'Avant, black-browes'.

 'Avant, black-browes'.

This phrase originates in Cervantes' Don Quixote, or at least in Thomas Shelton's 1620 translation - Cervantes Saavedra's History of Don Quixote:

"You are like what is said that the frying-pan said to the kettle, 'Avant, black-browes'."

The first person who is recorded as using the phrase in English was William Penn, the founder of Pennsylvania, in his Some fruits of solitude, 1693:

For a Covetous Man to inveigh against Prodigality, an Atheist against Idolatry, a Tyrant against Rebellion, or a Lyer against Forgery, and a Drunkard against Intemperance, is for the Pot to call the Kettle black.

In 1681, King Charles II handed over a large piece of his American land holdings to William Penn to satisfy a debt the king owed to Penn's father. This land included present-day Pennsylvania and Delaware. Penn immediately sailed to America and his first step on American soil took place in New Castle in 1682.

Penn was a Quaker, and he founded Pennsylvania. Among Penn's legacies was the unwillingness to force a Quaker majority upon Pennsylvania, allowing his state to develop into a successful “melting pot”. In addition, Thomas Jefferson and the founding Fathers adapted Penn’s theory of an amendable constitution and his vision that “all men are equal under God” in forming the federal government following the American Revolution.

But what of this “Pot calling the Kettle black”? 

Well, the USA and the Russia government are both customers of Russia arms trafficker Rosoboronexport to buy attack helicopters for Syria and Afghanistan, respectively. The circumstances are decidedly different. 

I don’t see anything wrong with our Secretary of State calling Russia to account in its dealings with Syria and Rosoboronexport, but Russia has always been an ally and suppler to Syria, so that is no surprise. 

And the US is doing the same in Afghanistan and this is no surprise, either.

If memory serves, the US backed the for-runners of the Taliban in what some called a proxy war against the USSR and the Afghan government in years gone passed. Now regimes have changed, and the US is friends with the Afghan government and Russia, and the Taliban is the enemy. But things could change in a matter of days, seemingly on the whim of a fickle politico. 

But it’s not actually whimsical at all. The Apostle Paul explains better than I could:

For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places. 13 Wherefore take unto you the whole amour of God, that ye may be able to withstand in the evil day, and having done all, to stand. (Ephesians 6-12)   

Are you ready?