Nobless Oblige? : "He was a poet, a scholar and a mighty warrior. He was also the most shameless exhibitionist since Barnum & Bailey."

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The title of this post is plucked from athe script of the classic 1962 film Lawrence of Arabia, a stylized account of the accomplishments of the great Thomas Edward Lawrence. T.E.L. was a Lt. Col. of the British Army and hero of World War I. It is too early to tell if such a quote could one day apply to Tariq Nasr al Fadhli; hero of the Soviet-Afghan War, former Islamist guerilla, one time associate of Osama Bin Laden, South Yemeni Patriot, tribal leader of Zinjibar and a potential ally of the United States should it ever deign to take action against Al Qaeda in Yemen. But one can certainly hope that it will.

The New York Times recently ran a positive profile on al-Fadhli: ( http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/27/world/middleeast/27tareq.html?emc=eta1 ), which has described the somewhat extreme measures al-Fadhli has taken to garner U.S. attention. After publicly disavowing his longstanding ties to Yemeni President Ali Abdullah Saleh, al-Fadhli retreated to his ancestral lands in the South and is now holed up in a fortified compound replete with an erected United States' flag.

It would be easy to dismiss Tareq al-Fadhli as another tin-pot opportunist , but for the fact that his family's historical alliance with Britain, taste for good scotch, obvious distaste for the more extreme passions of Islamic radicals, cavalier rebellion against the sitting Yemeni government, the romanticism of a deposed tribal-aristocrat re-claiming his lands, and an on-again - off-again relationship as a United States' ally makes his narrative tremendously appealing. The best leaders and revolutionaries have been those with a taste for the dramatic, and often found in idividuals with complicated backgrounds. Think Samuel Adams in Boston Harbor circa 1773. The danger, of course, is when dramatic flair (Storming the Bastille?)devolves into imperious tyranny (chopping off heads en masse). For now we'll just have to be patient & see what develops.

Nixon's The One?

Dick Nixon may not have followed through on his campaign slogan of being 'The One,' (which perhaps puts him in good company with the sitting POTUS, or 'That One,' as he was indelicately described by John McCain in 2008) , and that whole issue of JFK Harvard envy was just sad. However, if this photo is any evidence, working on his campaign trail was at least half as fun as breaking into the Watergate. Even if this photo predated Deep-Throat. Still, we'll defer to the venerable Hunter S. Thompson whose epitaph for Dick Nixon was both uncharitable and probably spot on: http://www.counterpunch.org/thompson02212005.html . Choice line: "Nixon was so crooked that he needed his servants to help him screw his pants on in the morning. Even his funeral was illegal. His body should have been burned in a trash can."

Sabrina 1945: Yes We Have No Bananas

(http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ate6yjFW-hk&feature=related ) A classic Great Depression song 'Yes We Have No Banana's' from 1945's Sabrina starring Humphrey Bogart (Expelled from Andover 1918 after being caught clutching his trademark cigarette.)

Off The Rails: Alfred Brush Ford & Elisabeth Reuther Dickman

In 1923 former chief engineer at Ford Motor Company, Edward Gray began the construction of his lifelong ambition of a private community for Yachtsmen. He called the neighborhood Graystone and soon had enlisted members of the Fisher (Fisher Body), Koerber (Koerber Brewing) and Gar Wood (Gar Wood Boats) as early landowners in the gated complex.

Amid the pre-Depression euphoria several of these families built lavish mansions
replete with amenities ranging from wet and dry-docks to small golf courses and even a berth for the Gar Wood Seaplane. The largest mansion was built by the Fisher family on 46 lots or 40 acres of the 67 acre subdivision. Serial Bachelor Lawrence Fisher spent $1.5 million in 1928 for what would become a folly to rival Howard Hughes' Spruce Goose.



By 1929's Black Friday, very few, even among the vastly rich, were interested in buying lavish real estate no matter how demonstrable the quality of neighbors they could afford. And because Graystone did not officially open until 1931 it was doomed before it began. As with the rest of Detroit, Graystone and the Fisher Mansion began a slow, painful, and seemingly inexorable path towards decline.

Born in 1950, Alfred Brush Ford, heir to the Fisher Brother's Body-works, an early supplier to General Motors, as well as a member of the august Ford family, is thought to have gone off the rails sometime in the mid-1970's when he donated a substantial amount of his inheritance, as well as his ancestral Fisher Mansion to the Hare Krishna sect. ABF also changed his name to Ambarish Das. while his wife (nee' Elisabeth Reuther Dickman - daughter of UAW president Walter Reuther ) changed hers to Lekhasranvanti Dasi. Had AFB merely donated his property to the Krishna's he might have been hailed as a genius for getting a tax write-off on distressed real-estate. But sadly that was not the case.

Shortly therafter, The Hare Krishna's began to renovate the Fisher Mansion , and redidicated in in 1983 as the Bhaktevdanta Cultural Center for International Society of Krishna Conciousness.

Apparently the Krishna's have proven to be good neighbors in what has become a bad neighborhood, although I doubt that would mollify many Fords or Fishers.

Snowpocalypse 2010?

Its 3:35pm in the Northeast Mid-Atlantic , it was supposed to start snowing at 2:00pm, it was 40 degrees (f) at lunchtime, and I still haven't seen a single flake of snow. Could all the hype be a vast conspiracy between the Dorrances (Campbell's) and the Woods (WaWa) ? Stay tuned!

Schnell !

Just don't try it in the Snow!

RIP, Gentleman Driver

Today’s racing driver isn’t what he used to be. Post-stint massage therapy and victory lanes drenched in Pepsi instead of Taittinger have rendered the true “gentleman racer” a thing of the past. Gone are the 240-mph speeds on the Mulsanne Straight at Le Mans. Gone are the coachbuilt Ferraris that were driven from their baronial estates to the Tour de France, raced through the countryside and driven right back home. Gone are men like the Bentley Boys, Wolfgang Graf Berghe von Trips, Lance Reventlow and, most upsetting of all, Briggs Swift Cunningham II.

Cunningham wasn’t a “sportsman” in the way that Jeff Gordon races AND plays in charity golf tournaments. No, Mr. Cunningham was a Yale man and college friend of the Collier Brothers (think Collier Country, FL), with whom he founded the Sports Car Club of America. He not only raced Jaguars, Ferraris, Corvettes and Listers on his own dime and all around the world, but also built his own eponymous series of racing cars in West Palm Beach, in the hopes of taking outright victory at Le Mans.


As if that weren’t sufficient, he also skippered the Columbia to successfully defend the 1958 America’s Cup, patented the “Cunningham” device of the same sport and assembled a world-class collection of motor cars that included a Bugatti Royale – Ettore’s tour de force, the most valuable car in the world, then and perhaps even now.

So the next time you listen to NBC moderators tell you how many G’s Helio Castroneves' poor body is enduring in the turns or how taxing a two-hour Formula 1 race must be, just remember...Giovanni Bracco wasn’t feeling so well in the 1952 Mille Miglia either. The endless cigarettes and brandy his Ferrari co-driver was passing him must have mixed very poorly with the 1,000 miles of switchbacks and elevation changes...

*Courtesy of Aggressively Shabby's MotorSport Correspondant: Arthur Wild

Election Day

Countless Patriots Died & Bled to earn you the right. If you live in Massachusetts Don't forget to Vote !

Noblesse Oblige: Countess Von Moltke

This January, Countess Freya Von-Moltke, a paragon of the little-known Kreisau Circle of aristocrats and intellectuals who openly opposed the Nazi regime during World War II, died at the ripe age of 98. She courageously played host to the circle at her estate in Kreisau Poland and supported her husband, The Count, in his endeavor to reveal Nazi war crimes as they occurred.

Combined, the couple made up a kind of real life Victor Lazlo and Ilsa Lund of Casablanca fame.
Count Von Moltke worked in the Abwehr and attempted to publicize violations of the Geneva Convention as well as the horrible violations occuring in the concentration camps. He also attempted to extradite hundreds of Jews to countries which resisted Germany. For his work, he was arrested by the Gestapo and eventually executed for his seditious actions. In a final letter to his two sons he wrote " Since National Socialism came to power, I have striven to make its consequences milder for its victims and to prepare the way for a change. In that my conscience drove me - and in the end that is a man's duty."

Shortly before the execution the Countess fled to South Africa with her children where she continued to lecture about the inherent evils of National Socialism. The Kreisau Circle, the Von Moltkes, Admiral Wilhem Canaris and the Von Stauffenberg plot are just a handful of examples of Bourgeoisie and Aristocratic opposition to Hitler and the Nazis. It remains unfortunate that the lives of these brave patriots has gone largely unrecognized in academia & the popular media. Contrary to what many unsophisticated historical texts will tell you, many powerful Germans were not in Cahoots with Hitler, Himmler or any of their goons.

There's special providence in the fall of a sparrow

The tragic life of Edie Sedgwick has been done ad nauseum in film & other media - but the question remains as to why we are so fascinated by the confluence of beauty, wealth & tragedy. Often it seems as if we are particularly drawn to larger than life characters because we enjoy watching the brinksmanship required to achieve success. As Bill Buckley famously said, 'great men sail with too much canvas up.' Successful mediocrity is easy, it requires nothing more than following the rules, paying your taxes, eating reasonably and exercising regularly. At its worst the public would seem to take secret delight in the downfall of the interesting & the great because they would prefer everyone to live a humble & timid existence. Equality in achievement is relative. Don't make the mistake of watching the trainwrecks that happen to others to the extent that you miss punching your own ticket.

Clingstone

Clingstone is a 105 years-old mansion, built in 1895 for (one-imagines) a particularly eccentric Wharton (yes the family that founded UPenn's august business school). It sits in the middle of the Narangasett Bay of Jamestown, R.I. - close to the more touristy Newport. Wharton contumaciously built the property after the government seized the property for his original summer house in Jamestown so that it could enlarge Fort Whetherill. Wharton is said to have dryly remarked "I'm going to build where no one can bother me." And so he did.

One of Philadelphia's tabloids later said that Wharton wouldn't last a season in his new house, and that it wouldn't last through the first Nor'Easter it would inevitably face. He summered there every year therafter until his death in 1938. Well done you eccentric Proper Philadelphian.

Dictator Chic: Pinochet

Of the 20th Century's Tin-Pot Dictators Augosto Pinochet clearly ranks at or near the top in terms of his sartorial sensibilities. Hell, you can almost understand why the CIA backed him: capes, double-breasted suits, a healthy dose of embroidery. He comes off more like your well-appointed grandfather who was Commodore of the Yacht Club than as a brutal dictator.

Lion of the Senate

With Ted Kennedy's old seat being contested tomorrow between Martha Coakely & Scott Brown we thought it might be an appropriate day to spend a moment reflecting one last time on Ted Kennedy. Say what you will about the man for good or ill, he did have style.

Hullo!

Hullo & Welcome to Aggressively Shabby! Unique among digital photo memoirs (hopefully) for its decidedly old school approach to all things Anglo-American and perhaps a bit shabby. We like our things knicked up a bit, lived in , and enjoy the new only when it adequately compliments the old. So sit back, peruse, comment if you're inclined. We'll see you in the field.

Regards,

Jack

photo credit:

www.crappytaxidermy.com