No longer. Old white men can’t jump.

We mostly show you pictures of Raebert sleeping, which he’s very good at. He sleeps through the times when the others go out. But then, like an alarm signal, it occurs to him that HE has to go out. Then he becomes very active indeed. Very in your face. Very very.

It’s time.

Harvard Final Clubs. Not this crap.

Not fraternities.

Rather, cathedrals of pretension and escape from current events. Scotch and Champagne also involved.

Fly Club. Situated on the abundant front lawn of Lowell House. Site of the annual Fly Club garden party. Also, the club of FDR, who revisited while president and caused the mayor of Boston to get clocked by the Fly steward as he was trying to follow FDR in.

The Delphic. Also known as The Gas. Because J. P. Morgan built it after he couldn’t get into a final club and sat there all alone, with gaslights burning, to make it seem that people were having a great time inside. Subsequently, generations did. A block away from Mt. Auburn Street.

Spee Club on Mt. Auburn. Where a garrulous steward reported he frequently found Jack and Bobby dressed to the nines in tuxedoes from the waist up and nothing from the waist down.

Phoenix SK Club. You don’t belong if you don’t know what SK stands for. Half a block from the Fly. A world away from Zuckerberg, who couldn’t get in and made it up out of whole cloth for his silly movie.

Owl Club. Home of Grottlesex jocks and the best turkey sandwiches ever. Also Teddy. Who had to abjure his membership.

Fox Club. All done. Some sort of sex scandal. Never actually knew a member. But I did break in, as I did most of the others.

The AD Club. Invisible on Commonwealth Ave. many millions of dollars behind them. Harvard doesn’t want a fight with them. Or the even larger financial interests they command.

Porcellian Club. Opposite the Porcellian Gate of Harvard Yard. So rich and powerful they can bring the university to its knees if they choose. Let’s see how they choose. And they will remain invisible throughout. Broke into their fifth floor on an Easter Sunday. They’ve been shadowing me ever since. Just saying.

Hope?

Final clubs do lunch. The Hasty Pudding does dinner. Been Co-Ed for 40 years. Also transgender. Male rockettes have been a staple for a hundred years. I have seen there Gloria Steinem, Jack Lemmon, Julia Child, Jimmy Stewart, and WTF. They will survive.

Genuine Masonic Ring.

Freemason ring, diamond inset, worn by a WWI 33rd Degree veteran of the Rainbow Division who made the pilgrimage to Rosslyn Chapel. Never knew how much he knew. But he left the ring to me. One of a kind. I can’t figure out what it means. All he told me was something about Rennes le Chateau. Where he passed by after leaving the western front. The diamond did something. Creeped him out. It’s done something like to me from time to time. Don’t want it. Don’t like the Freemason stuff. Buy it and get it out of my life.

Comes with extraordinary provenance. Three handwritten letters from the western front in 1918, the American offensive of the Rainbow Division. Take it or leave it. The captain was a lifelong mason. Still have his sword and plumes.

Beginning at £300.

Do you think some feminist old biddy will be able to defeat hundreds of years of Harvard tradition? We’ll see.

This pic is of the Porcellian Gate at Harvard Yard. The Porcellian Club has an ancient history, a huge endowment of its own, and members worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The President of Harvard is this person:

Excuse me. President Faust. Only at Harvard would Lucifer confront Veritas directly.

I read Goethe’s Faust and Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. At Harvard btw. As an English major. When they had those. Both creatures who sold their souls to the devil and were snatched away to eternal damnation.

I can’t stop laughing. Final clubs will take losses. When I called my own I got a female on voicemail. So be it. But there are a few clubs who have the legal and financial muscle to make Faust wish he hadn’t started this fight.

For example, the Porcellian has already registered its first ever female member. Dr. Piggy Faust.

She made it through initiation in high style. Knock and ye shall enter. If you have the breeding.

Still to be heard from, the financial and legal powerhouses behind the AD, the Delphic (founded by J.P. Morgan himself), and, well, some others. Anybody at Holyoke Center hear a fly buzz? I hear demons don’t like flies.

Get used to it. The clubs have power beyond power in the alumni realm. They will see to it that this president goes away.

She chose poorly.

Encouragements for Nyjinksi, er, Nylonski, um, Nyqvist, the dumb one in Wallander.

Offered up by the fastest four-leggeds in the racing world. With all good wishes.

Why do you thing we run so much faster than you? Because we can visualize so much better what we are chasing. And we’re faster.

Are you ready?

We are.

Are you sure?

Ready, Set…

Go!!!

They’re they go!!!

Like our asses, Nyborg?

Or are they too small to see in the distance?

They call us The Breeze, ’cause we just keep blowin’ down the road.

We win. What we do.

Oh well. Want to try again?

The horses always say that. Roach time.

Go Nylonov! Roachin’ for ya

Into the barracks at 13. New York Military Academy.

Trump is an ignorant, know nothing, unqualified, undisciplined, vulgar, pampered rich boy idiot?

That’s the story isn’t it? Isn’t it?

Pass this post on to your NeverTrump know-it-all friends.

I know something about Wharton. They and my Cornell Business School, maybe alone in the Ivies, departed from the Harvard Business School model of bullshitting about case studies to learn the math and the formal disciplines of economics, statistical methods, accounting (I, II, III, and IV), and operations methods (Oh yeah. Real math.)

Here’s a list of notable Wharton Alumni. Note who’s pictured as an outstanding member of that unique Ivy League crew.

Wharton Alumni

Before that he attended Fordham Prep/Fordham University, from which he transferred to Wharton. Here’s the background on an incredibly prestigious and historic Jesuit institution.

Fordham Prep/University.

And here are their famous alumni.

Geraldine Ferraro, the first female Vice Presidential candidate of a major political party in the United States, attended Fordham, as did three current members of the United States House of Representatives and numerous past members of Congress, including at least two United States Senators. Current New York State Governor, Andrew Cuomo, is an alumnus. A number of Fordham graduates have served at the highest levels of the U.S. Executive Branch, including John E. Potter, former Postmaster General of the United States; William J. Casey, Director of U.S. Central Intelligence from 1981 to 1987; John N. Mitchell, former U.S. Attorney General; and Bernard M. Shanley, Deputy Chief of Staff and White House Counsel to President Dwight D. Eisenhower, and John O. Brennan, current Director of the Central Intelligence Agency. Fordham claims a number of distinguished military honorees, including three Medal of Honor recipients and a number of notable generals, including General John “Jack” Keane, retired four-star general and former Vice Chief of Staff for the United States Army, and Major General Martin Thomas McMahon, decorated American Civil War officer. Fordham has produced college and university presidents for at least 10 institutions around the United States, including two for Georgetown University and one each for Columbia University and New York University. Francis Cardinal Spellman, the late Archbishop of the Metropolitan See of New York, was also a Fordham graduate. Fordham alumnus James B. Donovan, who defended Rudolph Abel in his spy trial and later negotiated the release of Francis Gary Powers is the subject of Steven Spielberg’s, Oscar-nominated film, “Bridge of Spies.”[124]

Business and finance magnates that have attended Fordham include Anne M. Mulcahy, retired Chairman and CEO of Xerox and named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” in 2006 by Fortune Magazine; Rose Marie Bravo, Vice Chairman and former CEO of Burberry and named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business Outside the United States” in 2004 and 2005 by Fortune Magazine; E. Gerald Corrigan, former President of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Maria Elena Lagomasino, CEO of JP Morgan Private Bank from 2001 to 2005 and currently on the board of directors of Coca-Cola; Joe Moglia, Chairman and former CEO of TD Ameritrade; John Leahy, Chief Operating Officer of Airbus; Stephen J. Hemsley, CEO of UnitedHealth Group; Wellington Mara, former owner of the New York Giants; John D. Finnegan, Chairman, President, and CEO of Chubb Corporation; Mario Gabelli, billionaire and founder and CEO of GAMCO Investors; Lorenzo Mendoza, billionaire and CEO of Empresas Polar; Eugene Shvidler, billionaire and international oil tycoon; and billionaire Donald Trump, who attended the university, but left with no degree. (Because he transferred to Wharton.)

Before Fordham was New York Military Academy, where Trump’s oh so indulgent father sent him when he was 13. I know something about this. I went away to school when I was 13, too, and my school played multiple military academies in sports. The difference between their quality of life and ours was night and day. We had white tablecloths, commercial silver utensils, cloth napkins and napkin rings, and masters who tolerated ties at half mast and routine hijinks. The military school kids had linoleum tables in their dining room with diner paper napkin dispensers. Their food was awful. They were indeed living a military life with marching drills and discipline none of you Grotties and Choaties have ever experienced unless you joined the armed forces. We had discipline too, but ours was marching around chairs in a parking lot on Saturday afternoons for two hours if we’d gotten into a fight. Theirs was daily drill and abuse from student drill sergeants who never countenanced a fight.

Hitlerian, right? Mussolini at least. Ask Stephen Sondheim and Francis Ford Coppola how they felt sitting there.

Here’s their history, now completed. Since discipline at an early age is no longer tolerable.

New York Military Academy.

And here are their illustrious alumni.

NYMA. Alumni.

Including this one, the guy who isn’t fit to be in the same room with Ted Cruz, Jeb Bush, Lindsey Graham, Paul Ryan or the Dark Lord Kevin Williamson. In short, anyone Jennifer Rubin would be willing to have sex with. After all, the only piddling school she ever went to was Berkeley.

What a mediocrity, eh?

As I said, pass it on to all your elite Ivy and prep school friends. And then wait for their usual howls of vulgarity, lowness, and meanness. And mediocrity. Which for them is an uncomfortable glance in the mirror.

Thing is. There’s a certain combination that strikes out on its own. It marches, not off to war, but to a new sense of things.

Shammadamma.

The Greatest Show on Earth will begin with Trump’s arrival in Cleveland, which used to be a city in northern Ohio. Before five decades of Democrat administrations reduced it to an antiquarian hulk and The Cuyahoga River caught fire and burned everything to a cinder.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VtW8RkI3-c4

Well, moving on…

Why the Convention was planned to be held in what remains of Cleveland’s Union Station. Cruz had a big evangelical religious speech planned. He chose poorly.

With no infrastructure left, it wasn’t feasible for Trump to arrive by train or camel. Instead, he arranged to come to town in a humble Lake Erie boat.

Not his real yacht, mind, just a sort of launch he keeps for side trips from his Niagara estate.

Meanwhile, the locals were practicing to give him a big welcome.

But you know how it goes. Big is bigger than cute. The locals are brushed aside by the new arrival in town. The Trump campaign has arranged for Buckye Stadium to be moved to Cleveland and prepared for the real greeting the Republican nominee deserves. So, from the port of Cleveland he helicopters into the new convention site just in time for an appropriate landing.

I just got yelled at in a comment thread by a guy who assured me Trump would lose disastrously to Hillary. I thought of this song, about the long long looooong line of people who have been predicting disaster for Trump since he declared his candidacy.

Raise your hand if you’ve ever been part of this line.

I see you, Scott. There you are. In the corner. In the spotlight. Trying to keep up…

Then tell me why I should believe you now.

He used to be Bernard, a mouse at the Plaza Hotel. Now he’s Al.

He almost got into college. He thinks cheese is good. He is smart enough to make Donald Trump look good. At some point he is going to take a junior college major in architectural drafting. Or, maybe, just drafting.

He has a Chevy II Nova. And a girlfriend who works hard at the Tiffany Diner in Northeast Philly. They’ve not actually met yet, but everyone is looking forward to it.

He has also heard of Israel. How many people can say that?

Ever been there? Suspect not. Gliding across grass and nothing else.

Nearly killed us. But lots of things nearly killed us. I nearly killed us on an on-ramp to Rte. 55 in South Jersey. The curve was tighter than the steering angle. Looked over at Will and saw we might not make it. But the great wooden steering wheel came through.

Did this too but way faster. XK-140 convertible. Took the tarp off and put the hammer down. Unbelievable. 80 in third. Hundred in fourth. Then we stopped talking about it.

But it was faster and bumpier than this. We hit 60 knots in the Sea Isle City bay. We did. Life was something.

Thing is, ours was much more spectacular. We flipped in midair and crossed about 200 foot of freshly plowed turf. But this is as close as we can get to what it looked like.

Out to Ship John Light in a 12 foot boat. We were crazy. It was fun.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=-sUXMzkh-jI

Gave my word I would post this. My family came from Scotland in the 1740s, fought in the Revolution as Yank officers, and hung on to be Americans. This Campbell guy came earlier. Why he did so is told in compelling detail here. I know I should do more paragraphing but it’s late and that’ll have to do. Great story though.

Archibald Campbell and His Three Sons — Banished from Scotland

Archibald Campbell. A bad bad dude.

by Rory Foutz

Our earliest Campbell ancestor that we have record for is Archibald Campbell the father of our Robert Campbell who was caught up in the events of Argyll’s rebellion of 1685 and banished to New Jersey. Robert Campbell was captured, along with his father, brothers, and several hundred other rebels and hauled before the Privy Council of Scotland. Robert was condemned and banished from the realm, loaded on the ship Henry and Francis and transported to Perth Amboy New Jersey, where he was able to start a new life here in the Americas, eventually becoming a fairly affluent farmer in Newark, and the father of our ancestor, Samuel Campbell. Archibald Campbell, Robert’s father, referred to as Archibald Campbell “in Kildalvan,” was the father of three sons. Robert, John, and ??.

The earliest record we have for him is from 1685, immediately after the defeat of the rebel forces under Archibald Campbell, the 9th Earl of Argyll in what was known in Scotland as Argyll’s Rebellion, and in England as Monmouth’s Rebellion. Argyll’s and Monmouth’s rebellions are described in Wikipedia as: “an attempt to overthrow James II, who had become King of England, King of Scots and King of Ireland at the death of his elder brother Charles II on 6 February 1685. James II was unpopular because he was Roman Catholic and many people were opposed to a papist king. James Scott, 1st Duke of Monmouth, an illegitimate son of Charles II, claimed to be rightful heir to the throne and attempted to displace James II. The rebellion ended with the defeat of Monmouth’s forces at the Battle of Sedgemoor on 6 July 1685. In Scotland the 9th Earl of Argyll, Monmouth’s Scottish ally “landed at Campbeltown on 20 May and spent some days raising a small army of supporters, but was unable to hold them together while marching through the lowlands towards Glasgow. The Earl and his few remaining companions were captured at Inchinnan on 19 June and he was taken to Edinburgh to be executed on 30 June.”

Around June 10th while the 9th Earl was in southern Cowal organizing his forces, his recruiters were scouring the neighboring countryside looking for recruits to add to his army. On June 10th or 11th the recruiting force traveled north through Glenduarel, where Archibald Campbell and his sons lived. Archibald and all three sons were forced into the Earl’s army and joined the rebels on their march toward Glasgow. Later, when Archibald Campbell was hauled before the Privy Council, he confessed that “he was with the rebels but prest” or forced into Argyll’s army. The circumstances of their recruitment were detailed in John Campbell’s testimony before the Privy Council. He declared that “his father and his other two brother was taken by the rebels in the fields and caryed away . . . when they were hyding their goods.”

From their testimony, it would seem that Archibald and his three sons, on hearing that the Earl’s army was marching through the area decided that it might be a good idea to bury or hide their valuables before the Army got there to avoid the all too common occurrence of their house and valuables being looted by the passing army. This was a common practice of the time. Armies had to subsist on whatever they could find as they marched along. While in the act of actually hiding their stuff, the recruiters came upon them, forced them into the army, and according to John Campbell’s testimony, were “keept with a guard in the night tyme in case they. . . run away. At least twelve others were also recruited on the army’s march through Glendaruel.

Archibald, Robert, and John all testified that they were kept with the rebels until Argyll’s defeat about seven or eight days later. After the defeat, on their way back home, they along with over 160 others were captured by those loyal to the King and carried away to various prisons around Glasgow.

In July and August the rebels who had been captured, along with hundreds of other “covenanteers” that had also been imprisoned for their Presbyterian beliefs were examined and tried before a special court set up by the Privy Council of Scotland. This court which was composed of the Privy Council and other judges, as needed, all of which were opposed to the rebel’s cause. They took depositions or statements from each of the rebels and then passed judgment on each as they saw fit.

Most of the Lairds and other “heritors” (land owners) the Privy Council set at liberty, confiscating their lands and giving it to the crown. While technically free, these Lairds were reduced to near poverty as they were deprived of the annual rents that they received from their property. In addition much of their lands were ravished by the victorious armies of Montrose and Atholl who had led the Royalist armies. John Campbell, the Laird of Kildalvan of which Archibald Campbell and his sons were tenants reported losses of £1256 in cattle and livestock. Had Archibald Campbell or his sons been able to return to their homes they would have found their home completely devastated. As for the rest of the rebels, the Privy Council released the old, infirm, or very young. They also released some who took the oath of allegiance and were able to convince the Council that they were either harmless, or were of no further threat. The others, the ones who the Privy Council deemed threats, or who refused to take the oath of allegiance, they banished from the Kingdom. Many were sent to Jamacia, New Jersey, or elsewhere to the American colonies.

Archibald, John and Robert, all pleaded their cases, and claimed that they were loyal to the King. Archibald even turned “states evidence” in the naming of some of the rebel leaders and their actions. Both Archibald and John, and the other brother all appear to have also taken the oath of allegiance. Robert on the other hand refused the oath, apparently not willing to take an oath to something that would not support. Despite all of their protestations of innocence, Archibald and all three of his sons were banished. Of Archibald, and his two other sons, nothing more is heard. There were several Archibalds, and Johns, that were transported to either Jamaica or elsewhere, but it is unclear as to who exactly they were. Robert, however was one of more than 100 prisoners that were given to George Scot of Pitlochie to be transported to New Jersey aboard the ship “Henry and Francis.” On September 5th Robert Campbell, along with the others on board the “Henry and Francis” set sail for America, not even three months from that fateful day in June. Robert nor this father, or his brothers, ever saw their family or Scotland again. Sources: Bob Goodwin – Mar 19, 2011 The depositions of Archibald, Robert and John, as well as the record of the “examinations,” sentencing, banishments etc. all come from “The Register of the Privy Council of Scotland,” 3rd Series, vol 11 (1685-1686), Henry Patton Editor, 1929. I don’t know if it is available in any libraries here in the U.S. It contains the proceedings of the Privy Council. Archibald’s, Robert’s, and John’s depositions contain the details of their participation in Argyll’s rebellion. Robert’s examinations, refusal to take the Oath of Allegiance, and eventual banishment are detailed. There were so many John and Archibald Campbells, it is unclear as to which ones were our Archibald and John. “The Commons of Argyll, Name Lists of 1685 and 1692” by Duncan MacTavish, 1933 Contains a list of rebels in Argyll’s Rebellion and explicitly states that “Archibald Campbell and three sons all banished furth of the Kingdome.” The short description of Argyll’s Rebellion is from the Wikipedia article “Monmouth’s Rebellion.” The book: “A Scots Earl in Covenanting Times,” which is a biography of the Earl of Argyll contains a good history of the Earl and his participation in the Rebellion, as well as the actions of his forces.

Somebody said they never heard of the Laird thing.

Which is a real thing.

The meanest mothers in the Highlands.

We are not above our state. We are just, uh, difficult.

Not gods. Not elves. Not men. Just awful.

What’s your business? We Lairds are in the hurting business. No joke.

We live but we are not kings. We are simply warriors.

Think of us as the hit men of the Highlands. Which should make you think twice. Or thrice.

And then we die.

“Morituri te salutant”

Zachary Shipley. He was black Irish and handsome as hell. Leverett House at Harvard. First time I heard Hendrix’s All Along the Watchtower. Now he’s old.

And then there’s me.

I still live. Do you?