May 31, 2024
Friday Open Comments
Martin Gurri, former CIA analyst and author of the perceptive Revolt of the Public, penned a wheeze on the Anglo-Saxon people. It is semi-serious and tongue in cheek.
This being an age of social justice, I want to recognize the achievements of today’s most ruthlessly marginalized and stereotyped ethnicity: the Anglo-Saxons. In film, television and the news media, the mandatory depiction of the Anglo-Saxon is either as a plutocrat or a hillbilly. The little Monopoly guy with the top hat and the monocle? He’s an Anglo-Saxon. The inbred yokel in “Deliverance” who kills anyone not married to his own sister? An Anglo-Saxon of the worst kind.
By Anglo-Saxon I mean everyone originally from the island of Britain, including Scots, Welsh, Cornish and other assorted Celts who for centuries have roosted on the branches of the vast English tree. Let’s face it: To us non-Anglo-Saxons, from a distance, they all look alike. I also include the Scotch-Irish, who are really Scots who lived in Ireland before they left to improve their lives in Appalachia. But I most certainly do not include the actual Irish: If I were to call the Irish Anglo-Saxons, soon after, I’m certain, the Irish Republican Army would be knocking on my door.
It’s true that the Anglo-Saxons are plutocrats and hillbillies—but they are so much more.
As a person with predominantly very northern European genetics (if the DNA analysis is to be believed), I am happy to see this thrilling appreciation of that mythical people. Well done, Anglo-Saxons!
Trip Advisor wants me to go on a train trip across Europe.
Good morning. I, too, am one of that group that is so Same that if I joined a Fijian dance troupe, the troupe would become less diverse.
I had my jacket for the Bird Time walk this morning. It helped.