Pepperdine does Christmas right

Love the appreciative audience:




Beautiful music.

Merry Christmas, y'all

Which leads us to this:

Love me some Mattis, but this is some funny shit

In the wake of his resignation as secretary of defense over his disagreement with the president over withdrawal from Syria, there is some talk of former Marine general James Mattis running for president in 2020. Given what I know about Mattis, I consider this unlikely. However unlikely the event might be, though, it gave rise to this:

Gotta love it.

All these years later, Linus still knows what's up

Watched "A Charlie Brown Christmas" tonight for the millionth time. Linus knows what's happening:



Word, brother.

An incomprehensibly brave man has died. RIP

Simcha Rotem, a man few people have ever heard of but who was clearly one of the most heroic men you'll ever hear about, has died at the age of 94. People should note his passing:

The last surviving fighter from the doomed 1943 Warsaw Ghetto uprising by Jewish partisans against the Nazis died Saturday in Israel aged 94, President Reuven Rivlin said.

Simcha Rotem, who went by the nom-de-guerre Kazik, served in the Jewish Fighting Organization that staged the uprising as the Nazis conducted mass deportations of residents to the death camps.

Rotem was sent away from the ghetto by his parents months before the uprising so that he would have a chance to survive. He came back when he heard about how the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto were being rounded up and sent to death camps. He joined the small group of Jews who decided it was better to die on their feet than in gas chambers at death camps. Ultimately, they lost the battle in Warsaw, and most of them lost their lives. Rotem lived, and was around for the second great act of resistance against the Nazis:

Rotem said he and his comrades launched the uprising to "choose the kind of death" they wanted.
 "But to this very day I keep thinking whether we had the right to make the decision to start the uprising and by the same token to shorten the lives of many people by a week, a day or two," Rotem said.
 Thousands of Jews died in Europe's first urban anti-Nazi revolt, most of them burned alive, and nearly all the rest were then sent to Treblinka. Rotem survived by masterminding an escape through the drain system with dozens of comrades. Polish sewer workers guided them to the surface.
 He went on to participate in the 1944 Warsaw Uprising led by Polish resistance fighters against the Nazis.

I suspect you can count on your fingers the number of people who actively participated in the 1943 and the 1944 Warsaw uprisings to begin with. Maybe you would need your toes, but the number has to be small. The number fighters who survived both uprisings has to be close to one-hand territory. How many among us would join such an uprising today? If you had been sent to relative safety, would you come back to join a doubtlessly futile effort  of resistance? I can't say for sure I would, even though I'd like to believe I would. Rest in peace, Kazik.

Shouldn't have missed this

Yesterday was the 77th anniversary of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. I don't usually miss this, but I did. I went to high school in Hawaii and actually spent a couple of the anniversaries fishing for sharks in Pearl Harbor (we never caught one). Anyway, I've been to the Arizona Memorial a number of times, and we used to fish from the pier where the battleship USS Maryland was docked during the attack. I've been to Ford Island a lot of times -- the quarters there are very nice. They were originally built for admirals in the day when such quarters were palatial. Anyway, never forget.

The first two photos are of Ford Island taken by Japanese pilots. The American battleships were moored off Ford Islands. The third photo is of the USS Arizona and the memorial that spans the sunken ship.

I been wanting me some Seychelles

Me and the Indian Ocean are tight. Visitors from the Seychelles just proves it. I've had a number of visitors from the Indian Ocean over the years, but not the Seychelles. Well, now I got me some Seychelles, and so you get the Eff You travelogue:

Officially the Republic of Seychelles, (the country) is an archipelago country in the Indian Ocean. The capital of the 115-island country, Victoria, lies 1,500 kilometres (932 mi) east of mainland East Africa. Other nearby island countries and territories include Comoros, Mayotte (region of France), Madagascar, Réunion (region of France) and Mauritius to the south. With a population of roughly 94,228, it has the smallest population of any sovereign African country.

Sure, I got Reunion and Mauritius, but this is my first Seychelles visit. I hear it's lovely this time of year. That might be true. Since the island nation became independent in 1976, the former British colony turned from an agricultural economy to a diversified economy that relies on service sectors, public employment, and tourism. Foreign investment has risen dramatically, as has individual purchasing power. The country has a solid economy.

"Discovered" by Vasco de Gama in 1502  -- the islands were already inhabited -- the Seychelles were a pirate haven for years, until the French took over in 1756.The British assumed control after the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, and the Seychelles was a British colony until 1976. And it's purdy:

No, really:

So how about a big Eff You welcome to the Seychelles! Y'all come back soon, and bring your friends.

Yet another "trend" in the line of things that aren't actually trends -- reindeer boobs

Seriously, I don't know where these things come from, but if you listen to morning radio, you'll hear about all kinds of "trends" that almost no one is actually taking part in. They're just click bait. This undoubtedly is one of those, but I can't help myself, because it involves pictures of boobs, even if they are disguised as reindeer, however incompetently. Of course, many of them are not good boobs to begin with -- some of them aren't even boobs, as they are attached to people who apparently identify as "men," regardless of how much actual men might reject these losers. I decline to actually post the pictures, although you can feel free to view them yourself. Anyway, bon appetit.