Let Feeedom Ring

As a person of Scottish Heritage the fight for Freedom goes back long before Sir William Wallace. For nearly two-thousand years , the Vikings, Romans, English , have had a desire to acquire Scotland. We finally succumbed on a dark day in April in 1746 at the Battle of Culloden Moor. This story may not be unlike your heritage, and all the more you would desire freedom to reign whenever possible. The major media outlets seem to have moved on, but the protests for freedom continue in Iran. Make no mistake , that is what these protests are about. It’s not about a single election, it’s about an oppressive government that will do anything, including kill all that oppose them, to remain in power. Below is the mass graves the Iranian Government has dug to bury the hundreds of Protesters they have and plan to kill. This photo is from the Times Online in England. The European news agencies are still reporting what our news agencies here refuse to.

Speaking of Brogues

The Ghillie Brogue is the standard shoe to be worn with the kilt. I do not always follow the rules. The real problem I have had with ghillie brogues is that almost all of the shoes are what I call a “novelty shoe”. Nothing more than a cheap product to fill a need. Then again many people treat the kilt and the Highland attire nothing more than a costume. I do not look at the iconic image of my Forefathers as a costume, and I certainly do not wear it on Halloween. I am also a person, and I hope you are to, that wants to purchase quality. There are many reasons to buy quality product, as in the long run, they end up costing you less than if you purchase a cheap product and then have to buy it again and again. It also may seem odd, since I own a retail business, but I do not like to shop. No, not even for stuff I like. I research my purchase and then make a purchase, done. I buy the best I can afford and that way I have to shop less by not having to buy it again latter. Ghillie brogues are one of those excellent examples. For the first few years we were in business, I did not carry brogues in our shop, because the quality of the shoes out there was so poor. After a while and many, many requests by customers I broke down and bought the best we could find at the time. Naturally I bought a pair for myself and went about wearing them. It was not a dozen wearings and the upper leather cracked at where my foot bends. So here I am buying another pair of ghillie brogues. We recently renewed a relationship with a popular dance shoe company that has come out with a new premium line of shoes. Six options in all from an economy brogue to a high end military shoe and everything in between. My purchase will be a pair of the Premium Dress Leather Sole shoes, because I wear leather sole shoes for all dress occasions, and predominantly I wear my kilt in dress situations. I am so impressed with this line of shoes that we are producing videos of the benefits and differences in each of the models offered. For those who purchase a pair of brogues from you will receive a demonstration video on how to tie your ghillie brogues.

http://www.kilts.com/ghillie_brogues.htm 

If the Shoe Fits

Over the many years we have been in business finding quality product should have been easy. Just buy everything from Scotland, and that is all you need to do. Well , I wish it was that easy. From our main page of our web site many of you are aware that, just because it is sold in Scotland, does not mean that it was made there. Much of Princess Street and the Royal Mile is full of merchandise that is knocked off in Pakistan. There are many manufacturers in Pakistan and everything made in Scotland has been ripped off by somebody in Pakistan. Now they have every right to make products there, and retailers in Scotland have the right to sell them. As long as they honestly present them as a product that was not made in Scotland. But that is not always the case and in fact we have received product from a distributor that was made in Pakistan , but promoted as made in Scotland. That said one of my biggest disappointments has been the shoes worn with a kilt , ghillie brogues. There are no shoes actually made in Scotland. The shoe business left there years ago. There is one manufacture left in England that produces a high quality ghillie brogue. The retail is near three-hundred dollars and that scares most customers away. So most ghillie brogues are made in Brazil , China, or some other third world country. The majority are nothing more than a poor quality novelty shoe and I was very hesitant in promoting the shoes. That has all changed with our new shoe company. Made in North America, these are a top of the line quality shoe and I could not be more pleased. Take a look at these new shoes as well as the videos for them. It only took thirteen years to get to this point.

http://www.kilts.com/ghillie_brogues.htm 

On the road The Kilt & Thistle

Well it’s Highland Games Season again. Well actually it has been for some time and depending on where you live , it is always Games Season somewhere. The was a time we started the year in January with a booth at the local Burns Celebration and then a small local Festival in April, before Tartan Day was proclaimed officially a real day. These days we do a small Tartan Day event in Washington 

http://www.tartanday-wa.org/ a nice event that has real potential. I hope you folks in Washington can get behind this one. Next this year for us was the Sacramento Highland Games in Woodland California. It seems like all the big events are not in the town they stated in for one reason or another. The Sacramento event really kicked ass on many levels. I only wish the Portland Highland Games , the closest event to our Oregon retail store, was this caliber of this event. Obligatory sip of Dalmore Cigar Malt and back to the post. As a side note, I thought I would by a blended whiskey for the summer Bar-B-Que season for whiskey and coke. Bought a half gallon of Grant’s. What a waste of money. I had no idea what a Single Malt Snob I had turned into. Now on to the rest of the post.
We then turned our sites to the local event in Eugene Scottish Festival, another newer small event with plenty of potential. However read my post Oregon Vs. Washington to get the flavor of these two small events and the vast differences. In the Northwest the Bellingham Highland Games , the first weekend in June really kicks things off up here. We have started limiting our events based on ROI , translated , return on investment. Two years ago we were doing twelve events a year this year we have cut that to less than half. For all these events and more see our events schedule posted at http://www.kilts.com/events.htm . Our next event is the Skagit Valley Highland Games in Mount Vernon Washington. We were personally invited to this event thirteen years ago when they were just getting started. It has grown to an attendance of over twenty-five thousand for the two day event. The folks that put this on, Skye Richendrfer in particular, have made this one of the must see events on the West Coast. You can get more info at http://www.celticarts.org/ the second weekend in July. Next in line for us is the Seattle Highland Games now names the Pacific Northwest Highland Games http://www.sshga.org/ and naturally it’s not in Seattle, it’s in the cute little town of Enumclaw. at the Expo Center. This is the largest event in the Northwest for an approximate thirty-five thousand in attendance for the two days. We were on a waiting list to get into this one, and I see why. If you live in the Northwest, try to make this event and be prepared to stay two days , because there is simply that much to see and do. August has several small events in Oregon with the best one being the Douglas County Highland Games http://www.dcscots.org/ . We no longer are a Vendor at this event, but I highly recommend it as one of the better small events when it comes to the variety of music during the two days. So we are in the store for August and then, for the first time, off to Pleasanton, California. By far the largest Highland Games on the West Coast. Last years attendance was sixty-five thousand and for our first year there we will probably not be fully prepared for what happens. I will certainly have a full report when it’s all over. We hope those of you that we have come to know by phone and email will stop by the booth to say hello. That buttons up our year and we settle back in to our retail store for the winter.

Washington vs. Oregon

The Kilt & Thistle Scottish Shop has been around since December of 1996. We opened a retail store and then added our sales on the Internet at www.kilts.com. The summer of ‘97 we started selling at some of the Highland Games here in the Northwest. Only a few at first, but we added events every year until we were doing twelve a year for several years. For more than a few years our sales at a single highland games event was equivalent to a full months of sales in our retail store. The reason we added as many events as we could. So there is a little of the background information and gives you a idea of how important the events were for the growth of the business. From the start the contrast between Oregon and Washington Highland Game events were dramatic. The state of Washington has roughly twice the population that Oregon does, and that is very important in respect to everything else. The Portland Highland Games is the largest of the events in Oregon and over the last ten years has had an average attendance around 8,000. The event itself is just over 50 years old , another important fact. There are another ten or so events around Oregon with attendance amongst all these around 2,000 average per event. Now remember that Washington has double the population than Oregon. Washington has a similar number of events, but the attendance difference is staggering as well as the enthusiasm factor. There are three large events in Washington, Bellingham Game in June, and Skagit Valley and the Pacific Northwest Highland Games, AKA Seattle Highland Games are both in July. Bellingham has an attendance around 12,000, Skagit Valley at 25,000 and the Seattle Games at 35,000. The Seattle Highland Games and the Portland Games have both been around the same number of years and look at the difference in attendance. Naturally as any good businessman I try to evaluate why these numbers differ so much. It is more than just shear numbers, evidenced by the two early spring events we did this year. The Tartan Day Festival in Puyallup and the Eugene Scottish Festival in May. The size of these events is about the same as the number of attendance, and similar numbers , in Clans, Vendors and entertainment offerings. The Tartan Day event is indoors and the Eugene event is outdoors, being the only major difference. This fact also threw my “outdoor events are better” theory right out the window. The Tartan Day event was more than double in total sales for us, over Eugene, and the quality of those in attendance was amazing as the Tartan Day event attendees were terrific. We have had our poor years at every event and theses two are no exception. But Eugene has been very disappointing for several years now. Frankly the only reason we show to either one of these events is the wonderful and dedicated people that organize and put them together. So back to my dilemma, why is the attendance so dramatically better in Washington than Oregon? Do people in Washington care about their Scottish heritage more than Oregonians? Is it the fact that Washington is closer to Canada a factor?

It happened to the Irish

May Day is Workers Day

 Now it’s also immigration day here in Salem. We have a history in this country of the immigrants being the bottom rung of the working class. The result was a hard working underclass bent on making a better world for themselves and as a by product a better world for all of us. However this immigration rally was all about one immigrant group, and that is the facts of it. It was not a immigration rally as much as it was about Amnesty and change the hurdles that immigrants need to climb to gain entrance to the United States. We all want it easy, hell that’s why I buy a lottery ticket once in a while. I once had a fellow tell me that if I did win I would not appreciate it, because I did not earn it. He was right, at least for much of my life that would be true. Frankly at my age, my pride can take a back seat and I am more than willing to win so that my family has it a little easier in their life. I have also been frugal enough in my life when I did have money, that I would not run right out and spend like there was no tomorrow. That said, there is no argument, that which we gain by luck or accident is far less appreciated than that which we work for. So it goes for citizenship to the United Sates. Those that go through all the steps to become a citizen, make far better citizens than those that do not. The rally itself in Salem probably had three to four thousand in attendance about the same as the April 15^th Tea Party. More than obvious was the police presence which was easily four times that at the Tea Party. I was at the rally from Noon to 12:30 which should have been their peak time. During that time I did not hear one word of English from the speakers or the musical acts. As I was thinking of the plight of the Hispanic workers, I think back to the immigration of the Irish to this country. For those of you unfamiliar to history, except for slavery, the Irish were treated with much the same disdain and prejudice as the Africa-Americans in this country. As late as the 1930’s there were still signs on restaurants that said “no Irish allowed”. As a matter of fact until the illumination of slavery the Irish were of less value than the slaves of their day. This was evident in the building of the railroads. During the construction of the railroads there were many dangerous jobs, including blasting holes into mountains. The railroad owners had slaves that they had paid good money for and were unwilling to risk that investment in a dangerous situation. They would hire the Irish or the Chinese , that they paid twenty-five cents a day, and would lose nothing if they blew themselves up. The reason I tell you that story is that directly relates to why so many in power want amnesty for the millions of illegals in this country. How many times do we hear of these social elites , both Democrats and Republicans, that are found out to have an illegal immigrant as a nanny or some other job. That is why they want them here, cheap labor. Amnesty is todays slavery. Cheap labor , to mow lawns, clean houses, and so many other jobs for big business that looks to take advantage of these poor immigrants. Rememberer “amnesty is the new slavery”.

 

Sad day for the British Soldier

Not sure where to begin on this one. If the subject were not so serious I would have thought it was a April fools joke. The British Military commonly referred to as the MOD has just purchased an Armored Dune Buggy. Actually 75 of them. Below is the article from Defense Management and they are serious.

http://www.defencemanagement.com/news_story.asp?id=9189

Let me say that again “An Armored Dune Buggy” , by it’s very nature there is very little that could be armored. So what are they protecting with the armor? Certainly not the soldiers!!!! The soldiers should simply not use them. As with our US Military and the Humvees that were sent into a war zone without armor, the soldiers simply took matters into their own hands and armored them the best they could in the field.

 

Armored Dune Buggy

British MOD Dune Buggy

 

My friends this is deadly serious and I am afraid for all us that there are people in high positions making these decisions.

Sacramento Highland Games

This was our first year as Vendors at the Sacramento Highland Games. Other Vendors had spoken highly of the event and I did as much research as I could about the event before applying. We applied for the 2008 Season only to be turned down. The Sacramento event organizers it seems have their standards. However it was not to do with our reputation , but more to do with theirs. This year as usual I contacted the Vendor Coordinator and as fate would have it, that a vendor had canceled for this year. Leaving a space that we were allowed to fill. For those of you not in the business, the number of vendors at an event is very important. If an event has more vendors than the attendance can support, then all of the vendors do poorly. Far too often the event organizers feel that the more the merrier, as they say. However for those of us in business, the key is a balance between too many and for the attendees having too few to select from. Many events even include vendors that are not even Celtic related. If for no other reason , it confuses those that attend a Highland Games as to what is Scottish and what is not. Having someone there that sells sun glasses for instance just does not make any sense. But you see all vendors pay for the space at these events, and the greed of the the event organizers takes priority over the purity of the event. If you are ever in the Sacramento area the last full weekend in April then I highly recommend this event. I was amazed at the number of displays and the entertainment available to the public. For the $12.00 entrance fee , there is more than a full day of things to see. Especially interesting in the military unit display. Scottish related military units from the era of the Romans to World War Two are there. Well displayed and outfitted , the camps were set up in period settings and there was over a dozen different units to take a look at. Several of them even had heavy canons that they fired off to the amusement of the crowd. The event is also blessed with a wide variety of musical acts. From a Grade Four Pipe Band Competition to well known acts such as Molly’s Revenge and even a punk Celtic group to round out the venue. A huge selection of food items were available from the traditional haggis to a modest selection of foods that anybody can eat. The only thing I was taken aback on was the prices of everything. Apparently in California they used to paying higher prices for just about everything than we are. This event is a two day event and even though it can be seen in one day, plan on two and really take all of it in.

I thought O’Bama was Irish

I was shocked to find out that it’s not O’Bama , but Obama, apparently he’s not Irish. Or at least from his poor knowledge of Irish history , reveals he is does not have a grasp of recent Irish events. President Obama compared the conflict of the IRA with England to the Palestinian, Israeli conflict. He believes peace can prevail simply by Presidential persistence. Whether you are on the side of the Palestinians or the Israeli’s , peace is just not that simple. I am old enough to remember President Jimmy Carters attempts at peace between the two and President Bill Clinton gave both leaders millions in foreign aid to say they had an agreement, only to have it last about an hour that it took to get to the plane leaving DC. I have been a student of the conflict between the British and the IRA. If you can call it that. Many people do not even realize that the original Irish Army was a uniformed military like any other. They and the British fought in open battle. Way too many Irish died because of it. After the Irish surrendered the IRA took over using terrorist tactics, refusing to abide by the agreement. From that grew organizations like Sinn Fein and now today, there is the Real IRA. The simple fact was that the larger terrorist IRA, did lay down their weapons only after a threat that they would never be recognized as a legitimate political power until they did just that. Because of President George Bush, Tony Blair and a great deal of help from the Church the IRA laid down their arms. It was as show of force and nothing less that help end the major conflict.

Adam Smith the founder of Capitalism

First we must address the fact that what you have experienced in your lives is not real Capitalism. As a matter of fact it we have not experienced capitalism since your great-grandfathers time. When the papers and politicians proclaim that Capitalism just does not work, they simply do not know what they are talking about. Real Capitalism has not been experienced since the early nineteen-hundreds here in the United States. Presidents Hoover and Wilson started and perpetuated the Great Depression with the New Deal and the new movement of transferring wealth from rich to poor. We did not have an income tax in this country until 1862 when President Lincoln needed to pay for the war.  By the way that is what taxes are for to pay for what government does.

Many of our Founding Fathers patterned our economic system after the Scotsman Adam Smith. For those of you that don’t know Adam Smith, Smith was an 18th Century educator and wrote two very important works in history. The first was The Theory of Morale Sentiments, and the second The Wealth of Nations. If you read those two works and the works of Ayn Rand, Atlas Shrugged, then you are well equipped to understand the theory of economics. There are simpler books and more readily available. If you are interested in Wealth of Nations , then I strongly suggest a book by P.J. O’Rourke On The Wealth of Nations . The first of Adam Smith’s  books , Moral  and Sentiments, helps you understand that Capitalism, just like the Constitution of the United States, must be used by moral and honest people. Immoral and dishonest people can make any system or government structure corrupt.
I bring this up because of the current use of the term Socialism. As if it just reared it’s ugly head since Barack Obama was made President. Anytime you transfer ( insert the word steal) wealth from one group of people to another, such as rich to poor, that is Socialism. Socialism just simply does not work. Look at countries like Russia, France, and others. As well as versions or advancements in Socialism such as Marxism, and Communism. Many say that people simply are not charitable. This is completely untrue, but that is a good excuse to have the government take your money and then it to someone else. By the way the IRS uses force to take your money, try not paying your taxes for a couple of years, the definition of theft is taking money by force. Our Founding Fathers were close enough in history to of remembered what happened to us in Scotland and Ireland. Shut off the big screen and read some history, before they ban the books. It’s happened before.