RUTHFULLY YOURS

In 1969 my husband and I bought a pre-revolutionary house. While a kitchen and plumbing and electricity were obviously added, the original structure, inside and out were intact.  After one really harsh Connecticut winter when I contemplated certain restorations and changes, my late husband, the finest and most thoughtful person told me. “We must be cautious about changes…. we are not only owners…. we are custodians of a bit of history.”

His words echo when we celebrate patriotism and legacy in America. We are the custodians of the democracy crafted by our extraordinary founders. Some changes are always necessary and flaws must be fixed by discussion and legislation, but the basic tenets of our freedom and the right to vote and the laws that provide homeland security must always be guarded and protected, and they are being vigorously challenged.

The right to dissent is both a privilege and an obligation of our custody of democracy. But, there is no right to threaten and beat journalists; there is no right to censor those with whom we disagree; there is no right to assume power and challenge the legitimacy of an election by violence and libel;  there is no right to threaten national security by demanding open borders and giving sanctuary to those who break the law.

My rather gloomy mood was lifted by the President’s speech and military displays on July 4th,  when I saw thousands upon thousands of Americans who braved the blistering heat waving our flag and cheering for America and our defense forces.

They are the custodians of democracy. May patriotism always prevail….rsk

In 1776,  this magnificent document was crafted…..

“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

Read it all: http://www.ushistory.org/declaration/document/

Have a glorious and proud Independence Day!!!! rsk

The compliant and biased media lobbed no real questions on present defense or foreign policy and cagily deflected serious questions on national security and immigration.

Again, these tyros want to be Commander in Chief?….rsk

Did you notice that any real discussions on national defense, foreign policy,  China, North Korea, Russia, the Middle East and other “hot spots” were  absent at last night’s debate?

These blatheroons want to be President?  rsk

I just spent delightful days in the Brandywine Valley driving through the beautiful countryside. Included were visits to the Brandywine River museum which features paintings by three generations of the Wyeth family and their acolytes, the magnificent American antique furniture and woodland gardens of the former home of Henry Francis Du Pont- Winterthur Museum, and Longwood Gardens which defies description with one thousand acres of woodlands, flower gardens, ancient specimen trees of every variety, fountains, water gardens and a Conservatory that is dazzling with its almost endless displays of plants, trees and flowers.
All of the foregoing were a sampling of the generosity and public spirit of the Du Pont family, whose largess contributed and continues to contribute to conservation and restoration and maintenance of American historical treasures.
It also evoked a personal recollection of the Du Ponts. My husband’s brother in law was a very accomplished PhD in chemistry who worked for Du Pont de Nemours in Wilmington in the 1950s. It was bruited that a Jew could sooner become President of America than a president of Du Pont. At the time there were many institutions and academies with anti-Semitic policies so I did not pay too much attention.
Years later in 1974, I heard that expression again about anti-Semitism at Du Pont at a dinner sponsored by the Weizmann Institute of Israel. It was repeated with much humor by the guest of honor Irving Saul Shapiro who was the first non-Du Pont family member to be appointed CEO of the company in 1973 where he remained until 1981.
That is what I love about this country. Injustice and prejudice towards minorities and women have been overturned by the principles of democracy and not by thugs like Antifa and so-called “justice warriors.” God truly shed his grace on America the beautiful…..rsk

The treaty of Nanking in 1842 ceded Hong Kong to the British at the end of the Opium War. It was given to them in perpetuity but in 1898 the British pledged to give Hong Kong back in 1997 signing a 99 year lease.

In 1984 Prime Minister Thatcher’s reluctance to return Hong Kong- a bustling, successful mercantile nation with an extremely popular British governor named Christ Patten- was overcome by Deng Xiaoping’s promises of retaining Hong Kong’s autonomy.

Was it naivete or duplicity?  Only a few years later in 1989 the massacre of Tiananmen occurred but did not temper the zeal to appease China by ceding Hong Kong.

When the withdrawal was implemented on June 30th, 1997 Great Britain further betrayed its former colony, by refusing entry permits to citizens of Hong Kong, rendering them prisoners to mainland China’s tyranny. The citizens of Hong Kong were rightly outraged.

And as soon as Patten left, he was vilified by Beijing as a “Whore of a thousand years.”

The rest as we see now is the legacy of western appeasement of Communist China.

Taiwan beware! rsk

I reflect on the heroism of those who have been drafted or who volunteer to fight for nation and freedom.

Hannah Senesh was one of 37 Jews from Mandatory Palestine parachuted by the British Army into Yugoslavia during the Second World War to assist in the rescue of Hungarian Jews about to be deported to the German death camp at Auschwitz.  Senesh was arrested at the Hungarian border, then imprisoned and tortured, but refused to reveal details of her mission to the Nazis. She was executed by firing squad November 7, 1944 five months after D-Day.

She wrote these words in a poem found decades after her death:

Blessed is the flame that burns in the secret fastness of the heart.

Blessed is the heart with strength to stop its beating for honor’s sake.

I make Cuban style brisket called “ropa vieja”….It is boiled with onions and carrots and garlic and salt and then shredded and cooked some more with tomato sauce and more garlic and green peppers and saffron. My family loves it. It is labor intensive and makes a huge mess. When I gather the refuse from cooking and eating, I cadge a copy of The New York Times from the recycling pile in the disposal room and use it to wrap the soggy garbage… and to mop the kitchen floor…..rsk 

Thanks to my dear friend Joan Swirsky for this nugget.

New York Times Faces a Brisket Brouhaha  by Ira Stoll (https://www.algemeiner.com/2019/05/30/new-york-times-faces-a-brisket-brouhaha/)

The cover story in this week’s New York Times food section asserts, “Brisket remains oddly off limits for one large segment of the population: home cooks.”

The article was about Texas or Kansas City-style barbecued brisket, but the sentence sweepingly suggesting the cut of meat is rarely if ever cooked at home was enough to exasperate more than a few Times readers.

One comment, with 33 upvotes, was, “My first thoughts were, ‘excuse me, have you ever met a Jewish person…?’”

In August 1943 President Roosevelt met with Winston Churchill in Quebec to discuss a plan for a cross-English Channel assault to liberate Nazi occupied France. The operation’s code name was “Overlord.” In November 1943, at a meeting held the Soviet Union’s embassy in Teheran, the plan was formulated and shortly thereafter  President Roosevelt appointed General Dwight David Eisenhower to be Supreme Allied Commander of “Overlord.” British Field Marshall Bernard Law Montgomery, renowned for leading the first major Allied victory at El Alamein, Egypt, in 1942 became ground commander of the Anglo-American forces under Dwight D. Eisenhower.

On Memorial Day May 30, 1944  2,876,000 Allied troops were amassed in southern England joined by an armada of 4,000 American, British and Canadian ships and 1300 planes to give air cover to the invasion troops prepared to land on five French beaches code named Utah, Omaha, Gold, Juno and Sword.

Strategy was bedeviled by disagreements, poor weather and tidal conditions, but on June 5th before dawn, Eisenhower decided to proceed. He wrote a brief note accepting full responsibility for the decision and accepting total blame should the assault fail.

To his troops as they were boarding transports to combat, he gave this speech:

Soldiers, Sailors, and Airmen of the Allied Expeditionary Force:

You are about to embark upon the Great Crusade, toward which we have striven these many months.

The eyes of the world are upon you. The hopes and prayers of liberty-loving people everywhere march with you.

In company with our brave Allies and brothers-in-arms on other Fronts you will bring about the destruction of the German war machine, the elimination of Nazi tyranny over oppressed peoples of Europe, and security for ourselves in a free world.

Your task will not be an easy one. Your enemy is well trained, well equipped, and battle-hardened. He will fight savagely.

But this is the year 1944. Much has happened since the Nazi triumphs of 1940-41. The United Nations have inflicted upon the Germans great defeats, in open battle, man-to-man. Our air offensive has seriously reduced their strength in the air and their capacity to wage war on the ground. Our Home Fronts have given us an overwhelming superiority in weapons and munitions of war, and placed at our disposal great reserves of trained fighting men. The tide has turned. The free men of the world are marching together to victory.

I have full confidence in your courage, devotion to duty, and skill in battle. We will accept nothing less than full victory.

Good Luck! And let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.

After Normandy, there were many hard won and brutal battles, but the tide did turn and eleven months later, on May 7, 1945 the war in Europe ended. God bless our troops ….rsk