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Happy 88th Birthday to the Queen: Open Thread on all things British

April 21, 2014 By mike_cote

Born April 21, 1926. I like the coincidence that the current monarch of Great Britian is sharing a birthday with the Patriot’s Day Celebration “Observed” Monday Holiday.

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  1. jconway says

    April 21, 2014 at 6:57 pm

    Over the bridge and on the right
    They gave King Georgie a fright
    200 hundred years later
    America not Britain is greater
    And if Betty tries anything we still bite

    • Christopher says

      April 22, 2014 at 10:43 am

      Write your own thread about high treason, er… I mean Patriot’s Day!:)

      • Bob Neer says

        April 23, 2014 at 2:04 pm

        This is the moral equivalent of a Go Yankees! post featuring a picture of Derek Jeter. Readers can tolerate it while disdaining the content.

  2. eb3-fka-ernie-boch-iii says

    April 21, 2014 at 8:37 pm

    then convinced the world it was a potato(e) famine.

    • HeartlandDem says

      April 21, 2014 at 9:41 pm

      Da would say.

      • HeartlandDem says

        April 21, 2014 at 9:44 pm

        he would say too – so long as Mam weren’t nearby.

  3. lspinti says

    April 21, 2014 at 9:43 pm

    Did you know that Gubernatorial candidate Don Berwick, in 2005 received an appointment by Queen Elizabeth II as an honorary Knight Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire.

    This rare honor, shared by only a few Americans, was bestowed on Berwick, a leading authority on health care quality and improvement, for his efforts to help reform Britain’s National Health Service (NHS)!

    And by the way, if you weren’t aware, Dr. Berwick gave a spectacular speech on Single Payer for Massachusetts, “Medicare For All,” at the BU Medical School just last week that brought the whole bloody house to it’s feet! Here is the link to the video: http://youtu.be/oeAlYlMgFkY Don’t Miss this speech!

    • Bob Neer says

      April 23, 2014 at 2:05 pm

      Perhaps he can return the award.

      • Christopher says

        April 23, 2014 at 7:10 pm

        Do you not like his work for the NHS or do you have a kneejerk oppsition to royal honours?

  4. Trickle up says

    April 21, 2014 at 11:48 pm

    is in June, much as the official Patriot’s Day is the third Monday of April.

  5. shillelaghlaw says

    April 22, 2014 at 9:56 am

    Everyone after James II is illegitimate.

    Franz, Duke of Bavaria is the rightful King of England.

    • jconway says

      April 22, 2014 at 10:33 am

      And I will raise a pint to the true King over the water my Jacobite brother!

    • Christopher says

      April 22, 2014 at 10:46 am

      …has the distinction of being the last person to lose his head in the Tower of London, and it was in the context of a Jacobite rebellion. I believe in legitimate succession, but also acknowledge Parliament’s right in a constitutional system to alter it if they feel the rightful monarch will not rule according to the laws of the realm.

      • jconway says

        April 22, 2014 at 11:21 am

        strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government

        And if you are going to have that system of government than it should be by blood and not constitutionalism. Go all the way like the Sun King or give it up entirely. It’s why I will always have sympathy for usurped monarchs like the Jacobins, the Hapsburgs and the Targaryens and very little respect for the Windsors who are essentially really expensive hereditary Governor General’s.

        • jconway says

          April 22, 2014 at 11:25 am

          The Targaryens

        • Christopher says

          April 22, 2014 at 3:30 pm

          Windsors aren’t nothing, though. They are heirs to the body of Electress Consort Sophia of Hanover, the closest Protestant to the throne c. 1700. Henry IV of France adhered to the law by becoming a Catholic; James III could have done the reverse for the English throne.

          • jconway says

            April 22, 2014 at 11:10 pm

            But someone favoring the York claim could just as easily state that my beloved Jacobite cause favors a pretender of a different sort. Of course that depends on which form of primogeniture you favour.

            • Christopher says

              April 23, 2014 at 11:21 am

              Spelling “favor” with a U:) There is a Yorkist claimant I found at one point. I believe her name is Lady Patricia Pelham-Clinton or something like that. Of course, the Scots wouldn’t recognize that at all as it is from the pre-union English line. Of course, if Scotland does vote for independence later this year they could always offer their throne to Franz of Bavaria.

              • jconway says

                April 23, 2014 at 3:08 pm

                Of course, if Scotland does vote for independence later this year they could always offer their throne to Franz of Bavaria

                If the SNP endorsed that I might consider their bid. I sort of view them at present as the Bloc Quebecois of Scotland-they want all the trappings of independence without any of the responsibilities. It also seems their devolved parliament is doing just fine.

      • jconway says

        April 22, 2014 at 11:39 am

        James II and Bonnie Prince Charlie were such wusses. I did a paper for a military history class (called Big Wars) on the Battle of the Boyne (titled The Inglorious Revolution), and he really should’ve charged on a frontal assault and gone for London afterward, he would’ve been hailed as a conquering hero since there was little support for the foreign usurper amongst the populist.

        The ripple effects on history would’ve been quite interesting, he would’ve owed his throne to Irish and French troops which would’ve probably kept Ireland placidly in the Empire while keeping much of New France (and the modern Midwest) out of the Empire since it’s doubtful a Jacobite Britain would’ve gone to war with France as Queen Anne and King George did, and had we not had our theatre of the Seven Years War (what we call The French and Indian War), than there would have been no war debt to tax the colonists for. It’s quite possible they’d have kept the colonies.

        • lodger says

          April 22, 2014 at 3:59 pm

          Drambuie.

    • mike_cote says

      April 22, 2014 at 4:11 pm

      just asking, because if we have to get over it, I would think you need to get over this as well.

      • shillelaghlaw says

        April 22, 2014 at 4:58 pm

        Who said I think we should be over the 2000 Election?

        • mike_cote says

          April 22, 2014 at 5:14 pm

          In general, whenever the Gore vs. Bush issue is raised, we are told to get over it, and this issue with the “Duke of Bavaria” goes baack so much further in time. If you don’t want to get over either issue, then don’t. Whatever.

          • jconway says

            April 22, 2014 at 7:00 pm

            European history is full of people not ‘getting over it’. Look at the recent Crimea business or the Balkan Wars. Not to mention the fact that WWII was a grudge match over WWI which was a grudge match over the Franco-Prussian War which was a grudge match over Napoleon etc. There’s also the continued Irish antipathy to Britain to consider as well.

            There is an American chapter of Anglo-Catholics who adhere to the cult of St. Charles Martyr King, they haven’t had a mass in Boston in quite some time though. Christopher has a long standing invitation to attend the next one in Boston with me (presuming I beat it back to Beantown). It’s an odd event of Anglophilia and high church liturgy of the finest sort. Whats interesting too is that this cult has survived the Anglican schism, plenty of ACNA and TEC clergy may violently disagree about gay and female ordination but will still share some sherry by the fire and regale themselves with tales of the Stuarts misbegotten fortunes.

            Jacobitism ceases to be a real force in British politics, which is decidedly not the case in France where Legitimists (who favor a Bourbon restoration) make up a decent chunk of Marie Le Pen’s base. Jacques Chirac was a noted Orleanist, and de Gaulle was a Bonapartist (fittingly). And some Germans want a Hohenzollern restoration.

          • Christopher says

            April 22, 2014 at 11:02 pm

            …is that Gore v. Bush had serious ramifications we still haven’t gotten over whereas Jacobite v. Hanover is more of a fun academic exercise.

        • kbusch says

          April 23, 2014 at 8:58 am

          When we have a better Supreme Court.

  6. doney says

    April 22, 2014 at 10:17 am

    Until they end the monarchy… It’s just pathetic

    • jconway says

      April 22, 2014 at 10:34 am

      As Tom Paine called it ‘the popery of government’

    • kirth says

      April 22, 2014 at 2:08 pm

      You’ve stepped on Christopher’s tail. He just loves the Monarchy.

  7. Christopher says

    April 22, 2014 at 10:42 am

    At least through September 2015 which according to my calculations is when she will surpass Victoria as the longest reigning British monarch. Her mother lived to be 101 so she may have good longevity genes. (Of course, her father died young which is part of why she has reigned so long.)

  8. danfromwaltham says

    April 22, 2014 at 1:10 pm

    Not surprising to learn we ate third class citizens compared to our counterparts in Canada and England. Gee, I believe both are run by more conservative leaders, compared to can’t make up my mind on Keystone XL Barak.

    Perhaps we may need a defunct monarch and help our middle class. Or a mayor like Robert Ford of Toronto to run major cities in America.

    http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/23/upshot/the-american-middle-class-is-no-longer-the-worlds-richest.html?hp&_r=0&referrer=

    • theloquaciousliberal says

      April 22, 2014 at 1:55 pm

      A new low point for you here, Dan.

      For anyone with half an understanding of government structures, it’s pretty obvious that the U.S. system is much more “conservative” than those in Canada and Western Europe.

      Most strikingly, the very article you cite directly contradicts your supposition that “more conservative leaders” is the reason for the relative difference in middle class incomes. In fact, they cite the following as the major causes of the growing discrepancies between the U.S. and Canada/Europe:

      1) Education: Lessening relative levels of education among the American workforce (hmmm, I wonder if the cost of private higher education has anything to do with that?)

      2) Our lower relative minimum wage.

      3) Our lower relative number of workers represented by labor unions; and

      4) The fact that “governments in Canada and Western Europe take more aggressive steps to raise the take-home pay of low- and middle-income households by redistributing income.”

      For you to cite this development as evidence of the need for *less* progressive policies in the U.S. really is ironically hilarious.

      • jconway says

        April 22, 2014 at 2:24 pm

        Are the two greatest costs to American life and they are rising everyday placing an untenable burden on those at the start if their careers with student loan debt and those at the twilight if their years with healthcare expenses. These two costs are the vice grip squeezing the middle class and holding our economy back.

        Canada so has very stringent financial regulations far stronger not only than Dodd-Frank but even Glass-Steagall. Part of the reason their economy bounced back so fast.

        I refuse to adopt their Queen, parliamentary system, hockey teams, speech regulations or metric systems but I will take their economic, social and environmental policies over ours anyway.

      • danfromwaltham says

        April 22, 2014 at 5:04 pm

        See my diary on Mike Huckabee. I am the only one who put forth the notion that we should tax intangible assets like stocks and bonds after the first $100K. You may agree with me on this but some here do not and I have no clue if David or Bob chimed in on that idea, I wonder why, then again, I can’t even write a diary b/c of a block on my account.

        You mention education, I offer school choice as Jeb Bush implemented in Florida or the D.C. Program.

        The minimum wage takes care of itself with a growing economy. Raising the minimum wage could impact the very poor, the young who need to grab the first rung on the economic ladder. We should not put it out of their reach.

        I need more info on European labor unions. Are they the same as our public and private unions? Is London similar to Chicago with unfunded pension obligations? Has VW or Mercedes Benz received taxpayer bailouts like GM and Chrysler? Is Toronto facing fiscal and cultural collapse like Detriot? Educate me on the subject.

        • shillelaghlaw says

          April 22, 2014 at 9:27 pm

          Populism is merely a euphemism for demagoguery.

          • danfromwaltham says

            April 22, 2014 at 10:14 pm

            Nothing like getting advise from a 19 year old kid who will inherit billions from the Carlson hotel industry, tell us how to live and invest. Gotta luv Obama embracing the rich.

            http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/04/20/fashion/white-house-hosts-next-generation-young-and-rich.html?referrer=

            • methuenprogressive says

              April 22, 2014 at 10:35 pm

              Philanthropists, in your mind, are a bad thing because they’re young?

              • kbusch says

                April 22, 2014 at 11:01 pm

                that the response to shillelaghlaw was a non-sequitor. Asking DFW for a response isn’t going to be any better for you.

                Please don’t bother. Please.

      • kbusch says

        April 22, 2014 at 10:59 pm

        To prevent another flood of verbosity from DFW, it might be useful to keep to comments about him rather than to him. Discussing stuff with him is hopeless. By contrast, discussing him can provide amusement.

    • mike_cote says

      April 22, 2014 at 2:53 pm

      Oh but I thought Canadian Health Care would destroy the Middle Class, and here we have DFW singing the praises of Canada.

      I think it is called Single Payer Health Care.

      • jconway says

        April 22, 2014 at 3:07 pm

        Of the ‘get government off my medicare’ mold.

        He is ok with government programs as long as they benefit people like (aka that look like) himself, and don’t benefit those moochers that aren’t like (aka don’t look like) him.

        • danfromwaltham says

          April 22, 2014 at 5:12 pm

          Sad you resort to this level.

          • mike_cote says

            April 22, 2014 at 5:26 pm

            Even a “Reagan” Democrat is an insult!

      • Christopher says

        April 22, 2014 at 3:33 pm

        …I’m pretty sure DFW HAS expressed support for a single-payer system all along.

    • Christopher says

      April 22, 2014 at 3:32 pm

      …about the in practice more equitable policies of the Mother Country? David Cameron is on a bit of an austerity kick, but overall postwar Britain has shown that you can have both progressive policies and a constitutional monarchy.

      • kirth says

        April 22, 2014 at 6:36 pm

        You can also have a toilet seat on your bicycle.

        • mike_cote says

          April 22, 2014 at 6:55 pm

          I must say.

      • jconway says

        April 22, 2014 at 7:06 pm

        More progressive and egalitarian and a prohibition against monarchy in its constitution :p

        • Christopher says

          April 22, 2014 at 11:04 pm

          …wasn’t claiming one entailed the other, just that they weren’t mutually exclusive. There is a pretender to the German throne living, but Kaiser Wilhelm didn’t do the family many favors in the PR department. Plus of course his side lost WWI.

      • kbusch says

        April 22, 2014 at 11:12 pm

        On the one hand, it’s like a team whose fan base is the entire country and a soap opera that everyone watches and discusses. On the other, it’s a receptacle for a certain amount of mythology about what being British is.

        In the kind of ideal democracy for which we aspire, mythology can be somewhat dangerous. On these shores, we have enough trouble with American exceptionalism. (It prevents us from learning from others. It makes us somehow imagine that our military interventions are bathed in purity and kindness.) A monarch would just seem to make all that mythologizing so much worse.

        That and they need special housing and a special diet like some kind of exotic pet.

        • Christopher says

          April 23, 2014 at 11:26 am

          It frustrates me no end that even magazines like “Majesty” and “Royalty” treat them like glorified celebrities. Buckingham Palace is NOT a Hollywood studio! They are Britain’s link to the glorious past with exemplary notions of public service. The British public support it overwhelmingly in polls I have seen. I would not go as far as the first sentence of your second paragraph.

          • jconway says

            April 23, 2014 at 3:11 pm

            The Sarah Palin of Australia not only denies climate change, evolution, and despises the gun control his ‘Liberal’ (like the toilet flow the political party names are backwards down under) predecessor John Howard passed but also wants to restore the trappings of feudalism Australia once jettisoned.

            • Christopher says

              April 23, 2014 at 7:15 pm

              Honorary titles of nobility and knighthoods aren’t one of them. She is just as much Queen of that country as she is the UK (and technically Queen separately and directly to each state thereof) so titles would seem appropriate. BTW, it’s not like the United States doesn’t have knighthood equivalents. We just call them things like Congressional Medal of Honor, Presidential Medal of Freedom, etc.

              • kirth says

                April 24, 2014 at 7:00 am

                Nobody appends an honorific to the name of a Medal of Honor winner. The closest they get is having superior officers salute them. Medal of Freedom winners don’t even get that. Also, nobody gets those awards for being a pop singer or actor, or a business tycoon.

                • Christopher says

                  April 24, 2014 at 11:05 am

                  …which are for much the same criteria as knighthood was originally intended for. We do have ways of honoring those who make cultural contributions such as Hall of Fame inductions or a star on the Walk of Fame. Granted these are not from the government, but I see absolutely nothing wrong with recognizing achievement in one’s field either in a private or public context. Attaching Sir or Dame to one’s name is a pretty minor detail in the scheme of things.

  9. Jasiu says

    April 25, 2014 at 8:14 am

    Initial information here. Picturehouse Entertainment, which did the theater (theatre?) simulcast of the Doctor Who 50th is handling it. I’ve found no details yet on locations (anyone who does, please post). The date to mark is July 20 (or 20 July if you are into that sort of notation).

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