A place for friends to meet... with reflections on politics, history, art, music, books, morals, manners, and matters of faith.
A blog by Elena Maria Vidal.
"She was not a guilty woman, neither was she a saint; she was an upright, charming woman, a little frivolous, somewhat impulsive, but always pure; she was a queen, at times ardent in her fancies for her favourites and thoughtless in her policy, but proud and full of energy; a thorough woman in her winsome ways and tenderness of heart, until she became a martyr."
"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."
"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
A Note on Reviews
Unless otherwise noted, any books I review on this blog I have either purchased or borrowed from the library, and I do not receive any compensation (monetary or in-kind) for the reviews.
He conducted himself with composure and
gave his cloak to Dr Juxon, the Bishop of London, saying,“I go
from to corruptible to an incorruptible crown where no disturbance can be.” He lay full length, placed his head on a low block and with
one strike the executioner severed his head from his body.When he
died a great groan went through the crowd.“Such a groan by thousands then present, as I never heard
before and I desire I may never hear again.” (Read more.)
Robert Kennedy Jr. just endured 3.5 hours of relentless grilling by
Senate Democrats—but to their dismay, he responded with poise, deep
knowledge, and an undeniable passion for tackling America’s chronic
disease crisis.
In his opening statement, he expertly broke down
the nation’s health catastrophe, exposing the alarming trends plaguing
millions of Americans.
“Today, Americans’ overall health is in grievous condition. Over 70% of adults and a third of children are overweight or obese.”
“Diabetes
is 10 times more prevalent than it was during the 1960s. Cancer among
young people is rising by 1 or 2% a year. Autoimmune diseases,
neurodevelopmental disorders, Alzheimer’s, asthma, ADHD, depression,
addiction, and a host of other physical and mental health conditions are
all on the rise, some of them exponentially.”
“The United States
has worse health than any other developed nation. Yet we spend more on
health care—at least double, and in some cases triple, what other
countries spend. Last year, we spent $4.8 trillion, not counting the
indirect cost of missed work.”
“A healthy person has a thousand
dreams. A sick person has only one. Today, over half of our countrymen
and women are chronically ill.” (Read more.)
Director of National Intelligence designate Tulsi Gabbard torched her
detractors during her opening statement to the Senate Intelligence
Committee on Thursday, addressing their likely attacks before they even
had a chance to deliver them.
Gabbard wrapped up her statement by
predicting that Democrats on the committee — with whom she had
previously shared party affiliation — would challenge her loyalty to the
United States and question whether she was a “puppet” beholden to
President Donald Trump, Russian President Vladimir Putin, or a host of
others. (Read more.)
Senator Eric Schmitt
(R-MO) used his time during Thursday’s Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing to strike up a brief game of “Would You Rather?” with Kash
Patel, President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI).
“I know Senator Willis has got the game of
Bingo, I’d like to play a different game. Would you rather?” Schmitt
began, prompting a laugh from Patel.
“Let’s have at it, sir,” Patel agreed.
Schmitt
repurposed the game, which presents a dilemma in the form of an
either-or choice to the player, to address real issues that a potential
FBI director might have to assign personnel to investigate.
“Would you rather the FBI prosecute and persecute parents who voice
legitimate concerns at school board meetings, or should it investigate
domestic terrorists who commit school shootings and threaten the lives
of American children?” Schmitt asked. (Read more.)
The Intelligence Community and Big Corporate Interests Control
Government. That’s the inescapable conclusion for anyone who watched
the grand pantomimes being displayed in the past 24 hours.
There’s a debate amid the newly awakened and many who do not want to
believe it; but there is no denying that Trump 2.0 is revealing even
more layers of how far astray the Republic has gone.
Institutional Democrats hate Trump, and institutional Republicans are
lukewarm, at best, in defending Trump. Both wings of the DC UniParty
fear Trump. Extreme efforts at control are always a reaction to fear. I
make my case not on supposition, but on empirical reference points that
most should understand. (Read more.)
Eggs, from the protein group, naturally contain more protein, fewer
carbohydrates, and no fiber compared to oatmeal, which is a
carbohydrate. A single hard-boiled egg is rich in selenium, providing 28% of the Daily Value (DV), which is important for reproductive health and thyroid function.314
Eggs also contain 27% of the DV for choline, which helps regulate memory, mood, and muscle control.54 Egg yolks contain lutein and zeaxanthin, antioxidants that help protect your eyes and reduce the risk of age-related eye diseases like macular degeneration.6
Oatmeal is high in iron, covering 77% of the DV. Iron is needed for
healthy red blood cells. It's also rich in folate, which is essential
for making DNA and especially important during pregnancy. A deficiency
in either nutrient can lead to anemia. National Institutes of Health: Office of Dietary Supplements. Iron: Fact sheet for consumers. Lastly, oatmeal provides 34% of the DV for vitamin A, which is essential for vision and immune health.
Both eggs and oatmeal are high in selenium and riboflavin, which helps
turn food into energy. Eggs provide 20% of the DV for riboflavin, while
oatmeal provides 39%.4. (Read more.)
Although we have known since the days of Paul Cézanne
that ‘the Louvre is the book from which we learn to read’, this
inexhaustible wellspring of inspiration has also nourished one of
contemporary art’s liveliest domains: the world of fashion. More and
more, research and monographs dedicated to the greats of fashion have
boldly begun to trace aesthetic family trees, establishing these figures
in a historical and artistic context. The pattern is not merely one of
disruptions, with various degrees of radical innovation, or of seasonal
changes, but also one of echoes and evocations. The threads weaving
their way between the work of great fashion figures and the world of art
are almost endless, and the history of art as expressed by the Musée du
Louvre, in the depth of its collections and in the ways it reflects the
tastes of days gone by, is an equally vast terrain of influences and
sources. In
consideration of the Louvre’s encyclopaedic immensity, this exhibition
follows a methodological approach geared towards exploring the history
of decorative styles, art professions and ornamentation through the
galleries of the Department of Decorative Arts, where textiles are
omnipresent – though generally in tapestries and other décor items
rather than in articles of clothing.
Over
a nearly 9,000-square-metre space, 65 designs are displayed, along with
a number of accessories, newly illuminating the close historical
dialogue that continues to take place between the world of fashion and
the department’s greatest masterpieces, from Byzantium to the Second
Empire. Each of these garments and accessories is on special loan from
the most iconic fashion houses, both long-standing and recent, in Paris
and throughout the world. (Read more.)
"The impression that I would like people to take from this exhibition is
the fact that museums are very free and contemporary places,” says
Olivier Gabet, the Louvre’s senior heritage curator and director of the
Department of Decorative Arts. “I wanted to show that what can seem at
first sight like a dusty collection, can be absolutely modern in terms
of inspiration.” Gabet brings a deep knowledge of fashion from the
blockbuster fashion shows like Christian Dior: Couturier du Rêves that
he organized at Musée des Arts Décoratifs, where he previously served
as director before joining the Louvre in 2022. In his estimation, the
Louvre is a “vast mood board,” a source of endless inspirations and
influences for contemporary designers and fashion lovers. (Read more.)
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s
first confirmation hearing in the Senate Committee on Finance was a
raucous, at times explosive, affair as Democrats grilled the nominee
over his past.
The hearing
over Kennedy’s nomination to lead Health and Human Services (HHS) lasted
roughly three-and-a-half hours before Republican chairman Sen. Mike
Crapo had to cut the hearing to rush for a vote. Democrats continued to
question and, at times, berate Kennedy up to the final minute.
“All
these Democrats are opposed to me for partisan issues, they used to be
my friends,” Kennedy said at one point. “They agreed with all the issues
I’ve been working on my whole career. Now, they’re against me because
anything President Trump does has to be discredited, derided, and
vilified.”
Kennedy’s left-wing activist past has raised alarms among conservatives and Republican lawmakers. To allay those concerns, the nominee repeatedly promised to enforce President Trump’s agenda. He said he would follow the president’s lead on abortion policy, including the abortion drug mifepristone, and denied attacks that he is “anti-vaccine.”
“President Trump has asked me to end the chronic disease epidemic and make America healthy again … and that is what I’m doing,” Kennedy said under questioning from Democratic Sen. Catherine Cortez Masto, laying out his top priority if confirmed to lead HHS. (Read more.)
Echoing Jonathan Gottschall, author of The Story Paradox
(Basic Books, 2021), Breithaupt warns that our addiction to
narrative—however fulfilling—can close off possibilities outside the
borders of our pet stories. Casting ourselves as victims tempts us to
stay in that role, and when we want to believe epic-style justice will
triumph, we may not accept realities that veer in a different direction.
Even
so, Breithaupt remains a narrative optimist. Our storytelling knack, he
contends, primes us to master what he calls “playability”: rendering
endless possible futures in story form, which helps us anticipate and
plan for the best of these futures. “Narratives can be the medium of our
unhappiness,” he writes, “but they are also the means of escaping it.”
He includes few details about how to achieve this escape; unlike the
classic stories that inspired it, The Narrative Brain does not
build to a clear resolution. Yet its very open-endedness—its invitation
to reimagine ill-fitting stories—makes it a timely corrective to our
fierce zest for certainty. (Read more.)
It would make a great hotel. But is it haunted? From House and Garden:
In 2012 Adele, the grammy-award winning singer/songwriter, rented a large
Edwardian house called Lock House in West Sussex for six months. During
her tenure, Adele found the house unsettling, telling Anderson Cooper
during an interview with American broadcaster CBS that it gave
her ‘the creeps’. A flyaway comment it might have been, but the
consequences for the house's owner, Nicholas Sutton, have been
catastrophic: in an interview with The Times,
he accused Adele's remarks of ‘negatively impacted future marketing’,
rendering the house 'unsellable'. It is currently on the market with House Partnership for £5,995, 000.
The house has been on the market since 2010 - notably before Adele's
tenancy - though it appears that Nicholas is giving up hope of renting
it in its current state, and has applied for planning permission to
convert the 10 bedroom
mansion into three houses and a cottage. The hope, presumably, is that
in splitting up the property any evil spirits will be forced to
relocate.
It is easy to see what attracted Adele to the Grade II-listed house. Set
within the rolling hills of the South Downs National Park, there is a
sense of peace to be found here, though with a charming village,
Partridge Green, just down the road and larger towns and cities, namely
Horsham, Brighton and Guildford, within driving distance, you are never
too far from popping to the shops, pub or beach. The house itself is set
on 32 acres of land, and includes the main building, two garages and a
guest cottage. (Read more.)
If you enter the United States illegally, OBVIOUSLY, you shouldn’t
get to benefit from your crime. You should be held in custody,
processed, and deported. No one coming here illegally should be allowed
to file for asylum or go wherever they want. They’re a criminal who was
caught in the act. Criminals need to be punished.
Especially since
every person who came here illegally without question knew that what
they were doing was illegal and that the punishment was deportation.
They might not say, “I was hoping that I might be able to exploit the
system and stay in the United States” or “I was hoping that I would get
away with breaking the law,” but they knew they were disobeying our
laws, and they knew what the penalty was for it.
So, why would we not deport illegal aliens?
There are no good reasons for it, but there are foolish and selfish reasons not to do it.
Liberals
tend to view illegal aliens as potential future voters who they can
easily capture with welfare programs. There are also business owners who
view illegals as a source of cheap labor whose costs can be passed on
to the rest of society. That’s why bringing these same people in legally
via a work program instead of illegally doesn’t appeal to these
business owners. It would cost them a lot more money. You also have NGOs
that have been paid staggering amounts of money to work with illegals
in one form or another. These are the selfish people who don’t give a
damn about the country or anyone but themselves.
However, there
are also foolish people. They make arguments like, “But, they’ve been
here for a long time,” as if getting away with breaking the law for
years means the law can be ignored. Others say things like, “Well, if I
were in the same position as them, I’d break the law to do the best I
could for my family.” This may be true, but you’re not in the same
position as they are. If you’re an American, you’re supposed to look out
for your own family and your own country. If someone breaks into your
house, you don’t say, “In their position, I might break into a house as
well,” you tell them to get the hell out of your house. (Read more.)
The cartels that poison our communities with fentanyl and violence do
not wear uniforms, but their threat to American lives is no less dire
than that of a foreign enemy—a threat that President Trump has
repeatedly prioritized addressing through his decisive policies and
actions aimed at dismantling their operations and securing our borders.
Senator Mike Lee of Utah has revived an idea as old as the republic
itself, proposing the use of letters of marque and reprisal to combat
the scourge of drug cartels. It is a strategy rooted in the
Constitution, steeped in historical precedent, and tailor-made for the
unconventional challenge posed by these non-state actors.
The U.S. Constitution’s Article I, Section 8 empowers Congress to
“grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal.” These commissions historically
allowed private citizens to engage in acts that would otherwise be
deemed piracy, such as capturing enemy vessels during wartime. This
mechanism provided an agile, cost-effective response to seaborne threats
while adhering to the rule of law. Though it has not been used since
the 19th century, the power remains a viable constitutional tool—one
that could be repurposed to address modern-day non-state actors, like
Mexican drug cartels.
In this case, issuing letters of marque
would authorize private security firms or highly trained individuals to
disrupt cartel operations. Such commissions could target supply lines,
intercept narcotics shipments, or seize cartel assets—a modern
adaptation of capturing enemy ships. Unlike military intervention, this
approach would not require a formal declaration of war, aligning with
President Trump's emphasis on avoiding prolonged foreign conflicts while
prioritizing national security and sovereignty for both the U.S. and
Mexico in addressing this urgent threat. (Read more.)
Border czar Tom Homan said Monday
that he owes “no apologies” for the mass deportation operation
undertaken by the Trump administration in response to celebrity Selena
Gomez posting a video of herself sobbing over their new policy.
In the past seven days, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) ramped up enforcement actions, arresting
over 2,000 illegal migrant criminals considered to be “public safety
and national security threats” since the Trump administration entered
office. In response to the new initiative, 32-year-old Gomez sobbed
uncontrollably in a since-deleted Instagram post Monday over the
deportations of “[her] people” and accused the Trump administration of
attacking children.
“I don’t think we’ve arrested any families. We’ve arrested public
safety and national security threats, bottom line,” Homan said. “And
look, President Trump won the election on this one issue, securing our
border and saving lives. What happened at our southern border the last
four [years] is the biggest national security threat this country’s seen
at least in my lifetime because you’ve got 2 million known gotaways,
you’ve got an increase in sex trafficking, we’ve got a record number of
terrorists crossing the border on the terrorist watchlist. We have a
quarter of a million Americans dying of fentanyl coming across the open
border. We’re gonna do this job and we’re gonna enforce the laws of this
country. If they don’t like it, then go to Congress and change the
law.” (Read more.)
Elizabeth I (r. 1558-1603) sought to compose
England, after the rapid alterations in official confession that
preceded her, with a compromise that left the Church of England, in the
famous phrase, both Catholic (in structure) and Reformed (in theology).
Protestantism of a really quite radical Calvinist kind bedded down
remarkably quickly as the overwhelming majority religion in a country
that had been known since the eleventh century as the “Dowry of Mary”, such was its devotion to the Virgin Mother, a tradition now dismissed as superstition and idolatry.
The
battleline in England was, therefore, not Protestant-Catholic, but
between those Protestants who accepted the Elizabethan Settlement
(Anglicans) and those Protestants (“Puritans”) pushing for the Revolution to go further.13
Despite Elizabeth confronting Spain—the embodiment of evil above even
France to English Protestants—the Puritan movement repeatedly challenged
her and gained momentum throughout her reign, but the Puritans were marginal enough and the Queen adept enough that the issue was contained.
The English-language King James Bible produced in 1611 under Elizabeth’s successor, James I
(r. 1603-25), was partly to accommodate the Puritans, but in general
James took a hard line. “No bishop, no King”, James memorably told the
Puritan representatives gathered for a conference with Anglican bishops
at Hampton Court in January 1604, adding: “I shall make them [that
reject my religious policies] conform themselves, or I will harry them
out of the land”.14 In the event, they left of their own accord.
It was during James’s reign Englishsettlements were established in the New World. There had been one earlier attempt to found a colony, on Roanoke Island
in what is now North Carolina in the 1580s, but it had failed,
resulting in one of the great mysteries of Colonial America. The colony
founded at Jamestown, Virginia, in 1607,
stuck—just. The winter of 1609-10 would be remembered as “the Starving
Time”, when the Jamestown population of 500 was literally decimated amid
scenes of cannibalism. Then the English set down at Newfoundland
in Canada in 1610. These two colonies remained largely Anglican and
commercial, but an infrastructure and template now existed for those who
wanted to leave England and begin again. (Read more.)
Walter Beardsley: Oh, I don't think any of us have any illusions about her character. Have we, Devlin? Devlin: Not at all, not in the slightest. Miss Huberman is first, last, and always not a lady. She may be risking her life, but when it comes to being a lady, she doesn't hold a candle to your wife, sitting in Washington, playing bridge with three other ladies of great honor and virtue. ~from Notorious (1946)
It is said to be among Alfred Hitchcock's finest films. Among movies about fallen women seeking redemption and true love, Notorious is second to none. Ingrid Bergman plays what in 1946 was called "a party girl." Ashamed of discovering that her father is a Nazi, Alicia Huberman gives herself over to drinking and men with such abandon that she becomes "notorious." It always strikes me in the opening scenes that how she carries on would not be a matter of notoriety today, just typical youthful behavior. The love story, however, is of an intensity rarely seen on the modern screen, made more poignant because of Alicia's desire not only for atonement but to make herself worthy of being loved by Devlin.
One of the greatest examples of Hitchcock’s pre-colour films is 1946’s Notorious,
a movie that Ebert adored almost above all others. It stars Cary Grant
as Devlin, a US government agent in Rio de Janeiro who is trying to
infiltrate a group of Nazis who, even after the war, are continuing to
plot against peace. To gain entry into their inner circle, Devlin teams
up with Alicia Huberman (Ingrid Bergman), the daughter of an imprisoned
Nazi who is being courted by one of her father’s associates.
The
film is a romance between Devlin and Alicia, but it’s much messier than a
simple meet-cute and a happily-ever-after. He mistrusts and even looks
down on her for her family connections and her reputation for
promiscuity, but he can’t rid himself of his attraction to her.
Meanwhile, she is put in the impossible position of having to align
herself with another man in order to help the man she loves.
For Ebert, Notorious
not only embraces – rather than glosses over – the complexity of its
love story and political context, but does so through startlingly
effective cinematography. “It contains,” he wrote,
“[S]ome of the most effective camera shots in [Hitchcock’s]–or
anyone’s–work, and they all lead to the great final passages in which
two men find out how very wrong they both were.”
Overall, he argued, it was, “the most elegant expression of the master’s visual style.” (Read more.)
As the heroine finds herself sinking deeper into a chasm from which she might not escape, the relationships become more complicated. Claude Rains portrays a man whom it is truly hard to hate; even though he is a Nazi, his love for Alicia renders him vulnerable and sympathetic. This is where the master storytelling of Hitchcock's camera conveys every nuance of passion and anguish. As one critic expresses it:
Notorious returned Hitchcock to the world of spies and counterspies. But the film primarily is a study of relationships rather than a straight thriller—which is not to say that there still isn’t a great deal of Hitchcockian suspense. The Bergman character is trying to forget, Grant is cynical, and Rains has a genuine, devoted love for our leading lady. Even when he discovers her treachery, it is his mother (Leopoldine Konstantin) who makes the decision to, shall we say, do away with her.
Francois Truffaut said to Hitchcock in his interview book on the director that “It seems to me that of all your pictures this is the one in which one feels the most perfect correlation between what you are aiming at and what appears on the screen . . . Of all its qualities, the outstanding achievement is perhaps that in Notorious you have at once a maximum of stylization and a maximum of simplicity.”
The stylization is fascinating to watch. Some of Hitchcock’s most famous scenes are in this film: the justly acclaimed crane shot, taking the audience from a wide establishing view of the elaborate formal party into a tight closeup of the crucial key to the wine cellar in Ingrid Bergman’s hand; the brilliantly staged party scene itself, which alternates between thoughtfully conceived point of view shots and graceful, insinuating camera moves; and, of course, the wine cellar sequence, during which Cary and Ingrid discover the incriminating bottle containing not vintage nectar but....
The backdrop of the thriller/romance is elegant and exotic Rio and the lavish mansion of the Sebastian family. Every scene is a work of art and yet the beauty does not detract from the sense of dread at knowing that in the midst of it all are evil people who will stop at nothing to achieve their ends. On the other hand, the "good guys" are willing to sacrifice Alicia and any other seemingly disposable person in order to fulfill the mission at hand. In Notorious, the human cost of cold war is assessed; no one is unscathed.
In the past decade, a peculiar phenomenon has emerged, blending the
power of unelected bureaucracies with the unparalleled influence of Big
Tech companies. Google, Meta, Twitter, and even OpenAI now operate as
soft extensions of the federal government, employing hundreds of former
FBI, CIA, DOJ, and DHS officials. These figures, long familiar with
surveillance and information control, have seamlessly transitioned into
roles dictating content moderation, security policy, and even artificial
intelligence ethics. This phenomenon, which mushroomed during the Biden
administration, reveals a disturbing reality: the government’s ability
to outsource censorship to private entities, effectively sidestepping
constitutional constraints.
A quick LinkedIn search reveals that hundreds of former federal
employees, many from surveillance and justice agencies, have taken key
roles at Big Tech companies. Google alone absorbed 130 former DOJ, FBI,
and CIA officials. Meta followed suit, hiring 47 ex-government
operatives for politically sensitive positions in trust and safety,
security, and content moderation. TikTok, despite its Chinese ownership,
employed 25 former U.S. intelligence officials, while Twitter (pre-Elon
Musk) had 46 former FBI employees, many of whom held significant
positions.
The stories behind these hires underscore the tight
integration between government and tech. James Baker, the former FBI
general counsel who played a controversial role in the Trump-Russia
collusion narrative, became Twitter’s deputy general counsel, where he
oversaw legal and policy decisions, including those related to content
moderation. Aaron Berman, a CIA veteran, now manages misinformation
policy at Meta, influencing decisions on what content is allowed to
circulate. OpenAI has followed suit, hiring Paul Nakasone, the former
Director of the National Security Agency, to advise on security and
policy issues, ensuring government-aligned priorities shape AI
development. These individuals are not mere advisors; they hold
significant sway over policies that directly shape the flow of
information and public discourse, as evidenced by their roles in
suppressing key stories such as the Hunter Biden laptop controversy and
moderating pandemic-related dissent. Their embedded presence within
corporate hierarchies demonstrates how deeply government-aligned
priorities can permeate private platforms. (Read more.)
Friends, it’s a new year and a new episode of The Hard Country, in which we discuss the extraordinary actions — against the trafficking cartels, and especially
against their allies in the Mexican state — undertaken in the first
week of the new Administration of President Donald J. Trump. The odious
Vladimir Lenin once quipped that there were decades in which nothing
happened, and weeks in which decades happened — and the new White House
has given us an example of the latter. Settle in and have a listen on
what’s changed, and why we may allow ourselves a sentiment on the border
and the Western Hemisphere that has been in short supply for many
years: Hope. (Read more.)
Fantasy ideology. Because living in a make-believe world has consequences. From Jennifer Roback Morse:
Let’s give this problem a name: Fantasy Ideology. The purpose of a
Fantasy Ideology is NOT to solve a problem. It is to help the partisans
accumulate more power.
The process works like this.
Creating a Dystopia, in Five Easy Steps
Step 1. Sell the public on the utopian ideal of completely eliminating an Intolerable Problem. (Climate
change. Systematic racism. Sexism. Homophobia. Injustice to transgender
people. COVID. Take your pick, the possibilities are endless.)
Catastrophize the Intolerable Problem. Demand nothing less than its complete elimination.
To be clear, even good ideas and noble goals can be transformed into utopian impossibilities. For instance, we can eliminate some inequality, but we will never have perfect equality in every dimension. That’s completely impossible. Human beings are irreducibly different from each other.
For
instance, some environmentalists want to eliminate all pollution, all
carbon footprints. That’s not possible. Can we reduce pollution? Sure.
But eliminate it? No.
Some in the public health establishment
insist on trying to eliminate all cases of COVID. Can we reduce the
number of cases? Sure. But eliminate them all? No.
But these ideas must never spoken aloud, because realistic obtainable goals do not serve the purpose of accumulating power.
Step 2: Sell yourself and your ideological buddies as the potential Savior Class who can make this dream a reality, if only
Step 3: You have enough power.
Doing the impossible requires a lot of power. Thus, the Savior Class
requires unlimited power to bring about the Fantasy. But even with lots
of power, you can’t really do the impossible. So, you must fill the
society with
Step 4: Unlimited propaganda.
The propaganda keeps people convinced that the Fantasy is possible and
desirable. It diverts attention from the problems and costs associated
with trying to do the undoable. Finally — and very importantly — the
propaganda must divert the attention of ordinary people away from the
failure of the Fantasy and toward the
Step 5: Scapegoat Class. The
Fantasy will never materialize, even with massive amounts of power and
propaganda. So the self-appointed Savior Class needs someone to blame.
Every
totalitarian ideology you can think of has had a Scapegoat Class. The
Communists had their kulaks and rich peasants. The Nazis had their Jews.
Today’s Ruling Class has its “basket of deplorables,” the unwashed,
embittered “garbage” people who “cling to their guns and their
religion.” (Read more.)
One of the most impactful
frugal living strategies from the 1950s was the focus on home-cooked
meals. Preparing meals from scratch using whole ingredients is more
cost-effective than relying on pre-packaged or restaurant food and
offers significant health benefits. Home cooking allows for better
nutrition and portion control by controlling the quality and quantity of
ingredients.
Another
smart eating habit from the 1950s was the creative use of leftovers.
Instead of discarding excess food, thrifty households would repurpose
leftovers into new dishes, such as turning Sunday’s roast into Monday’s
hash or Tuesday’s soup. This approach minimized food waste and stretched
grocery budgets further. Additionally, many families in the 1950s
maintained home gardens, which provided fresh, affordable produce and
further reduced food expenses. (Read more.)
A lady-in-waiting acts as a go-between. People came up to me and
asked, "What color is she wearing tomorrow?" because they wanted flowers
to compliment her outfit. I told people what she liked to drink, I
found out where the lavatory was at different events—all those sorts of
things in order to make her day run as smoothly as possible.
At a
cocktail party or dinner, I'd find people that Princess Margaret wanted
to meet and bring them over and introduce them. I had to gauge when the
timing was right; if she was having a fascinating talk with somebody, I
didn't want to butt in with a new person. I had to assess whether she
was enjoying the conversation. A lot of that was down to eye contact.
At dinner parties, I always sat at a table where we could have eye
contact, so I knew if she needed me. I became very attuned to her, and I
think it helped that I'd always been her friend.
When you're
traveling—which I did a lot with Princess Margaret, to Australia,
Zimbabwe, Canada, all over the place—all day, it's hard work. In the
evening, Princess Margaret would say, "Get into your dressing gown,
Anne, and come and have a drink with me." I'd go up to her sitting room
and we'd talk about the day, laugh and have a really good time together. (Read more.)
The Department of Justice is finally being reclaimed from the grips of
partisan weaponization. President Trump’s administration, in its second
term, is delivering a long-overdue reckoning. Over 20 career officials,
entrenched in a culture of bias and selective enforcement, have been
sidelined overnight. This isn’t just a shake-up—it’s a war against the
corruption that has festered for years under the guise of justice.
Trump’s team is not just draining the swamp; they are dismantling it,
brick by brick, to restore fairness and accountability to an institution
that has betrayed the American people.
The abrupt sidelining of over 20 long-serving DOJ officials marks the
death knell of what conservatives rightly decried as the "Merrick
Garland Reign of Terror." For years, Garland’s DOJ symbolized the
grotesque transformation of justice into a political weapon, targeting
Trump and his allies while coddling Democratic operatives. This
two-tiered system eroded trust in one of America’s most critical
institutions. But with Trump’s return to the White House, the
administration is laser-focused on uprooting this corruption and
restoring equal justice under the law. (Read more.)
“I’ve
recently heard about an alarming coating that is sprayed onto produce to extend
the visual preservation of produce (organic and conventional) made by a company
called Apeel. I need to know that PCC isn’t allowing produce treated with this
coating. Thank you for your time.”
PCC
responds: We understand your concern about a new coating being used on foods
and have received several questions asking if Apeel products are harmful.
What
is Apeel made of?
“Edipeel,”
produced by Apeel Science, is a plant-based, FDA-approved coating derived from
the peels, seeds and pulp of fruit and vegetables. The coating, as well as a
version meant for organic foods labeled as “Organipeel,” is meant to extend the
shelf life of fruits and vegetables….To our knowledge and our supplier’s
knowledge, no producers or packers in our supply chain are using this substance
on their produce. Apeel’s coatings are not widespread in the organic marketplace,
so customers are generally unlikely to encounter it when they shop organic. In
our discussions with folks up the supply chain and experts in the organic
community, Apeel is mostly used only at the request of distributors, and we
know that ours are not asking growers to apply it. (Read more.)
A new scientific report lends weight to consumer concerns about pesticide residues on food,
presenting fresh evidence that washing fruit before eating does not
remove various toxic chemicals commonly used in agriculture.
The paper,
published on Wednesday in the American Chemical Society’s journal Nano
Letters, comes amid ongoing debate over the extent of pesticide
contamination of food, and the potential health risks associated with a
steady diet that includes pesticide residues.
In May, Consumer Reports said it had determined that 20% of 59 different fruit and vegetable
categories carried pesticide residues at levels that posed “significant
risks” to consumers, based on an analysis of data gathered by the US
Department of Agriculture (USDA).
The central
aim of the new paper is to share the technical details of a process the
authors developed for enhanced trace detection of pesticides in foods.
But the underlying finding about the ineffectiveness of washing fruit is
important for consumers who may be relying on food safety practices
that are insufficient, the authors said.(Read more.)
Raymond Chandler wrote of “those hot dry Santa Anas that come down
through the mountain passes and curl your hair and make your nerves jump
and your skin itch.” When these notorious winds arrive, he noted,
“anything can happen.” And it did happen, last week.
I’ve lived in
Los Angeles my entire life, nearly six decades. During that time there
have been several major earthquakes;many heavy rainstorms yielding
devastating mudslides and serious flooding; countless major fires; and,
in 2011, an especially destructive windstorm. But never before have I
seen Santa Ana winds as powerful and wide-ranging as those that tore
through L.A. last Tuesday.
Never before have I seen block after block of the city I love razed
by Dresden-like firestorms. Never before have I personally known so many
people whose homes were gravely threatened, seriously damaged, or in
several cases completely destroyed, by a natural disaster.
Especially
distressing was another personal first – my mother having to evacuate
her home as one of the larger fires spread in the direction of the neighborhood I grew up in.
At the time I write this, her home now appears to be safe. My immediate
family and our own home are also fine. But a couple of the smaller
fires that broke out last week were, for a time, alarmingly close. (Read more.)
It was November of 2018, flames blew through Paradise in less than
24 hours, torching more than 31 square miles. It became known as the
Camp Fire, killing 85 people and destroying nearly 19,000 homes. The
fire was caused by electrical transmission lines, owned and operated by
PG&E. According to a 700-page investigation by the state, PG&E
failed to inspect and maintain an aging electrical tower. It wasn't an
isolated case. PG&E equipment reportedly sparked 19 major blazes in
2017 and 2018.
PG&E, pleaded guilty to 84 counts of
involuntary manslaughter and agreed to pay $13.5 billion to victims of
the Camp Fire and other fires, and hundreds of millions to the local
government.
With many open questions in the latest fires, critics
point to man made contributors to the resulting disaster: fire
department budget cuts, canceled insurance policies, corruption
scandals, the state’s destruction of dams that once held crucial water,
an empty water reservoir near the main fire and broken or dry fire
hydrants. (Read more.)
The president and first lady Melania Trump then experienced the damage
up close, meeting with local law enforcement and members of the
community for a tour of the destroyed Pacific Palisades neighborhoods.
"Not even believable," Trump told reporters on site.
Trump sat
down for a roundtable with LA Mayor Karen Bass and other state
officials. When the president entered the room, individuals were heard
chanting "USA, USA, USA!" Bass greeted the president and said that his
presence was welcomed.
"This is an honor to be with you," during
the meeting, saying that homeowners told him that they want to rebuild
their homes in the area.
At one point, the president criticized Bass for not using her emergency powers to respond to the wildfires.
"You
have emergency powers just like I do … you have to exercise them also,"
Trump told Bass, who responded that she did exercise them.
"I don't think you can realize how rough, how devastating it is until
you see it," Trump said of the wildfire damage. "The federal government
is standing behind you, 100%."
Trump said that he is going to
waive federal permits for rebuilding in the area. "I'm gonna be the
president to help you fix it," he said. "We're going to waive all
federal permits... Because a federal permit can take 10 years... we
don't want to take 10 days." (Read more.)
President Donald Trump wants to overhaul the Federal Emergency
Management Agency (FEMA) – and during a visit to Western North Carolina
on Friday he floated the idea of eliminating the agency altogether.
Trump
landed at Asheville Regional Airport Friday morning on his first visit
to North Carolina since the start of his second term. The western part
of the state, along with neighboring communities in Tennessee, has been
reeling since Hurricane Helene unleashed devastating flooding and
landslides in the mountain region last September.
“ FEMA has been a
very big disappointment,” Trump said. “They cost a tremendous amount of
money. It's very bureaucratic and it's very slow. Other than that,
we're very happy with them.”
Getting rid of FEMA would take
congressional action and it is unclear if there is any support from
lawmakers to do so. The agency is usually only called into a disaster
area by a governor when the state cannot handle recovery alone.
Trump said he wants to restructure disaster response so that states handle resources that the federal government provides.
“ I
think we're going to recommend that FEMA go away and we pay directly.
We pay a percentage to the state, but the state should fix this. If the
state did this from the beginning, it would have been a lot better
situation,” Trump said.
Trump also announced that he has enlisted
the Army Corps of Engineers to repair roads and bridges and is preparing
to sign an executive order “slashing red tape and all bureaucratic
barriers and permits to ensure the rapid reconstruction of the roads
here in Western North Carolina.”
“We're going to go through a permitting process that's called no permitting. Just get it done,” he said.
In
North Carolina, Helene caused an estimated nearly $60 billion in
damage. A bipartisan federal funding bill signed into law last month by
then-President Joe Biden allocated billions of dollars to disaster
relief. But the aid will take months to arrive, and local officials say
more help is needed.
The North Carolina General Assembly has, in three different rounds of legislation, allocated over $1 billion
in state funding toward a range of recovery needs – from infrastructure
rebuilding to rental assistance and from social services to support for
daycares destroyed in the region. (Read more.)
The
executive order states that Federal funds will no longer be used for
“gender ideology” or “gender reassignment” surgery or hormones and
basically that men should be kept out of women’s sports and women’s
bathrooms & dressing rooms. Pretty simple.
“It is the
policy of the United States to recognize two sexes, male and female.
These sexes are not changeable and are grounded in fundamental and
incontrovertible reality.” (Read more.)
In January 2024, The World Economic Forum’s
annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, brought “leaders from government,
business, and civil society to address the state of the world and
discuss priorities for the year ahead.” What harm could come from that? It depends on what priorities are being discussed.
The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation–GLAAD–has attended the WEF annual meeting since 2018 to “bring LGBTQ people and issues into focus.”
In 2024, GLAAD focused on its relationship with the Partnership for Global LGBTIQ+ Equality.
For its part, the “PGLE is a project of BSR, the U.N. Office of the
High Commissioner for Human Rights, and the World Economic Forum.”
Confused
yet? LGBTIQ + GLAAD + PGLE + BSR + U.N. = ????. It sounds like a
highfalutin equation for an esoteric brand of cult knowledge. Put
another way, it’s decidedly gnostic.
That’s okay. It’s supposed to
be confusing. Engineered cognitive dissonance is at the center of the
Leftist strategy for a corporate takeover of the world.
GLAAD has
every right to fight defamation against gays and lesbians. But what if
they were recruiting young people and indoctrinating them in LGBT
ideology? And what if the WEF and the UN were backing them?
It would be an indoctrination program, not a human rights campaign. (Read more.)
Marie-Antoinette "en gaulle" by Elisabeth Vigée-Lebrun
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