Classic Beauty: Marie Doro

No Italian, she, but a Pennsylvania girl with a very American name (Marie Katherine Stewart).  Because she looked, in the words of a contemporary critic, “like a porcelain doll” with her flawless complexion, Marie Doro was most often cast as a minor pretty-girly-type, although it should be known that offstage and -screen she had a formidable intellect.

Here’s an expertly-colorized pic of her which I think shows what she might have looked like in real life:

Exquisite.

Perhaps because of her intellect, she got sick of Hollywood and all its nonsense, and retired to become something of a religious recluse.  In earlier times, she might have become a nun.

But the saddest of all is that almost all — perhaps indeed all — of her movies have been lost.

Favorite Things Update

Last year I posted two lists of My Favorite Things (Part 1 and Part 2), and while I’m not going to redo the blessed things — as I said I wouldn’t — there are a couple of substitutions on the list, mainly because the items are no longer available or I’ve found something I prefer.  Here’s an example:

which has been replaced by the CZ 600.  But upon reflection, I think I’d rather go with this one:

Anschutz 1761 DHB Classic$2,985

Yeah, it’s kinda spendy for a .22 — but it also comes in .223 Rem, for those extra-special varminting excursions — and the quality thereof is matchless.  Remember, this list is all about beauty and quality.

Interestingly, as I peruse both lists, I find that all the items are as alluring as they were a year ago.  But as I suspected may happen, I’ve found an alternative for a couple:

I know I said they were scarce, but sheesh.  “Unobtanium” about covers it.  But here’s one that is available, albeit at a Silly Money price:

1964 Alfa Romeo Giulia Spider$104,000

And while the exterior is lovely, it’s the interior that gets me all a-twitter:

None of that stuffy wood nonsense here:  if that doesn’t scream “FUN!!!” at the top of its lungs to you, you’re deaf and we can’t be friends.  And as with most cars sold at E&RClassics, this one has been completely resto-modded and restored to what it should have been back in the day, but wasn’t.  A hundred grand is spendy, mind, but let’s not compare it to today’s “exotic” sports cars, shall we?  And as an added bonus, there is not a single computer chip or electronic transmission device anywhere to be found, which means your Spider won’t be a Spyder, either.  (I know, I know:  I should be ashamed of myself.)

One more, for fun:


Now I have nothing against the 686, no sir not me. But I think I prefer this one over it:

S&W Mod 48 .22 Win Mag$1,100

Blued steel, long barrel, chambered for my favorite rimfire cartridge… sorry, I need to get something to wipe the drool off my keyboard.  Second-hand, they run about $700-$800, depending on condition.

Those are pretty much all the changes I’ve run across, so far.

Feel free to browse the links and make some suggestions of your own.

Man-Crush

Could I love ArgyPres Milei any more already?  After setting about his benighted country’s entrenched bureaucracy with a chainsaw and getting their sclerotic economy to move in the upwards direction, we now have this:

The president of Argentina, Javier Milei, signed a decree this week lowering the minimum age required to purchase a firearm from 21 to 18 years old.  The decree asserts that the minimum age required for the acquisition and possession of firearms should coincide with the age of majority established by Argentine law of 18 years old.

“For years, no one was encouraged to make this decision. We did not hesitate. While we disarm narco-terrorist gangs and organized crime, we celebrate that good citizens can have access to weapons being Legitimate Users,” she continued. “Empty speeches are a thing of the past. In this Government, we are making the right of Argentines to protect themselves and live in freedom a reality.”

Of course, the Argies have a long way to go before they enjoy anything like our Second Amendment freedoms (see the article for details) but all journeys begin with a single step, or something.

An Old Favorite

What with one thing and another, I haven’t been keeping up with the adventures of Othias and Mae’s C&Rsenal, so when I stumbled on this one talking about an old friend, I opened the video toot sweet, and you should too.

Let it be known — as I’ve said several times before — that I have always loved the Commie SKS, and Othias is definitely on my side on this one.

I know, I know:  the thing has been (unfairly) overshadowed by its successor, the AK-47.

And yes, the SKS holds only 10 rounds in its semi-concealed mag compared to 20-30 in the AK’s banana-like appendage.  Don’t care.  Also, the AK can be modified as above (albeit with some difficulty), while the SKS cannot (not even ULTiMAK makes the proper rail mounts).  Don’t care about that either.

The fact is that the SKS is actually a better design, and is way more comfortable to shoot than the AK.  I have owned both, fired literally thousands of rounds through each, and on this I will accept no argument.

Of course, I don’t own either of them ever since that tragic accident on the Brazos River all those years ago;  but lemme tell you, watching Mae and Othias shoot and fondle the SKS respectively made me itch in all the wrong places.

Dumping The Heritage

Here’s a rather bad-tempered article (kinda like the ones I sometimes write) about letting go of the past:

Events over the past months have exposed a very stark divide between the globalist, collectivist, “woke” authorities of Europe and the Make America Great Again (MAGA) patriot movement here in the United States. To be frank, it is almost as if the snide, effete elitists who control the nations of the European continent want to rub our noses in their horror show.

Let’s be frank. Europe would be a total basket case without American taxpayers, American troops, and American subservience to their ever more bizarre “culture.” Since Woodrow Wilson first fell for the globalist-line that somehow “the better people” could build a world government free of popular input, the citizens of the United States have been played as fools. Churchill’s constant pushing and cajoling led to the so-called “special relationship” that has come to mean Uncle Sucker picks up the tab, does the dirty work and then allows others to make decisions.

All of this was made clear when a recent article by Giovanna De Maio and Célia Belin in the publication, Foreign Affairs, appeared entitled Europe’s America Problem. To set the record straight, the magazine is owned and operated by the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). CFR has been the leading voice for globalist ambitions since its founding in 1921. It is the voice of the very people the MAGA movement has identified as those working to destroy American sovereignty and submerge us into a swamp.

Europe as advanced by the globalists at CRF, NATO, the Atlantic Council and the European Union (EU) is unalterably opposed to the core principles of the United States.  Even a cursory review shows them to outright enemies of liberty.

And then Wilson catalogues the list of atrocities:  (non-)freedom of speech;  extra-national prosecution of those daring to exercise such;  preventing the U.S. from supporting its own economic interests, yea even though that might affect those of other nations (gasp!);   preventing the U.S. from ignoring the utter fraud of “climate change” and its baleful bastard child Net Zero, and so on.  (Of their position on right of citizens to keep and bear arms, of course, we will not speak.)

Wilson asks the question, quite reasonably, that if the Euros are doing all this despite being essentially a welfare state propped up by U.S. taxpayers’ dollars, why should the U.S. play ball?

I think the answer is going to manifest itself, certainly over the next few years and maybe even longer as the next U.S. Administration and Congress take a long hard look at a cost : benefit analysis of our relationship with the Mother Country, so to speak.  And I don’t think the Euros are going to like the results of that analysis, and the actions that follow.

There was a time when the U.S. might have been prepared to bail the Euros out of the crap they got themselves in — two world wars and a cold one being good examples thereof — but that doesn’t mean the commitment is eternal:  not much is, in the realm of global politics.

And if the Euros seem intent as they are to drag us down with them, it would be foolish to go along with them because of such anachronisms like a “Special Relationship” or even historical ties.  I think that by now we have amply paid back our debt to France for the 1776 business, for one thing, and we sure as shit owe nothing to the Germans and other assorted malcontents.

I do expect, however, that we might well continue to do good business with countries such as Poland and Hungary, because they seem to be as skeptical as we are about the intentions of the EU.  Others might follow suit, of course, but not as long as they subscribe to the internationalist bullshit coming out of the WCC, UN, EU and similar institutions.

Yes, our fabled patience, forbearance and tolerance is wearing thin right now, and the Euros would do well not to make things worse with empty threats.