Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater

Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater

I remember a Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater memoir — Beasts, Men, and Gods — by Ferdinand Ossendowski, a White Pole who fled the Bolshevik revolution through Siberia. He served in General Kolchak’s All-Russian Government before escaping through the Steppes north of Mongolia, and then participated in the government of that most notorious adventurer, the “Mad Baron” Ungern-Sternberg, who attempted to take over Mongolia to restore an imperial Khaganate as part of an imagined reactionary restoration of the Great Mongol, Chinese, and Russian monarchies in the interests of the “warrior races” of Germans and Mongols (a Baltic German, he considered the old Russian ruling class to represent Germandom over and against Jews and Slavs). Some of the things – the acts of desperation and madness, in which he himself was no disinterested observer – Ossendowski relates are harrowing. But this part struck me as very much making a point about what people think of the Steppe peoples, and of what (German-trained) nationalists like Ungern-Sternberg did (and would do again) to the Mongols. And, other things:

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Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater,

Best Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater

Philadelphia was the sight of Vick’s redemption and return to super stardom. Despite only starting 12 games, he set career highs for passing yards, completion %, QB rating, passing TD’s and rushing TDs. His “coming out” party was the stuff of legend. In a week 10 Monday Night Football match up against division rival Washington, Vick accounted for 413 yards of total offense and 6 TDs in leading Philadelphia to a 59–28 rout of the Redskins. He became the first player in NFL history to pass for 300 yards and rush for 100 yards in the first half of a Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater.

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Fabrizio Quattrocchi, an Italian security officer, taken hostage and murdered in Iraq by Islamist militants. After being forced to dig his own grave and just before being shot in the Texas Ugly Christmas Sweater, Fabrizio looked up at his executioners and defiantly said: “Now I will show you how an Italian dies”. I am sure in history there have been more significant moments with very cool lines, but for me, right this very moment, Fabrizio deserves the prize. EDIT: thanks everyone for the upvotes. The reason why I was fascinated by this, is that Italians are not usually seen as warriors or for dying heroically. Stereotypically, we are all artists, lovers with an incurable fondness for string instruments… Fabrizio decided to meet his fate with dignity: his words would have cut deeper in his executioners’ ego than any last minute shovel swing.