Walker Robins

@walktalks.bsky.social

119 Followers 125 Following

Historian of American Christians and Israel/Palestine. Author of Between Dixie and Zion (Univ. of Alabama Press, 2020). Takes the notes for the Melrose Pedestrian and Bicyclist Committee. Okie forever. Emergent Masshole.

a man aiming a gun at a fish, apparently
'A squadron of aeroplanes, he said cheerfully, 'seems to be coming directly over this house. We shall carry on our conversation in the cave.' We entered the cave, and the raid was on. The planes flew very low indeed, rained bombs and used their machine guns. The bombs made a particularly thunderous noise in this cave, which was not very deep. I squatted inside the door. The figures of a number of Abd el-Krim's spruce young officers could be seen farther in. The Sultan himself stood in the entrance. As the aëro-planes swooped just over the slope in front of us he reached for a rifle and stood half in, half out of the cave, aiming carefully. He continued a sentence he had already begun (something about the irreducible minimum of his conditions for peace) and punctuated it thus: la independencia [BANG!] . .. absoluta [BANGI] . .. del Rif (BANG!]' In spite of the discomfort that always came over me during these raids, I was thrilled at the spectacle. He was in plain view of the bombers, and why they did not get him with their machine guns was a mystery. The sight of such intrepidity against such odds might have served as a figure for the whole war: one man (and lame at that) firing with a rifle at a squadron of aëro-planes.
ration on Cratests readil See rosin at an another ent within one across centuries and invite to the open spaces. Many to whom this ery comes are impelled to seek the mountain paths, the forest trails, the solitudes or wildernesses coursed only by the feet of wild animals. But to me the black or dun roads, the people's highways, are the more appealing, those strips or ribbons of land which is still held in common, the paths wide enough for the carriages of the rich and the carts of the poor to pass each other, the roads over which they all bear their creaking burdens or run on errands of merey or need, but preferably roads that do not also invite the flying automobiles, whose occupants so often make the pedestrian feel that even these strips have ceased to be democratic.
The story of Christian Pulisic, US stars, a trip for pizza and a golf cart
Lowell Thomas was the only civilian correspondent who witnessed the reclaiming of the Holy Land, who saw the assembling of the 60,000 camels, the gathering of troops from many climes, and the final campaign in the desert wastes. Thomas not only saw all this but recorded it for future generations through the lens of his motion picture camera. So amazed were the British by his motion pictures of the early campaign in Palestine that when Allenby began his final advance the British staff at Cairo rushed Thomas to the front in a racing battleplane with orders to film the taking of Jerusalem. When the Cross again blazed throughout the Holy Land, the British government, to insure the safety of the precious films, hurried a warship to Malta to take Thomas back to Europe. It is these films, copies of which are preserved in the British museum, that Thomas shows in his lecture, "Freeing Palestine" or "With Allenby in Palestine."
the end of that time, at a shillings day, they had more money then they bad ever seen before in their lives (pause for a second) go they would insist on resigning (pause) and would return to their little farms along the Nile to spend the rest of their lives smoking their hubbly-bubbly pipes and beating their wives. (Pause).
Pig Won't refusing to learn to read.
Pig Won't: "He won't learn to read, so he can't read a book."
Sergeant Boyle was an Earthling. He was the only Earthling on the expedition. In fact, he was the only creature from the Milky Way. The other members were from all over the place. The expedition was a joint effort supported by about two hundred galaxies. The thing was that Earth was the only place in the whole known Universe where language was used. It was a unique Earthling invention. Everybody else used mental telepathy, so Earthlings could get pretty good jobs as language teachers just about anywhere they went. The reason creatures wanted to use language instead of mental telepathy was that they found out they could get so much more done with language. Language made them so much more active. Mental telepathy, with everybody constantly telling everybody everything, produced a sort of generalized indifference to all information. But language, with its slow, narrow meanings, made it possible to think about one thing at a time--to start thinking in terms of projects.
Super racist political cartoon from 1898 campaign in North Carolina
50 cent hanging upside down
While Norris had been an outspoken supporter of Zionism for decades and had built relationships with local Jews in Fort Worth, it was not until the late 1940s that he began interacting with pro-Zionist organizations and became active in calling for the US government to support the Zion-ists. As usual, travel provided the occasion for this turn. As the United Nations took control of the Palestine question in I947 (and as the United States was increasingly involved in the issue), Norris planned another trip to the region. Ahead of this trip, he contacted Jewish organizations, Zionist or otherwise, to ask to be introduced to Zionist leaders in Palestine. A vain and boastful man, Norris gloried in rubbing elbows with influential people--then reporting on it in the Fundamentalist.31 He was therefore disturbed when his efforts to gain contacts in the Yishuv were initially re-buffed. In reply to Norris's queries, Ben Goldman of the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) noted that the organization did not have contact with Zionist leadership, however Norris's associations with renowned anti-Semite Gerald Smith would have made the organization "most troubled about furnishing you with a letter of introduction" had contacts existed.32 While Goldman's letter did not discourage Norris from further attempts to gain access to the Zionist leadership, it did affect his strategy: from that point forward the pastor was keen to make American Jewish organizations like the ADL and the American Zionist Emergency Council (AZEC) aware of his own anti-anti-Semitic activities and active support of Zionism.
Butler with big sword depicted as "Bluebeard of New Orleans"
Gen. Ben Butler depicted with soap and brushes. Says to Lincoln: "Got through with that New Orleans Job. Cleaned them out and scrubbed them up!"
Chapter heading ("Israel--An Immoral Miracle") from Criswell's book.
Title page from J. McKee Adams's book, "The Heart of the Levant."
Screenshot of program materials from Royal Service about Palestine.
Portrait of Norris. Source: https://digital.utsa.edu/digital/collection/p9020coll2/id/9925/
E. D. Solomon, Florida, moved that the secretary of the Convention send a telegram to President Truman congratulating him on recognizing the State of Israel. The motion was lost after discussion by Dr. Solomon and L. E. Barton, Alabama.
Truman's statement recognizing Israel. Source: https://catalog.archives.gov/id/200612
Moshe Dayan in his trademark eye patch.
Alfred Waud sketch of Potomac falls, with water crashing on rocks and soldiers looking on in the foreground.
Photograph of Alfred Waud, sketching while seated on a rock.
Published drawing of Union forces in a forest in the Wilderness.
Pencil sketch of soldiers moving cannon through difficult terrain.
Farmers shooting at a Union soldier in a canoe.
Unfinished Alfred Waud pencil drawing of Gen. McClellan reviewing his troops.
Alfred Waud's September 1864 drawing of the burning of the Shenandoah Valley.
When Jenkens spoke of the return of Christ, he had a Protestant Christ in mind. Baptists did not view Levantine Christians as their coreligionists. Or, at the very least, Baptists viewed them as followers of a degraded or "effeminate" form of Christianity (to borrow A. J. Holt's phrasing). Paired with long-standing Protestant critiques of the dominant Catholicism and Orthodoxy of Palestine, Baptists tended to view the Eastern churches as tainted by Islam. "The Greek Church has existed for a long time in the Turkish empire side by side with Mohammedanism," noted Wharton, "and has sunk so low in piety and zeal that there is no religious principle set forth by its light." Hamlett likewise viewed local Christianity as similar to Islam "in spirit, though differing in creed." Joseph Marstain Fort described Jerusalem's Christians as being "as far from ... Christ-like...as the Mohammedan or the heathen; yea, farther." Many focused their criticisms on the Church of the Holy Sepulchre (jointly maintained by the Greek Orthodox Church, the Roman Catholic Church, and other Eastern churches). Broadus was especially disgusted by the Orthodox Pascha events there, which included the annual Miracle of the Holy Fire: "No devoutness, no seriousness frolic for the crowd, ridiculous to the persons officiating. It is ceremony run in the ground, utterly defeating its own object. I have never in my life beheld a spectacle so humiliating. This is Oriental Christianity."
Rob Gronkowski in an American-flag bowtie.
Kramer, George, Elaine, and Jerry
The Dilemma or Secrecy and Open Constitutional Government Since World War II, with steadily escalating consequences, many decisions of national importance have been made in secrecy, often by the executive branch alone. These decisions are frequently based oninformation obtained by clandestine means and available only to the executive branch. Until very recently, the Congress has not shared in this process. The cautions expressed by the Founding Fathers and the constitutional checks designed to assure that policymaking not become the province of one man or a few men have been avoided on notable recent occasions through the use of secrecy. John Adams expressed his concern about the dangers of arbitrary power 200 years ago: Whenever we leave principles and clear positive laws we are soon lost in the wild regions of imagination and possibility where arbitrary power sits upon her brazen throne and governs with an iron scepter.