This poem by Heinrich Heine (I’m sure I need not tell you) is one of my favorites, and was famously set to music by Schumann. I had intended to post it to herald the beginning of May, but distractions got the better of me, so I am afraid it must herald the month’s departure.

What can one say about Ron Paul? This man is clearly the dream candidate for the presidency. A doctor and Air Force veteran with years of experience in congress (with a record to be proud of), Ron Paul tells the simple, honest truth and applies common sense to politics. Who knew, until Paul told us, that if we returned to year-2000 spending levels, we could eliminate the federal income tax entirely. Entirely. Imagine that! Paul is the only Republican candidate willing to tell it like it is rather than spew meaningless piously ideological bits of nonsense to please the Republican establishment. I almost wish I was a Republican so that I could have the satisfaction of voting for him in the primary.

Naturally, the media have done their utmost to ignore Dr. Paul or pidgeon-hole him as irrelevant but the word’s been getting out anyhow. He’s even managed to turn up as a topic of discussion on ABC’s ‘The View’, flagship television program of the bored suburban housewife.

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Die Burgemeester van Kaapstad

AND SO, Helen Zille, the Mayor of Cape Town, has been elected Leader of the Opposition in South Africa, a somewhat curious choice to head the country’s (liberal) Democratic Alliance against the current government (the ANC alliance of racial nationalists, the Communist Party, and the trade union confederation) as she is not actually a member of parliament and has stated that she has no intention of seeking election to that body. If only she would bring a little more reserve to the council chamber, a virtue she is sadly lacking (as evidenced in pictures above and below).

Ms. Zille has a reputation as a bit of a go-get-em mayor, and something of a pragmatist, which is welcome, as any efforts that chip away at the rule of the noxious African National Congress are wholeheartedly welcome. And she’d have to try hard to be any worse in her new job than her noxious predecessor, ‘Tony’ Leon. While we would probably vote (depending on geography) for the Inkhata Freedom Party or the Vryheidsfront, we wish Ms. Zille luck as Leader of the Opposition.

http://norumbega.us/

Charles Coulombe takes on Europe and the Empire.

Thomas Marshall discusses the rising tide of Scotland’s SNP.

Andrew Cusack tackles an Afrikaans folk song and Anglosphere Union.

George Irwin ponders his move to Zululand.

In Bohemian Living, Lord Michael Pratt’s The Great Country Houses of the Czech Republic and Slovakia is reviewed.

And of course we have Thirty Facts About the Duke of Edinburgh.

THE QUEEN HAS once again visited Williamsburg, Virginia’s ancient capital, after an absence of half a century. His Excellency Mr. Timothy Kaine, the Governor of the Commonwealth Virginia, was good enough to call a public holiday in the state, giving public workers the day off in celebration of the Queen’s visit. During the trip, Her Majesty spoke to the General Assembly of Virginia, the oldest legislature in the New World, in Richmond (the current capitol), as well as meeting privately with the friends and relatives of the victims of the recent tragedy at Virginia Tech. In Williamsburg, she received an honorary degree from the College of William and Mary and was the guest at a luncheon at the Governor’s Palace, once the official residence of her predecessors’ viceroys in Virginia. (more…)

Ian Smith, the Grand Old Man of Africa, Speaks

Here is an interesting nine-minute-long clip from a documentary on Ian Smith, the former Prime Minister of Rhodesia, featuring the Hon. Mr. Smith himself, now eighty-eight years of age, as well as Kathy Olds, a landowner, and Ernest Mtunzi, a former aide to ZAPU leader Joshua Nkomo.

“What we believed in was responsible majority rule, as opposed to irresponsible majority rule and I stand by that,” Mr. Smith tells the interviewer. “I think it is important that before you give a person the vote you ensure that his roots go down, that he’s part of the whole structure of the country.”

“Smith is an African,” Ernest Mtunzi says. “He understands the African mentality. […] Smith was being realistic. If you give people something before they’re ready, they’re going to mess it up. And that has happened.”

“Africa is a continent which is subject to a great deal of friction and argument and change,” Smith concludes. “That’s part of the world generally but more so Africa than anywhere else. So because of that we live in hope. We think that the people they in the end will say we’ve had enough.”

“In the interest of our people and of other people this part of the world, let’s work together. […] Let’s just accept that we are all part of Africa, all part of the world. Let’s all work together and the more we can get people to accept that philosophy I think the greater the hope for the whole world.”

This little corner of the web naturally extends a very warm welcome to Her Britannic Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II, as she visits the Commonwealth of Virginia this week in commemoration of the four-hundredth anniversary of the plantation of Jamestown and the birth of our country. She will no doubt recall the words of her predecessor, Charles I, who counted his kingdoms of England, Scotland, Ireland, and France (as was still claimed at the time) and added “En Dat Virginia Quintam!” — “And so Virginia makes five!” (to give an approximate translation). We trust the Old Dominion will do all Her Majesty’s former possessions on these shores proudly with a warm and dignified welcome.

May Our Lady of Walsingham, (whose national shrine is in Williamsburg, Virginia) protect, bless, and convert England, Virginia, America, and all the English-speaking world!

Previously: Old Dominion Will Receive Her Majesty

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