Tea at Trianon: Polio Outbreak in Africa

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Monday, September 14, 2020

Polio Outbreak in Africa

From Big League Politics:

Just last week, the WHO was boasting about eradicating the wild polio virus from the African continent. In an ironically tragic twist, their own vaccines are now responsible for the rapid spread of the virus throughout Africa.

These type of vaccinations are being pushed with the backing of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The infamous organization is behind a consortium known as the Global Polio Eradication Initiative (GPEI). They have made massive strides to pump these potentially dangerous shots into third-world children the world over.

“Through polio eradication efforts, GPEI partners have learned how to overcome logistical, geographic, social, political, cultural, ethnic, gender, financial, and other barriers to working with people in the poorest and least accessible areas. The fight against polio has created new ways of addressing human health in the developing world—through political engagement, funding, planning and management strategies, research, and more,” the consortium writes on their official website.

“We support efforts to tailor communications to particular social, cultural, and political contexts to build demand for vaccination and to dispel myths about the safety and efficacy of vaccines,” the consortium writes. (Read more.)