Challenging the Narrative: The Fate of the Princes in the Tower

 From Murrey and Blue:

Here is a bit of a coincidence: John Wesley died on 2nd March 1791 and Horace Walpole died on 2nd March 1797. Both of them wrote about Richard III. John Wesley was a widely respected cleric, theologian and evangelist of the 18th century. He wrote a concise history of England in four volumes. In Volume 2, pages 27 to 65 cover the reigns of Henry VI, Edward IV and Edward V. Pages 66 to 152 are devoted to Richard III. However he used the text from Horace Walpole’s book about Richard III. On Wikipedia it mentions this:-

In spite of the proliferation of his literary output, Wesley was challenged for plagiarism, for borrowing heavily from an essay by Samuel Johnson, published in March 1775. Initially denying the charge, Wesley later apologised officially.

In his book Horace Walpole defended the much maligned King in great detail and states that Richard was innocent of the many crimes that he had been accused of.

In short, that Henry’s character, as we have received it from his own apologists, is so much worse and hateful than Richard’s, that we may well believe Henry invented and propagated by far the greater slander against Richard : that Henry, not Richard, put to death the true duke of York, as he did the earl of Warwick : and that we are not certain whether Edward the Fifth was murdered; nor, if he was, by whose order he was murdered. (Read more.)

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Spring in the Middle Ages

From Medievalists:

Nowadays, in the Northern hemisphere, Spring starts on March 21, which corresponds to an equinox, when daylight and nighttime are equal in length. Medieval authors too associated the beginning of Spring with March. In his seventh-century encyclopedia known as the Etymologies, Isidore of Seville wrote that March is “also called the month of new things, because the month of March is the beginning of the year. It is also called the “new Spring” from its signs of germination…” But why did Isidore qualify March as “the beginning of the year”, you might wonder? In several regions of medieval Europe, civil calendars followed the Annunciation model, with a change of year on the feast day.

In Annunciation-style calendars, therefore, March 24 was the last day of the year, and March 25 marked the beginning of the new year. The Annunciation is a Christian holiday falling on March 25, which celebrates the archangel Gabriel’s visit to the Virgin Mary, when he told her she would be the mother of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. The new calendar year therefore began with Spring, a season linked to new life. This powerful association between Spring and rebirth was both religious (the Annunciation) and empirical, that is, based on observation (with Spring come new leaves, grass and the return of migratory species).

How did medieval people perceive the arrival of Spring? How was Spring depicted in medieval calendars and literary texts? And, was Spring the “mating season” for humans, as it is for many animal species? (Read more.)

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Danger Close

 

 

Demons. From Tierney's Real News:

Did you know that the atheist, satanic & transgender lobbies in Minnesota are so powerful that they have taken over the Minnesota Capitol - even during Christmas & Easter? If you live in Minnesota - and are a person of faith - is this what you hoped for the future of your state and your children?

Governor Walz of Minnesota went to the Minnesota Capitol yesterday to declare March 31, 2025 as the official TRANSGENDER DAY OF VISIBILITY in the state during Lent. (Read more.)

 

Stealing Wisconsin. From Tierney's Real News:

Here is a summary of the election results in Wisconsin for the past 5 elections. Voter ID was on the ballot in the last election along with the Wisconsin Supreme Court race. The Democrat candidate for the Supreme Court, Susan Crawford, is AGAINST VOTER ID but somehow that measure passed and she won? That alone makes no sense. It’s almost like they flipped the answers.

The elections in Wisconsin are controlled out of Madison (Dane County) and Milwaukee - just as elections in Minnesota are controlled out of CD5 (Ilhan Omar’s district in Minneapolis) and Hennepin County. (Read more.)

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Canaanite Seal

 From The Times of Israel:

A three-year-old Israeli girl has found a scarab-shaped Canaanite amulet dating back some 3,800 years at the site of Tel Azeka near Bet Shemesh, the Israel Antiquities Authority (IAA) announced Tuesday.

Ziv Nitzan, from Moshav Ramot Meir, was hiking with her parents and two older sisters at the foot of the hill where the archaeological site stands when she picked up what appeared to be a small stone.

“We were walking along the path, and then Ziv bent down – and out of all the stones around her, she picked up this particular stone,” Omer Nitzan, Ziv’s sister, said in a statement sent out by the IAA. “When she rubbed it and removed the sand from it, we saw something was different about it. I called my parents to come see the beautiful stone, and we realized we had discovered an archaeological find! We immediately reported this to the Israel Antiquities Authority.”

Scarab amulets trace their origins to ancient Egypt, where beetles were revered as sacred symbols of renewal. Egyptians believed these insects embodied new life, as they laid their eggs inside the dung balls they rolled — seemingly bringing life from decay.

“Scarabs were used in this period as seals and as amulets,” Dr. Daphna Ben-Tor, an expert in the field, said in a statement. “They were found in graves, in public buildings, and in private homes. Sometimes they bear symbols and messages that reflect religious beliefs or status.” (Read more.)

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In the Heart of Hampstead

 From Country Life:

Oh, for a crystal ball. It would have helped to see the future in 1993, when Grade II-listed Cloth Hill, on The Mount in Hampstead, came to the market. By the end of October, it had been sold by Savills for ‘slightly less than the asking price of £1 million,’ as Country Life reported at the time.

Now, it is for sale — with Savills again, and also this time Marcus Parfitt — at a rather more robust £18 million. And no, the price rise isn't all down to inflation: £1 million from 1993 would be little more than £2.1 million in today’s money. This house has outpaced inflation nine-fold. Stratospheric rises aside, there is much to commend this Queen Anne house, thought to be the second oldest surviving in Hampstead — not least its history. Cloth Hill owes its name to Tudor laundry: some say the spot was where the Court launderers did their washing, others that, there, ‘the virgin heath was white with drying linen’. Much later in the same century, George Romney, his health declining fast, sought Hampstead’s fresh air. Having moved in 1796, he just about managed to knock down Cloth Hill’s stables and coach house to build himself a new home (with painting room and gallery), when he became so ill that he decided to head back to Cumbria and his wife — whom he had otherwise neglected for more than 30 years. Cloth Hill passed into the hands of Thomas Rundell, most likely a scion of the goldsmith dynasty. When living there, his wife, Maria, published the culinary bestseller of the time, A New System of Domestic Cookery. (Read more.)

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Trump's Tariffs

 From Sharyl's Substack:

The benefit will be felt by American agricultural exporters of products like tree nuts, soybean meal, and apples, which previously faced tariffs of 10-20% in Israel. The move will save U.S. exporters millions, and boost U.S. producers of those products, who will now have better market opportunities in Israel.

Reciprocal tariffs could have hit Israeli products hard, including diamonds, pharmaceuticals, and integrated circuits, impacting sale of foreign jewelry, medications, and electronics in the U.S.

Tariffs have deep roots in the U.S., dating back to the Tariff Act of 1789, one of the first laws passed by the new Congress, aimed at raising revenue for the federal government and protecting American industries. For much of the 19th century, tariffs were a primary source of federal income, often sparking debates over free trade versus protectionism. The Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act of 1930, which raised tariffs to record levels, is widely blamed for worsening the Great Depression by stifling global trade.

Simply put, a tariff is a government-imposed charge on imported goods, collected at the border as the products enter the country. And the media is full of reporters and commentators voicing various opinions and analyses on the Trump plans.

Yet polls consistently show many Americans don’t understand and cannot accurately describe tariffs.

This article will explore the practical aspects of Trump’s tariffs. Who really pays them? What are the best and worst case scenarios for impact to U.S. taxpayers? And how will the tariffs play out with real products from countries like Mexico, Canada, and beyond?

Read on for details. (Read more.)

 

I have a political podcast, HERE, mostly about Maryland, but other things, too. The latest episode is HERE. Please do subscribe.

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Why Do the Clocks Go Forward in Spring?

 From Country Life:

The idea of using different time during the summer is actually an ancient one, and Founding Father of the US Benjamin Franklin was among those. But a dual system of Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) in the winter and BST in the summer was first mooted by William Willett, in a pamphlet published in 1907, entitled The Waste of Daylight. Willett wasn’t a scientist, but a builder — and also, as it happens, great-great grandfather of Coldplay’s frontman, Chris Martin.

He was also a keen golfer, and it was this that prompted his idea: he resented the fact that the early onset of dusk curtailed his game. He was successful in lobbying Liberal MP Robert Pearce to introduce the Daylight Saving Bill in 1908. The bill, though, was rejected by the House of Commons and Willett, who died of influenza in 1915, was to miss out on seeing his dream come true by one year.

Ultimately, daylight saving was introduced in Britain in 1916 to conserve energy and help the war effort rather than to appease frustrated golfers. Taking their lead from the Germans, the British moved their clocks forward by one hour between May 21 and October 1. The move was so popular that BST has remained to this day, although the start and end dates — the last Sundays in March and October respectively — were only aligned across the European Union from October 22, 1995.

At the end of summer 1940, once more to conserve energy, clocks were not turned back. When the clocks were moved an hour forward in spring 1941, Britain operated a British Double Summer Time and continued to do so until the winter clock was realigned once more with GMT in the autumn of 1947. More radically, between February 1968 and November 1971, BST was adopted the whole year round on a trial basis. Due to its unpopularity, though, particularly among the farming community, the government abandoned the exercise in 1972 and reinstated the dual system. (Read more.)

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The Farewell of Madame Elisabeth to Madame Royale

The day before her execution the sister of Louis XVI, Madame Elisabeth of France, was taken from the Temple prison to the Conciergerie. Madame Royale describes the sad moment in her Memoirs. (Via Vive la Reine.) To quote:

My aunt kissed me and told me to be calm for she would soon return. “No, citoyenne, you will not return,” they said to her; “take your cap and come down.” They loaded her then with insults and coarse speeches; she bore it all with patience, took her cap; kissed me again, and told me to have courage and firmness, to hope always in God, to practice the good principles of religion given me by my parents, and not to fail in the last instructions given to me by my father and by my mother.

–from the account of Marie-Thérèse Charlotte of France, on the departure of her aunt Elisabeth from the Temple, May 9th 1794 Share

Reforming US Public Health under RFK

 From James Howard Kunstler:

Dr. Chris Martenson, is an economic researcher and futurist specializing in energy and resource depletion, finance and banking, and the science and politics surrounding the Covid-19 affair. Before founding PeakProsperity.com, where he provides analysis, commentary, and actionable advice, Martenson worked as a Vice President at a Fortune 300 company and spent over a decade in corporate finance and strategic consulting. His academic background includes a PhD in neurotoxicology from Duke University and a post-doctoral program in the same field, followed by an MBA in Finance from Cornell University. (Read more.)

 

From The Vigilant Fox:

Calley Means just dropped a series of truth bombs at Politico’s Health Care Summit—and anti-MAHA lobbyists weren’t ready for it. Lighting up the stage, Means ripped into the federal health agencies and the medical establishment, calling them out for being captured by industry lobbyists. He said these agencies have “utterly failed” and blamed them for overseeing a decades-long decline in American health. The election of President Trump, he argued, wasn’t just political—it was a clear message from voters demanding deep reform at every level of these broken institutions.

When it came to food policy, Means didn’t hold back in calling out how lobbyists have corrupted the system. “One thing Bobby Kennedy is not going to do,” he told Politico’s Dasha Burns, “is entertain comments from food lobbyists using food prices as an excuse to continue poisoning children. That’s not going to work… We have 10,000 chemicals in our food that are not allowed in any other country.” (Read more.)

 

From Keto Mojo:

 Although research is still in its early stages, several small studies suggest that ketogenic diets may lead to promising outcomes in several mental health disorders.

Depression and anxiety:

• • A 2023 systematic review of case reports and observational studies concluded that ketogenic diets may provide benefits for individuals with mood and anxiety disorders, although further study is needed. (8)
  • In a case series, three patients with major depression and generalized anxiety disorder who followed an animal-based ketogenic diet for 7 to 12 weeks  experienced complete remission from their condition, along with improvements in quality of life, body composition, and metabolic health markers. In addition, the two patients with binge-eating disorder reported that they no longer binged or felt the urge to binge within days of starting ketogenic metabolic therapy. (9)

Bipolar disorder and schizophrenia:

• • Researchers conducted a 6-8 week pilot study of a ketogenic diet in 26 euthymic individuals with bipolar disorder.  Among the 20 participants who completed the trial, 91% of blood ketone (beta-hydroxybutyrate) measurements fell within the nutritional ketosis range, and the diet was generally well-tolerated with minimal side effects. (10) Daily beta-hydroxybutyrate levels were positively correlated with self-rated mood and energy levels and inversely associated with impulsivity and anxiety. (11) In addition, participants lost an average of 9.2 lbs (4.2 kg).
  • A retrospective analysis explored the effects of a ketogenic diet in 28 inpatient adults with treatment-resistant severe mental illnesses, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. All patients experienced improvement in symptoms, with nearly half achieving remission, and 64% were able to reduce or discontinue their psychotropic medications. (12)
  • In a pilot study, 23 individuals with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and metabolic abnormalities followed a ketogenic diet for four months. Schizophrenia patients saw a 32% reduction in symptoms, and 69% of those with bipolar disorder showed significant clinical improvement. Additionally, none of the participants met the criteria for metabolic syndrome by the end of the study, with adherent individuals experiencing significant reductions in waist circumference, insulin resistance, and triglyceride levels. (13)

Currently, several trials exploring the impact of KMT on mental health disorders are recruiting or already in progress. (Read more.)

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