet’s coffee came before Starbucks, a bay area original. Starbucks copied, and was even helped by Peet’s, get started. Starbucks just took away hippie joe and made it yuppie joe.
Sorry to reply to my own post, but just had a thought into God’s mysterious ways.
Saint John Maximovich body/relics rests, beneath glass and are viewed and venerated by thousands every year, at the Holy Virgin Cathedral – Joy of All Who Sorrow, Russian Orthodox Church outside of Russia, in modern day Sodom and Gomorrah, also known as San Francisco.
Meanwhile in Moscow.
Demon Vladimir Lenin’s body rests beneath glass, and is viewed by millions, at Lenin’s Mausoleum, Moscow, Russia. Moscow and Russia also viewed by many Orthodox Christians as modern day, 3rd Rome.
Saint John Maximovich’s life and relics in San Francisco reminds us of God’s love, mercy, and the promise of everlasting life, by the Passion and Resurrection of Jesus Christ. Saint John’s prayers, and miracles continue to heal and save by God’s Grace.
Demon Lenin’s body reminds us of the sinful nature and evil man is capable of, on a grand scale, and what we are saved from. Sin, hell and death.
Simple irony, or something more?
Indeed He is Risen! Dino,
Ok did not know about Peet’s history Bay Area original my basic go to coffee. After fiddling with Trader Joes brands “Ethiopian” “Costa Rican” “Guatemalan” etc. Peet’s seems to have that full body not bitter combo. Starbucks at Costco does have that “micro-brew” instant in those single narrow individual packets I have to say for instant is pretty good aromatic fine dissolvable grind.
Currently, and in the book I am currently reading , St. John Maximovtich drank tea or .. coffee .. recently published title “Exodus St John Maximovitch Leads his Flock out of Shanghai” author
John B. Dunlop. St. Vladimir’s Press Yonkers, NY 10707 2017.
I’m a little past half way through where we are already in Tubabao Philippine Islands Samar very interesting history. My folks were in Tubabao as part of the flock so naturally very exciting for me to read and learn things about those days events. In Shanghai St. John was utterly amazing in his capacity so multi-faceted multi-tasking in so many ways he would go into the most dangerous areas of the city and exchange a bottle of Chinese vodka for an orphan and make exception of his rule not to use a rickshaw to make the get-away so incredible.
Dunlop treats the known matter of his very short-lived commemoration of MP episcopate very useful to my understanding from what I had heard about that before. How his relics are doing at the SF Cathedral Joy of All Who Sorrow not so sure. Some while back just only few years ago they changed his vestments, his original white vestments which were his and he wore at service in his lifetime with new “colorful” ones kind of look “disneylandish” I do not believe were original to him they just look to colorful and starchy and brand new to me I wonder what happened to his original vestments? Anyway St. John is still near and close to us all who venerate him.
oh dino you make your story be so compelling by having it be not what actually happened
i guess now that lent is over, old george is going to chow down on false narratives like they were going out of style
why do i get the feeling if michael bauman saw a black person in eighth day books he would follow them around until they left the store?
Deep Steak, you are not correct. You are so far from correct that you must be smoking some mind altering substance.
May God save you from your mindless malice.
What did Mr. Bauman do for you to make such an assertion? Oh, I get it. If you oppose same-sex marriage you must be racist too. That’s what our opponents are projecting.
How so deep bro?
Christ is Risen!
I am from the Seattle area so I thought you would appreciate this: Jackie Mason and the story of Starbucks-
Go to the 1:30 mark. Forgive some of the “French.” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l4Mjnzqi5gs
frd+
Truly He is risen!
Father David, by Seattle, I believe you mean Arlington, right?
For those who don’t know, Arlington is a quasi-rural area N.E. of Seattle
Arlington is a vortex of sorts. It’s perhaps one of the very few places on Earth where hipster and country culture collide and converge
Country hipsters. What an oxymoron!
Nearby dumpy Everett is probably responsible for this. It taints the beautiful mountain trimmed pasture lands of Arlington with low budget granola ghetto t-shirt stained left over Seattle funk.
Everett is the sticky little brother of Seattle
A few years ago – right after Washington State legalized marijuana for recreational use – I went to visit Arlington in your great State of Washington
I was looking to patronize Rotten Ralph’s. I was in desperate need of one of their giant sized ice cream cones
I was absolutely horrified to find that it was gone
Father, if you went to Arlington to save it, you needed to start with Rotten Ralph’s!
Anyway, while in a foggy, bewildered and devastated state of mind, I walked by some nearby cows. They were all wearing pea coats with scarves
One that was also wearing thick black-rimmed prescription eyeglasses looked up at me and said,
“We were into grass before it was cool.”
Dear BA:
Right you are! Arlington is truly a slice of heaven: Mayberryish, although it is growing!
I moved here in 1980 and Rotten Ralph Ice Cream Cones were a staple. Sadly, it is now a
bank. However, we still have the Bluebird Cafe, which is a blast from the past. I grew up
in Everett. I could never move back to a large city. I live on a dead-end street in the country
and wake up to birds chirping and go to sleep with frogs croaking, surrounded by Evergreen
trees. Life is good!
Father David
I must commend you regarding St. Andrew’s. It’s really a beautiful parish all around
I was glad to see its onion dome grace the quiet neighborhood skies of Arlington
Perhaps your parish should hold an annual ice cream social for Arlington in tribute to Rotten Ralph’s memory
Free Rotten Ralph sized ice cream on a particular scheduled Saturday in the summer. How American. How Arlington
I would help raise the money to put it on. Perhaps I’d even travel a great distance to attend. First class, of course
I ain’t scooping the stuff, though. I got back pain. Plus I’m lazy
Anyway, just a thought.
Oh the loss of Rotten Ralph’s! It burns it burns!!
*Its domes
I meant to say
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/james-comey-robert-mueller-trump-advantage/
Lest anyone say I’m overreacting, peruse this from Conrad Black.
I doubt the system can sustain this degree of tension for very long. Something will give.
Trump needs to fire Mueller for cause, anything, and pardon Cohen. That might save the republic.
I agree. I think Trump was telegraphing that when he pardoned I Lewis “Scooter” Libby the other day. He was Dick Cheney’s Chief of Staff and Cheney thanked Trump. Cheney earlier had asked Bush 43 to pardon him but he refused. Trump was not only signalling to Mueller that his efforts will be in vain but that the Cheney faction of the Deep State is going to side with Trump in the upcoming constitutional crisis.
That would be helpful and dovetails with the WSJ editorial perspective. Seasoned conservatives like Cheney’s people will side with Trump in this because they can see the source of the invective now.
Decades ago, I answered a questionnaire about who my favorite conservative was as being Dick Cheney. When he speaks, I listen.
Estonian, I did nothing– but the ideological totalitarians don’t require reality. All that is required is that they feel the “correct” way. They are then justified in doing and saying anything to and about their “enemies”. That is the nature of ideology. It is a false faith in a false God.
Unfortunately, it is the essence of all politics and the primary reason that Christianity has such a bad name. All the ideological idol worshippers: Protestant, Catholic and Orthodox who do not bother with the real thing continuing in worship of the created thing rather than our Creator.
But even the seemingly obvious antidote: iconoclasm is just another manifestation of the disease as it banishes God from the indwelling of His creation. He is fully God and fully man for our sakes. So, He is present in all of His creation.
Unfortunately I am not allowed by Deep to even say the truth that two of my best friends in this world are Afro-American. That is just a confirmation to his way of thinking that I am a rascist because people in the past have used those words in a patronizing and demeaning way. Usually follow by a but…”they are not as good as whites.” They are my friends because they are faithful Christians and I followed them, not to get them to leave but so I might learn.
I have had substantive conversations with my black friends and acquaintances on matters of race. Still there are bridges I cannot cross because I am white. Even attempts at empathetic projection only get me so far.
But if Warren Farha, owner of Eighth Day Books: The best book store in the world, ever saw activity like that in his store, he would kick the harasser out and never allow him to return without repentance.
The fundamental reality that needs to be addressed is that racism is a sin. We are all human made in the same image, yet we find ways to deny that and hide from His face and stain the ground with our brother’s blood.
Politics and laws can only do so much without repentance by everybody. We have reached the end of their effectivrness.
BTW, I have stood with Fr. Moses as he placed the slave chains of his great-great-grandfather around his own neck and entered into a bit of that deep sorrow and violence. Then we stepped back together and had a cup of tea in the presence of an icon of St Moses the Black. That is but one instance and it is no virtue of mine. Many years before he and I attended the premier of Uptown Saturday Night (1974) together at a gorgeous inner city movie theater in downtown Detroit. I was quite literally the only white guy within miles of the place.
Years before that, while a teenager, I went with my parents into a very wealthy area of Wichita to show solidarity with some black friends of theirs. He was a very successful dentist and she was an incredible public health nurse my dad employed. When.they bought their house in that wealthy neighborhood (which we could not afford) vile signs went up claiming property values we’re gonna go down. Some folks put their own homes on the market in a self-fulling prophecy.
We all hung out together on the front porch and had a good time. That lady was later one of the founders of the Wichita African American Heritage Museum. Our family contributed some artifacts we had to one of the initial displays.
The list goes on. I have known and found unacceptable from an early age that driving while black is a crime in Wichita. Little I can do about it except to not do anything similar. Still not enough though.
I sorrow too for the mindless hatred that Deep Steak vented.
God forgive me for provoking it.