Posted on 01/02/2026 1:50:32 PM PST by Rummyfan
As a new year begins, it is sobering to find that one has outlived national stereotypes that endured for generations. A hundred and thirty-seven years ago, when I was just venturing out into the world, the universally acknowledged joke was some variant of:
In Heaven the chefs are French, the lovers are Italian, the engineers are German, the police are British, and it's all run by the Swiss.
In Hell the chefs are British, the lovers are Swiss, the engineers French, the police German and it's all run by the Italians.
How we all laughed!
Of course, times change. I was trying to work out an update for our new Heaven on Earth but I only got as far as "The daycare owners are Somali, the interpreters Afghan, the truck drivers Indian, the dogcatchers Haitian, the condom-distributors Syrian, the school superintendents Guyanese, the mayors are Muslim and/or transgender, the only genuine hard-nosed investigative reporters are devout abstemious virgins, and it's all run by USAid and the District Court Judge of Dead Moose Junction" before I got rear-ended by an illegal-immigrant policeman en route to a Ramaswamy Proposition Nation rally.
(Excerpt) Read more at steynonline.com ...
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I can’t remember the details but Deepak Chopra told about a study by psychologists of people in public to ascertain levels of personal warmth and affection displayed by various ethnic and other couples.
The researchers saw French couples touch each others’ hands, put a hand on a shoulder, give a hug and a kiss, and look into each other’s eyes at the highest amounts. Americans were a little below the middle, and so on. He said the data for the British was not ready. Perhaps they’re still waiting for the first signs.
“Exit question for the pre-revolutionary conditions now prevailing: If the chefs are Muslim and the lovers are Muslim and the engineers are Muslim and the police are Muslim and it’s all increasingly run by Muslims (the New York mayor) and the Muslim-adjacent (the Somaliphiliac Minneapolis mayor), who are the violent revolutionaries? The French? The Italians? The Germans, British, Swiss? The Americans?
Just so long as the answer’s not none of the above....”
Great question, Mr. Steyn.
He sure writes well for someone who is 134 years old...
Oops, 137.
1 Thessalonians 5:3 KJV
For when they shall say, Peace and safety;
then sudden destruction cometh upon them,
as travail upon a woman with child;
and they shall not escape.
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