“They saw their injured country's woe;
The flaming town, the wasted field;
Then rushed to meet the insulting foe;
They took the spear, - but left the shield.”
―Philip Freneau
.
And by a prudent flight and cunning save A life which valour could not, from the grave. A better buckler I can soon regain, But who can get another life again?
Archilochus
Thursday, January 7, 2016
Tory Visions
Benjamin West, "The Death of General Wolfe" (1770)
Butler's Rangers (1777–1784) was a British provincial regiment composed of Loyalists (or "Tories") in the American Revolutionary War, raised by Loyalist John Butler.
Most members of the regiment were Loyalists from upstate New York. Among the regiment were black former slaves; the total number of black soldiers in Butler's Rangers is unknown, with estimates ranging from two to "more than a dozen". While some blacks served in other units and as sappers in the Engineer Corps and in the Royal Artillery, Sir William Howe banned the enlistment of blacks and ordered the disbanding of existing black regiments.[1]
The Rangers were accused of participating in — or at least failing to prevent — the Wyoming Valley massacre of July 1778 and the Cherry Valley massacre of November 1778 of white settlers (including some Loyalists) by Joseph Brant's Iroquois. These actions earned the Rangers a reputation for exceptional savagery. They fought principally in western New York and Pennsylvania, but ranged as far west as Ohio and Michigan and as far south as Virginia.
Their winter quarters were constructed on the west bank of the Niagara River in what is now the town of Niagara-on-the-Lake, Ontario. Although the building that houses The Lincoln and Welland Regiment Museum in that community is traditionally known as "Butler's Barracks", it is not the original barracks and never housed Butler's Rangers. It was built in the years following the War of 1812 to house the Indian department and received the name because Butler had been a Deputy Superintendent in that department.
Joseph Brant and King Hendrick are both depicted in "The Death of General Wolfe". King Hendrick was, IMO, aka Sir William Johnson, and Joseph Brant, aka Sir Guy Johnson. Joseph Brant's Iroquois name was Thayendanegea (translated "He who places two bets")
Johnson Coat of Arms
Benjamin West, "General Johnson Saving a Wounded French Officer from the Tomahawk of a North American" (1768)
Grossman's presumptuous, supercilious manner is insufferable –– yet another know-it-all egomaniac deigning to tell us poor ignorant slobs what we ought to think, and how we ought to feel.
Grossman was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts on 16 September 1950, the son of David K. Grossman and Helen Katherine (née Gilman).[1] He is of Jewish heritage. His father worked as an antiques dealer.[2] His initial education was at the General John Glover School in Marblehead,[3] and then at Marblehead High School.[1] He graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history before going to the United Kingdom in 1975 to study at the London School of Economics where he received a master's degree in economic history. ...WIKI
His accent is as phony as a thirteen-dollar bill.
Known primarily as a FOLK SINGER and a TV FOOD MAVEN?
No such person could ever be considered a "toff" by British standards. He's only a poseur–– and not a very good one at that.
I can guarantee you he is 97% Chutzpah and little else.
As a Brit, I'd say Grossman qualifies as a toff. His accent is quite baffling until you realise it is the result of a collision between posh London -- the type of person who says "Yah" instead of "Yes" -- with his native Boston. Restaurant criticism is a sufficiently poncey career option to seal the deal: the man is 100% toff. Not that that's anything to be either admired or ashamed of.
He's just another JEWISH ICONOCLAST trying to fob himself off as something he could never be.
As I said above, he's as phony as a thirteen dollar bill.
Sometimes, a long-established, widely read American Anglophile has a much better understanding and appreciation of the best Great Britain has had to offer than modern Brits too many of whom seem bent on committing religious, ethnic and cultural suicide.
I contend that his accent at least is not phony. If it were, wouldn't it be an attempt at something more recognisable?
I'm sure that there are foreigners with more finely tuned ears, eyes and other sense organs for the quintessentially British than me, but I assure you that British standards for qualifying as a toff are fairly low. Poseurs with chutzpah are welcome to the title, as long as they avoid certain types of vulgarity.
8 comments:
Grossman's presumptuous, supercilious manner is insufferable –– yet another know-it-all egomaniac deigning to tell us poor ignorant slobs what we ought to think, and how we ought to feel.
HUMBUG!
Grossman is such a toff! ;)
Hardly that!
Grossman was born in Marblehead, Massachusetts on 16 September 1950, the son of David K. Grossman and Helen Katherine (née Gilman).[1] He is of Jewish heritage. His father worked as an antiques dealer.[2] His initial education was at the General John Glover School in Marblehead,[3] and then at Marblehead High School.[1] He graduated from Boston University with a Bachelor of Arts degree in history before going to the United Kingdom in 1975 to study at the London School of Economics where he received a master's degree in economic history. ...WIKI
His accent is as phony as a thirteen-dollar bill.
Known primarily as a FOLK SINGER and a TV FOOD MAVEN?
No such person could ever be considered a "toff" by British standards. He's only a poseur–– and not a very good one at that.
I can guarantee you he is 97% Chutzpah and little else.
Okay, toff wannabe.
I mistook him for a Brit.
As a Brit, I'd say Grossman qualifies as a toff. His accent is quite baffling until you realise it is the result of a collision between posh London -- the type of person who says "Yah" instead of "Yes" -- with his native Boston. Restaurant criticism is a sufficiently poncey career option to seal the deal: the man is 100% toff.
Not that that's anything to be either admired or ashamed of.
He's just another JEWISH ICONOCLAST trying to fob himself off as something he could never be.
As I said above, he's as phony as a thirteen dollar bill.
Sometimes, a long-established, widely read American Anglophile has a much better understanding and appreciation of the best Great Britain has had to offer than modern Brits too many of whom seem bent on committing religious, ethnic and cultural suicide.
I contend that his accent at least is not phony. If it were, wouldn't it be an attempt at something more recognisable?
I'm sure that there are foreigners with more finely tuned ears, eyes and other sense organs for the quintessentially British than me, but I assure you that British standards for qualifying as a toff are fairly low. Poseurs with chutzpah are welcome to the title, as long as they avoid certain types of vulgarity.
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