It is not Nice always to be attacking people, so I am glad to be able to reset the balance with regard to President Biden.
Frankly, if I had an Ovoid Office and if it contained a bust, or, indeed, any sort of representation, in however many or few dimensions, of any member (even remote) of the Churchill Family, I would have had it removed. Just as Mr Biden, following Mr Obamama, has recently done. I would order it to be 'relocated' in the Staff Rest Room. Had the Taliban ever taken me into their confidence, I would have tentatively suggested to them the careful transfer of the Column of Victory in the grounds at Blenheim to ... er ... ... no, I wouldn't really ... another joke in bad taste ...
In Bond Street, just a bit down from Sotheby's, there is a bronze representation of "Sir Winston", sitting beside Mr Rooseveldt. Whitherabouts, I wonder, should these two buddies be 'relocated'? Should they be joined by the figure of their genial chum and playmate Uncle Joe Stalin?
Incidentally, in Chips Channon's Diaries, recently made available to us, Churchill is described as "fat, brilliant, unbalanced, illogical, porcine". Thank goodness for our American cousins! Whatever would we do without them? And, of course, their ever-available heiresses.
So I have no complaints about Mr Biden's alterations in the Ovoid Office. But I am less sanguine about his claim "I am Irish". Since we can all have as many as 32 great great great grandparents (have I got that right?), anybody whose family has lived in North America for any period of time ... given a healthy dash of enthusiastic miscegenation ... must have an Irishman or an Irishwoman lurking in it somewhere.
I doubt if Mr B is any more genuinely Irish than Vladimir Vladimirovich O'Putin.
A genealogist writing in "Irish America Magazine" says:
ReplyDelete"By heritage, Joe Biden is roughly five-eighths Irish. His mother’s entire family tree traces to Ireland with ancestors named Arthurs, Blewitt, Boyle, Roche, Scanlon and Stanton accompanying her Finnegan kin. The last one-eighth comes from his father’s side, which contributed the Hanafee name."
https://www.irishamerica.com/2013/03/joey-from-scranton-vice-president-bidens-irish-roots/
Biden might be (and is,) in part, Irish, but he is mostly English, and then, French. I have noticed that his lineage has been revised since he entered the White House, although that is probably as fake as that "Garage Sale" find of a family bible, that is such a satisfying joke. When did they add the hinges, I wonder? His claims to be "Irish", so absurd on their face, are all just part of his ongoing copycat antics of aping the Kennedy family. Tragic deaths, for instance, are never far from the narrative. Religious faith, laughably, is always spoken of, but never in light of his constant support for abortion. The fact that he was from an upper income family, and went to High School in New York, where his family lived, is never mentioned. Ever.
ReplyDeleteI recall the occasion when I met a group in Americans in Philadelphia, PA. As is normal for an Irishman in North America, I got the convoluted details of their (sometimes distant) Irish ancestry. The unbridled delight of a Mr Goldberg when I assured him that despite there being no "O'Goldbergs" he could claim kinship with, he might well be related to the sometime Right Honourable the Lord Mayor of Cork, Alderman Gerald Goldberg! It made his day!
ReplyDeleteIt doesn't seem so long ago that our pastor with the thick Irish brogue insisted, from the pulpit, that we vote for the only Irishman on the ticket, O'Bama.
ReplyDeleteI really don't know what armyarty was trying to assert, but our president, Joe Biden, attended and graduated from Archmere Academy located in Claymont, Delaware (between Wilmington, DE and Philadelphia, PA). Archmere has a relationship with the Norbertine community at Daylesford Abbey in Paoli, Pennsylvania.
ReplyDeleteWGS, thank you for the lead. I found this on the school's website.
ReplyDelete"As a community of faith, Archmere celebrates its Catholic heritage and the Norbertine charism, united by the importance placed on spirituality, respect, commitment, passion, and selflessness…. In the spirit of our faith we pass on Saint Norbert’s teachings of service to the community; respect for all; passion in every endeavor; spirituality and prayer as a source of strength and support; and commitment to community, and individual growth."
https://www.archmereacademy.com/
I never understand these claims made by Americans. If one says to me I'm German/Irish/Norwegian/et al. I always respond by saying I thought you were American. I suspect my claim, should I want to make it, to Irishness is greater than Biden's. My mother traced our family history and on her mother's side of our family our relatively recent ancestors came from Ireland to England during the potato famine. I have no great devotion to St Patrick, I don't like Guinness, green is a colour I'm not fond of and I make no pretence to being an Irishman. I consider myself English.
ReplyDeleteRe: "claims made by Americans," it's usually useful to know where a person fits into the settlement patterns of the US, and what kind of holiday food is likely to emerge when someone brings in food for work or for a potluck dinner at church. (And if you're likely to be able to branch out, yourself, if you have a preferred family dish that involves weird spices, like anise.)
ReplyDeleteYou can even suss out whether someone is likely to allow joking at the reception after a funeral, or whether they'll be deeply offended by things like blowing one's nose, or being able to tell what's happening in the next bathroom stall.
But most often, Americans just like to talk about what they like and are happy about, and they hope you would like to talk about the same things about yourself. That way, everybody is happy.
It's sad that ethnicity has turned into another thing for SJWs to use to attack people, because now it's not just a fun conversational topic.
WGS: It is very interesting to me that Biden's biography keeps changing.
ReplyDeleteThere is no doubt that he lived in Garden City during high school, when his father owned a local airport.
Did he attend school in Delaware at some point? Possibly, but given the massive revisions of his biography since he was elected, I cannot say.
I do recall, however, that Bided personally recalled his father owning the airport on long island, and living there as a teenager.
Biden is fake. His Irish heritage: fake. His claims of being from a lower economic background: fake. His claim that he met his current wife after they were both single: fake.
Just ask her first husband.
The constant claims that he was actively discriminated against for being Catholic: Totally, totally fake.
Just as fake as when he stole Neil Kinnock's biography, and had to drop his presidential bid back in the 1980s because of it. Not because re re-used somebody else's speech- which is common- but because he lifted a whole series of life facts from another person that were not true in his own case.
Sorry, he was living in Garden City, NY as a teenager. Believe what you like.