My gawd, what blather about a BOW...

The right wing media has lost their marbles, if they ever had any in the first place.

So, it is story time, kiddies.... Unca Ren is gonna tell you one, yep..

Very long ago, and fer away... there was this fallen kingdom called Austria, which had become a democracy. And in doing so... they had done away with silly things like titles, and the former nobility had no right to use them any more, even tho some people still looked up to them because they had a 'name'.

But the neighboring kingdom wasn't so harsh, and allowed their former nobility to keep their titles, and even put them in their passports!

Now there was this naive young man who came from way across the ocean, and worked in a hospice. His kingdom was a rabid democracy, whose people believed that EVERY ONE was equal.

One evening a very old man came into the hospice out of the rain, and the naive young man thought it was an old farmer in a plastic raincoat with a very striking face, which resembled portraits he had seen in museums. He wanted the simplest of rooms the hospice had to offer. And presented his passport.

And in the passport, he was titled as 'the prince--from here--to there.' And the naive young man thought, 'oh, how do I ADRESS him?' It was a real dilemma for him. And then he decided, 'Fuck this, we don't kow-tow to anyone like that'. And pretended nothing was disturbing, and used the polite form of address. As in French, the country had two forms of addressing people. So he chose 'diplomacy', because he didn't know what to do.

Asking about, he learned that the prince was one of the most powerful and rich of the neighboring kingdom, and that made him very uncertain.

Thankfully, the prince came back to the hospice every year to attend seminars regarding railways, which was his passion. And he was so gracious and charming, that the naive young man changed his views about what he had been taught about 'tyrants'. One evening he told the prince about his first reaction, and the prince said, 'Oh, my dear young man! Who thinks of that nowadays???' And he smiled.

Which reminded the naive young man of Proust, who maintained that the higher the title, the more gracious people were. (He had learned a little in the meanwhile.)

After many years, the prince came for his last visit. He told the naive young man he would not be back for the next seminar, because his hearing was so bad, and he would not 'ask anyone to speak up so I can hear them.'

The naive young man broke protocol. He took the hand of the now frail prince in both of his, and thanked him for having known him and for having visited the hospice for decades, and that from his heart.

The prince froze a little, having a commoner 'touch' him, but then was gracious.

And polite to the naive young man with heart-warming messages.

The prince died six months or so later. And the naive young man mourned his passing. He met princesses, and horrible earls, and Counts, and all... but the prince was truly a prince. And he had learned what protocol is, so he never got flustered again.

Tja, another fractured fairy tale. Except it is fairly true.

What the naive young man learned was that giving respect earned respect, and that if you want to get ahead, you adapt as far as you can to get what you want.