The stately homes of England
How beautiful they stand,
To prove the upper classes
Have still the upper hand …
So wrote the social satirist Noel Coward in the 1930’s, and while we agonize correctly 80 years later about that currently widening gap between what remains of the social classes, the next lines point to a flux that cannot be ignored:
Though the fact that they have to be rebuilt,
And frequently mortgaged to the hilt
Is inclined to take the gilt
Off the gingerbread.
While we are definitely swinging towards a much wider gap than we had from approximately 1930 to the late 50’s, things have been much worse and rarely much better, throughout recorded history. Take Ludwig II of Bavaria, please.
Here is his bed:
And here is the deserving young man, as painted by Ferdinand von Piloty, in 1865:
The general’s uniform is interesting, to go off on a completely irrelevant tangent, as there is a scene in Dickens’ Nicholas Nickleby, involving a painter of miniature portraits, who complains about painters renting out officers’ uniforms to their sitters, and how tacky the whole thing is.
Dickens was an amazingly perceptive man, and literally old enough to be Ludwig’s father. Ludwig was born in 1845, and Nicholas Nickleby was published in 1838, when Dickens was still in his late twenties and just getting going. He was appalled by the excesses he witnessed in his lifetime, mirrored by the abject poverty of London and Yorkshire. While he can be seen as an early crusader for what we now would call social justice [a much over-used and thus weakened notion] he also had a hankering for the finer things in life, and a nostalgia for the established order as well.
But back to Ludwig, who would have made Dickens’ compassionate blood roil. He had a grotto built for himself:
which is an even more disgusting extravagance in that all of this was pretty much for the idiot himself, alone, and strangers were barred from his castles [which have become a tourism mecca, in a form of historic irony, bwahahaha, xty].
Ludwig is much admired by Bavarians today, sadly, as the lessons of history are so painfully slow to be learnt. He was a patron of the arts, which tends to salvage the reputation of many a repulsive aristocrat, saving Wagner from financial ruin. Wagner then wrote of his first meeting, undoubtedly from the heart not the wallet, that
Today I was brought to him. He is unfortunately so beautiful and wise, soulful and lordly, that I fear his life must fade away like a divine dream in this base world … You cannot imagine the magic of his regard: if he remains alive it will be a great miracle!”
Can you say sycophant?
But just as we see and admire the grand architecture and paintings and music that wealthy patrons helped produce we cannot see what might have been and must never be forgotten.
What a strange contrast to the goings on in North America around the same time. The U.S. was plunged in civil war, Canada was exerting it’s independence in its own patient way, and rich and poor were quite close really, certainly compared to a Bavarian peasant and Ludwig. It would have been one of the more remarkably attractive aspects of the new world, and one that is rarely discussed. One hears of opportunity being the call but an equality of opportunity must have been intoxicating to those bearing the weight of all the Leopold’s supported through the interwoven social network of monarchies and landed gentry and established churches.
We have created our own aristocracies in North America, and they are taking on a Marie Antoinetteish air, but they have nothing against the entrenched aristocracies that used to keep their polished boots on the backs of the poor.
We ratchet towards a better world, even if it is a wrenching ratcheting, full of lots of ratchet, especially for the poor. But if you are more middle class than poor, and up for a trip, I hear that this castle is now open to all:
And have a suitable, egalitarian, Saturday!
I checked the link to the Baroque video, and it played just fine for me. I thought I would repost it, as it certainly ties in with this kind of decadent, insane, opulence.
http://ww3.tvo.org/video/164928/baroque-episode-1
Seems like a good place for this article I just read. Conservatives would rage against it, which of course brings me great joy.
Everything you need to know about the war on poverty
This cartoon is only tangentially related, but I found it too good to pass up.
And that is me, without the hood. I do believe in smaller government but have never found any group that could understand that did not mean I thought the poor were indolent. I think we turn far too often to government for our wants, not needs, and that combined with the tendency of the borg to grow and grow, and interest groups ability to fund the process, makes for a sprawling mess.
Anything that has been termed a ‘war on’ is a disaster. What an appalling example of the militarization of political language.
gonna get baked and work on my furnace this a.m., then gonna get baked and watch football, then gonna…well you get the idea…reality? not so much today. and good morning!
I read the article about the war on poverty and while I mostly agree that much good has come from government action, I do have to level my own consistent complaint about claims like:
That is not a claim one can make. We do not know what would have happened over the period in question as there are no control groups. And to say “government action is literally the only reason” is also much too strong: technological advances have made an enormous difference to the lives of the poor through refrigeration, television, and now smart phones and computers.
I wish when someone was on such strong ground, discussing the success of many programmes and the way statistics can be manipulated, they would avoid such hyperbole as it makes easy fodder for argument, and shows the partisan mask they were almost hiding. If I were marking it as an essay, it would have suddenly caused me to go back to the beginning and question every statement.
Why do people have to be so darn absolute all the time?
somehow, “mouse @ the lighthouse made it into this video.
Oh, and Pete, I think you might have earned such a day. But what are you going to do to your furnace? Shouldn’t it be baking you?
a series of trouble, everytime something is repaired another something breaks, we do have a week or so weather reprieve (allegedly) and yes i prefer life when my furnace is baking with me.
I appreciated the fact that they at least attempted to quantify the argument that things would be worse without these programs, because it can be a bit squishy at times. If one instantly disqualifies that sort of rebuttal it just leaves the field wide open to the constant drivel from the right. To paraphrase some standards, we have:
“There are still poor people, therefore safety net programs such as social security, medicare, and food stamps aren’t working, therefore get rid of them.”
“The economy is still slow, therefore Fed/Gov’t stimulus isn’t working, therefore put an end to it.”
To categorically invalidate the rebuttal that “things would be worse without” is ridiculous and dishonest and plays right into the agenda of the wingnutters who hate those policies whether they work or not, and actually even hate them more to the extent that they do work.
Hi everybody! don’t have time to contribute just yet. this is what is displayed when i try to play the video. welcome to the USA where every single penny must be accounted for, every atom is owned by someone. if you want enlightenment, damn it, you are going to have to pay for it.
“We’re sorry, the video you’re trying to watch cannot be viewed from your current geographic location due to rights restrictions.”
see you guys later.
In the article itself, in Figure 6, conservatives will only look at the blue line, and say “See! Poverty has risen over the past decade! Disembowel the Welfare State!”
This has been their self serving class warring dogma all along, regardless of any charts, facts, or reality, and of course they conveniently ignore the green line.
Hey, have a great day everyone. 😎
Yaktrax today!
Oh I was just pointing out how he weakened what was an excellent article. Public education is a good example of how easy it is to find bad examples and throw out something that has been incredibly beneficial. But I will cling to my point that we do not know that a different, better, miraculous other system might have arisen. While I curse our socialized medicine, I appreciate that there are no bodies in the streets. We have an unfortunate example of the abuse of disability and welfare smoking on the porch across the street, and it tempers my joy at helping the poor too indiscriminately.
there is a silent majority, but it resides in the middle. i am sick of all the rhetoric. yet no one can deny that the USA has steadily moved to the right as the baby boomers aged. it is obvious to many, including me, that the country went way too far. naturally then, there also has been the accompanying reconcentration of wealth, which history shows becomes parabolic, right up to the point of a reset. once the checks and balances are removed, boom, a fair(er) society reverts to the historical mean – the 1% own and control everything. the USA is one spark away from ignition. if she blows, bankers and politicians will be murdered, but so will many innocents. i wonder if it is already too late to stop the madness.
but enough of that heavy shit. today i found that all of my squash, potatoes, and onions stored away in the basement froze. maybe would cost 50 bucks to replace at the GMO mart. but i will miss the taste of vegetables grown with no chemicals. like i have said before, there is a trade off choosing to be either a grasshopper, or an ant.
i think i’ll do what 44 is doing, and then make a stock pot full of soup. soab!
Let me see if I have this timeline pretty much together.
Chris Christie has a meeting with Port Authority Chairman David Samson.
A week later, Bridget Kelly (Christie’s Deputy Chief of Staff), sends an email to David Wildstein (A Christie appointee to the Port Authority) and says “Time for some traffic problems in Fort Lee”, to which Wildstein repies “Got it”.
A couple of weeks later, three lanes are merged down to one, on one of the busiest bridges in the country causing untold pain in the ass for several days, including keeping emergency vehicles and school busses bottled up. When the peasants complain, the Port Authority Police respond (per their orders) that the Mayor of Fort Lee (who had failed to endorse Christie) is to blame.
Here’s how I see if going forward.
It all comes out.
Christie is toast.
Tea Party rejoices because Christie was the so-called “moderate” front runner for the 2016 GOP nomination, and now the field is cleared for loons like Ryan and Cruz.
Liberals rejoice because with a Tea Party nominee for the GOP, Hillary cruises to an easy win in 2016.
This is more fun than a box full of puppies! 😎
“i aint blind and i don’t like what i think i see”….always loved the McDonald influence. s’up Woodpecker?
bread and circuses, circa 2014 EO. Pax Romana was short this time around.
i’m trying to salvage my stack of veggies 44. i found the potatoes are good for hash browns. the cell walls are broken by freezing so i’m peeling all the potatoes by hand – no peeler tool needed, shredding them, letting them drain. i will refreeze them.
utilitarianism philosophy has had a strong influence on my way of thinking. i relate some of the tenets to what the Eastern philosophies call karma. for example, if you could quantify the pain that a person like Jamie Dimon has caused, what would be a fair punishment? what if we could show that he’s stolen an average of one dollar from every American? most never felt it. but in my way of thinking, he deserves to be strung up anyway. not saying i’d be the one to do it, but i might not try to save the guy either. collectively, the bankers, corporate elite, and the paid off government lackeys have sentenced the average honest and hard working citizen to a life just above poverty – by stealing everything they can get away with – and often one penny at a time.
i might have some more ranting left later. but i promise to balance it out with tuneage if i do!
by the way, i think the squash will be OK. the onions are shot.
yes, thanks for the suggestion m44.
edit: oops, meant to include this link…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilitarianism
The Legatum Prosperity Index:
http://www.prosperity.com/#!/?opts=shuffleboard
As for utilitarianism, I fear the harm it could do to minority interests without some counterbalance, such as John C. Calhoun’s concurrent majority. From wiki:
Calhoun’s basic concern for protecting the diverse interests of minority interests is expressed in his chief contribution to political science—the idea of a concurrent majority across different groups as distinguished from a numerical majority. According to the principle of a numerical majority, the will of the more numerous citizens should always rule, regardless of the burdens on the minority. Such a principle tends toward a consolidation of power in which the interests of the absolute majority always prevail over those of the minority. Calhoun believed that the great achievement of the American constitution was in checking the tyranny of a numerical majority through institutional procedures that required a concurrent majority, such that each important interest in the community must consent to the actions of government. To secure a concurrent majority, those interests that have a numerical majority must compromise with the interests that are in the minority. A concurrent majority requires a unanimous consent of all the major interests in a community, which is the only sure way of preventing majority tyranny. This idea supported Calhoun’s doctrine of interposition or nullification, in which the state governments could refuse to enforce or comply with a policy of the Federal government that threatened the vital interests of the states.[47]
just doing some thinking out loud Dude, not trying to dictate policy. but rereading what we both just said, i can find so many ways in which the founders of the USA considered these ideas, and many more. so they did the best they could, and even accomplishing that, the safeguards for everything they tried to prevent have been steadily ground down or worked around.
know what you mean about the yak trax. i will remember this winter for either extreme volatility, or for the freaking ice. i guess it depends on what breaks the most, or maybe last… bone, car, furnace, or will. (primacy vs. recency effect)
nice amaryllis Xty. do you keep your bulbs for the next year? just wondering since it looks like a really large plant and bulb. also, i can’t figure out your word of the day riddle.
by the way i just looked up primacy vs. recency effect. i need to do that (look things up) more before shooting off my mouth.
Off to tend bar.
see ya later Dude.
England does have that gracious royalty about them still, and always will.
Queen Elizabeth II is a direct descendant of King David and sits on that throne that was established forever.
Abraham ‘begat’ (gotta love that word) Isaac,… then Isaac begat Jacob. God met/wrestled with Jacob and changed Jacob’s name to Israel.
Jacob/Israel had 12 sons which were/are the 12 tribes of Israel. Reuben, Simeon, Levi, Judah, etc.. Well, Judah held the scepter (was the Royal tribe) and David was later born of the tribe of Judah, (Jesus Christ, God in the flesh, also via Judah, and Levi) and now HRH Queen Elizabeth II sits on that Royal Throne as it continues.
Xty, it reminds me of the post you did regarding the former “real” Canadian flag. With the royal look to it, the Gold etc. And you just have that Royal Grace about you, in your writing etc.
Those giant estates aren’t for me, a Georgia redneck who doesn’t even wear socks… but I sure don’t begrudge those who God blesses with those things fitting to them.
What a time that would have been, to see all those great estates operating to the fullest. Before the fake money of those who claim to be from the tribe of Judah but are not, caused all this temporary confusion. (rev 2.9, 3.9)
Thanks for the excellent (as always) article Xty.
Hope everybody is enjoying warmer weather, and had their money on the Seahawks!! (although the Saints still have a chance!)
i have no problems with what you believe DN, nor your right to say it. i could contest just a few minor points, but it’s hardly worth the fight. after all, nothing can be proved! hope you are having a good 2014 so far.
can you believe this used to be considered devil worshiping music, well back in the ‘good old days’ anyway. 🙂
thread rejuve…
last call.
Time for some traffic problems …. that should go viral. It would make a good intro to a weird mixed song mix.
I am a conflicted fan of a constitutional monarchy partly because there is much to be said for a titular, as opposed to political, head of state. Our Governonr General concept theoretically takes the politics out of the mechanics of government and that is good. The inherited sense of entitlement is the problem, and the inability to know when enough is enough. So much of the argument between socialism and conservatism is really just a question of quantity of each – very rare to meet those who insist on no government at all as a sensible concept. Just like people who will argue that the problem with communism is just that it hasn’t been implemented properly.
There is obviously middle ground, and with smaller communities more able to implement their own visions, and less government from the top and more from the bottom, it should be possible for like-minded people to live with like-minded people and for the experiment in the quantity of government that is appropriate to continue more freely.
But I am not sure this is more fun than a box of puppies!
Time for some traffic
for pumpkin#1
Oh, and as to the wonderful amaryllis, I think I got it somewhere embarrassing like Walmart or our equivalent of a Piggly-Wiggly (you can’t imagine how silly that sounds to a foreigner) for $5. But I opened every box and looked for a bulb with more than one shoot and bam! I have been feeding my plants with great effect, except for the one I bought it for, which has pretty much perished for unknown reasons. This one I might keep but usually I am a lazy consumer.
in the past, the best example being the “royal families”, special treatment and power was considered to be a birthright. how’s that for an ability to not know when enough is enough? you can see the same type of attitude in the USA, but the root of the power is less based in religion, and more in generational family wealth.
Jesse touched on the theme yesterday…
Tsar Nicholas II: I know what will make them happy. They’re children, and they need a Tsar! They need tradition. Not this! They’re the victims of agitators. A Duma would make them bewildered and discontented. And don’t tell me about London and Berlin. God save us from the mess they’re in!
Count Witte: I see. So they talk, pray, march, plead, petition and what do they get? Cossacks, prison, flogging, police, spies, and now, after today, they will be shot. Is this God’s will? Are these His methods? Make war on your own people? How long do you think they’re going to stand there and let you shoot them? YOU ask ME who’s responsible? YOU ask?
Tsar Nicholas II: The English have a parliament. Our British cousins gave their rights away. The Hapsburgs, and the Hoehenzollerns too. The Romanovs will not. What I was given, I will give my son.
http://jessescrossroadscafe.blogspot.com/
This is an occasional discussion at our house. Mrs. O is a closet sympathizer with the royals. Her usual refrain is “Well, they (the bolsheviks) didn’t have to kill the whole family.” My response? “Yes they did.”
#noregretsnoremorse
I feel an internet hiatus coming on. See you folks in a week or two. Maybe you’ll meet me out in the street. Unless it’s time for some traffic problems, I dunno… 🙄
Enjoy your walkabout!
and stay out of trouble EO. 🙂
Your word does not hold the same status in my lexicon. Yes, scudding clouds was the first possibility that came to mind, but milliseconds later, the overwhelming theme that asserted itself was of those pesky missiles.
Trying to expunge it now:
You’re never too old for an epiphany. I swear this is true- I awoke from a nap just a while ago and as I was beginning to enter consciousness this came unbidden- the white bird is the dove of peace. Of course I should have known this 45 years ago, but I didn’t pay that much attention to it, I just thought it was a hauntingly beautiful song. ( I think she just came from the Golden Globe Awards.)
same theme, even better
i never did finish my painting. what does it need?
and some mood music.
oops. here’s the painting. a Jim’s eye view of the desert. what is missing?
Violated my “hiatus” just long enough to find out that Pining 4 the Fjords, Turd Ferguson, and the rest of the losers over there have their heads even further up their asses than I thought, and that takes some doing!
It just had to be said.
Hey, have a good one folks. “Real Life” is getting in the way of “Virtual Internet Life” right now, and that’s a good thing. 😀
TF, P4, we know you are reading this, so Hello, and Fuck You.
i can’t believe i ever cared either EO. but you have to post a song or something. otherwise you just dropped by to complain.