“And this I must fight against: ANY IDEA, RELIGION OR GOVERNMENT which limits or destroys the individual. This is what I am about.” —John Steinbeck
Viking’s Danube Waltz (3): Vienna

Viking’s Danube Waltz (3): Vienna

Vienna, Austria

con­tin­ued from part 2….

June 3: 

Viking’s cui­sine is gen­er­al­ly first-rate, high­ly var­ied, and the break­fasts lack noth­ing we could think of except the odd blintz. For exam­ple, there were three dif­fer­ent styles of yogurt, eggs any way you want them includ­ing cus­tom-made omelets, smoked salmon, fish, cheese, cold cuts, cham­pagne by the glass, a dozen or more vari­eties of bread and rolls, pas­try galore, all the usu­al things you find under hot plates, and every­thing of uni­form high qual­i­ty. For items you order from the table, like Eggs Bene­dict or pan­cakes, serv­ings are small, but this is a plus for two rea­sons: it gives you more room to try dif­fer­ent things, and if you want more of any­thing, a wait­er will hap­pi­ly bring you a sec­ond serving.…

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Churchill on July 4, 1918

Churchill on July 4, 1918

Hap­py 4th from Hills­dale College.

“The Third Great Title-Deed of Anglo-Amer­i­can Liberties”

Win­ston S. Churchill, Lib­er­ty Day Meet­ing, Cen­tral Hall, West­min­ster, July 4, 1918. Excerpt­ed from Robert Rhodes James, Win­ston S. Churchill: His Com­plete Speech­es 1897-1963, 8 vols. (New York: Bowk­er, 1974), III 2613-16.

 

I move that the fol­low­ing res­o­lu­tion be cabled from the meet­ing as a greet­ing to the Pres­i­dent and peo­ple of the Unit­ed States of Amer­i­ca: This meet­ing of the Anglo-Sax­on Fel­low­ship assem­bled in Lon­don on the 4th of July, 1918, sends to the Pres­i­dent and peo­ple of the Unit­ed States their heart­felt greet­ings on the 142nd anniver­sary of the Dec­la­ra­tion of Amer­i­can Inde­pen­dence.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Viking’s Danube Waltz (2): Bratislava

Bratislava

con­tin­ued from Part 1….  

June 2: Bratisla­va, Slo­va­kia 

If the Viking Leg­end is any exam­ple, you don’t need to wor­ry about table ser­vice. The wait staff, most­ly Fil­ipino, could not have been more atten­tive, but at the same time nev­er struck us as fawn­ing or gra­tu­itous. Our favorite waiter’s name tag read “Neri.” It turned out that he’d opt­ed for that because his real name wouldn’t fit: Alde­fon­so Ner­ia. He and his col­leagues were gems, always look­ing out for us, and soon began to save a nice place for four by throw­ing nap­kins over chair backs at a well-sit­u­at­ed table.…

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Viking’s Danube Waltz (1) Budapest

Viking’s Danube Waltz (1) Budapest

We Cruising alternative

If your idea of a cruise is float­ing around the sea with thou­sands of peo­ple and 24/7 enter­tain­ment, food and drink, a Viking Riv­er Cruise is not for you. Which is exact­ly why we took one, with two con­ge­nial friends and 180 fel­low pas­sen­gers, from May 31 to June 7 aboard Viking Leg­end, start­ing in Budapest, with three days’ option­al side trip to Prague, stay­ing at the Hilton. We came away high­ly sat­is­fied and impressed with the crew and orga­niz­ers, even though orga­nized leisure is not our thing. We like to get out into a coun­try and nib­ble the grass, as Churchill said, going where whim and the road take us.…

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Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Winston Churchill: Not Much to Say Today?

Every turn of events has its unique features. Understanding them, and applying principles to them today, is still the challenge. The challenge for leaders today is to judge whether discretion should take priority over boldness, whether diplomacy is a feasible option, and when and where to deploy a bluff. In these areas, Churchill’s experience is an invaluable guide, because human nature is unchanging.

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Churchill, Troops and Strikers (2): Llanelli, 1911

Churchill, Troops and Strikers (2): Llanelli, 1911

 Llanelli in Context

Llanel­li and the Rail­way Strike: con­clud­ed from Part 1

Through­out the August 1911 rail­way strike, troops stood by. Their orders were to inter­fere only against threats to pub­lic secu­ri­ty. But there was anoth­er rea­son why anx­i­ety ran high at that time. A few weeks ear­li­er, the Ger­mans had sent a gun­boat to Agadir, French Moroc­co. Rumors of war with Ger­many were ram­pant. David Lloyd George said the Agadir Cri­sis was a threat to peace. The Ger­mans, he warned, “would not hes­i­tate to use the [strike] paralysis,,,to attack Britain.” Paul Addi­son, in Churchill on the Home Front, described the pub­lic mood.…

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Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

Churchill, Troops & Strikers (1)

This is a time when we often ques­tion the actions of police forces. In Amer­i­ca, gov­er­nors occa­sion­al­ly call in the Nation­al Guard dur­ing riotous protests. Local res­i­dents are always the main vic­tims of such events. Churchill’s expe­ri­ence with strik­ers is wor­thy of study, his mag­na­nim­i­ty wor­thy of reflection.

Did WSC Send Troops Against Strikers?

For a cen­tu­ry it has been part of social­ist demonolo­gy that Churchill sent troops to attack strik­ers dur­ing a 1910 min­ers’ work stop­page in Tony­pandy, Wales. In 1967 an Oxford under­grad­u­ate wrote that Churchill faced down strik­ers with tanks. This was very pre­scient of him, since tanks didn’t exist in 1910.…

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Churchillnomics: The “Stricken Field”

Churchillnomics: The “Stricken Field”

Young Win­ston Churchill’s sec­ond speech in Par­lia­ment was a bravu­ra per­for­mance tak­ing up his father’s theme for econ­o­my in the budget.

In Churchill in His Own Words (p 45) I date this quo­ta­tion 12 May 1901 and cite Churchill’s Mr. Brodrick’s Army, his 1903 vol­ume of speech­es (fac­sim­i­le edi­tion, Sacra­men­to: Churchilliana Com­pa­ny, 1977), 16:

Wise words, Sir, stand the test of time, and I am very glad the House has allowed me, after an inter­val of fif­teen years, to raise the tat­tered flag I found lying on a strick­en field.

The “tat­tered flag” was Lord Ran­dolph Churchill’s cam­paign for econ­o­my in the late 1880s.…

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Driving in Britain Then & Now

Driving in Britain Then & Now

Drive…if you dare

A friend head­ed for Eng­land who heard about their speed cam­eras asks how many he’ll encounter. Answer: a lot. Even out in the coun­try, they’ll snap away at you.

Since 1974 I’ve logged 80,000 UK road miles, from Land’s End to John O’Groats, islands from Jura in the Hebrides to Guernsey in the Chan­nel. For a long time it was a driver’s par­adise.  More recent­ly UK dri­ving turned from joy to drudgery. Of course a lot has to do with the huge growth of cars on cramped roads. The mod­ern depre­da­tions of the State are a result rather than a cause.…

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“Rats in a Hole”: Churchill’s Apology

“Rats in a Hole”: Churchill’s Apology

Imag­ine if the Pres­i­dent of the Unit­ed States declared, “We will dig out ter­ror­ists ‘like rats in a hole.” Many would applaud and think maybe they had mis­judged him. Or would they?

A col­league sends an exchange in the House of Com­mons on 7 March 1916. “Colonel Churchill,” recent­ly returned from the Front but still a Mem­ber of Par­lia­ment, was speak­ing about the naval war with Ger­many. British naval plan­ners must pro­vide, Churchill was saying,

against what will be a con­tin­u­al­ly increas­ing ele­ment of the unknown. I must also just point out anoth­er argu­ment which shows that, great as were the anx­i­eties with which we were faced in the first four months of the War, they have not by any means been removed, or, indeed, sen­si­bly dimin­ished by the course of events.…

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