Note: This post was a “sticky” feature for Fundraising Week, and was at the top throughout that time. Newer items from Monday through Sunday, including Sunday night’s news feed, are posted below it.
Summer Fundraiser 2017, Day Seven
Update from Dymphna: And Then They Rested — Day Seven
Each fundraiser has its own rhythm and rhyme. This one took a while to get going but then the jokes (and donations) started coming in at a good clip. The donations are crucial to our ongoing project here, but I now realize that laughter is indeed good medicine. I’ve even gone looking for jokes this week, just for the fun of it. From now on the theme of our Quarterlies will be jokes. More than ever do we need laughter to keep going.
The Baron keeps a careful log/graph of donations through each and every quarter going all the way back to the first Fundraiser in 2008. There was one year — I forget which — where we simply missed a quarter entirely. We simply forgot to ask for money, and yes, that inattention on our part did indeed pinch; the consequence was a period of beans but no ammo. We didn’t make that mistake again.
Sometimes events push these fundraisers early or late: who wants to compete with a presidential election or Christmas The Winter Gala Season?? But mostly we’re on time if a little breathless. Even then, y’all inevitably come through, for which we remain most grateful. When you’re depending on the largesse of donors, nothing ever becomes routine or taken for granted.
For those of you who’ve been procrastinating, there’s the tip cup on the sidebar to the left of my words. And for our readers who not only subscribe but give extra during the Fundraisers, you are atop the pyramid for sure, up there with those genius DNA folks.
Now for my joke, especially for the Baron and serendipitously sent in by Col. Bunny. [I was considering doing one on virgins, given the Aztec image the Baron chose for this post. Maybe next time.]
A fellow consults his rabbi.
“Rabbi,” he says, “my cow is useless. She won’t show any interest in the bull.”
“Give me an example,” says the rabbi.
“Well, if the bull approaches her, she moves away to the left. And if he approaches her again, she moves away to the right. This goes on forever.”
“Hmm,” says the rabbi. “Is your cow from Minsk, by any chance?”
“Why, yes,” says the farmer. “How did you know?”
“My wife is from Minsk,” says the rabbi.
Heh. That’s my Bleg gift to the Baron. Better than a bag of cashews; jokes don’t cause weight gain.
Thanks to all you generous readers, including the ones who are bypassing PayPal to send their donations by snail mail. You have to go out of your way to do that… and, yes, you lurking IRS employee, the mail donations go down on our income, you gummint busybody.
This post was supposed to go up yesterday, but I didn’t get to it. Which is a good thing, because among the last-minute stragglers were donations that allowed me to add Belgium and Luxembourg to the list.
This is the roster of locations from which gifts originated in last week’s Spring Fundraiser:
Stateside: Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Iowa, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming
Near Abroad: Mexico
Far Abroad: Belgium, Finland, Germany, Israel, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Slovenia, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and the UK
Canada: British Columbia, Newfoundland, Ontario, and Saskatchewan
Australia: Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia
Once again, our gratitude to all those whose generous contributions keep this website going. There were so many of you: lots of modest donations from individual readers, the essence of crowdfunding.
The thank-you notes are already going out, but it will take a while longer before they’re done — a happy task if ever there was one.
Note: This post was a “sticky” feature for all of Fundraising Week. Scroll down for more items posted since this time a week ago.
If you missed fundraising week — well, the Tip Cup is still in business…
Click here to read Geert Wilders’ op-ed on the jihad terror attack in Manchester.
Spring Fundraiser 2017, Day Seven
A note to readers who are confused about how to donate: At the main page (gatesofvienna.net) scroll down until you see the tip cup on the left sidebar. Just above it is the “Subscribe” button, and below it is a “Donate” button. Choose one of these buttons, or the cup itself. The “subscribe” button sets up a recurring monthly amount of $15, and the other two are for one-time gifts.
Sunday’s update from Dymphna: Won’t You Come Home, Bill Bailey?
Last day of this Spring Quarterly Fundraiser, y’all. Last call for donations!
If you’ve been meaning to do so all week, now is your chance to tick that box on your to-do list — the one that says “donate to Gates of Vienna soonest”… What? It’s not there?? Find a pen, write it down and then hit the “Donate” button. Or send yourself a message on your iPhone: “donate to GoV”. You’ll feel so virtuous and we’ll feel so appreciated. It’s a sure Win-Win, right?
[The Baron says I often forget to remind everyone that this is a fundraiser post. Instead I jump into the theme, sans the commercial. But since these commercials are in place of daily adverts, I have to remind everyone what this post is doing up here…
…At one time, I considered doing the Amazon thing that other places use. But Bezos bought The Washington Post and has some cozy deal with the CIA, so we’ll pass on that one…]
As anyone knows who’s followed this long winding trail of breadcrumbs back to the beginning, our theme is home. For some time now, the estrangement from a common cultural home has been growing. As Lincoln echoed back during the Civil War, a house divided against itself cannot stand. You could look at his reminder on several levels: a divided West, a divided EU, a divided U.K. And because America is so large, “divided” can’t even begin to cover our fractional fussing and fuming. Sometimes my native home reminds me of a distressed, abandoned baby that can’t stop crying and can’t be comforted. It latches frantically onto one leader after another only to find out the fantasy of no more problems was just that: fantasy.
That’s where we are right now: divided, distressed, and many of us in denial. That third group are the ones who walk away: they refuse to vote or to participate because they figure that by the time anyone has managed to claw their way to the top, they’re not worth voting for anyway.
I’m not there… yet. But if Donald Trump doesn’t come back here and start tending to the home fires, we have a problem. Several venues, including The New York Times have covered the latest immigrant (slave) story. No, no one calls them slaves but those “losers” — to use Donald Trump’s own term — are being hauled into the country while he’s out there pressing the flesh and posing for pictures that the Left immediately picks apart — e.g., he doesn’t shake hands correctly. Sheesh.
Come home, Bill Bailey. And bring Rex Tillerson with you. We need you both to rein in the State Department before the shooting starts. As Ann Corcoran reported, US State Department continues its pattern of secrecy regarding refugee resettlement:
The leading non-profit watchdog on government transparency, Judicial Watch, has been digging into records relating to the resettlement of tens of thousands of refugees and other migrants and the money we spend on them.
JW reported that while the Dept of Health and Human Services was forthcoming about the cost of care for the tens of thousands of ‘Unaccompanied Alien Children’ (they are NOT refugees) spread throughout America, the State Department continues to withhold information about what you pay for the resettlement of refugees from around the world.
Incidentally, I like the use of the words “foreign nationals” in this article to describe the disparate people we are paying to care for.
Again, the ‘children’ from Central America are not “refugees” and that distinction must continue to be made because the Open Borders Left is working every day to make you think that the mostly male teens are refugees escaping persecution.
Read the ways they’ve worked out to keep us in the dark, here.
Ann has lots more, but she also keeps a score sheet on her right sidebar. The latest entry says, May 24, 2017: 45,172 [foreign nationals] admitted (this is 6,966 refugees since the supposed moratorium began and 15,050 since Trump was inaugurated). He’s on track to let in more than Obama.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
All right, Donald. I get that you had to make some of those foreign visits and you might as well do it in one fell swoop since you had to do the G7 Circus. But we need your riding herd on your promises back here. I know if Hillary were in charge, there would be 50,000 more “immigrants” than you’ve let in. But that’s cold comfort at this point. We need you to demand that the evil losers (to coin a phrase) at Foggy Bottom start running a more transparent State Department. We need to see you and Tillerson, shoulder-to-shoulder, and bolder and bolder, bringing down those Augean stables. If not you, who? If not now, when?
It will always be important to the history of this country that you kept the kleptomaniac Clinton out of the Oval Office. We all remember how many historical artifacts she stole during her last tenure and her sticky fingers are even dirtier than they were then. You deserve our praise for that.
But if you don’t protect us against a continuing onslaught of foreign nationals, then we’re doomed, and you are, too, along with the rest of us. There is some number beyond which foreign people make one a stranger in his own land. It has happened to England, for sure. I hear less about the rest of the United Kingdom, but the Commonwealth is struggling. We elected you to struggle for us. Ignore the freak-leaks. They’re intended to distract you. For that matter, quit with daily press briefings. They cause far too much sausage-making and those jornolists are fat enough. Let them did for their own news. Never did a group more need the exercise.
Come home, Bill Bailey. We already know you’re not like your lazy predecessor, so show us some shrinkage on the numbers of foreign devils entering the country via your State Department.(You bought it, sir. You own it.)
The wall? Enh. Save it for later, when you need it to make points. The very odor of a wall has driven back many of those who were here. Things are quieter (it’s relative) on the southwestern front. But stop the State Department’s slave trafficking. It’s sickening. And get busy on those supercilious Sanctuary Cities. Rein in our imperial judiciary which thinks it can override your orders.
And now for my favorite rendition of this song, which has been going through my head ever since I began pondering today on the not-Clinton’s absence:
Saturday’s generous people hailed from:
Stateside: California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, and Virginia
Near Abroad: Mexico
Far Abroad: Israel and the UK
Canada: British Columbia
Australia: Victoria
Saturday’s update from the Baron
Dymphna found this excellent quote from Robert Heinlein to head this morning’s update:
All societies are based on rules to protect pregnant women and young children. All else is surplusage, excrescence, adornment, luxury, or folly, which can — and must — be dumped in emergency to preserve this prime function. As racial survival is the only universal morality, no other basic is possible. Attempts to formulate a “perfect society” on any foundation other than “Women and children first!” is not only witless, it is automatically genocidal. Nevertheless, starry-eyed idealists (all of them male) have tried endlessly — and no doubt will keep on trying.
Intermission: Excerpts from the Notebooks of Lazarus Long, pp. 242-243
So how well is the degenerate post-modern society of Great Britain performing this prime function? The answer is abundantly clear: not at all.
The news from Manchester came in on Monday not long after the start of this fundraiser. Needless to say, the tragedy atrocity has dominated the conversation since then. As of the time of this writing, nothing significant has changed in the official response to the incident. The usual blather, the declarations of determination and solidarity, and above all, the assurance that “hate” — i.e., any criticism of Islam — will not be tolerated in Modern Multicultural Britain.
It remains to be seen whether any awakening will occur among the general public in the UK. I’m not optimistic. After watching the reactions to previous jihad attacks — not just in Britain, but in France, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, Australia, and the USA — there’s no sign of any growing public awareness of the significance of what is happening. Government propaganda and the Lügenpresse have seen to that. The hermetic seal on popular discourse is largely unbroken.
All of the above would seem to mitigate against this blog and the purpose of Fundraising Week. Why continue fighting for a futile cause?
Another thank-you note just bounced this morning after giving us several days of “delivery delayed” warnings. This one was to a first-time donor in Denmark.
So: Here’s a heartfelt thank you to a generous Dane, and I’m sorry we weren’t able to get through to you by email.
Ever since the fundraiser started last week I’ve been beavering away on my thank-you notes. Two of those emails have been returned, unfortunately. The first was sent to a new donor in California, and the second went off to someone in Illinois who has given previously, but whose address has never bounced emails in the past.
If either of those descriptions fits you, please know how much we appreciate your gift, even if we were unable to get a message through. Also: be aware that the address that PayPal uses for you is no longer functional (at least not for me).
And then there’s the Mystery Donor, who always sends a little something to the P.O. Box in an envelope with no return address. Thank you once again — you know who you are, but I sure don’t!
The Winter Fundraiser is over, so I had big plans for today. I was going to catch up on some of the things that were delayed last week because of the bleg. But then Murphy intervened, big time: Our phone and Internet service went down, and stayed down for hours, thwarting my good intentions.
At the very least I’ll post a summary of the places where all our donors came from during the fundraising week. Among the last-minute arrivals was a gift from Hawaii, which Dymphna and I think may be the first one ever from Obamaland. There was also one from Yukon Territory, which is kind of cool. How many people are there in Yukon, anyway? Maybe half a million?
The List:
Stateside: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Dakota, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming
Far Abroad: Czech Republic, Denmark, Finland, Germany, India, Indonesia, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Thailand, and the UK
Canada: British Columbia, Newfoundland, Ontario, Saskatchewan, and Yukon
Australia: Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, and Victoria
I’ll post a news feed tonight, but probably not much else.
Since the Baron has to play most of the innings here it’s always a relief (to me) when I feel well enough to pick up the bat and take my turn.
Oops…an unfortunate phrase, that. Probably due to reading about what playing with bats means now in rural Germany.
Sometimes it hurts simply to read our blog.
We’ve been around more than ten years now, and often the Baron is so busy just keeping on keeping on, we fail to take note of the passing anniversary of our advent here. Or perhaps we have simply decided we’re here for the duration and that’s that.
Which ‘duration’? Heaven knows; we sure don’t. I thought we’d be locking the Gates when old Hildebeest rumbled toward the Oval Office but my fear was misplaced. It feels as though we’ve been granted a reprieve since Trump was elected, but again we grow concerned as the deep state seems to be working in concert to ruin him. Like the rest of the country, we can only watch and wait. And in our case, pray. [I don’t want to argue about whether or not prayer “works”; it gives me something to do whilst waiting to see what happens].
The Baron promised I’d relate our tale of The Skunk Parade, so here goes.
…As ‘problems’ go, it’s relatively mild considering the creature under discussion. And we both think it’s occurring right now (i.e., this past fortnight or so) because of our too-mild winter. Only one snow and that one not very deep. No ice, and only one period of deep freezing — surely not enough to kill off most of the Japanese beetle grubs, darn it.
One reason we let the skunks be is that they clean out grubs when the ground is soft (as it is now) and they especially enjoy going after the underground nests of yellow jackets.
So skunks have their uses, especially when it comes to their enjoyment of yellow jackets. If only skunks weren’t so fragrant, they’d be ideal companion animals for removing the things gardeners don’t like. During this winter I’ve caught several glimpses of them near the side porch at twilight. I wondered if there was a family of them, though it seemed an odd time to be nesting, and they don’t usually come so close to the house. Since the few I’ve seen didn’t see me, all was well. Or so I thought.
All “was” well, that is, until ten days or so just past. Due to the warm weather, we think “our” skunks are in their mating season a month early and the males are obviously doing battle. Perhaps there aren’t enough females? Perhaps they’re polygamous, and only one male to a particular territory, and for some reason their population has enlarged to include two rivals? Could the females have dropped a litter already and are scaring off the possums, dogs, and bears in order to protect their young?
Whatever the problem, it’s nocturnal in nature. We’re beginning to learn that if we don’t have to get out the candles by ten p.m., that whatever the source of the problem, it’s not going to materialize on that particular evening. Fortunately (or not), due to the sometimes uncertain nature of our electric connections, we lose power, usually due to some outage in those big lines coming down the mountains. That means I have quite a candle collection. Thank heavens.
But this isn’t an easy problem to solve. Although they’re obviously not near the house when the battles royal begin, you’d think they were under the windows when the smell permeates the rooms downstairs. The B has looked in all the possible places and there is not a sign of them near our foundation. Nor has he found any other signs out in the various thickets of forsythia and mock orange and lilacs and mountain laurel that mark the edges of what he considers our mowable yard.
The further reaches, past our property line, have been clear-cut by companies that specialize in buying forested land whose taxes have become delinquent, and then harvesting the wood. That clear-cutting has changed the habitat out past our property line. We can barely see those changes, and then only in the winter when the light is stronger through our own trees to the south than it used to be.
That may be the solution to our mystery of “why now?” I plan to call the County Extension Agent and ask him this week. If it’s going to be an unseasonable Winter or an early Spring ritual from now on until the pines grow back, I’ll make sure we have enough candles to see us through.
And those skunks? They’re going to eat those grubs and yellow jackets, or explain why.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Our donors on Saturday came in from:
Stateside: Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Michigan, Tennessee, Texas, and Virginia
Far Abroad: New Zealand and the UK
Canada: Ontario
Australia: Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, and Victoria
Today is the final day! The Baron will write a wrap-up tomorrow, but otherwise we’ll be giving it a rest… until spring.
February 18: Update from the Baron
Well, folks, here we are going into the sixth day of our quarterly fundathon, in which we use all the techniques of hip persuasion to induce our readers to hit the tip cup on our sidebar.
Or, to use the shorter version: we beg.
Y’all have been very kind to us this time, and I thank you for your generosity. And the thank-you notes are going out faster than usual; I’ve kept my New Year’s resolution on that so far.
The photo at the top of this post is from the winter of 2009 here at Schloss Bodissey — late winter, actually; it was in March. I include it here because it’s seasonal, but the weather is NOT like that so far this winter. Just one snow, and it didn’t last long. It’s been fairly mild most of the time.
I have a suspicion that the nasty cold isn’t done with us just yet, but I’ll enjoy this while it lasts. And the daffodils have started blooming, those optimists.
This post is a confluence between Thanksgiving Day and the wrap-up of our Autumn Fundraiser.
The red bench in the photo above has now been dusted with snow — an adumbration of things to come, since our next fundraiser will be Winter 2017, sometime in the frigid days after the beginning of the new year.
We have a lot to be thankful for at the moment. Perhaps the single biggest cause for gratitude is that we won’t have eight years of President Hillary (or more likely, a year or so of the Empress, followed by ten years of Kommie Kaine) to look forward to. I also thank the Lord for the soon-to-be-realized opportunity to use the phrase “former President Obama”. What a pleasure that will be! It was a long eight years, but we made it.
And our just-completed bleg gives us ample additional reason to be thankful: despite the fact that Dymphna’s travails kept us from doing a fresh post every day, donors showed up with heartening regularity. It seems that the compact format of this fundraiser didn’t inhibit donations all that much, if at all.
So thank you all for showing up. And thank you also for contributing to the comments — that was another unexpected side effect of the unitary fundraiser: a far larger response than usual in the comments.
Below is the final list of places from which donations came (giving me the opportunity to show off my new software for breaking out Australian states and Canadian provinces).
Update Nov. 25 1:30pm: Alaska just sent in a gift, thereby adding another state to the list:
Stateside: Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Washington, and Wyoming
Near Abroad: Mexico
Far Abroad: Croatia, Germany, India, Israel, Lithuania, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Singapore, Slovenia, Sweden, Thailand, and the UK
Canada: Alberta, British Columbia, New Brunswick, Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Ontario, and Saskatchewan
Australia: Australian Capital Territory, New South Wales, Queensland, Victoria, and Western Australia
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The most apt description of the kind of fundraising we do here came up in the comments on a different post, a translated op-ed from Switzerland about the recent American presidential election. The comment in question was a response to another commenter named scherado, who had been addressing the author of the op-ed, Markus Somm:
Mr Somm, I appreciate your perspective.
I, the non-journalist, perceive that government by the people — parliamentary, constitutional, representative republic, and so on— can NOT function properly WITHOUT a proper press. You have stated very well the illness.
Final update: Wednesday’s locations have been added to the bottom of this post.
This was the “sticky” autumn fundraiser post. It was originally published on November 17 and was on top for a week.
Scroll down to see items that have been posted since this post went up. So far today it’s been Geert Wilders’ magnificent final statement in his trial. I hope that one goes viral.
Also, Bazzam came back this evening, but this time he spelled his name “Bassam”. Y’all may want to have discussions with him in the comments, but please be civil. He says he’s not a troll.
Tuesday’s update
(Last update before bedtime — the list of Tuesday’s locations is now at the bottom of this post.)
Dymphna and I want to take a quick poll: Do you think we’re using her health issues to milk our readers? Please let us know. And don’t hesitate to give us your unvarnished opinion — we’re grownups; we can take it.
Also: does anyone know what “Ducks an hens” means? It looks like Cockney or Strine rhyming slang to me. Remember: if it’s slang for something obscene, don’t give us the exact meaning — be creative in your euphemism.
Also: Many thanks to WRSA for sending readers over here. Welcome, firearms enthusiasts!
There will be another update after midnight.
Tuesday’s update from Dymphna
The Baron neglected to tell you the story of that picture. It’s our driveway, about a third of a mile from there to the state road. It was originally a horse-and-cart or mule-and-cart road leading up from the creek, which is another half-mile in the other direction. That part of the road (behind our house. This photo shows where it resumes in front of us) is overgrown now. But they both have existed since at least the end of the Civil War, when freed blacks had a small gathering of houses around the creek. As people prospered and moved on, the cabins they left behind gradually returned to the soil. You can see shallow, hand-dug wells here and there in the woods which grew up to cover the remains.
During the winter the Baron gets his exercise by keeping the road in repair. He hauls wheelbarrow loads of gravel to the potholes left by the UPS truck and other heavy vehicles; or he digs out the drains he set up in the low places many years ago. Those channels allow water to escape down into the draw where the clearance for the electric line was made. The driveway looks like a dirt track but that path is Virginia clay underneath with decades of slate gravel laid over it. In various places on the road you can see large river rocks: someone from generations ago hauled the smoothed stones here to this plateau, coming up from the river a few miles away and steeply downhill from here.
That road is the place where I walk when I can. One year a red-tailed hawk used to fly ahead of me whenever I ventured out. Maybe he thought I could lead him to some voles or rabbits?
There is a stand of wood pears on the right, just past that bend. It didn’t fruit this year (an inopportune frost killed the peaches and the Bartletts, too), but when it does bear we are blessed with lots of spherical-shaped, medium-size “pears” – a bit gritty but with a wonderful flavor. I wonder if they’re Asian pears that escaped cultivation? Unlike real pears, you don’t pick them early and let them ripen in the house. Instead, they hang on the tree and fall when almost fully ripe, usually in late October. If you’re made of stern stuff and can hold off eating them, let them ripen in the refrigerator until they’re a deep golden color. Nectar on a stem!
Box turtle eating a wood pear
I love that road. Walking its length I contemplate those who came before, their immense (to me) labors in hauling river rock up here to fill some large declivities near where another path (now disused and barely discernable unless it snows) used to branch off. We are but two people in a long line of human beings who have walked here – and will continue to do so when we’re gone. I hope they tend it as carefully as the Baron has.
— D
NOTE:
We are nearing the end of the autumn fundraiser. This post has been “sticky” since last Thursday. Scroll down to see items that have been put up since then.
Late this afternoon and this evening I neglected the work I really should have been doing while I read Trump-related news and watched Trump-related videos. I have to keep pinching myself — how could this stuff actually be happening?
Tonight Donald Trump told the elite effete nattering nabobs of the bicoastal MSM to f*** off and die!
This kind of news is not good for people of my advanced age. It’s too exciting — I might bust a gall bladder or something while reading it.
Mr. Trump has taken hold of the political establishment and is shaking it until its back teeth rattle.
I love it.
Concerning Dymphna’s condition since her fall a week ago: she woke up feeling much better this morning, and had a good day today (yesterday, really — Monday). The pain under her ribs is much reduced. She decided not to go to the doctor, but to have a phone consultation instead. She’ll let you know more about that later.
Yesterday’s donor locations have been appended to the bottom of this post. We got a gift from someone in Western Australia for the first time since I wrote my new software.
The response of our readers has been very encouraging. Many thanks to everyone who made the tip cup clink!
Monday’s update
Dymphna’s pains from her fall have been migrating in a disconcerting fashion. She says that the most painful area, which was originally associated with the place where her ribs impacted with the floor, has moved around several times, and has finally settled in its current spot, under her ribs in the upper right quadrant of her abdomen. The only way she can get comfortable is to lie down with a heating pad on that spot. Then she says she feels OK.
I’ll be taking her back to the doctor tomorrow, if she can get an appointment. She doesn’t want an X-ray, but she says she needs medical advice.
The fundraiser is still ticking along at a gratifying rate. Many thanks to all of you generous folks out there. I believe yesterday was the first time we’ve ever had a donor from Lithuania — scroll down to the bottom of this post for the full list of donor locations.
Sunday’s Update
A brief word about Melania Trump — I can’t remember whether there was an item in the news feed about it, but as you all know, one or more famous Paris couturiers have refused to design any clothes for First-Lady-in-waiting Melania Trump. They are calling for a boycott of Mrs. Trump by their fellow couturiers.
I think it’s safe to say that most American men would support this action. They’re willing to accept that Mrs. Trump may have to go unclothed for the sake of social justice.
Thank you all for your continuing support! The response to our drive for donations has been phenomenal, especially considering that we haven’t been able to do a full essay for each day of the fundraiser.
Dymphna is recovering from her recent misfortunes, but some of the painful areas seem to have become discontented with their surroundings and migrated to new locations. So she’s still hurting…
The breakdown of locations (for donors, not Dymphna’s pains) is at the bottom of this post. My newly-written software was able to recognize Newfoundland and add it to the list of donor locations coming from the Frozen North.
Also: I’m not sure, but I think this may be the first time we’ve ever had a gift from Singapore.
Saturday’s update
Dymphna is still on the mend. She says she appreciates all the prayers and good wishes that readers have been sending her ways.
As we move into Day Three, the fundraising is going well. A lot of our “old regulars” have showed up, and we really appreciate the repeated generosity.
When Wednesday morning comes we may know who will be the next president. Or not. It may be close enough for the loser to demand a recount or some sort of intervention.
Whatever transpires, a goodly number of Americans will feel cheated. Those who voted for the losing side may well feel their choice for president was hard done by in the final reckoning. As they move through the Slough of Despond*, they will be concerned for the future of their homeland. And, sad to say, their despair is not without merit, no matter who was their choice.
Since several people have asked what happened to this Quarter’s Fundraiser, now overdue by some weeks, that’s why: November 8th sucked up all the oxygen in the cybertubes, leaving little room for the week of our bleg. Until this current chapter of ugly politicking is over — as of Tuesday, when all the votes are in — there isn’t much point in attempting to ask for donations.
So we decided to wait until the Monday following Afterwards, even with all the electioneering that is bound to continue. The Aftermath will no doubt continue to distract people, but we’ll jump in the Swamp Poodle* anyway, sloshing our way through an octave of fundraising in a time of Come Hell or High Water.
*
There is an old urban myth that Washington D.C. was built on a swamp and that was the reason for its fetid airs. The truth, as usual, is more complicated:
Swampoodle was an Irish neighborhood in Washington, D.C. A geographic approximation of its borders would be K Street to the north, G Street to the south, 1st Street NW to the west, and 2nd Street NE to the east. Through the center of it ran the principal branch of Tiber Creek. The name Swampoodle is attributed to a newspaper reporter covering the ground-breaking of St. Aloysius Church in 1857, who referred to the land at the site on North Capitol and I street as containing numerous swamps and puddles which often occurred when Tiber Creek overflowed its banks.
Swampoodle developed during the second half of the 19th century, providing a place of refuge for Irish emigrants following the Irish potato famine. It gained a reputation for being a lawless shantytown, where crime, prostitution and drunkenness were rife. At the core of the district was Jackson Alley, considered a virtual no-go area for the police. The area was also known for over-crowding and outbreaks of malaria, typhoid and dysentery. But Swampoodle was also a thriving community, whose Irish construction workers helped build Washington DC. As Swampoodle was then on the edge of the city, many of the residents kept goats and cows, sometimes in livestock pens among the alleys dividing their modest houses. This continued up to the early 20th century.
Of course, time moved on, and moved over Swampoodle, too. Eventually Union Station would come to be built there… Can you imagine the graft and cost-overruns that must have plagued the building of the Capital’s train station? I can’t quite grasp it either.
After the votes are counted I’ll give my own prognosis for America’s governance, depending on who wins. We’ll see if anyone else agrees with my prognosis.
In the meantime, gird thy loins for an Octave of Autumn Fundraiser Days starting on November 14th. And by all means, please practice forbearance. The Baron wants to have the Autumn Fundraiser be a real beginning. Thus, donating early will mean your state or province is less likely to be mentioned if you give before the magical beginning day, November 14th.
It will punch holes in his algorithms or summat like. The puir man is already overloaded with work, so please wait till Monday. Otherwise, it’s like opening our Christmas presents before the big day; takes the fun out of it…
I went rummaging around in my image archive looking for an illustration suitable for the wrap-up post of our fundraiser. Multiculti math seems appropriate — after all, I’m using a little bit of math to total up and list the places that donors came from. And all those different states and countries — isn’t that multicultural?
Or are these places too “white” to earn that designation?
Anyway, here’s the final list, as of earlier this evening:
Stateside: Alabama, Arizona, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Maine, Maryland, Michigan, Minnesota, North Carolina, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and Wyoming
Near Abroad: Canada, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic
Far Abroad: Australia, Austria, Belgium, Croatia, France, Germany, India, Israel, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Norway, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, Thailand, and the UK
Between now and the next fundraiser, I promise to do my best to write the program code necessary to track the provinces in Canada and the states in Australia the same way I track states in the USA. The UK is more difficult, because the addresses used often list the “region” than the traditional county. I’ve looked at the various UK addresses, and concluded that programming the British places would be a real mare’s nest. So that project will be delayed.
It’s remarkable the way the generosity of our donors manages to allow us to keep going, quarter after quarter. Dymphna and I are amazed and grateful.
I’ll see you in the chill autumnal mist for the next fundraiser.
Today is the final day of our quarterly fundraising week. We’ve had a wide variety of donors this time, including some from Belgium and France, which is very unusual. I don’t know whether the press of recent jihad events in those countries is part of the explanation, but it seems likely.
As always, Australia and Canada, especially Ontario, are way over-represented among our donors relative to their respective populations, and especially considering the paucity of our coverage of those locales.
Speaking of which: There were police raids in Victoria today against several “right-wing” extremists, including Phillip Galea of Reclaim Australia. Those arrested are being held under — what else? — terrorism provisions, which means it’s the Countering Violent Extremism meme in action. There were a couple of articles in the news feed about these events, including this one from The Daily Mail.
But back to fundraising — If you were busy all week watching the run-up to the Olympics or listening to Hillary Clinton’s campaign speeches, now is the time to take a Sunday break and hit that tip cup on our sidebar. And if you’re one of the many folks who have already donated, Dymphna and I offer our heartfelt thanks.
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The theme of this week’s fundraiser, as you all know by now, is “Dog Days”, in honor of this late-summer season. We’ve pretty well exhausted the serious dog-related material, so this morning’s essay is a light-hearted one. It begins with the comic strip shown at the top of this post (click to enlarge), a daily Pogo strip from about 1953.
Walt Kelly could pack humor more densely than any other comic strip artist. Those four panels are crammed with hilarity, but when I reread them prior to posting, I realized that most people, even most Americans if they’re under the age of sixty, won’t get the jokes without some context.
The three characters are Albert the Alligator, Houn’ Dog (full name: Beauregard Chaulmoogra Frontenac de Montmingle Bugleboy), and Mouse (not sure if he has any other name). The scenes just preceding this one featured Molester Mole of the Boy Bird Watchers and his attempts to identify every swamp creature as some sort of bird. Houn’ Dog is reacting gloomily to his dismissal by Mole.
I won’t try to explain every joke that’s in those speech balloons. But I will note that every breed of dog mentioned is an alternative name for the Dalmatian, prompting the “spot” references and Mouse’s question.
The Volstead Act of 1919 was a law passed by Congress to implement the 18th Amendment, which had been ratified the year before. It ushered in thirteen years of what is commonly known as Prohibition, during which period alcoholic beverages were illegal. In 1933 the 21st Amendment repealed the 18th Amendment, annulling the Volstead Act so that the nation could take a legal drink again.
Thus the conceit is that Beauregard’s daddy resorted to spot remover, possibly acetone, in lieu of the prohibited ethanol. Tipplers who imbibed such beverages tended to suffer from brain damage, the symptoms of which commonly included a ringing in the ears.
I’ll leave you to figure out the rest of the jokes on your own. I hope I didn’t ruin them by my explanations.
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One of our regular readers and commenters, acuara, suggested we wrap up our doggy week with some doggerel. That seems like a good idea, but I’m going to make the additional requirement that the doggerel be about dogs.
I was going to kick it all off with a stanza from the bawdy English rugby song “The Good Ship Venus” that begins with the line “The ship’s dog’s name was Rover…” However, Dymphna pointed out that the level of ribaldry in that ditty is such that it would violate our blog’s PG-13 rules. Therefore, alas, I can’t tell you what the whole crew of the good ship did to that faithful hound.
Instead I’ll have to make do with a limerick of my own composition, which is also ribald, but maintains sufficient decorum:
It is ninety-three days and counting until the 2016 Presidential election comes to a merciful end.
Fortunately, you don’t have to wait that long for the Summer Quarterly Fundraising to be complete. We’re up to Day Six already! No, I’m not looking forward to the end of it: the day after this is over, I’m scheduled for a root canal. For sure, I’d much rather be talking to y’all.
This fundraiser has been a success. I’m glad for us and I’m glad for Vlad, and I particularly enjoy being grateful. Gratitude is a mental state that brings its own blessings on one’s health. That’s one reason I always get a kick out of sending Vlad his share; he has ADD comparable to mine, so he never remembers our tithe. To further confuse him I find some kind of Canadian “this-day-in-history” and use it for the subject line. So for fun I looked at today: “Happy Beaver Wars” would be the subject line because, ta da, in 1689 some unfriendly Iroquois surrounded a French village and did Iroquois things to the inhabitants. I won’t mention those things since we know the Native People were full of peace and goodwill. White man did something bad, obviously. Or maybe the Iroquois had read the Koran for directions?
When our old mom ’n’ pop internet service went out of business we had to find another email provider. This new edition is nice, I suppose. More up-to-date bells and whistles, etc. But with this one I don’t get to see individual Pay Pal notifications as I did with the old system; they all go into the Baron’s box. Now if I want to know, it requires logging in to PP. In a way that’s better, since it’s a whole-mind experience; I get to see everyone at once. Noticing lots of old donors… umm… make that “repeat” donors… is fun. But there are a few missing ones too, which worries me a little. I mean, how do I find out if someone died? It’s not as though a reader is likely to say to their family, “Hey, I read Gates of Vienna so if anything happens to me, be sure to let them know”… Sheesh, even some of our family members don’t know about GoV. Ah me, we live in such fractious times. When the Civil War starts at least things will be out in the open.
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So ninety-three more days of political fun and games. As I write this, it’s how long you have to suffer wait until it’s over. Or for some of us, how long you have to wait impatiently until you can vote. While in reality those times are identical, the time really does seem to expand if you’re one who is wishing fervently that the whole blankety-blank thing were over with right this minute. Oh, and there’s a third category: those who are avoiding the whole thing, having decided to sit this one out. I’m not one of those.
When we settled on this theme — The Dog Days of Summer — for our fundraiser, I’d pictured us covering ball games or lazy afternoons under the hickory tree. Since a friend (and commenter/donor) recently got a new dog, I thought we might end up in a discussion about the ways dogs and humans fit together. None of those happened, at least not in detail, but the subject of dogs and politics has never been far from my mind since the two political parties in the U.S. settled on their respective candidates and the general consensus is that they’re both pretty much dogs. I happen to agree with that third category — about our presidential candidates — but not for the reasons you might think.
Our friend’s description of his dog intrigued me. I’d felt compassion for his grief when he wrote a moving email to tell me of the death of his beloved family dog, an irreplaceable pet. We both agreed that grief needs space and he was adamant that they’d wait a bit… but then a friend was forced to give up his dog because he was moving… and you can guess the ending: they had a new (well, a slightly used) dog in the house. So much for recovery: my friend needed exercise badly to keep his health stable so he had a new companion with an entirely different style than his old friend of many years. I could feel his joy and sense of purpose as he went about fitting in this new family member.
I envied him; allergies won’t permit me to have a dog, much as I would like one. However, I began studying dogs again, partly because of my friend’s stories, and partly because this fundraiser about Dog Days was coming up soon. And thirdly, because the relationship between humans and dogs is fascinating. We have much to learn about one another and the more we know — both humans and dogs — the richer we’ll be for it.
Dogs are a fascinating subject. I love to read stories about the ways in which their abilities have been developed and utilized in Afghanistan. The relationships that develop between soldiers/handlers and their dogs are truly amazing — and humbling, as you realize how little we really know about unspoken communication. The men and women in the military who have trained with dogs swear by the experience. They say it increases the abilities of the soldier and for those lucky enough to have a dog in combat, the likelihood of returning home is higher.
We’re rolling up towards the end of our fundraising week — just this weekend left to go, and then we’re done with our exhortations to our readers to make the tip cup clink and help keep the lights on at Gates of Vienna.
The last couple of days have seen quite a few new donors from out West. I strongly suspect that most of them were prompted by WRSA to come over here — they’re from Red States in the heartland of the USA, just like the Second Amendment people that read WRSA every day. In any case, thanks to all of you! Lots and lots of modest donations really add up, you know.
The theme of this week’s fundraiser is “Dog Days”, in reference to these oppressive August days we’re enduring right now. At least we are here in the Mid-Atlantic States — it might not be so bad out in Seattle and Vancouver or up in Montreal. And down in Melbourne and Sydney it’s the middle of the winter — which doesn’t sound all that bad right now.
The weather’s been monsoon-like here for weeks. When it’s not raining, it’s hot and steamy. Whenever I venture outside, the insects feast on me like piranha, unless I suit up in advance to thwart them.
Normally I would forgo mowing the lawn during fundraising week — the pace is just too hectic to leave much spare time — but the tropical rainforest outside our front door could no longer be ignored. So last night, in the relative cool of the evening, I suited up and went outside to clear some space in the undergrowth. Everything was so wet that the lawnmower kept clogging up — I had to shut it off repeatedly to clean out the thick tar-like mass that had accumulated around the blade and made the thing inoperable. The sodden green glop, a mixture of chlorophyll and cellulose, plopped out in big steamy piles. It looked like a herbivorous dinothere had dropped a great load of digestive byproducts on our driveway.
Boy, was I glad to come back into the air conditioning.
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This kind of dog-days weather makes me think of an old hound dog lying on the porch with his tongue hanging out. I’m aware that the term “Dog Days” originated in antiquity, when the Greeks and Romans associated the brutal summer weather with the early-morning rising of Sirius, the Dog Star. But when I was a kid, I assumed it referred to a hot, panting dog, and the image has stuck with me ever since.
The etymology of the word “dog” is interesting, because it has almost none. It left no record before late Old English (docga), and all the foreign words that contain a version of it were borrowed from English. Its origin is simply unknown.
Like the speakers of other Germanic languages, the English had originally preferred to use “hound”, which is related to hund, hond, and other Germanic variants. Eventually, however, “dog” supplanted the word, and “hound” developed a more specialized meaning, referring to a hunting or tracking dog.
The Germanic hund can be traced all the way back to a common Indo-European root that looks something like kwn, with the voiced guttural version of the “k” later metamorphosing into an “h”. In other languages the “k” remained, giving rise to kuon in Greek and providing us with the word “cynic”. In Latin, through an obscure transformation, it became canis, giving us “canine” and “kennel”.
The other Indo-European languages use words derived from the same root. But for some unknown reason the English settled on “dog”.
The word has developed ancillary meanings in composite words and linguistic variants. Sometimes the sense is intuitively obvious, as in “dogging his footsteps”. And a “sundog” dogs the sun, I suppose. But what about a “firedog” — was it originally forged to look like a dog, or were the dog ornaments inspired by the already-existing term?
The root sense of these composites is that of a companion or follower — someone who follows you or sticks close to your side. Canis familiaris, a part of the family. So it has been since the dim mists of prehistory — the first dog was domesticated thousands of years before any other animal.
The origin of the word is obscure, but what about the animal itself? When did we humans first develop a close rapport with Man’s Best Friend?
Like the word, the origin of the dog itself is also somewhat obscure…
The Baron keeps a careful log/graph of donations through each and every quarter going all the way back to the first Fundraiser in 2008. There was one year — I forget which — where we simply missed a quarter entirely. We simply forgot to ask for money, and yes, that inattention on our part did indeed pinch; the consequence was a period of beans but no ammo. We didn’t make that mistake again.
So skunks have their uses, especially when it comes to their enjoyment of yellow jackets. If only skunks weren’t so fragrant, they’d be ideal companion animals for removing the things gardeners don’t like. During this winter I’ve caught several glimpses of them near the side porch at twilight. I wondered if there was a family of them, though it seemed an odd time to be nesting, and they don’t usually come so close to the house. Since the few I’ve seen didn’t see me, all was well. Or so I thought.
I went rummaging around in my image archive looking for an illustration suitable for the wrap-up post of our fundraiser. Multiculti math seems appropriate — after all, I’m using a little bit of math to total up and list the places that donors came from. And all those different states and countries — isn’t that multicultural?
