Today is my birthday. I am 70 — the three score and 10 that the Lord gives you. I decided to take the day off because this is a major birthday. Men turn 16, 18, 21, 70, then 100, and finally 969. So far, only made it to 969. But readers already take one day off — Sunday — and deserve a Friday column, so I decided to repost one of my old blog posts from last September 23. It is in response to the Marxist revisionism of slavery in which white capitalists hunted down and kidnapped black men and women and enslaved them. Mother Africa wept when they left.
I saw Sound of Freedom. If child trafficking isn't slavery, I don't know what is. Today in the 21st century, slavery is still with is -- as I said child trafficking, and sex trafficking, indentured labour and more that is just as horrific. Slavery has been with us since the beginning of time in many different socieities and cultures. It's shameful and disturbing that there's so much of it in our modern world. What does that say about us? And, yes it did start in Africa and Don Lemon got schooled.
I'd also say that a form of slavery exists when there's a stolen election and we lose the freedom to choose our own leaders. The ones in charge now are in the process of totally enslaving us.
RevMM: don't forget that Joe f-g Biden is bringing sex slaving to the US by opening the southern border. He (say "Obama") is one of those old African kings.
Happy Birthday, Don and Good Morning LuAnn. In a matter of speaking, Indentured Servants were paid for their labor, so they technically weren't slaves. I am sure some of them ran into rather harsh conditions, but for the majority of them ended up all right. I will not get into an argument with you, but I do agree that we are headed into some harsh times indeed. May God Help us in this time. Don't forget, there were slaves when Christ walked the face of the earth and even back then, it was an accepted practice and even way back when, they revolted as well.
Indentured slavery still exists in our modern world. It happens to young women trying to leave their shitholes. It takes a life time to pay off their "employers" and they have no freedom to speak of. That is slavery.
My father by the same name WILLIAM MICHAEL DITTMER had an epic quote MY DOG IS NOT IN THAT FIGHT! I think of that when I enjoy the witty exchanges between my Surber buddies. Well worth the $5 per month membership fee. I think I will include this paragraph in today's blog post THE SHEPHERD'S JOURNAL. I rarely miss a chance to put in a plug.
Slavery is not dead. OT sort of local Hospital is screening for active shooters . Gotta turn in the .45 at the door I guess. Next: masks and a shock collar?
Four years behind me, jnr. I identify as a 25 Y/O British Army Sergeant, which I was at the time, when the west wasn't woke, and the Military acted like the military!
Happy Birthday, Don! I will be 70 in January. Since discovering your column this year (happy to discover your wit and wisdom in presenting topics; sad for how much I have missed!), I now mark my morning by 7am, the time it is posted! I have forwarded many to family/friends, especially the Saturday summaries. What a balm it is to find facts presented in logical ways and iced with humor. Love the snark! In working with homeschool parents I encourage them to train their children in the skill set of humor. It is the oil that lubricates relationships! Notice how most liberals are “humorously challenged”? They can’t see things as being funny because in their minds they are god and evaluate everything from their viewpoint. Their belly button is the center of their universe! Much of your humor involves analogy. When people haven’t been trained in logic and critical thinking they don’t grasp analogies. They are like the last person in the room to get the joke except they don’t get it! They literally don’t see how something is funny so their default is anger sensing they are being mocked. Your column is a great tool for people to observe and enjoy all sorts of types of humor: wit, irony, analogies, etc. Humor helps make the medicine (facts) go down! If the Bentley doesn’t come this year perhaps it will come at 75! 🥳🎂🎉
Love the party favors at the end of Julie's post. Note to DS: IF you happen to "close your eyes during a TV commercial" just tell the interested party you prefer to wax the Bentley with your eyes closed--your touch is so sensitive, you won't miss any water spots. You're welcome.
I don't usually quote from Wikipedia, but when I do, I count on the fact that it spins everything to the left, so when I relate this following passage, you may be assured it does not make any effort to gild the lily about the history of Muslim slave practices:
"[S]lavery [has] persisted as an institution in the Muslim world through to the modern era.
Throughout Muslim history, slaves served in various social and economic roles, from powerful emirs to harshly treated manual laborers. Slaves were widely employed in irrigation, mining, and animal husbandry, but most commonly as soldiers, guards, domestic workers, concubines (sex slaves). The use of slaves for hard physical labor early on in Muslim history led to several destructive slave revolts, the most notable being the Zanj Rebellion of 869–883, and led to the end of the practice. Many rulers also used slaves in the military and administration to such an extent that slaves could seize power, as did the Mamluks.
Most slaves were imported from outside the Muslim world. Slavery in Islamic law does not have a racial foundation in principle, although this was not always the case in practise. The Arab slave trade was most active in West Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Africa, and rough estimates place the number of black Africans enslaved in the twelve centuries prior to the 20th century at between 11.5 million to 15 million. The Ottoman slave trade came from raids into eastern and central Europe and the Caucasus, while slave traders from the Barbary Coast raided the Mediterranean coasts of Europe and as far afield as the British Isles and Iceland."
Note that part about "the coasts of Europe... the British Isles and Iceland"? Yeah, here's more on that:
"Through the Middle Ages up until the early modern period, a major source of slaves sent to Muslim lands was Central and Eastern Europe. Slaves of Northwestern Europe were also favored. The slaves captured were sent to Islamic lands like Spain and Egypt through France and Venice. Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives. The Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for trade of such slaves. After the Byzantine Empire and Venice blocked Arab merchants from European ports, Arabs started importing slaves from the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions, shipping them off as far east as Transoxiana in Central Asia. Despite this, slaves taken in battle or from minor raids in continental Europe remained a steady resource in many regions. The Ottoman Empire used slaves from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The Janissaries were primarily composed of enslaved Europeans. Slaving raids by Barbary Pirates on the coasts of Western Europe as far as Iceland remained a source of slaves until suppressed in the early 19th century. Common roles filled by European slaves ranged from laborers to concubines, and even soldiers. Christians became part of harems as slaves in the Balkans and Asia Minor when the Turks invaded. Muslim qadis owned Christian slave girls. Greek girls who were pretty were forced into prostitution after being enslaved to Turks who took all their earnings in the 14th century according to Ibn Battuta."
So my question is: WHERE ARE MY REPARATIONS? I thought so. But I'll make all you whiney black grifters a deal; if you quit asking me for reparations, I'll quit asking you. OK? But I'm not holding my breath.
A rare find---a Wikipedia profile that isn't political-casino-rigged! I use them for birth and death dates and very little else, such as the spelling of unusual names. Other than that, the site is a sewer of woke hatred and Communist propaganda, best and strenuously avoided.
Don't know if we all can pitch in and raise enough for a new Bentley, but would you settle for a used Maserati? When Joe Manchin loses his seat, he may need to downsize his driveway. We might be able to swing that deal.
You certainly deserve a day off, especially the one on which you celebrate your birthday!
For those who feel they are entitled to a column on Sundays, let me suggest that they write their own to fill that void.
China outlawing slavery in 1906 is rich. The Chinese just cannot be relied on to keep their word, which only makes sense because their word has as much meaning as, 'equity' does, to Democrats.
Truth and fact are to leftists, Democrats, and the propaganda apparatus (but I repeat myself), what holy water and a crucifix are to vampires.
Better opportunities win out every time. Until Orca - er, I mean Oprah realizes the same as Dr. Carson, and Walt Williams, PhD, she will continue to be nothing but a gasbag and Steadman's receptacle.
Harsh on Oprah, NotFromTexas, but actually you’re on target. I used to really like Oprah in her early and mid-years—there was a genuine spiritual curiosity, aspiration, and depth about Oprah, and she did a lot of good. But in her later years, she has thrown her weight behind the corrupted Democrats, and is doing much more damage than good.
She is in over her head when it comes to politics. She does not realize the extreme damage that Marxism is doing to America, and is a sycophant to the Obamas and most far left policy aberrations. Sadly, Oprah is an example of The Peter Principle—that states that a person rises to the level of their incompetency. If Oprah would wake up to the destruction that the Marxist Left is doing to all the wonderful good that has been America, she could play a huge role in turning things around. Instead, she has thrown in with the destroyers.
Harsh? I'd say he was too kind. I agree about her embracing communism, that she sat in a pew listening to reverend wrong just like Barry and Mike is part of the problem.
They sit in their ivory towers and think they are superior to us.
Interracial slavery did not become commonplace until a leap in transportation technology in the 16th Century allowed slaves sold by Africans to be transported to the Americas to provide sustainable renewable energy for the elites. Technological improvements in energy production later made it possible to eliminate slavery in the West. Within approximately 100 years of the Watt-Wilkinson collaboration that produced an efficient fossil fueled steam engine, slavery was abolished in the West. Slavery reappeared in Germany during the fossil fuel shortage of the first half of the 1940s. (Audrey Hepburn’s half-brother along with many other Belgians, Dutch, French and other Europeans were enslaved to ameliorate the fossil fuel shortage)
You took the words right out of my mouth, Lardmaster—literally was about to type the same thing.
A very happy birthday to you, Don Surber! 70 indeed is the new 40. Don, you’re an embodiment of so much youthful vigor, you keep up a grueling work pace of research and writing, and your mind is a sharp steel trap.
I consider you to be in your prime, Don Surber, like a man in his 40’s at the top of his game, but with the tremendous advantage of years of knowledge and experience, that have resulted in genuine wisdom.
No matter what number is on the calendar, you are overflowing with LIFE, and I am grateful every morning for what you give us in your columns. May you long continue to hit the ball out of the park for decades—yes decades—to come.
Happy birthday Don. Slavery is such a terrible thing that my people celebrate our freedom 3500 years later. But that fact also teaches that at one time all sorts of people were enslaved. The word for some Eastern Europeans “ Slavs” finds its derivation from the reality that they were a prime resource for Roman slaves. The English were thought to be so stupid and primitive that they could only be used as field slaves. How the worm turns. We should all understand that fighting for freedom is something that each of us may be called to do and our freedom is a most precious commodity.
You are by far the most reliable Substack-er I subscribe to. Tell those who think you should write on Sunday that it's the Lord's day (or if you're a lapsed Nazarene like me, it's my recharge my equilibrium so I don't do physical harm to dumb people day).
That would be the rest of the week then. I seriously would like to have stock in the stupid pill factory because, my Lord the ones around here take 2-3 doses a day.
Happy Birthday Don. Your journey through life has been a beautiful one. Thank you for sharing your comedic brilliance with us daily (except Sunday:( ).
Thanks for reposting this piece reporting the actual dynamics of slaves from Africa and the West. If greed is hereditary, then those who shriek “Reparations! Reparations!” are probably descended from the slave traders.
I saw Sound of Freedom. If child trafficking isn't slavery, I don't know what is. Today in the 21st century, slavery is still with is -- as I said child trafficking, and sex trafficking, indentured labour and more that is just as horrific. Slavery has been with us since the beginning of time in many different socieities and cultures. It's shameful and disturbing that there's so much of it in our modern world. What does that say about us? And, yes it did start in Africa and Don Lemon got schooled.
I'd also say that a form of slavery exists when there's a stolen election and we lose the freedom to choose our own leaders. The ones in charge now are in the process of totally enslaving us.
RevMM: don't forget that Joe f-g Biden is bringing sex slaving to the US by opening the southern border. He (say "Obama") is one of those old African kings.
well, if stories about Larry Sinclair and Mike Obama's anatomy are to be believed, perhaps more one of those old African queens iykwimaityd.
Happy Birthday, Don and Good Morning LuAnn. In a matter of speaking, Indentured Servants were paid for their labor, so they technically weren't slaves. I am sure some of them ran into rather harsh conditions, but for the majority of them ended up all right. I will not get into an argument with you, but I do agree that we are headed into some harsh times indeed. May God Help us in this time. Don't forget, there were slaves when Christ walked the face of the earth and even back then, it was an accepted practice and even way back when, they revolted as well.
Indentured slavery still exists in our modern world. It happens to young women trying to leave their shitholes. It takes a life time to pay off their "employers" and they have no freedom to speak of. That is slavery.
I' here early for a change but I've got a hellish day of work ahead. Good morning, Tony. Everyone have a good day. Peace out, my viritual friends.
My father by the same name WILLIAM MICHAEL DITTMER had an epic quote MY DOG IS NOT IN THAT FIGHT! I think of that when I enjoy the witty exchanges between my Surber buddies. Well worth the $5 per month membership fee. I think I will include this paragraph in today's blog post THE SHEPHERD'S JOURNAL. I rarely miss a chance to put in a plug.
For the ones who never tasted pure freedom, that is true; That is also the exception, NOT the rule.
Slavery is not dead. OT sort of local Hospital is screening for active shooters . Gotta turn in the .45 at the door I guess. Next: masks and a shock collar?
BTW local sheriff knows nothing about this.
It is.
"Today in the 21st century, slavery is still with us..."
For instance, the press-ganging "draft" in Ukraine. Or, for that matter, the draft in the US, if it should again be instituted.
Happy Birthday, Don. You deserve this day off. The blog machine always, always wants to be fed. It's okay to restrict its calories when you see fit.
Don: You beat me to 70 by one month. You lucky devil.
I turned 70 last December. I have a few aches and pains, but in my head I’m still about 22.
Four years behind me, jnr. I identify as a 25 Y/O British Army Sergeant, which I was at the time, when the west wasn't woke, and the Military acted like the military!
Happy Birthday, Don! I will be 70 in January. Since discovering your column this year (happy to discover your wit and wisdom in presenting topics; sad for how much I have missed!), I now mark my morning by 7am, the time it is posted! I have forwarded many to family/friends, especially the Saturday summaries. What a balm it is to find facts presented in logical ways and iced with humor. Love the snark! In working with homeschool parents I encourage them to train their children in the skill set of humor. It is the oil that lubricates relationships! Notice how most liberals are “humorously challenged”? They can’t see things as being funny because in their minds they are god and evaluate everything from their viewpoint. Their belly button is the center of their universe! Much of your humor involves analogy. When people haven’t been trained in logic and critical thinking they don’t grasp analogies. They are like the last person in the room to get the joke except they don’t get it! They literally don’t see how something is funny so their default is anger sensing they are being mocked. Your column is a great tool for people to observe and enjoy all sorts of types of humor: wit, irony, analogies, etc. Humor helps make the medicine (facts) go down! If the Bentley doesn’t come this year perhaps it will come at 75! 🥳🎂🎉
Love the party favors at the end of Julie's post. Note to DS: IF you happen to "close your eyes during a TV commercial" just tell the interested party you prefer to wax the Bentley with your eyes closed--your touch is so sensitive, you won't miss any water spots. You're welcome.
What a tremendous outlook on life .Congrats and continue to pass your view forward as we try to change even a few libs hearts and minds.
Hear, hear!
I don't usually quote from Wikipedia, but when I do, I count on the fact that it spins everything to the left, so when I relate this following passage, you may be assured it does not make any effort to gild the lily about the history of Muslim slave practices:
"[S]lavery [has] persisted as an institution in the Muslim world through to the modern era.
Throughout Muslim history, slaves served in various social and economic roles, from powerful emirs to harshly treated manual laborers. Slaves were widely employed in irrigation, mining, and animal husbandry, but most commonly as soldiers, guards, domestic workers, concubines (sex slaves). The use of slaves for hard physical labor early on in Muslim history led to several destructive slave revolts, the most notable being the Zanj Rebellion of 869–883, and led to the end of the practice. Many rulers also used slaves in the military and administration to such an extent that slaves could seize power, as did the Mamluks.
Most slaves were imported from outside the Muslim world. Slavery in Islamic law does not have a racial foundation in principle, although this was not always the case in practise. The Arab slave trade was most active in West Asia, North Africa, and Southeast Africa, and rough estimates place the number of black Africans enslaved in the twelve centuries prior to the 20th century at between 11.5 million to 15 million. The Ottoman slave trade came from raids into eastern and central Europe and the Caucasus, while slave traders from the Barbary Coast raided the Mediterranean coasts of Europe and as far afield as the British Isles and Iceland."
Note that part about "the coasts of Europe... the British Isles and Iceland"? Yeah, here's more on that:
"Through the Middle Ages up until the early modern period, a major source of slaves sent to Muslim lands was Central and Eastern Europe. Slaves of Northwestern Europe were also favored. The slaves captured were sent to Islamic lands like Spain and Egypt through France and Venice. Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives. The Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for trade of such slaves. After the Byzantine Empire and Venice blocked Arab merchants from European ports, Arabs started importing slaves from the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions, shipping them off as far east as Transoxiana in Central Asia. Despite this, slaves taken in battle or from minor raids in continental Europe remained a steady resource in many regions. The Ottoman Empire used slaves from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The Janissaries were primarily composed of enslaved Europeans. Slaving raids by Barbary Pirates on the coasts of Western Europe as far as Iceland remained a source of slaves until suppressed in the early 19th century. Common roles filled by European slaves ranged from laborers to concubines, and even soldiers. Christians became part of harems as slaves in the Balkans and Asia Minor when the Turks invaded. Muslim qadis owned Christian slave girls. Greek girls who were pretty were forced into prostitution after being enslaved to Turks who took all their earnings in the 14th century according to Ibn Battuta."
So my question is: WHERE ARE MY REPARATIONS? I thought so. But I'll make all you whiney black grifters a deal; if you quit asking me for reparations, I'll quit asking you. OK? But I'm not holding my breath.
Pretty much. Every nationality had slavery issues and all. But all the grifters swear 'Blacks are the only ones.... ' drives me nuts.
Of course, they have to be the only ones. Otherwise, they'd have to share the stolen loot.
A rare find---a Wikipedia profile that isn't political-casino-rigged! I use them for birth and death dates and very little else, such as the spelling of unusual names. Other than that, the site is a sewer of woke hatred and Communist propaganda, best and strenuously avoided.
Happy Birthday, Don. I hope you have a great day.
Don't know if we all can pitch in and raise enough for a new Bentley, but would you settle for a used Maserati? When Joe Manchin loses his seat, he may need to downsize his driveway. We might be able to swing that deal.
Happy Birthday, Brother Don!
You certainly deserve a day off, especially the one on which you celebrate your birthday!
For those who feel they are entitled to a column on Sundays, let me suggest that they write their own to fill that void.
China outlawing slavery in 1906 is rich. The Chinese just cannot be relied on to keep their word, which only makes sense because their word has as much meaning as, 'equity' does, to Democrats.
Truth and fact are to leftists, Democrats, and the propaganda apparatus (but I repeat myself), what holy water and a crucifix are to vampires.
Better opportunities win out every time. Until Orca - er, I mean Oprah realizes the same as Dr. Carson, and Walt Williams, PhD, she will continue to be nothing but a gasbag and Steadman's receptacle.
Harsh on Oprah, NotFromTexas, but actually you’re on target. I used to really like Oprah in her early and mid-years—there was a genuine spiritual curiosity, aspiration, and depth about Oprah, and she did a lot of good. But in her later years, she has thrown her weight behind the corrupted Democrats, and is doing much more damage than good.
She is in over her head when it comes to politics. She does not realize the extreme damage that Marxism is doing to America, and is a sycophant to the Obamas and most far left policy aberrations. Sadly, Oprah is an example of The Peter Principle—that states that a person rises to the level of their incompetency. If Oprah would wake up to the destruction that the Marxist Left is doing to all the wonderful good that has been America, she could play a huge role in turning things around. Instead, she has thrown in with the destroyers.
PREACH, Sistah!!
Harsh? I'd say he was too kind. I agree about her embracing communism, that she sat in a pew listening to reverend wrong just like Barry and Mike is part of the problem.
They sit in their ivory towers and think they are superior to us.
Have a great weekend.
You too.
Am I alone in saying that I couldn['t make heads/tails out of today's poll? (!)
Happy Birthday, Don. Wishing you many good years to follow. Thanks for the straight talk. Your column is always edifying and entertaining.
I know it’s not as well adapted to the medium, but you’re a columnist, not a blogger to my way of thinking. It’s a step up.
That's a big Amen!
Happy Birthday Don!
I can recycle comments.
Interracial slavery did not become commonplace until a leap in transportation technology in the 16th Century allowed slaves sold by Africans to be transported to the Americas to provide sustainable renewable energy for the elites. Technological improvements in energy production later made it possible to eliminate slavery in the West. Within approximately 100 years of the Watt-Wilkinson collaboration that produced an efficient fossil fueled steam engine, slavery was abolished in the West. Slavery reappeared in Germany during the fossil fuel shortage of the first half of the 1940s. (Audrey Hepburn’s half-brother along with many other Belgians, Dutch, French and other Europeans were enslaved to ameliorate the fossil fuel shortage)
Happy birthday, Don!!!
70 is the new 40. Well, maybe 50.
You took the words right out of my mouth, Lardmaster—literally was about to type the same thing.
A very happy birthday to you, Don Surber! 70 indeed is the new 40. Don, you’re an embodiment of so much youthful vigor, you keep up a grueling work pace of research and writing, and your mind is a sharp steel trap.
I consider you to be in your prime, Don Surber, like a man in his 40’s at the top of his game, but with the tremendous advantage of years of knowledge and experience, that have resulted in genuine wisdom.
No matter what number is on the calendar, you are overflowing with LIFE, and I am grateful every morning for what you give us in your columns. May you long continue to hit the ball out of the park for decades—yes decades—to come.
Happy birthday Don. Slavery is such a terrible thing that my people celebrate our freedom 3500 years later. But that fact also teaches that at one time all sorts of people were enslaved. The word for some Eastern Europeans “ Slavs” finds its derivation from the reality that they were a prime resource for Roman slaves. The English were thought to be so stupid and primitive that they could only be used as field slaves. How the worm turns. We should all understand that fighting for freedom is something that each of us may be called to do and our freedom is a most precious commodity.
Happy b'day and thanks for making the world just a little bit less bad by your work.
Happy Birthday!
You are by far the most reliable Substack-er I subscribe to. Tell those who think you should write on Sunday that it's the Lord's day (or if you're a lapsed Nazarene like me, it's my recharge my equilibrium so I don't do physical harm to dumb people day).
That would be the rest of the week then. I seriously would like to have stock in the stupid pill factory because, my Lord the ones around here take 2-3 doses a day.
Happy Birthday Don. Your journey through life has been a beautiful one. Thank you for sharing your comedic brilliance with us daily (except Sunday:( ).
“Readers already complain about me taking Sundays off.”
We get cranky when we don’t have our daily dose of Surber.
Happy Birthday, Don!! And here’s to MANY more.
Thanks for reposting this piece reporting the actual dynamics of slaves from Africa and the West. If greed is hereditary, then those who shriek “Reparations! Reparations!” are probably descended from the slave traders.
And a very happy birthday.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!🎁🎊🎂