"In the fall of 1991, the relatively small and quiet university of Alfred University in New York State was engrossed in controversy. Indignant professors led students in protests, heated debates raged throughout the divided campus, editorials filled the school and local papers. At the heart of the controversy was the newly-installed statue of King Alfred, the medieval English monarch after whom the town and school was named. Ten years prior, when the monument was commissioned, no one could foresee the controversy it would eventually cause. Yet, its placement offended the sensibilities of the university's history professors.
By the strong and negative reaction one would think that Alfred must have been a tyrant, an oppressor of his people, a man deserving of the title Alfred the Terrible. Surprisingly, it is the opposite that that is true.
From 871 to 899, Alfred was the King of Wessex, one of the four kingdoms that would eventually become England. During his reign he revived the tradition of learning that had died with the fall of the Roman Empire. He required all of his nobles be literate and increased their education by translating the great Latin texts into English. Additionally, he has the honor of being the first king in English history to write a book, preceding King James by eight centuries. Thus, he is known as the "education king."
King Alfred the Great
More significantly, for the first time, English law would be written and would establish the tradition of England being a land 'ruled by laws' rather than by the whims of powerful men. Within these laws we find the genesis the principles of due process, trial by jury, and respect for the individual; no matter how lowly. His laws protected the commoner from arbitrary and excessive punishment. Even slaves were protected by his laws. There were limits on the number of hours they could be forced to work and were granted 37 work-free holidays per year. Furthermore, the slaves were allowed to work on their own behalf and retain all proceeds from their endeavors. Through the church, Alfred created a system that fed the poor and provided them with medical care.
For the 9th century, Alfred was a very enlightened king who was loved by his people and for this reason he is the only king in English history to be bestowed the moniker "the Great." Alfred the Great, the father of England and education king.
So why would the history professors be opposed to a memorial to this great proponent of education?
The truth is that the opposition to Alfred had more to do with what he symbolizes rather than actual history. Linda Mitchell, who specializes in Medieval history, was one of the protesting professors. As she explained in a New York Times interview, Alfred "is not a good logo to promote a modern university because virtually any historical figure who had any social or political influence is undoubtedly going to be a D.W.E.M. -- dead white European male," she said, "it would be foolish to choose a symbol so exclusive and effective in emphasizing the straight white male power structure of history."
For Alfred, being a DWEM (Dead White European Male) means that his great achievements are to be ignored because they do not fit into the ideologically-driven, anti-Western civilization, revisionist history that is currently being taught in schools."
"The Obama Administration operates on the sound principle that, if you're going to have a scandal, it's best to have dozens of them and then no one can keep up, and none of them becomes large enough to matter.
In this case, Jonathan Dach is the son of an influential Obama donor and Walmart lobbyist with ties to the First Lady's "healthy eating initiative". Two years ago, Dach Jnr was part of the White House advance team dispatched to Cartagena ahead of the President's visit. The evidence from the hotel register conclusively proves that he had a prostitute in his room. But the White House hushed it up, on the grounds that he did not actually bill US taxpayers for his hooker. How did that happen? Well:
Dach "was not charged for additional guest as a benefit of Hilton Honor Member."
So under the Hilton Honors program the first hooker stays for free. Who knew? Did young Jonathan Dach only have all those points on his Hilton card because he was doing so much presidential travel? In which case, his complimentary hooker was in a sense a perk of office.
Anyway, when he paid off the prostitute and came back from Colombia, Jonathan Dach was given a job at the White House "working on Global Women's Issues". In Cartagena, he was working on Global Women. Now he's working on Global Women's Issues. Ah, well. There's no real need for US officials to travel to Latin America, is there? We're trending quite Latin-American enough in Washington: The Democrats and media have trained the public to accept a certain level of government corruption as perfectly routine, no matter how absurd and obvious it is.
I think it's worth keeping an eye on the big picture here. First, as I wrote two-and-a-half years ago, there was no reason for Mr Dach or any of the other at least two dozen federal johns to be in Cartagena at all: They were cavorting with prostitutes all night long because there was nothing for them to do:
What we know so far is this: All eleven Secret Service men and all ten U.S. military personnel staying at the Hotel Caribe are alleged to have had "escorts" in their rooms that night. All of them. The entire team.
Twenty-one U.S. public servants. Twenty-one Colombian whores. Unless a couple of the senior guys splashed out for the two-girl special...
Why were 21 officials of the United States government able to enjoy a night of pleasure with 21 prostitutes..? The answer isn't difficult. Indeed, one retired agent spelled it out: "They just didn't have anything to do."
So they did Dania Suarez and her friends instead.
The 21 dedicated public servants jetted in on the so-called car-planes, the big transports flying in the tinted-windowed black Suburbans for the presidential motorcade. The "car-plane" guys show up a few days in advance, but usually two weeks or so after the really advanced advance team has hit the ground. And there was nothing for them to do. There is no reason for them to be there.
And now we know that the presidential-entourage hooker culture isn't confined to the agents but extends to the dweeby wonk aides as well.
So the obvious solution would be to lower the number of presidential flunkeys. Which is a standing joke at global summits - that the US President has to be accompanied by more hangers-on than all the other presidents and prime ministers put together. They're not there to do their duty, they're there to do the local booty.
In 2012, when I wrote about this incident, I quoted Congressman Peter King:
It was totally wrong to take a foreign national back to a hotel when the president is about to arrive.
And, after spraying coffee all over my desk, I commented:
It's wrong to take a "foreign national" up to the room, but it would have been okay if she'd been from Des Moines? We're all in favor of outsourcing, but in compliance with Section 27(e)viii of the PATRIOT Act this is the one job Americans will do?
The problem isn't that they're foreign nationals, it's that they're prostitutes. Nevertheless, a new regulation was subsequently introduced forbidding Secret Service agents to have foreigners in their hotel rooms. So at, say, last year's G7 summit in Northern Ireland, it would have been a firing offense for the Presidential advance team to invite the local MI5 guys to their suite to liaise on security, but if they'd flown in a dominatrix from Tuscaloosa, no problem.
As I said, I wrote about all this two years ago. Since then, we've had the Mandela funeral fiasco, where America's money-no-object security entourage stuck the President on stage two feet from an "interpreter" who turned out to be a violent, convicted criminal who'd been part of a "necklacing" gang. In the last few weeks, we've had a knife-toting intruder jump the White House fence, a gun-toting felon in the elevator with the President... There have been apparently more than a thousand security breaches in the last five years. And all for the perfectly obvious reason that, when it comes to security, more equals worse.
The federal motorcade hooker-culture is a symbol of government decadence, and a potentially catastrophic loss of government integrity.The Queen is safer with one car in front and one behind than the President is with a 40-car motorcade of expense-finaglers wondering if their Hilton Honors card will cover the two-girl special."
"A Canadian man who was killed by police after trying to run over two soldiers in Quebec 'had become radicalized', the government said after the first such incident since the country joined the fight against Islamic State militants.
The Canadian government did not specify what it meant by radicalised but in the past has used the term to refer to Canadians who become supporters of militant Islamic groups..."
"RADICALISED MAN RUNS OVER TWO SOLDIERS IN CANADA.
In Canada police has killed a man who earlier had run over two soldiers. The incident took place in Saint-Jean-sur-Richelieu in Quebec. The perpetrator would be a radicalised man. One of the soldiers was wounded very badly, the other one received only light injuries..."
