Bookworm Room

A few stories from England’s Daily Mail, all showing that the country is not in the best of health.  Each of these stories highlights, not the horrible things individuals can do, because those crimes transcend national boundaries, but the way in which England has rendered itself unable to react in any way to the insults [...]

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I fought my husband for years about taking the kids on vacation to England.  Despite growing up as a complete Anglophile (I can talk for hours, unaided, about British history) and despite having spent one of the happiest years of my life there, I have a lot of issues with modern day England. My primary [...]

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When he was 6, my son suddenly started stealing things from his classmates.  Market value wasn’t the object.  Like a magpie, he went for the sparkling, brightly colored stuff.  Naturally, he got caught.  The school imposed appropriate consequences, but it was left to me to explain to him that stealing is bad, not just because [...]

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(Thanks to Sadie for sending me to American Digest, where I found the above video)

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There is a story that Josef Stalin, hearing mention of the Pope, asked dismissively ““How many divisions does the Pope have?”  The quotation, if true, is compelling, because it perfectly illustrates the Leftist viewpoint that the only power is that which comes at the point of a gun.  The notion of moral behavior and moral [...]

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In the preceding post, I gave you Geert Wilders’ entire speech about the threat Islam poses to the West.  I now offer you living evidence of the threat he describes.

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We’re getting used to the fact that, no matter what we say or do, we’re racist.  Want to shrink government?  You’re racist.  Want stronger border security?  You’re racist.  Think Obama is so inept even Carter looks good by comparison?  You’re racist. A candidate in England, though, has taken the name calling to an entirely new [...]

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I’m not quite sure how to describe this one without giving away the whole weird little joke.  Suffice to say that it’s quick and amusing. As for this one, you’ll be interested to know that Britain’s Royal College of Obstetricians (“RCO”) believes women should be advised that, generally speaking, abortions are better for their physical [...]

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As the younger citizens limit their involvement to videotaping a crime in progress (“Oooh, won’t this look cool when I show it to my friends”), a 71 year old grandmother, Ann Timson, acts with extraordinary — and effective — courage: You can read more about Timson here.

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The Archbishopric of Canterbury used to be a pretty important job.  The guy who held that position, going back to the earliest Middle Ages, was the premier leader of the English church, whether that church gave allegiance to Rome or the British Monarch.  The current Archbishop, Rowan Williams is, as best as I can tell, [...]

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As we settle into the Obama Depression era, one thing that I and others have noticed is that many of the very youth that voted enthusiastically for Obama are the ones already feeling the consequence of his policies: they are unemployed. As one of my college-age kids put it, “our generation is so over Obama, [...]

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I’d like to think this is a joke, but modern Britain being modern Britain, I’m actually sure it’s not.  One can only hope that at least some people will give the correct response to such an intrusive, inappropriate question:  “Bugger off!” Are you straight or gay? Police and nurses to be asked their sexuality in [...]

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Thirty years ago, I went to England through my university’s junior year abroad program.  Although I had visions of walking across Cambridge’s or Oxford’s sun-dappled lawns, I actually ended up in the north of England.  My disappointment swiftly turned to pleasure when I discovered that the north of England was much more “English” than the [...]

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It turns out that the young man who hung on the Union Jack flag in order to climb a cenotaph dedicated to the dead of WWI, a cenotaph that has inscribed on it in large letters “the glorious dead,” has apologized, claiming he knew not what he did. Hogwash. First of all, any halfway civilized [...]

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In past posts, I’ve noted that it isn’t surprising that British women are converting in surprisingly high numbers to Islam.  In a secularized, socialized, de-moralized Britain (and, by de-moralized, I mean a place remarkably free of traditional morality), the women are pickled in alcohol, and encouraged to have sex at the drop of a hat [...]

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Yes, you read that post caption correctly.  British Liberal Democrat Jenny Tonge, in a speech in the House of Lords, claims that terrorism around the world is Israel’s fault, because Israel treats the Palestinian’s badly: On the issue of world conflict prevention, Tonge then said: “It is a disgrace to us all that problems such [...]

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When I studied in England, I did so using money I’d saved from a decade of work (starting when I was ten).  I took care of neighbor’s houses, mowed their lawns, babysat their kids, cleaned their cars, etc.  I had a goal and I worked to pay for it. I was taken completely aback by [...]

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Mohammed is the most popular name for new baby boys. And women, left by their own nation with a spiritual and moral vacuum, and a rare choice of dangerous and demeaning behaviors vis a vis sex, drink and drugs, are converting to Islam in large numbers.

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The British government has proposed stealth communism:  all paychecks go to the government first, which then doles out to the wage earner whatever amount the government feels is the wage earner’s due.  Think about it.  As Pat Sajak wrote yesterday, withholding is bad enough, because it deprives the worker of a sense of ownership over [...]

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I arrived in England months after Peter Sutcliffe, the terribly brutal “Yorkshire Ripper,” had been arrested.  His last victim had been killed around the corner from the apartment in which I was to live for a year.  Although I was happy and felt safe where I lived, only once did I walk down the road [...]

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When I lived in England many, many moons ago, I met an English student who had spent the previous summer working, very, very hard, at the local zoo.  The highlight of his work day was driving around the little kiddy train, and even that wasn’t much fun.  He spent the rest of the time mucking [...]

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Several years ago, my family and I visited Pompeii, which is one of the most wondrous tourist destinations in the world.  To maximize our experience, we hired a highly recommended guide who walked us over the grounds, explaining everything before us.  This guide’s particular passion was plumbing.  He had no words for the wonders of [...]

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In a market economy, the marketplace drives the availability of goods and services.  If there’s a big demand, the market will create a big supply; if the demand dries up, so does supply, as the market sends its resources elsewhere. Supply and demand, however, have no place in government controlled sectors of the economy.  Although [...]

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In 1931, Nancy Langhorne Astor’s son Robert Gould Shaw III was arrested for committing a homosexual act (in a park, I believe).  This was a continuation of a long-standing British public policy of prosecuting “sodomists.”  Arguably the most famous prosecution was that against Oscar Wilde, for public indecency.  The trial, scandal and imprisonment destroyed the [...]

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If you want to see what modern socialism looks like, look no further than Britain.  I cannot urge you strongly enough to read this article.  If it is the only thing you read this week, read this article.  Because I read the British papers daily, I can attest to the truth of every fact stated [...]

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