What’s Going on in England?

 From Charles Coulombe:

Love her or hate her, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland retains a deep hold on the imaginations of those nations which have sprung from her — including our own, as witness the popularity of Downton Abbey. But, as we all know, both President Trump and his Under Secretary of State for Public Diplomacy, Sarah Rogers, have been regularly criticising British Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer for what they characterise as his attacks on free speech and tolerance for “groomer gangs.” So just what is going on?

Well, quite a bit, actually. But first — what are “groomer gangs?” These are packs of immigrant Pakistani men who in various ways inveigle underage native British girls — some as young as 11 — into prostitution. This erupted into public notice with a documentary and some trials in 2013; but it has been going on since the 1980s. From 2008 to 2013, Sir Keir was director of public prosecutions (DPP), thusly head of the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). This body conducts criminal prosecutions in England and Wales. It has been heavily alleged that he was “soft” on the groomers — warning them instead of prosecuting them. A great many police and local political figures have been caught up in the scandal — most of whom are themselves Pakistani or of Pakistani descent.

Now, there are a lot of connected issues bobbing around Britain right now. “Two-tier policing,” for example, where native Britons guilty of thoughtcrime online are prosecuted and imprisoned, but non-whites who rape, murder, pillage and/or burn are allowed to go free. Non-white protesters are protected; white ones — as in those who protested the July 29, 2024 mass stabbing at a Taylor Swift-themed yoga and dance workshop in Southport, perpetrated by the 17-year-old son of Rwandan immigrants — are harshly suppressed. The internet constantly puts out stories of immigrants attacking native, while the government thunders against racism and tries to throttle freedom of speech. Local council elections the Labour Party might lose are being postponed for various reasons. In a word, Sir Keir seems hell-bent on making 1984 a reality.

Of course, in some ways Sir Keir is simply following Tony Blair’s lead. As Blair began the campaign to push most of the hereditary peers out of the House of Lords, Sir Keir has expelled the last of them. Blair’s invention of a Supreme Court and vivisecting the office of Lord Chancellor had helped make Sir Keir’s pantomime totalitarianism possible. At this point then, the question might be asked — but what of the Tories (a.k.a., the Conservative Party)? (Read more.)

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Atlantis: How Plato’s Story Corresponds to Real History

 From Greek Reporter:

Although most people around the world agree that the original Santorini hypothesis so far made the most compelling case where Plato’s Atlantis once was, unfortunately, there are two critical flaws with that theory, which have allowed critics over the years to maintain the story was just a myth.

The first problem is that the hypothesis entirely discards Plato’s given chronology of 9,600 BC. A more significant problem with the original theory is that the primary island of Atlantis, an island the size of Crete, one Plato said was supposed to be nine kilometers away from the circular island within an island setting, is not around the Santorini backdrop of 1,600 BC.

As is common knowledge, a genuine discovery requires that all elements of a physical description are present, and all are in the given order. In this case, if any of the clues given to us by Plato are missing, the elements are not arranged in the correct order, or the chronology does not coincide with Plato’s given chronology, then all is speculation.

The book ATLANTIS The Find of a Lifetime embarks on a 10,000-year journey that effectively reveals Atlantis’s submerged island and demonstrates how Plato’s 2400-year-old story corresponds to real history. (Read more.)

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Louis XVI Gives a Marriage Dowry to 100 Poor French Girls

 

From Nobility:

On February 9th, 1779 (in the narrative of Louise de Grandpré, to whom the study of Notre Dame has been a veritable passion), a large crowd pressed towards the cathedral; the ground was strewed with fresh grass and flowers and leaves; the pillars were decorated with many coloured banners. In the choir the vestments of the saints were displayed: the burning 36tapers lit up the interior with a dazzling brightness: the organ filled the church with joyful harmony, and the bells rang out with all their might. The whole court was present, the King himself assisting at the ceremony, and the galleries were full to overflowing of ladies of distinction in the gayest of dresses.

 Then slowly, through the door of St. Anne, entered a hundred young girls dressed in white, covered with long veils and with orange blossom on their heads. These were the hundred poor girls whom Louis XVI. had dowered in memory of the birth of Marie-Thérèse-Charlotte of France, afterwards Duchess of Angoulême, and it was his wish to assist personally at their wedding and to seal their marriage licences with his sword, which was ornamented on the handle or pommel with the “fleur de lys”.

 Through the door of the Virgin entered at the same time one hundred young men, having each a sprig of orange blossom in his button-hole. The two rows advanced together with measured steps, preceded by two Swiss, who struck the pavement heavily with their halberds. They advanced as far as the chancel rails, where each young man gave his hand to a young girl, his fiancée, and marched slowly before the King, bowing to him and receiving a bow in return. They were then married by the Archbishop in person. (Read more.)

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The Donroe Doctrine: Break the Tyrant, Not the Country

 From Unlicensed Punditry:

For decades, American foreign policy was guided—at least informally—by what came to be known as the Powell Doctrine. Colin Powell summarized the concept with what became known as the “Pottery Barn Rule”: if you break it, you bought it. The idea was that if the United States toppled a regime or destabilized a country, we then inherited responsibility for rebuilding it. That assumption was the philosophical foundation for the long nation-building exercises in Iraq and Afghanistan, where American forces were expected not only to defeat hostile regimes but to rebuild political systems, civil institutions, and entire economies.

Donald Trump appears to have rejected that premise entirely.

Americans instinctively understand how unrealistic that idea is because we would never apply it to ordinary life. If a neighbor’s house catches fire and the flames are spreading toward your property, you grab a hose and help put the fire out. What you don’t do is assume responsibility for rebuilding the entire house, choosing the new furniture, and deciding how the family should live from that point forward. The Powell Doctrine effectively told the United States that every time we helped extinguish a dangerous fire abroad, we were obligated to become the contractor for rebuilding the whole neighborhood.

Uncharacteristically for Donald J. Trump, a significant part of what he did in Venezuela was understated and has largely gone unnoticed—I’m not sure that if something isn’t hyperbolized or gilded in gold, people can recognize a Trump plan—but may represent a quiet but profound shift in how American power is applied. Instead of launching a long occupation or attempting to remake the country’s political system, the United States simply removed the central figure responsible for the regime’s worst abuses and left the state structure largely intact. (Read more.)

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The Three Tongues on the Cross and The Inheritance of Christianity

 From Jared Selim:

When Our Lord hung with outstretched arms upon the tormenting Cross of Golgotha, Pilate fixed a titulus above His Head. It declared before the world in the three great languages that resounded through Judea: “Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews.”

These languages were Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. In the scornful inscription of the Romans, they declared despite themselves what the Jews who delivered their Messiah to death would not: the true and universal Kingship of the Logos made flesh, Filius Dei—the Son of God. As St. Jerome said, “the voices and writings of all nations proclaim the passion and the resurrection of Christ. […] the Jews, the Greeks, and the Romans, [were] peoples which the Lord has dedicated to His faith by the title written on His cross.”1

If these three peoples represent all nations, then every Christian, by our baptism and life in Mother Catholic Church, enters into the Hebraic, Greek, and Roman expressions of Christ.2 The Messiah shines in the particular forms and manners of these nations.(Read more.)

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Marie-Antoinette's Library at Versailles

All of the Queen's books were bound in red Moroccan leather and stamped in gold with her coat-of-arms

From Les Carnets de Versailles [translated by Tea at Trianon]:

Several handwritten catalogs, written between 1781 and 1792, list the Queen's books: nearly 500 titles, for a set of around 1,800 volumes. We find on the shelves of Versailles all the great authors, Latin and Greek classics as well as French and foreign writers. The ancients...but also La Fontaine, Boileau, Corneille, Molière, Racine, Regnard, Crébillon, Destouches, Madame de Sévigné, Madame de La Fayette, Lesage rub shoulders with the contemporaries - Voltaire, Rousseau, Beaumarchais , Goldoni, Defoe, Mme Riccoboni, Fielding, Richardson…

Marie-Antoinette had a certain predilection for romantic literature, entertaining works, theater and music. It also has a large music library (scores and booklets) supplied by the Menus Plaisirs. The more austere books, less appreciated by the sovereign, are not overlooked: theology (Pascal, Bossuet, Fénelon, Bourdaloue, Massillon, Nicole), history (Mézeray, Montfaucon…), science (Buffon, Nollet, Duhamel du Monceau …) are present on the shelves. There are also large volumes of travel and archeology, illustrated with magnificent engravings.... 

Like many of the Château's collections, the books formerly stored in the Queen's library have been scattered. The shelves today hold a deposit from the National Library of France, composed of 18th century works, of royal origin, selected for their binding in red morocco. Some books with the arms of Queen Marie-Antoinette were nevertheless able to return to the site, in particular the two acquisitions made in 2019: an Office of the Virgin, printed in 1771 by Michel Lambert, and Les Lacunes de la philosophie, by François Louis d ' Escherny, published in 1783. (Read more.)

Faux bookshelf disguising a door panel

More on the Queen's library, HERE. Marie-Antoinette also had a library at Petit Trianon, HERE and HERE.

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Dark Woke, Rage Rooms, and the Blinding Narcissism of Online Tribalism

 From Chronicles:

Why are white liberal women from affluent backgrounds willing to man the ramparts and put their lives on the line to protect illegal immigrants, some of whom are rapists and murderers, from deportation? There are many possible answers: a self-perceived need to oppose injustice, or to have a sense of agency, community, purpose, or even an antidote to loneliness. All are plausible explanations considering the average progressive’s mindset is like layers of onion skin. But I believe there is a simple answer.

Over the past decade, Gallup World Poll data show that women globally have become 6 percentage points angrier than men. Forget the gender wage gap—there’s now a gender rage gap. Thomas Sowell may have been right: not all disparities come from discrimination. Women are mad as hell, and they aren’t going to take it anymore. This surge in reported anger hasn’t gone unnoticed—in fact, it’s now being actively commodified through the growing popularity of “rage rooms.”

A rage room is a place for women to vent pent-up anger. When a middle-aged liberal woman is denied the chance to speak with a manager or is mansplained to, she can simply pay to smash items in a padded, soundproofed room. Just book a slot, grab a sledgehammer, and let off steam. It’s a commercialized catharsis that’s cheaper than therapy, or a divorce lawyer. Capitalism at its finest. (Read more.)

 

From The Capitalist:

The phenomenon of these deeply unhappy individuals is so commonly experienced in society that we have even given it a name: “The Karen.” And these Karens saw themselves in Spanberger who treated them as want to be treated: victims.

Virginia’s Karens are victims of Donald Trump who twice has denied them an equally miserable woman Presidency. They are victims of Elon Musk’s DOGE cuts to their government funded nonprofit which raises awareness about heart disease in lesbian snails. Victims of the “Republican shut down” which furloughed them from their Department of Whatever day job under the cruel moniker “non-essential personnel”. Victims of male Justices on the Supreme Court who threatened their sacred right to abortion. Victims of War Secretary Pete Hegseth who said they must train at the same physical standards as men. (Pete perhaps they hate the most because no man who looks like Pete winks at them anymore).

Winsome Sears did not coddle these women. The former Marine did not indulge their Karenocity, feed their Karenness, ignite their Karenisms.

Sears, the black immigrant Republican, does not see herself as a victim. Spanberger did, as all liberal women do, and they loved her for it.

For a Karen, elections are not about who is the better leader or which policies best serve society. No, elections are a rage-filled debate on The View, a self- empowering episode of Oprah, or a candle-lit bathtub and a well-worn copy of Fifty Shades of Grey.

Electoral politics are affirmation. They are therapy.

Think about it: The pointless “No Kings” protest last month was mostly comprised of white women in their 40’s, and that is very odd. This is not 1970’s, where women are called “toots” with their fanny’s smacked in smoke filled offices. These Karens are not Norma Rae demanding the right to unionize. Women have overcome legitimate trials, and triumphantly so. But that is not today’s Karen who almost certainly has experienced nothing comparable without an immediate HR action, lawsuit, or exposé in a print magazine.

Today’s 40-year old women have only known a red-carpet life in the majority with every effort of institutions and corporations catering to their needs. The majority of college and university students are women. The majority of post- graduate and doctoral students, medical school, law school students are women. Women out-earn men in the same professional field, a statistic that makes them apparently so unhappy, they have to invent the “pay gap” myth.

No Kings? If anything, the protest should be called “No Queens”. Women in America have it so good they can yell at a man for holding open a door but still demand they exit first in a fire. (Read more.)

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A New Planet

 From Earth:

Enaiposha, that also goes by the identifier GJ 1214 b, was first placed in a category that normally describes small, gas-rich worlds. New observations, however, suggest that it is more like Venus but on a bigger scale.

Researchers propose calling it a super-venus because it appears to have a thick atmosphere composed of hydrogen, helium, water, methane and carbon dioxide.

This finding came from recent measurements that showed faint traces of molecules at key parts of the spectrum.

Sub-Neptune planets that are smaller than Neptune in size are the most common type of planet known to exist in the Milky Way, but they are absent from the solar system.

They have atmospheres that consist of a variety of gases and atmospheric spectroscopy is used to analyze what gases are present.

Enaiposha differs from a typical sub-neptune in that its upper layers are blanketed by haze and aerosols.

This makes it very difficult to analyze the atmosphere spectroscopically to establish which gases form the atmosphere on the exoplanet.

Venus also has clouds that block most views of its surface, but Enaiposha takes this phenomenon further. It is bigger, hotter, and enveloped by layers that make it especially hard to examine. (Read more.)

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Hamnet (2025)

 

  From The Catholic Thing:

Hamnet begins with the meeting and mating of William Shakespeare and Anne Hathaway, called Agnes in the book and film, because her father’s will refers to her by that name. O’Farrell, who came across Richard Hathaway’s will, sees “Agnes” as a kind of revelation about the way, historically, the fame of fathers, sons, and husbands has subsumed female identities.

There’s truth in that, although probably not in this case. In O’Farrell’s novel, the playwright’s surname never appears. He’s just “Will.” So, in a fair exchange for “history’s” marginalization of Anne Hathaway, Farrell and Zhao place William Shakespeare in the margins of the book and the film. And, twee as I think that is, it doesn’t diminish the movie’s power. Besides, we know perfectly well who’s wooing Agnes.

Hamnet moves slowly through their courtship: a kind of midsummer-night’s-dream of wonder in what’s probably the Forest of Arden. Agnes is an almost pagan figure, gathering medicinal plants and cavorting with her falcon. Is she a witch? Will, his father being a glover, presents her with a hawking gauntlet. He tells her the story of the ill-fated love between Orpheus and Eurydice. Will and Agnes have sexual intercourse. They marry and have three children. By and by, Will leaves for London.

At the heart of Hamnet, of course, is the boy, Hamnet, the Shakespeares’ only son, born with his twin sister, Judith, in 1585. (Their oldest, Susanna, had come two years earlier.) The real Hamnet would die of bubonic plague at age 11, and is buried (as are his father and mother) at the Church of the Holy Trinity in Stratford-upon-Avon.

The loss of a child is devastating. It was even in the 16th century when infant and childhood deaths were commonplace. The film does not explicitly suggest that Will retreated to London out of grief, but it seems that way, especially because we are given no hint that this young, grieving father will dominate the literature of the English-speaking world as no one ever had, or has since.

Perhaps his success, his fortune, and his work don’t justify “abandonment.” But, perhaps, there was no abandonment.

After all, Agnes was no poor child. When they married, Will was 18, and she was 26. We don’t know when Shakespeare left Warwickshire for London, but it was certainly after the births of the twins and may have been after Hamnet’s death. Anne would then have been in her early to mid 30s. (Read more.)

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