Nice Kitchen

Claude Monet's (and Mrs Monet's) kitchen in Giverny, France.  Me and the Mrs have visited it twice.

Terrible Maps

A fun site on Twitter with many ridiculous maps.   A sampling:

The Changing

There has been substantial change in the political positions of those in our two major parties over the last quarter century.  Since 1994 the Pew Research Center has been asking the same set of 10 questions to the electorate (will update the post once I relocate the questions - FOUND IT!  See end of post) and measuring that change.  Below are the results:

Notice what has happened?  The Republican electorate has move right but the Democrat electorate has moved a lot to the left.  Where there used to be considerable overlap in the middle is now substantially diminished.

The move to the Left is so dramatic that on a personal note, I'm so old I was a Liberal back when we believed in free speech, freedom of conscience, equal protection and due process under the law.  I still do.

If you look at the charts over time you will see the biggest shift of the Democrats to the left occurred during Pew's 2012 survey (I'm searching for the time lapse charts I've seen and will add to the post when I find them).

This coincides with my own observation that it was in 2011-12 the Obama Administration decided to "unleash the crazy" building within the Democratic electorate.  It was during this period that same-sex marriage was transformed from an issue that could be discussed to one where opposition branded one a bigot and hater worthy of losing your job (soon to be followed by banishing any discussions of whether boys should be allowed in girls' bathrooms).  It was when bureaucrats in Obama's Department of Education hyped issues of sexual assault on college campuses and issued their guidance depriving Americans of due process.  It was when the Obama administration decided, with some success, to convince apolitical young single women that Republicans would ban all contraception if elected in 2012. 

It was when Obama, concerned he might lose the 2012 election, set out to convince America that race relations were worsening, treating every voice who opposed Democratic policies as racist (also enabling Democrats to avoid discussions of substance), hyping the Trayvon Martin case with a deluge of falsehoods (a tactic since repeated with Michael Brown, Freddie Gray, and Omar Mateen), using Al Sharpton, who made his bones as a race man and Jew-baiter, as their go-to guy on civil rights, when Joe Biden was telling black audiences that Mitt Romney was "going to put y'all back in chains", and when the poisonous doctrine of intersectionality entered the discussion.

The strategy allowed Obama to fully embrace the bizarre theories of the academy, which had been slowly cooking at colleges and universities over the prior three decades (and which I mistakenly dismissed as so crazy, no one not on a college campus could ever take seriously) and which can be seen in his use of rhetorical tropes used by progressive academics.

After that the floodgates opened with the Democratic dominated news media, academia, and in tech.   Look at this chart on the explosion in the use of the term "white privilege" since then.  For more examples go here.



*

The Citizen

My favorite figure in American history between the Founding generation and the Civil War is the Sam Houston, governor of two states, congressman from one state and senator from another, President of the Republic of Texas, hero of the Texas Revolution, slaveholder who opposed secession, defender of Indian rights (for more read Sam Houston: The Raven).

Yesterday was the 190th anniversary of the date on which the Cherokee Nation granted citizenship to Sam in the document pictured above.  Resigning as governor of Tennessee after his new wife left him, Houston went to join his beloved Cherokees in Arkansas, telling his friend David Crockett he was going to join the tribe in exile.  He was to live there for three years, acquiring an Indian wife in the process, before heading to Texas.  During this period he also visited Washington DC to represent Indian interests, meeting with his mentor President Andrew Jackson while there.

It was the second time in his life he'd lived with the Cherokees.  As a teenager in Tennessee he'd run away from home and lived with the tribe for three years, learning their language.

Throughout his life, Houston was to feel an affinity for his Indian friends in many tribes and his advocacy on their behalf often caused him political problems, particularly in Texas.

During the 1854 Senate debate over the Kansas-Nebraska Bill during which he was the only southern senator to oppose the bill, Houston responded to remarks from an Indiana senator regarding Indians:

The honorable Senator from Indiana says in substance that God Almighty has condemned [the Indians], and made them an inferior race, that there is no use in doing anything for them. . .  Sir, it is idle to tell me that.  We have Indians on our western borders, whose civilization is not inferior to our own . . .  The Indian has a sense of justice, truth and honor that should find a responsive chord in every heart.  If the Indians on the frontier are barbarous  . . . who are we to blame for it?  They are robbed of the means of sustenance; and with hundreds and thousands of them starving on the frontier, hunger may prompt to such acts as prevent their perishing  . . .

We should be careful if it were with a power able to war with us; and it argues a degree of infinite meanness and indescribable degradation on our part to act differently with the Indians, who confide in our honor and justice, and who call the President their Great Father, and confide in him.

The grant of citizenship document above reads:

____ [?] an order has been published by the agent of
the cherokee Nation requiring all white men who re-
side in the Nation without the consent of the chiefs
of the Said Nation to comply with certain rules
and regulations set forth in Said order. Now be it
Known by them present, that Gen^l Samuel Houston,
late of the State of Tennessee, has been residing in
the Nation for Some time past, and has manifested
a disposition to remain with us. In consideration
of his former acquaintance with and Services rend-
dered to the Indians, and his present disposition,
to improve their condition and benefit their cir-
cumstances, and our confidence in his integrity, and
talents, if he Should remain among us; We do as
a committee appointed by order of the principal
chief John Jolly; Solemnly, firmly, and irreconcil- [?]
ably Grant to him for ever all the rights, privileges
and numunities [immunities] of a citizen of the cherokee Nation
and do as fully impower [sic] him with all rights  and
liberties as tho he was a native cherokee, w[hile]
at the Same time the Said Houston be [?]
required to yield obedience to [text missing]

-tations made for the Government of the Native city-
zens [sic] of the cherokee Nation.
            In witness whereof, we have this day, Set our
hands this 21^st day of October 1829[.]

Cherokee Nation        Walter Webber [his mark] President com^tee
Illinois                      Aaron Price vice
Jno] Brown Clk         Approved by John [his mark] Jolly principal Chief
national com^tee

The Empty Streets

New Bedford, Massachusetts.  January 17, 1941.  Via Shorpy.

Get Moving

Enough grousing about politics and time slipping away.  We need something upbeat.

The first THC post more than seven years ago was I Need More Love from Robert Randolph & The Family Band.  Time to revisit it.  Get up and get moving.