tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-75345391691577082222024-03-19T04:47:32.416-04:00Tea at TrianonA 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.elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.comBlogger16761125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-48138823890431843742024-03-19T02:00:00.001-04:002024-03-19T02:00:00.128-04:00Queen Mary's Shamrock Brooch<p> </p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3S48a7jcXKhA2gJPEQ7vMDSFAel4E4trRmT9bYWV8xX_5syl-rnohfiGTfOlaqDQcV96w5Wo9yJfO1-JhfKQzkz1ZdD3LyPpXicuw5r-8V7i8kAFqW7brETefGFSJ1bm7XbSZ6TlCKsuLjOy1BJUJJjMUtcvoP2yTGUcgwGcMFvw17DvSebRjKWO4kPM/s600/2024-0312-01-shamrock03.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="530" data-original-width="600" height="283" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3S48a7jcXKhA2gJPEQ7vMDSFAel4E4trRmT9bYWV8xX_5syl-rnohfiGTfOlaqDQcV96w5Wo9yJfO1-JhfKQzkz1ZdD3LyPpXicuw5r-8V7i8kAFqW7brETefGFSJ1bm7XbSZ6TlCKsuLjOy1BJUJJjMUtcvoP2yTGUcgwGcMFvw17DvSebRjKWO4kPM/s320/2024-0312-01-shamrock03.webp" width="320" /></a></div><br />Queen Mary loved jewelry and had exquisite taste. From <i><a href="https://www.thecourtjeweller.com/2024/03/queen-marys-diamond-and-emerald-shamrock-brooch.html" target="_blank">The Court Jeweller</a></i>:<br /><blockquote>To tell the story of the shamrock brooch, we need to travel back in time to the earliest stages of Queen Mary’s jewelry collection. When Princess May of Teck, as she was then, married the Duke of York in the summer of 1893, she received a treasure trove of jewelry gifts. Among these were multiple trefoil and shamrock brooches. On the Monday after the royal wedding, the <i>Daily Telegraph</i> described many of the jewels in detail, including “an emerald and diamond trefoil brooch,” the gift presented to the bride by the Royal St. George Yacht Club.<br /><br />Royal jewelry writers, <a href="https://mb.boardhost.com/historyroyaljewels/thread/1553935854.html">including Beth</a> at the History of Famous Jewels and Collections, have argued that the yacht club’s trefoil brooch is the one shown in detail above. The jewel features a three-leafed shamrock outlined in diamonds, with a large diamond brilliant set in the center of the jewel. Inside the open leaves are a trio of emeralds on knife-edge settings. Shamrocks and trefoils were popular jewelry motifs in the Victorian era, and of course they have special meaning in Ireland. The Royal St. George Yacht Club was (and still is) located in Dublin. <a href="https://www.thecourtjeweller.com/2024/03/queen-marys-diamond-and-emerald-shamrock-brooch.html" target="_blank">(Read more</a>.)</blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-88724538188124149442024-03-19T01:00:00.016-04:002024-03-19T01:00:00.131-04:00How Revolution Happens—and How to Stop It<p> From Tucker Carlson at <i><a href="https://modernagejournal.com/tucker-carlson-isi-how-revolution-happensand-how-to-stop-it/238713/?fbclid=IwAR11cE4CjBLQvsGzku28PTTlghyR71tFkyuQDkFxis3-ilj4HJNKPl0Z69E" target="_blank">Modern Age</a></i>:</p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It happened because only one side of the revolution recognized that it <em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">was</em> a revolution. The other side had no idea.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">One side saw these changes for what they were: Let’s completely change American society, from the bottom to the top. Let’s eliminate any sense of shared culture or history. Let’s atomize the country to the point where there’s no viable opposition to what we’re doing. And once we’ve done that, let’s addle everyone with prescription drugs. Let’s encourage them to be unhealthy, unmarried, and childless, and then we can do whatever we want.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">And no one’s aware on the other side—which is not just the right, but the vast bulk of everyone else, which would include a lot of Democrats and just normal people who aren’t at all interested in the revolution. They had no idea what was happening.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It’s important to understand the moment that you’re in. It cuts against the very core of human nature to understand that, because denial is the most powerful of all human instincts.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Twenty-two years ago I was in a plane that crashed in the Middle East, flying from Peshawar, Pakistan, after 9/11. I was going over to cover the Taliban, and we went down in a sand dune in Dubai.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">There was an explosion in the cargo hold. The plane starts dropping, and the wing appears to detach, the right wing. The plane is struggling for altitude and going sideways. It’s three in the morning over the Arabian Sea.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Every person on that plane thought we were going to die, very much including me. We finally come in sideways into the sand dune plains. I’m in the first seat—it’s a big double-aisle Airbus—and I just had one thought, which is, “I’m getting off the plane.” It’s totally dark, but you can see burning from the wing, so it’s time to depart. I hop up, and this male flight attendant stands right in front of me and goes, “Sit down! Everything is fine! Everything is fine!”</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">That’s a verbatim quote. <em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">Everything is fine</em>. It was so demonstrably <em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">unfine</em> that I can’t even begin to describe how unfine it was. Out of pure panic, I ignored the guy and opened the door, the slide went up, and I jumped into darkness with four other Westerners in the front. Everyone in the back, though, was like, “Oh, everything’s fine.” (The pilots, by the way, went right out the front windows.)</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’ve brooded on this for over 20 years—why did the flight attendant claim everything was fine? I think he just couldn’t metabolize the change. It was so awful he just could not admit what was happening right there in front of everybody. This really bothered me all these years, despite the fact it wound up fine for me.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Then I read the <a href="https://amzn.to/43nNlMH" style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">biography</a> of Pyotr Wrangel, who was the leader of the revolutionary White forces during the Russian Revolution—the Civil War, rather, that came after the Revolution. He was a Baltic German living in Russia and a general who worked for the tsar. The First World War ends, and Russia ceases its hostilities with Germany, he comes back to St. Petersburg, and the country’s in complete chaos.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">The Bolsheviks have decided that discontent within the army is what we need to inflame; we need to get the army. Get the guns and the people who wield the guns: We need them. The first thing to do is destroy all discipline in the tsar’s army.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">Pyotr Wrangel’s just been on the front for four years. He comes back to St. Petersburg, a totally civilized city, a two-hour drive from Helsinki—it’s Europe. He’s wandering through, and soldiers are going crazy in the streets; they’re raping women, stealing at gunpoint. Soldiers in uniform, in a monarchy which had not had any behavior like this, and he, Pyotr Wrangel, just can’t believe it. These are <em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">his</em> soldiers; he’s a general. He goes into a movie theater, and everyone in the movie theater is completely absorbed in the movie, as if there’s no revolution happening outside. Wrangel thinks these people are insane.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">He takes the train to Moscow: <em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">I have to tell the tsar this country’s falling apart</em>. He’s very close to the Romanovs, and he goes into the imperial court—he knows all the relatives and hangers-on. He notices about 80 percent of the women in the Romanov family are wearing red ribbons in solidarity with the Bolsheviks (who wound up, of course, murdering them).</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">Wait, what?</em> Pyotr Wrangel says: How is it that this country is being devoured by a violent revolution and the people who can afford movie tickets, our middle class, are refusing even to acknowledge that it’s happening, and the ruling class, against whom it is aimed, are sympathizing with it?</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I’m reading this, and I couldn’t go to sleep. I was like, wait—I live in that country; that’s happening now. This is a revolution. If someone tells you you’re not allowed to speak, if someone tells you your children are not <em style="font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums;">your</em> children, these are not ideological differences. This is not, “Oh, I prefer this capital gains rate.” These are totalitarian measures that treat you as nonhuman. Human beings, free citizens, get to say what they think. Slaves must be quiet. That’s the distinction. It precedes the First Amendment. As our founding documents make clear, these are natural rights that distinguish the citizen from the slave.</span></p><p style="background-color: #fffffb; font-variant-numeric: oldstyle-nums; margin-block: 20px 0px; margin-left: 0px !important; margin-right: auto !important; max-width: 640px;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">We should begin to see this for what it is, which is a very big deal on which it all depends—not just our republic, but your family. </span><a href="https://modernagejournal.com/tucker-carlson-isi-how-revolution-happensand-how-to-stop-it/238713/?fbclid=IwAR11cE4CjBLQvsGzku28PTTlghyR71tFkyuQDkFxis3-ilj4HJNKPl0Z69E" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank">(Read more</a><span style="background-color: transparent;">.)</span></p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p><br /></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-35625830075265137622024-03-19T00:00:00.001-04:002024-03-19T00:00:00.128-04:00Respectfully, Mr. De Niro, Get a Grip<p> From <a href="https://sashastone.substack.com/p/respectfully-mr-de-niro-get-a-grip?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1k5uti&fbclid=IwAR3c84sok_laWz-FDaTjcmINQ-NguXW4DprR6chHaLHcLYJZbGox2F12t4c&triedRedirect=true" target="_blank">Sasha Stone</a>:</p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"></span></p><blockquote><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I trust you had a wonderful evening at the Oscars. Watching you bask in the comforting embrace of the special people was a reminder of who you really are—a movie star. </span><span style="font-family: georgia;">By the looks of it, the Oscars are back. They have a host now and they gave their top prize to a movie people actually saw. It won a whopping 7 Oscars. There were dance numbers and jokes, beautiful people in their finery—a grand celebration to revive the lifeless body of Hollywood.</span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">I was shocked that they kept politics mostly out of it—well, until near the end when Jimmy Kimmel just had to bring in Trump—not just to mock him but to show the country which side all of you are on and to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that they are not invited to this party. </span><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; font-family: georgia;">But might I say, Mr. De Niro, none of you seem able to figure out if Trump is such a criminal/fascist/dictator/rapist/racist, why he’s kicking Biden’s ass in the polls six ways from Sunday? Funny, isn’t it, Mr. De Niro? Didn’t Bill Maher ask you this same question on Real Time? You didn’t have an answer except to say that Trump is a “</span><em style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; font-family: georgia;">monster</em><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; font-family: georgia;">,” a </span><em style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; font-family: georgia;">“mean, nasty, and hateful person.”</em></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><em style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;"><br /></em></span></p><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><span style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">And that if “</span><em style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0;">We want to live in a world that we want to live and enjoy living in, or live in a nightmare. Vote for Trump, and you'll get the nightmare.” </em></span><a href="https://sashastone.substack.com/p/respectfully-mr-de-niro-get-a-grip?utm_source=share&utm_medium=android&r=1k5uti&fbclid=IwAR3c84sok_laWz-FDaTjcmINQ-NguXW4DprR6chHaLHcLYJZbGox2F12t4c&triedRedirect=true" style="background-color: transparent; color: #404040;" target="_blank">(Read more</a><span style="background-color: transparent; color: #404040;">.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="--tw-border-spacing-x: 0; --tw-border-spacing-y: 0; --tw-ring-color: rgb(59 130 246 / 0.5); --tw-ring-offset-color: #fff; --tw-ring-offset-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-ring-offset-width: 0px; --tw-ring-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-rotate: 0; --tw-scale-x: 1; --tw-scale-y: 1; --tw-scroll-snap-strictness: proximity; --tw-shadow-colored: 0 0 #0000; --tw-shadow: 0 0 #0000; --tw-skew-x: 0; --tw-skew-y: 0; --tw-translate-x: 0; --tw-translate-y: 0; background-color: white; color: #404040; line-height: 1.6em; margin: 0 0 var(--size-20) 0;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"></span></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-24473956806920969322024-03-18T02:00:00.250-04:002024-03-18T02:00:00.133-04:00Charles I's Private Life<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUueuU_9DFc8aBbNtG5BHbOVMoVWi1AisDs-J0qsN0hC-iAp2V2cjQJzGPwNpTdC1Dui9sdNcS6TNp4r1ewUvrC2sfmxg1wTPHKiikl00jk0jbckP1lVSn9Q2V1NsENy2CeDbsZ-yQu3QapcVkuRjnYggX7ncibsaDAHtZ_y9BE539qD7QpDBGylHLvBs/s400/Charles%20I's%20Private%20Life.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="400" data-original-width="268" height="400" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjUueuU_9DFc8aBbNtG5BHbOVMoVWi1AisDs-J0qsN0hC-iAp2V2cjQJzGPwNpTdC1Dui9sdNcS6TNp4r1ewUvrC2sfmxg1wTPHKiikl00jk0jbckP1lVSn9Q2V1NsENy2CeDbsZ-yQu3QapcVkuRjnYggX7ncibsaDAHtZ_y9BE539qD7QpDBGylHLvBs/w268-h400/Charles%20I's%20Private%20Life.jpg" width="268" /></a></div><br />It is always amazing how certain books come our way at the proper times. In my case, I discovered <a href="https://www.allegianceofblood.com/" target="_blank">Mark Turnbull and his extensive writings on the Wars of the Three Kingdoms</a> just as I was working on Volume 2 of the <i>Henrietta of France Trilogy</i> entitled <i>Generalissima</i>. In <i>Generalissima</i> the Queen of England, Scotland and Ireland finds herself in the midst of a most savage civil war. Not being a military-minded historian, the various accounts of the various battles were running together in my mind. So when I found Mark's biography of Charles I it was like a gift from Heaven for the highly readable prose and clarity in explaining the progression of the War. Plus it offers penetrating insight into the often inscrutable personality of Charles I. Mark is the author of his own trilogy about the Wars of the Three Kingdoms called <a href="https://www.amazon.com/dp/B09GVT2KYS?binding=kindle_edition&ref=dbs_dp_rwt_sb_pc_tkin" target="_blank"><i>The Rebellion Series</i></a> as well as the award-winning novel <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Allegiance-Blood-Century-Historical-Fiction-ebook/dp/B07YLGFN1M?ref_=ast_author_dp" target="_blank">Allegiance of Blood</a></i>,
also about the English Civil Wars. I find the English Civil Wars and
the divided loyalties and the switching of sides much more difficult to
follow than even the Wars of the Roses. Therefore I am in awe of an
author like Mark who is at ease in explaining the ins and outs of the
conflict which devastated the British Isles, <a href="https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/learn/histories/the-english-civil-wars-history-and-stories/" target="_blank">leaving almost 200,000 dead</a>. <p></p><p><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Private-Life-Mark-Turnbull/dp/1399082906" target="_blank">From the Amazon page of <i>Charles I's Private Life</i> by Mark Turnbull</a>:</p><p><span></span></p><blockquote>The execution of King Charles I is one of the well-known facts of
British history, and an often-quoted snippet from our past. He lost the
civil war and his head. But there is more to Charles than the civil war
and his death. To fully appreciate the momentous events that marked the
twenty-four years of his reign, and what followed, it’s important to
understand the man who was at their epicenter.<br /><br />Both during his
lifetime, and in the centuries since, opinion of Charles is often
polarized; he is either Royal Martyr or Man of Blood. Amidst these
extremes, what is frequently overshadowed is the man himself. Propaganda
still clouds his personality, as do the events of his last seven years
of life.<br /><br />The first half of his life has not been explored in
detail. As a sickly second son of the first King of Great Britain, these
years shed light on the development of Charles’s character. Key
elements of his final days also remain lost to us, such as certain
identification of his executioners. Investigating new evidence, an
entirely new candidate is proposed. Persistent myths surrounding his
health and supposed unwillingness to compromise are also addressed.<br /><br />There
are many biographies, but this most intimate work draws upon fresh
viewpoints and contemporary letters, some never before used. Penetrating
the veil of monarchy and getting to the heart of the man through his
relationships, the reader is brought closer than ever to the real
Charles Stewart.<br /><br />A brave, principled and dutiful man, he was
politically flawed and lacked the ruthlessness needed to steer his three
kingdoms beyond the crossroads at which they arrived. Above all, he is a
character who shares much in common with us all.<br /><br />"This is the
story of the spare who became the heir: what shaped him - and what
became of him. Mark Turnbull helps us understand Charles the king as
Charles the man" - Leanda de Lisle</blockquote><p></p><p><i>Charles I's Private Life</i> takes a fresh look at the primary sources concerning the childhood and youth of Charles Stuart. Some biographies give the impression of Charles being ignored by his parents James I and Anna of Denmark as he grew up in the shadow of his older brother Henry Prince of Wales. Mark, however, offers examples of Charles being a beloved child of his parents, who saw him as their "jewel." He was a precocious little boy who faced severe health problems which he overcame with the help of his caregivers as well as with his own determination to be fit and strong. His Christian faith was always a strong part of his life as he learned from his father about how the hierarchy of the earthly kingdom should represent the hierarchy of the heavenly kingdom. Like his father he saw the Calvinist creed and its various offshoots, with its lack of bishops and of ritual, as disrupting the ordered hierarchy of both ecclesiastical and secular government. His insistence on ritual and beauty in liturgical worship was a hill he was prepared to die on.</p><p>For those who have viewed the series<i> Mary and George</i> it would be worthwhile to read Mark's take on the rise of the Villiers family at the English court. Whatever James I and the Duke of Buckingham were or were not doing in their private moments, the Duke attained enormous wealth and power, which continued into the reign of Charles I. As the best friend of Charles I, who called his sovereign the family nickname of "Baby Charles", Buckingham obstructed the relationship between Charles and his bride Henrietta Maria, as is described in my novel <i><a href="https://www.amazon.com/My-Queen-Love-Henrietta-Trilogy-ebook/dp/B09L6KTC2H?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rmCl6swmS-BQujDqrCI48Una6WyMG8ztIRQ5MUn21UZ0nxK0uCvPoJOn_SVPvTiqKIksNS6DtvQ6yUH9ngB_gHmGnU-IorKgf7HxCxkk5i8.8ll3TInNIOS0PPKV0TIHl38s4XcVw09NdZOdq3AS5YU&dib_tag=AUTHOR" target="_blank">My Queen, My Love</a></i>. Buckingham also brought the kingdoms to the brink of disaster with his encouraging Charles to fight with the Spanish and the French, wars in which the English were humiliated.</p><p>I enjoyed reading about the relationship between Charles I and his Queen. Some biographies blame Henrietta Maria for everything that went wrong but Mark's book, being balanced, shows where the mistakes were made and by whom. Henrietta Maria really should not be blamed since she risked her all for her husband's sake and lost husband, home, children, country. While Charles was labelled a "Man of Blood" for making war on his own people, there is plenteous evidence that Charles was left with no other choice, after exhausting every attempt at diplomacy. Even at the Battle of Edge Hill, the first major conflict of the war, Charles did not order a single shot fired until he and his children were fired upon and almost killed.</p><p>I encourage everyone interested in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms to read <i>Charles I's Private Life. </i>My own respect for Charles as been deepened by reading it while at the same time I now have a greater sense of his personality and human foibles. I also have a greater sense of the era and of the magnitude of the Civil Wars, the impact of which would shape the centuries to come.<br /></p><p> Please visit Mark Turnbull's website, <a href="https://www.allegianceofblood.com/" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</p><p><br /></p><p>A review of the television series <i>Mary and George</i> from Mark Turnbull at <i><a href="https://www.historiamag.com/review-mary-george/" target="_blank">Historia</a></i>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>But wild fabrication is employed in painting both Mary and George as
illegitimate, which is then used as a motive for Mary murdering two men.
She also begins a relationship with a female prostitute, Sandie Brooks,
despite no evidence of any lesbian liaisons. A particularly ludicrous claim is that the purpose of James’s visit
to Scotland in 1617 was to dig up the embalmed heart of his first love, <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Esm%C3%A9_Stewart,_1st_Duke_of_Lennox" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Esme Stewart</a>. George is, surprisingly, a rather passive character; two-dimensional,
plain, and naive. One of his later lines is ‘I am the king, I am
England’ but his character on screen seems barely a shadow of the real
man – who was shrewd and devious, and obtained practically every
significant political office.</p>
<p>The real George knew how to manipulate James and was overconfident,
overbearing, and all-powerful. The clothes of Nicholas Galitzine
(George) were barely adorned, whereas portraits of the real duke record
his penchant for ropes of pearls. Instead, Mary is by far the dominant character, though much of what
makes this so is based on fiction. That said, Julianne Moore acts the
part very well.</p><p> Crucially for me, with the key exception of King James (Tony Curran),
it was hard to feel connected to most of the characters. This was
partly down to an extremely dark and overtly violent undertone
throughout, which made for few endearing scenes. The first four episodes focus on the years 1614–1617. Following <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anne_of_Denmark" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Queen Anna</a>’s death in 1619, the series accelerates through the next 11 years, so can’t do enough justice to the <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_match">Madrid venture</a> or James’s decline.</p>
<p>In 1624, we see George single-handedly turn Parliament to war with
Spain. In reality, the duke suffered a bout of illness at the time, and
it was <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_I_of_England" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">Prince Charles</a>
(later Charles I) who managed Parliament so adeptly. The twist of irony
here is that in the series, Prince Charles is portrayed as a snivelling
and immature, emotional wreck. Historical accuracy goes into freefall when George ends the reign of <i><a href="https://academic.oup.com/book/45672/chapter/398071236">Rex Pacificus</a></i> (as James liked to be called)<i> </i>in a startling manner — murder. If this blatant falsification is not bad enough, the show powers to a similarly abrupt ending.</p>
<p>Fast forwarding to 1628, George bumps into <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Felton_(assassin)" rel="noreferrer noopener" target="_blank">his assassin</a>
at Portsmouth. As if attempting to squeeze in one last sex scene,
George ridiculously attempts to seduce John Felton, only to be
penetrated by Felton’s cheap dagger – though almost as if it was an
afterthought. As a result, this pivotal scene is robbed of gravitas and
dramatic effect. (<a href="https://www.historiamag.com/review-mary-george/" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</p></blockquote><p> </p><p>Purchase <i>Charles I's Private Life</i>, <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Charles-Private-Life-Mark-Turnbull/dp/1399082906" target="_blank">HERE</a>. <br /></p><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-80043943809747777582024-03-18T01:00:00.023-04:002024-03-18T01:00:00.250-04:00Tik Tok Picture Becomes Clear<p> From L. Todd Wood at <i><a href="https://eastongazette.com/2024/03/14/tik-tok-picture-becomes-clear-platform-will-be-bought-and-used-by-globalists-to-interfere-in-election/" target="_blank">The Easton Gazette</a></i>:</p><p><span class="ct-span oxy-stock-content-styles" id="span-23-32"></span></p><p></p><blockquote><p>We
have been wondering why the Biden regime and Congress suddenly became
'all in' to get Tik Tok assets in the United States sold from the
Chinese Communist Party, which in theory is a very good thing. Now we know the answer to our question -- Tik Tok is being sold to a
consortium of globalists, who will do the CCP's work for them in an
attempt to prevent Trump from getting back to The White House.</p>
<p><em></em></p><blockquote><em>Former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin is building an investor
group to acquire ByteDance’s TikTok, as a bipartisan piece of
legislation winding its way through Congress threatens its continued
existence in the U.S.The House of Representatives on Wednesday <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2024/03/13/house-passes-bill-that-could-lead-to-a-tiktok-ban-fight-shifts-to-the-senate.html" rel="noopener" target="_blank">passed</a> a
bipartisan bill that if signed into law would force ByteDance to either
divest its flagship global app or face an effective ban on TikTok
within the U.S, </em>reported CNBC.</blockquote><p></p>
<p>“I think the legislation should pass and I think it should be sold,” Mnuchin, who leads Liberty Strategic Capital, told CNBC’s “<a href="https://www.cnbc.com/squawk-box-us/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Squawk Box</a>” on Thursday. “It’s a great business and I’m going to put together a group to buy TikTok.” Mnuchin was called out by Trump as a globalist, unconcerned with the
American working class and populist movement, who worked to subvert
Trump's agenda. When we say 'globalist', part of what we mean is the America 'three letter agencies'. Now we know, the matrix wants Tik Tok to use for itself. It's like getting a 'nuclear bomb' to use in an information war. (<a href="https://eastongazette.com/2024/03/14/tik-tok-picture-becomes-clear-platform-will-be-bought-and-used-by-globalists-to-interfere-in-election/" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-23054680980685381942024-03-18T00:00:00.021-04:002024-03-18T00:00:00.140-04:00Catholicism and Slavery<p> From Samuel Gregg at <i><a href="https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-34-number-1/catholicism-and-slavery-setting-record-straight" target="_blank">The Acton Institute</a></i>:</p><blockquote>On the level of formal teaching, the Church’s record, Kengor illustrates, is one of consistent opposition to slavery. Very quickly, slavery was understood to be sinful by the Church. The position emerged more or less directly from the Gospels and the writings of Saint Paul. It was also considered universal in its application.<br /><br />This last point matters because a few scholars have argued that the Church was opposed only to the enslavement of Christians, whether by Christians or non-Christians, the implication being it was acceptable to enslave non-Christians. Certainly, some statements by popes and councils refer explicitly to Christians, but the omission of references to non-Christians is not intentional. For one thing, most church documents on slavery refer to the wrongness of enslaving anyone. It is also the case that statements about enslaving Christians by popes like Eugene IV were accompanied by other documents composed by the same popes “that addressed the welfare of all people.”<br /><br />In making his argument, Kengor analyzes a formidable amount of material to demonstrate the consistency of official Catholic magisterial teaching on the inherently evil nature of slavery. Especially concise statements were issued by the Holy Office (today’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith) in the 17th century. These spelled out in question-and-answer format not only the wrongness of slavery itself but also the obligation of captors, buyers, and owners of slaves to free and compensate them. There is no mention of the guilt and responsibility of anyone involved in the slave business being diminished by cultural, psychological, or sociological factors that might affect their personal culpability for their actions.<br /><br />Catholic teaching on slavery, Kengor also illustrates, was “far ahead of the world.” Though it is politically incorrect to say so, Kengor underscores that slavery simply was not questioned in any meaningful way in pagan Europe or pre-Christian cultures in North America, Latin America, Africa, and Asia. At a time in which there are tendencies to idealize such cultures—or even deny that brutal things like mass slavery and human sacrifice occurred in Mesoamerican cultures—these truths bear repeating. (<a href="https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-34-number-1/catholicism-and-slavery-setting-record-straight" target="_blank">Read more.</a>)</blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-81176081792982074632024-03-17T02:00:00.038-04:002024-03-17T12:46:28.560-04:00Croagh Patrick<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/uploads/assets/resized_MI_Croagh_Patrick_Getty.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="356" data-original-width="570" height="250" src="https://www.irishcentral.com/uploads/assets/resized_MI_Croagh_Patrick_Getty.jpg" width="400" /></a></div><br />We often forget, when partying on Saint Patrick's day, everything that he endured to bring the faith to Ireland. The Irish had such a reputation for fierceness and piracy that most missionaries were afraid to go there. <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm">Saint Patrick</a> had suffered as a slave in Ireland (he would make a great patron of the enslaved) after being kidnapped from his home. That he would have the courage to return to the place of his degradation is amazingly heroic in itself. Once in Ireland as a missionary, Saint Patrick had many ordeals. The druids hated him and tried to kill him at least once; he was often hunted like an animal. In order to recollect himself and gain strength and grace for his apostolic endeavors, he would retreat to a mountain called "<a href="https://www.irishcentral.com/travel/ireland-pilgrimage-sites" target="_blank">Croagh Patrick</a>."<br /><br />According to <a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/04509b.htm">New Advent</a>:<br /><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%;"></span><blockquote><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: medium;">A mountain looking out on the Atlantic ocean from the southern shore of Clew Bay, in the County Mayo, and called "the Sinai of Ireland." In pagan times it was known as <i>Cruachan Aigli</i>. It rises in a perfect cone to a height of 2510 feet. The account given below is taken from sources that post-date the saint's death by three hundred years. There are, however, good reasons to believe that the traditions they embody are genuine, </span><span style="font-size: medium;"><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11554a.htm"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">St. Patrick</span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> was careworn and fatigued when he came to this remote part of the country. He longed to retire for a while to refresh his soul in solitude, and for that purpose on the Saturday before </span><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01775b.htm"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Ash Wednesday</span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> in the year 441, he betook himself to the mountain top. Here he spent the days of </span><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09152a.htm"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">Lent</span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">, chastising his body with fasts, pouring out his heart to </span><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608a.htm"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">God</span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">, and entreating Him with prolonged importunity and with tears that the Faith may not fail in the land of Erin. The "Book of Armagh" mentions that </span><a href="http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06608a.htm"><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;">God</span></a><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"> summoned all the saints of Erin, past, present and future, to appear before their father in the Faith to comfort him with a vision of the teeming harvest his labours would produce, and to join him in blessing their kinsmen and their country.</span></span></blockquote><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;">It is good to know that even the great saints had times when they had to fight discouragement. They rejuvenated themselves by being alone with God. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Croagh_Patrick">Croagh Patrick</a> is still a place of <a href="http://www.croagh-patrick.com/">pilgrimage</a>.</span></span><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Tree-Elena-Maria-Vidal-ebook/dp/B00O2HBE7K?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rmCl6swmS-BQujDqrCI48Una6WyMG8ztIRQ5MUn21UZ0nxK0uCvPoJOn_SVPvTiqKIksNS6DtvQ6yUH9ngB_gHmGnU-IorKgf7HxCxkk5i8.8ll3TInNIOS0PPKV0TIHl38s4XcVw09NdZOdq3AS5YU&dib_tag=AUTHOR" target="_blank">And in honor of my Irish ancestors on this most glorious feast I am having a giveaway of T<i>he Paradise Tree</i>, between now and St. Joseph's Day on March 19</a>.</span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman; font-size: 100%;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><br /></span></span></div><div><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><div class="widget-content" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Tree-Elena-Maria-Vidal-ebook/dp/B00O2HBE7K?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rmCl6swmS-BQujDqrCI48Una6WyMG8ztIRQ5MUn21UZ0nxK0uCvPoJOn_SVPvTiqKIksNS6DtvQ6yUH9ngB_gHmGnU-IorKgf7HxCxkk5i8.8ll3TInNIOS0PPKV0TIHl38s4XcVw09NdZOdq3AS5YU&dib_tag=AUTHOR" style="color: #5588aa; text-decoration-line: none;"><img alt="In Kirkus Top 20 for 2014! And #1 in Kindle Historical Mystery, Thriller & Suspense Fiction" height="258" id="Image16_img" src="https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/91FUF2Keh-L._SL1500_.jpg" style="border-width: 0px; visibility: visible;" width="177" /></a><br /><span class="caption">"In every Eden, there dwells a serpent . . . ."</span></div></span></span><blockquote>"An Irish immigrant builds a new life in Canada, the decades marked by marriage, children and the odd otherworldly encounter. Vidal (Madame Royale, 2010, etc.) successfully transforms family stories into a historical novel that chronicles the life of her great-great-great-grandfather, Daniel O'Connor, who established a homestead in Ontario in the 19th century. O'Connor, a blacksmith living in County Cork, Ireland, is frustrated in his desire to train as a doctor because of English laws restricting Catholics' religious freedom and economic chances. When the political activities of his wild younger brother Owen cast suspicion on O'Connor, he flees Ireland, carrying just two mementos of his homeland--a white rosebush uprooted by his mother and a "paradise tree," a wooden crucifix so called because it represents a ladder of suffering to climb to heaven. Nine years later he has carved Long Point farm out of the wilderness, creating a home despite the new continent's own anti-Catholic prejudice. He marries Brigit, a girl 18 years younger than he is, then almost loses her to Owen, who arrives at the farm after his own midnight departure from Eire. But when a vision of his mother appears to him, hands on hips, he finds the will to throw his brother out of the house and confront his bride. She sobs and swears she will die of shame, insisting, " 'Oh, yes, I will die. I will,' she choked. 'But fret not....I'll be getting over it.' " And she does, bearing 11 children. The novel follows them as they grow to adulthood, marry and have children of their own, with each section of the book told through the eyes of a different character. Though the story unwinds slowly, it never drags. An imaginative, meticulously told history that will especially appeal to those with Irish roots" ~from <i>Kirkus Reviews</i></blockquote><span style="font-family: Times New Roman;"><span style="font-family: georgia;"><b><div class="widget-content" style="background-color: white; color: #666666; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="caption"><br /></span></div><div class="widget-content" style="background-color: white; font-family: Georgia, serif; font-size: 13px;"><span class="caption">Order your free Kindle copy of <i>The Paradise Tree</i><span style="color: #666666;">, </span><a href="https://www.amazon.com/Paradise-Tree-Elena-Maria-Vidal-ebook/dp/B00O2HBE7K?ref_=ast_author_dp&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.rmCl6swmS-BQujDqrCI48Una6WyMG8ztIRQ5MUn21UZ0nxK0uCvPoJOn_SVPvTiqKIksNS6DtvQ6yUH9ngB_gHmGnU-IorKgf7HxCxkk5i8.8ll3TInNIOS0PPKV0TIHl38s4XcVw09NdZOdq3AS5YU&dib_tag=AUTHOR" style="color: #666666;" target="_blank">HERE</a><span style="color: #666666;">.</span></span></div></b></span></span></div>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-23371487366692171862024-03-17T01:00:00.001-04:002024-03-17T01:00:00.157-04:00Are Climate Lockdowns Next?<p> From <i><a href="https://stream.org/happy-fourth-birthday-lockdown-fascism-climate-lockdowns-are-next/" target="_blank">The Stream</a></i>:</p><blockquote>Was it only four years ago? In one way, it feels like decades ago. In another, it’s as if it had never ended. But it was mid-March in 2020 that we saw the first nation locked down, imprisoned, subject to martial law, as part of the COVID panic. It started in Italy.<br /><br />That nightmarish, useless imprisonment of the people by their elites lasted for more than a year in many countries (and U.S. blue states). The Orwellian farce burned trillions of dollars, drove millions into desperate poverty, and starved tens of thousands of the world’s poorest to death. The intentional seeding of nursing homes with COVID patients by Democrat governors <a href="https://stream.org/republicans-must-investigate-the-blue-state-nursing-home-genocide/">killed thousands more</a> right here at home, who died without benefit of clergy or Christian burial, instead being bagged and incinerated like euthanized shelter pets. Or aborted babies, like the ones whose tissue got used to develop the COVID vaccine.<br /><br />That horror movie has a sequel. It’s premiering soon thanks to a government near you. Officials from globalist powerbrokers such as the United Nations and the World Economic Forum (WEF) are contemplating COVID-style lockdowns again. They’re just waiting for the pretext. Or planning for it.<br /><br />The WEF’s Great Reset Program aims to grab huge swathes of power over citizens’ access to a functioning economy, nutritious diet, and reliable energy sources — all in the guise of addressing climate change. (<a href="https://stream.org/happy-fourth-birthday-lockdown-fascism-climate-lockdowns-are-next/" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-15924558234790122142024-03-17T00:00:00.021-04:002024-03-17T00:00:00.341-04:00C.S. Lewis and the Apocalypse of Gender<p> From <i><a href="https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-33-number-4/cs-lewis-and-apocalypse-gender?fbclid=IwAR256wNtDHRp5_-NyGdm_NXA3Jon6_uhtB40DBErLzTDmuz9-3_V7E9gfzM" target="_blank">The Acton Institute</a></i>:</p><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia;"></span></p><blockquote><p><span style="background-color: white; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia;">Lewis, a master of Renaissance literature (and through it, of the late medieval period and antiquity), allowed his imagination to be formed not by the convulsions of his era but by the slow developments of millennia. He writes from deep within a realm many of us struggle even to enter, let alone explore: that of the Christian imagination, in which every single element of reality is at once itself and also a profound sign of God’s nature.</span></p><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">I have hesitated for a long time before writing about gender from a Lewisian perspective. It is perilous to bring a past thinker into discussion of a contemporary issue. As Lewis himself knew, these topics are best approached <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">through </em>the imagination. Rather than this essay, it would be more effective to write a poem or a song or a story about gender and the Christian imagination. That, after all, is what Lewis did<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. </em>But elucidating an imaginative vision, as Michael Ward does for Lewis’ thought in <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Planet Narnia</em>,<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </em>can be helpful<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">. </em>For many of us, the landscape of the Christian imagination is so far away that we need guides to point even to the trailhead. I hope here to point the way to that trailhead, where Lewis himself is waiting to lead us into the foothills of a realm in which physical realities, like our bodies, are signs revealing the nature of God. In Lewis’ imagination, there is no such thing as an “abstract idea.” In <em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Planet Narnia</em>,<em style="border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; font-family: inherit; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; font-weight: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"> </em>Michael Ward writes that Lewis believed that “to prefer abstractions is not to be more rational; it is simply to be less fully human.” An idea must have an associated “sign,” a body or a word or a relation, something we apprehend through our senses. We know reality through these signs, which come through our senses into our imaginations and shape how we live. <span style="background-color: transparent;">(</span><a href="https://www.acton.org/religion-liberty/volume-33-number-4/cs-lewis-and-apocalypse-gender?fbclid=IwAR256wNtDHRp5_-NyGdm_NXA3Jon6_uhtB40DBErLzTDmuz9-3_V7E9gfzM" style="background-color: transparent;" target="_blank">Read more</a><span style="background-color: transparent;">.)</span></p></blockquote><p style="background-color: white; border: 0px; box-sizing: border-box; color: #333333; font-family: Georgia; font-feature-settings: inherit; font-kerning: inherit; font-optical-sizing: inherit; font-stretch: inherit; font-variant-alternates: inherit; font-variant-east-asian: inherit; font-variant-numeric: inherit; font-variant-position: inherit; font-variation-settings: inherit; line-height: inherit; margin: 0px 0px 30px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;"><span style="background-color: transparent;"></span></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-53654610485099190132024-03-16T02:00:00.000-04:002024-03-16T02:00:00.130-04:00Tower House Castles of Medieval Europe<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://thefreelancehistorywriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/hallbartower2.jpg?w=550" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="400" src="https://thefreelancehistorywriter.files.wordpress.com/2015/11/hallbartower2.jpg?w=550" width="318" /></a></div>
From the <a href="http://thefreelancehistorywriter.com/2015/11/06/tower-house-castles-of-medieval-europe/" target="_blank"><i>Freelance History Writer</i></a>:<br />
<blockquote class="tr_bq">
In the later Middle Ages, feudal obligations became obsolete.
Men-at-arms and knights became expensive to maintain. Consequently,
more mercenary soldiers were used. Castles in England were less
important during what later came to be known as the Wars of the Roses
when warfare changed to pitched battles in open fields rather than
sieges. The ranks of barons were reduced and were replaced politically
and socially by the peerage who grew richer as a consequence.<br />
<br />
The gentry and some knights started to gain wealth by trade, profits
from war or public office or marrying into rich families. This was a
time of ambition and social emulation. They began to build
semi-fortified manor houses with square tower keeps, crenellations and a
gatehouse. A tower house as one’s home was a symbol of status, power
and rank, denoting the owner could look after himself and protect his
valuable possessions.<br />
<br />
The tower house was the simplest, most functional and most cost
effective approach for defense against neighbors and enemies. Tower
houses began to be built in cities, along the coast and in the Marches
and Borders. They were never conceived as a means for planned defense
and if there were more in some areas than in others, it was only because
the dangers were more apparent in those areas. (<a href="http://thefreelancehistorywriter.com/2015/11/06/tower-house-castles-of-medieval-europe/" target="_blank">Read more.)</a> </blockquote>
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/53/75/537524_312df7b6.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://s0.geograph.org.uk/photos/53/75/537524_312df7b6.jpg" height="323" width="400" /></a></div>
My own ancestors lived in and around the <a href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/537524" target="_blank">Togher Tower House in Dunmanway, County Cork</a> as told in <i>T<a href="http://www.amazon.com/The-Paradise-Tree-A-Novel/dp/1502448130/ref=as_sl_pc_ss_til?tag=httpteaattria-20&linkCode=w01&linkId=I6CO5EK2FYIALDHP&creativeASIN=1502448130" target="_blank">he Paradise Tree</a></i>.elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-32723898882735460872024-03-16T01:00:00.001-04:002024-03-16T01:00:00.130-04:00America Approaches the Crisis<p> From<i><a href="https://geopoliticalfutures.com/america-approaches-the-crisis/" target="_blank"> GPF</a></i>:</p><blockquote>We have recently discussed China’s problems, Russia’s ability to defeat Ukraine, the economic condition of Europe and the wars of the Middle East. All of these are extremely important, but none are as crucial as the United States, the country with the largest economy in the world and a military that, if fully deployed, can be decisive.<br /><br />Some of you may recall <a href="https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-storm-rages/">our model of cycles</a>, which is now signaling increasingly intense political, social and economic problems that will last until the election of 2028, when a new president will be elected and, regardless of his wishes, will dramatically shift the country’s direction. A few months ago, I thought we would not have to wait until 2028, but that <a href="https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-american-crisis-intensifies/">the 2024 election might signal the shift</a>. That isn’t happening. Or, to be precise, the historical model of change every 50 years is continuing. The last transitional moment was the Reagan presidency, which started 43 years ago.<br /><br />To understand the coming changes, it is useful to think of the last cycle in the 1970s. That decade was marked by a war with significant impact on the American economy, combined with an oil embargo. President Richard Nixon ended the link between the dollar and gold, and massive unemployment, dramatic inflation and staggeringly high interest rates ensued. Exports from Japan shocked domestic auto manufacturers. Anger at the Vietnam War led to social conflict in the United States, with racial conflict turning into riots in Detroit in the late 1960s, and in 1970, campus riots at Kent State turned deadly when students were shot by the National Guard. In the end, the president resigned to avoid impeachment and possibly prison.<br /><br />The chaos grew through the 1970s, but it was the economic situation that drove it and in which the chaos was rooted, with the president trying to use the last cycle’s model to solve the problems. During the Depression, President Franklin Roosevelt tried to increase taxes on the rich and corporations and attempted to funnel money to the poor. That, plus World War II and the jobs it created, ended the crisis. Continuing that model into the 1970s, however, created a new problem: a shortage of investment capital. The only solution was transformation, shifting the tax burden from the investing class to the middle and lower classes, which increased corporate sales and demand for workers. President Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party opposed this reversal of the Roosevelt model – which is normal for those linked to the last cycle – and in 1980 Ronald Reagan became president. Reagan pursued the only option: transforming the tax code. That worked well, but now that cycle is done. Nearly 50 years have passed, and a transition to a new model is inevitable.<br /><br />Just as the economic crisis culminated in the latter half of the 1970s, along with all the other battles, the same thing is shaping up now in the 2020s and will become most intense by the elections of 2028. <a href="https://geopoliticalfutures.com/america-approaches-the-crisis/" target="_blank">(Read more</a>.)</blockquote><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-91046988691196469702024-03-16T00:30:00.013-04:002024-03-16T00:30:00.128-04:00Report: Trump Did Propose 10,000 National Guard Troops on January 6th<p> From <a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/12/report-trump-did-propose-10000-national-guard-troops-on-january-6th/?fbclid=IwAR1K1gncCKyXvEheMXlnhZCD7D-dmEO_LCm7O9C74dLlb90aFrYlfFh2x_A" target="_blank">Jonathan Turley</a>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>One of the long-standing unanswered questions from the January 6th
riot has been why the Capitol was so poorly prepared and defended on
that day. A newly released transcript has caused a firestorm in
Washington over allegations that the J6 Committee downplayed or even
suppressed evidence that former President Donald Trump personally
suggested the deployment of 10,000 national guard troops to prevent
violence.<span id="more-216672"></span>
</p><p>The transcript also includes contradictions of major allegations that
ran wild in the media. That includes the claim that Trump tried to
physically <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-steering-wheel-january-6-cassidy-hutchinson-testimony-mark-meadows/">grab the steering wheel</a> of the presidential limo, “The Beast,” when Secret Service refused to take him to the Capitol. Former White House aide <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/cassidy-hutchinson-trump-lunged-secret-service-agent-tried-grab-steeri-rcna35775">Cassidy Hutchinson was the source</a>
of the claim, which appeared in most of the media and was highlighted
in her testimony. However, it appears that the J6 Committee had
testimony of secret service agents directly contradicting that account,
including the driver.</p>
<p>However, it is the National Guard question that is more weighty for historical purposes.</p>
<p>Trump has long claimed that he proposed the deployment of the
National Guard troops (as was done previously at the White House during
violent protests). The January 6th Committee said that was a lie.</p>
<p>The release of the transcript by Rep. Barry Loudermilk (R., Ga.)
triggered attacks on the J6 Committee. The Federalist’s Mollie Hemingway
wrote a <a href="https://thefederalist.com/2024/03/08/exclusive-liz-cheney-january-6-committee-suppressed-exonerating-evidence-of-trumps-push-for-national-guard/">column</a> titled “Former Rep. Liz Cheney’s January 6 Committee suppressed evidence.”</p>
<p>That <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/4522861-liz-cheney-spars-with-mark-levin-over-social-media-after-he-called-her-sleazy/">triggered</a> an angry response from former co-chair Liz Cheney which led to an even angrier reply from commentator Mark Levin.</p>
<p>The anger is nothing new in a J6 investigation that seemed to produce
more heat than light. Cheney’s spokesperson called the Federalist
report “flatly false” and added “no transcripts were destroyed” while
acknowledging that some material was not published “to allow the Secret
Service to protect sensitive security information for interviews of its
agents before preserving that testimony in the archives.”</p>
<p>The issue of the suppression or destruction of the evidence has drawn
a lot of attention, but the more troubling question is the fact that
such an offer was made and declined.</p>
<p>The Committee found “no evidence” that the Trump administration
called for 10,000 National Guard members to Washington, D.C., to protect
the Capitol.</p>
<p>That now stands contradicted and the question is whether Cheney or
other members knew the public was being misled on the question. For
example, the Washington Post “debunked” Trump’s comments with an award
of “Four Pinocchios.”</p>
<p>The Post’s Glenn Kessler admitted that Trump raised the issue but
noted that he might have been suggesting the troops “not because he
wanted to protect the Capitol,” but to suggest that he and his
supporters were being threatened. He added that “Trump brought up the
issue on at least three occasions but in such vague and obtuse ways that
no senior official regarded his words as an order.”</p>
<p>However, the issue is not whether Trump issued “an order” but made an
offer that was declined. For those of us who were covering the event on
that day, the question has always been prominent in our minds. I was
critical of Trump’s speech while he was still giving it. However, before
the Capitol was breached, I also noted that I had never seen the
Capitol so thinly protected in a major protest. (<a href="https://jonathanturley.org/2024/03/12/report-trump-did-propose-10000-national-guard-troops-on-january-6th/?fbclid=IwAR1K1gncCKyXvEheMXlnhZCD7D-dmEO_LCm7O9C74dLlb90aFrYlfFh2x_A" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</p></blockquote><p><br /></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-12185027337039384252024-03-16T00:00:00.001-04:002024-03-16T00:00:00.133-04:00A False Dilemma<p> From <i><a href="https://controversiam.substack.com/p/tomlinsons-false-dilemma-or-how-not?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2247211&post_id=140560829&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1locrn&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Controversiam</a></i>:</p><blockquote>Mr. Tomlinson claims that he “has never had an honest response from people opposed to abortion”, indicating that pro-lifers dishonestly say they would save the embryos—since to say otherwise would falsify their belief in the inherent value of the unborn. Their pro-life position commits them (allegedly) to saving the embryos over the child and they pretend that doing so is the right choice, even though they know it isn’t.<br /><br />If Mr. Tomlinson’s claim is true, perhaps it is because he has only spoken with pro-lifers who do not know their position or how to think on their feet. For, as an attack against the pro-life position or argument for abortion, his objection fails miserably.<br /><br />First, his thought experiment is a red herring. The scenario bears no semblance to abortion and therefore implies nothing about the moral justification thereof. In the scenario, you are <i>forced</i> to choose whom to <i>save</i>, not whom to kill, whereas abortion <i>just is</i> the deliberate, unforced killing of an unborn child. For the sake of argument, suppose that life does not begin at conception, or that embryos do not merit the same treatment or care as born children. What follows from that? It certainly does not follow that life begins after birth or that abortion is morally justified! Abortion may still be wrong even if life begins after conception. The scenario is mere smoke and mirrors. To justify when it is permissible to kill, the pro-abortionist still needs, at the very least, to specify when personhood begins.<br /><br />Second, Mr. Tomlinson relies on a false assumption, namely, that when forced to choose between two alternatives, the chosen option reflects what you value the most. This assumption undergirds his charge of inconsistency; it is why he thinks pro-lifers are committed to saving the embryo over the child. But it has the unfortunate property of being false. Choices between competing goods, such as which person to save when you cannot save everyone, must involve considerations beyond the intrinsic value of human life. Consequently, choosing the child does not by itself indicate that it has more inherent value than the unchosen embryos. (<a href="https://controversiam.substack.com/p/tomlinsons-false-dilemma-or-how-not?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=2247211&post_id=140560829&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=1locrn&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-85151314964850444072024-03-15T02:00:00.000-04:002024-03-15T02:00:00.126-04:00St Joseph and the Penance of Daily Duty <p> From Marianna Bartold</p><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share" allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/TvArJeOXXIQ?si=MwDFIUnQ8ypO3sAD" title="YouTube video player" width="560"></iframe>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-42658433713344560942024-03-15T01:00:00.005-04:002024-03-15T01:00:00.147-04:00The Trump-Orbán Meeting<p> From <i><a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/analysis/liberals-are-fretting-about-the-trump-orban-meeting/" target="_blank">The European Conservative</a></i>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Both Trump and Orbán have been outspoken conservative leaders on issues
such as the threat of migration, islamic terrorism, or the woke culture
embraced by liberals on both sides of the Atlantic, and have also
diverged from mainstream thinking on conflicts such as the war in
Ukraine. Orbán has praised Trump many times for being a peace-broker
instead of an interventionist like many of his predecessors. The former
president mediated bilateral agreements between Israel and two Arabic
countries, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates, bringing a higher
degree of stability to the region. While almost all other EU nations are
sending weapons to Ukraine in its defence against invading Russia,
Orbán has refused to do so, saying the arming of Ukraine only increases
the death toll. He has called for peace talks to begin as soon as
possible, and said reelecting Trump would bring an end to the war. “The
only chance of the world for a relatively fast peace deal is political
change in the United States, and this is linked to who is the
president,” he recently <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/hungarian-pm-orban-meet-trump-march-8-florida-2024-03-04/">said</a>.</p><p>This will be their second meeting since Trump left the White House in
2021. They previously met in August 2022 at Trump’s Bedminster, New
Jersey, golf club when Orbán travelled to the United States to speak at
the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) in Texas. Trump and
Orbán have praised each other in recent years. In April 2023, when
charges were filed in the first of Trump’s four criminal cases, Orbán <a href="https://apnews.com/article/orban-trump-florida-ukraine-gaza-war-d02e85be5b62084ff8402b2be94cbe27">posted</a>
a message of support for Trump urging him to “keep on fighting.” Trump
in early 2022 said he was giving his “complete support and endorsement”
to Orbán’s reelection campaign that year.</p>
<p>Both of them have contributed to a strengthening of ties between
Republicans and conservative European parties. Hungarian conservatives
have been regular visitors in the United States, have hosted their own
regional version of CPAC in Hungary, and will do so again in April.
Orbán has said the U.S. and European elections this year would be
crucial as conservatives in Europe and the U.S. must fight together to
“reconquer” institutions in Washington and Brussels from liberals who
threaten Western civilisation. Hungary has been punished by EU
institutions, its EU funds frozen for political reasons under the
pretence of “rule-of-law violations” and “democratic backsliding.”
American-Hungarian relations have also seriously deteriorated, with Joe
Biden’s liberal Ambassador in Hungary, David Pressman, regularly
criticising the Budapest Government.</p>
<p>While Trump has influenced the Republican Party, Orbán has had an
effect on European politics, making the point that steering clear of
mainstream liberal ideas and replacing it with a conservative,
sovereignist approach can be a successful model, if it has the backing
of the population. (<a href="https://europeanconservative.com/articles/analysis/liberals-are-fretting-about-the-trump-orban-meeting/" target="_blank">Read more.</a>)</p></blockquote><p><br /></p><p>More on the actual meeting, <a href="https://www.rferl.org/a/trump-meets-with-hungary-orban/32854919.html" target="_blank">HERE</a>.</p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-79049571251028677132024-03-15T00:30:00.014-04:002024-03-15T00:30:00.138-04:00Biden’s Stolen Classified Documents Report<p> From <i><a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/watch-major-self-own-democrat-rep-nadler-as/?fbclid=IwAR36j6xrd6uj5VikjmLB6l5Yo6mYPR-sMhM86OeEsW3tPmpkvcgR6rnnlwU" target="_blank">The Gateway Pundit</a></i>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Special Counsel Robert Hur on Tuesday <a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/live-stream-video-special-counsel-robert-hur-joe/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">testified</a> before Congress on Biden’s interview on his stolen classified documents scandal that spanned two days. Robert Hur last month released a<a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf" rel="noopener" target="_blank"> 345-page report</a> on his investigation of the stolen classified documents. A few key takeaways from Hur’s testimony on Tuesday:</p><div class="tgp-post-inline-1" id="tgp-565782114" style="margin-bottom: 20px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><div class="adcovery-postinline-01"></div></div>
<ul><li>Biden tried to change the classified documents report before it was publicly released</li><li>Biden willfully retained classified materials after the end of his Vice Presidency, as a private citizen</li><li>Biden lied when he insisted he did not share classified information with his ghostwriter</li><li>Biden’s ghostwriter tried to destroy evidence soon after the special
counsel was appointed to investigate the classified documents scandal</li><li>Hur said he did not exonerate Joe Biden</li><li>Biden forgot when he was Vice President and couldn’t remember the year that his son Beau died.</li></ul>
<p>A smug Nadler stepped on a rake when he tried to drop in with a question about Joe Biden’s deception. (<a href="https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2024/03/watch-major-self-own-democrat-rep-nadler-as/?fbclid=IwAR36j6xrd6uj5VikjmLB6l5Yo6mYPR-sMhM86OeEsW3tPmpkvcgR6rnnlwU" target="_blank">Read more.</a>)</p></blockquote><p> </p><p>From <i><a href="https://wltreport.com/2024/03/13/its-worse-than-we-thought-hurs-report-reveals/?utm_source=newsletter_randy&fbclid=IwAR2BC1BlTXLTzHN6HECslMBtQzWWkJAYf33ENH__jS9SNGAqBKDlz_rWDmg" target="_blank">WLT Report</a></i>: <br /></p><p></p><blockquote>Just when we thought it couldn’t get <em>any </em>worse, <a href="https://wltreport.com/2024/03/13/robert-hurs-testimony-confirms-biden-met-every-actual/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Robert Hur’s transcript</a> of Biden’s interview comes to light. Let me tell you right now, what I am about to tell you is surprising even to me—I knew <a href="https://wltreport.com/2024/03/08/joe-biden-caught-hot-mic-come-jesus-meeting/" rel="noopener" target="_blank">Biden</a> was not well, but did I think his dementia was this bad? Nope. According to Hur’s transcript, Biden claimed he couldn’t take his
Corvette out of the driveway and then proceeded to make car
noises—literal car noises during the interview. As Biden continued to make the vroom, vroom, and beep noises, he also
forgot what a fax machine was and seemed to become visibly disoriented
when discussing <em>anything </em>to do with milestones in his life. I don’t care what anyone says; Biden is clearly unwell and must be removed <em>now</em>. He is unfit to lead. Forget about elections—we have a literal vegetable in the White House. (<a href="https://wltreport.com/2024/03/13/its-worse-than-we-thought-hurs-report-reveals/?utm_source=newsletter_randy&fbclid=IwAR2BC1BlTXLTzHN6HECslMBtQzWWkJAYf33ENH__jS9SNGAqBKDlz_rWDmg" target="_blank">Read more</a>.) </blockquote><br /><p></p><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-53861440230081872952024-03-15T00:00:00.001-04:002024-03-15T00:00:00.128-04:00Shakespeare vs. the Transhumanists<p> From Andrew Klavan at <i><a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/shakespeare-vs-the-transhumanists?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">The City Journal</a></i>:</p><blockquote>I find these days that even friends with no religion have begun to speak in religious terms. Recently, within a single week, I heard the word “demonic” used five times, four times by people who don’t believe in demons. Stranger still, and not long after, I found myself in two separate conversations in which the sort of men who would never speculate upon the coming of the “end of days” began, with some embarrassment, to do exactly that.<br /><br />The subject, in each case, was transhumanism: transgenderism, artificial intelligence, artificial wombs, the melding of man and medication, man and machine. There was a sense that we were arriving at a moment of choosing—choosing, each of us, whether we would continue to be what we were originally made, male and female, mortal, fallible, passionate, irrational, seemingly random in our individual qualities and yet recognizable, even if only in metaphor, as the image of God. Or would we, through medication, surgery, implants, and the like, become whatever it is we would: happier presumably, smarter in some sense, maybe even eternal in some sense, free in form, no mere image of God, but electric gods ourselves?<br /><br />Believers and unbelievers both, we wondered in these conversations, sometimes ironically (or maybe irony was simply a form of mental self-defense): Was it possible that this choice we were approaching, between a human or a cyborg future, was the final sorting of sheep and goat, sinner and saint, saved and damned, that the Bible foretold? (<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/shakespeare-vs-the-transhumanists?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-56943500078646252552024-03-14T02:00:00.006-04:002024-03-14T02:00:00.129-04:00If Don Juan of Austria had Married Mary Queen of Scots<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDy3I7fFyNVlkg_QnhkA1HaalGP5bYjfu2ZDVEvgc3M2hw9QitjSiciHT16WMkClJ7X07Hg1IFNb53WpkXAZk7Ovp4rAZtlvM17eq2baVe39v7jjK83oZp8uPwKm9S9Kw34sKNNWE_EE4jqnvaRB7EWuQ5_ZMoEqiKZrzxdeaVcLQt6QmOhCuWhmfnWvU/s1500/mqoscotsthumbnail%20(5).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="800" data-original-width="1500" height="214" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDy3I7fFyNVlkg_QnhkA1HaalGP5bYjfu2ZDVEvgc3M2hw9QitjSiciHT16WMkClJ7X07Hg1IFNb53WpkXAZk7Ovp4rAZtlvM17eq2baVe39v7jjK83oZp8uPwKm9S9Kw34sKNNWE_EE4jqnvaRB7EWuQ5_ZMoEqiKZrzxdeaVcLQt6QmOhCuWhmfnWvU/w400-h214/mqoscotsthumbnail%20(5).jpg" width="400" /></a></div>One of the great mysteries of life is why people who seem meant for each other often do not end up together. From <a href="http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Common_Man.html?fbclid=IwAR0fqKEoA22wPW4hS-V7ILevpYvyZlex7gLaHVUQ7cP97PF2VyB4GdyO5Ww#austria" target="_blank">G. K. Chesterton</a>:<p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>I have here dared to call up out of the dust another warrior, whose destiny
turned also with the topsails and high poops of the galleys; and another woman,
whose legend also has been sometimes twisted into the legend of a snake.
There was never any doubt about the beautiful colours or graceful curves of the
snake; but, in fact, the woman was not a snake, but very much of a woman; even
by the account of those who call her a wicked woman. And the man was not
only a warrior, but a conqueror; and his great ships sweep through history not
merely to defeat, but to a high deliverance, in which he did not lose the
empire, but saved the world. Whatever else we may think of the woman, none
can doubt where her heart would have been in that battle, or what sort of song
of praise she would have sent up after that victory. There was much about
her that was militant, though her life might well have sickened her of
militancy; there was much about him that was sensitive and sympathetic with that
wider world of culture for which her soul sickened till she died. They
were made for each other; they were in fact the heroic lovers, or perfect human
pair, for whom we have looked elsewhere in history in vain. There was only
one small defect in their purple and impassioned love story; and that is that
they never met.</p>
<p>In truth, this dream began to drift through my mind when I first read a
parenthetical remark by Andrew Lang, in a historical study about Philip of
Spain. Referring to the King’s half-brother, the famous Don John of
Austria, Lang remarked casually: “He intended to carry off Mary Queen of Scots,”
and added caustically: “He was incapable of fear.” Of course nobody is incapable
of fear. He was certainly, in the common sense, incapable of obeying fear:
but, if I understand the type, he was not incapable of enjoying fear as an
element in a mystery like that of love. It is exactly because love has
lost that slight touch of fear, that it has become in our time so flat and
flippant and vulgar; when it has not become laboriously biological, not to say
bestial. And Mary was dangerous as well as in danger; that heart-shaped
face looking out of the ruff in so many pictures was like a magnet, a talisman,
a terrible jewel. There was, even then, in the idea of eloping with the
tragic yet attractive Franco-Scottish princess, all the ancient savour of the
romances about delivering a lady from dragons, or even disenchanting her out of
the shape of a dragon. But though the idea was romantic, it was also in a
sense what is now called psychological; for it exactly answered the personal
needs of two very extraordinary personalities.</p>
<p>If ever there was a man who ought to have rounded off his victorious career
by capturing something more human and spiritual and satisfying than wreaths of
laurel or flags of defeated foes, it was Don John of Austria. Because his
actual historical life rises on a wave of conquest in relation to these things,
and then sinks again into something less epical and simple, his life has
something of the appearance of an anti-climax; and reads like a mere stale maxim
that all victories are vanities. He tried to crown his chief exploit by
founding a kingdom of his own, and was prevented by the jealousy of his brother;
he then went, somewhat wearily, I imagine, as the representative of the same
brother to the Flemish fields laid waste by the wars of the Dutch and the Duke
of Alva. He set out to be more merciful and magnanimous than the Duke of
Alva; but he died in a net or tangle of policies; of which the only touch of
poetry was a suggestion of poison.</p>
<p>But in that broad and golden dawn of the Renaissance, full of classical
legends, carrying off Mary Stuart would have been like carrying off Helen of
Troy. In that red sunset of the old chivalric romance (for the sunrise and
the sunset were both in that bewildering sky) it would have seemed a magnificent
materialisation of one of those strange and stately public love affairs, or
knightly services, which preserved something of the Courts of Love and the
pageant of the Troubadours; as when Rudel publicly pledged himself to an unknown
lady in a castle in the east, almost as distant as a castle east of the sun; or
the sword of Bayard sent across the mountains its remote salute to Lucretia.
That one of these great loves of the great should actually be achieved in the
grand style, that, I fancy, would have been a wildly popular episode in that
epoch. And to the career of Don John it would have given a climax and a
clue of meaning which its merely military successes could not give; and handed
his name down in history and (what is much more important) in legend and
literature, as a happier Antony married to a nobler Cleopatra. And when he
looked into her eyes he would not have seen only bright chaos and the
catastrophe of Actium, the ruin of his ships and his hopes of an imperial
throne; but rather the flying curve and crescent of the Christian ships,
sweeping to the rescue of the Christian captives, and blazed upon their golden
sails the sunburst of Lepanto.</p>
<p>The converse is also true. If ever there was a woman who was manifestly
meant, destined, created, and as it were crying aloud to be carried off by Don
John of Austria, or some such person, it was Mary Queen of Scots. If ever
there was a woman who went to seed for want of meeting any sort of man who was
anything like her equal, it was she. The tragedy of her life was not that
she was abnormal, but that she was normal. It was the crowd all round her
that was abnormal. There is almost a sort of antic allegory, in that
sense, in such accidents as the fact that Rizzio had a hump and Bothwell some
sort of a squint. If her story seems now to be steeped in morbidity, it
was because the mob was morbid. Unfortunately for this ill-fated queen,
she was not morbid. It is the other characters, each in his own way, which
pass before us in misshapen outlines like the dwarfs and lunatics in some tropic
tragedy of Ford or Webster, dancing round a deserted queen. And, by a
final touch, all these ungainly figures seem more tolerable than the one that is
externally elegant, the hollow doll, Darnley; just as a handsome waxwork can
seem more uncanny than an ugly man. In that sense she had seen handsome
men and ugly men and strong men and clever men; but they were all half-men; like
the hideous cripples imagined by Flaubert, living in their half-houses with
their half-wives and half-children. She never met a complete man; and Don
John was very complete. In that sense she had been given many things; the
crown of Scotland, the prospect of the crown of France; the prospect of the
crown of England. She had been given everything except fresh air and the
sunlight treatment; and all that is typified by the great ships with their
golden castles and their leaping flags, that go forth to meet the winds of the
world.</p>
<p>We know why Mary Stuart was killed. She was not killed for having
killed her husband, even if she had killed her husband; and recent study of the
Casket Letters suggests that her enemies are more clearly convicted of forgery
than she was ever convicted of murder. She was not killed for trying to
kill Elizabeth, even if the whole story of trying to kill Elizabeth was not a
fiction employed by those who were trying to kill Mary. She was not killed
for being beautiful; that is one of the many popular slanders on poor Elizabeth.
She was killed for being in good health. Perhaps she was the only person
who was ever condemned and executed merely for being in good health. The
legend which represented Elizabeth as a lioness and Mary as a sort of sickly
snake is largely abandoned; anyhow, it is the very reverse of the fact.
Mary was very vigorous; a strong rider, and as a dancer almost ready to outrun
the Modern Girl. Curiously enough, her contemporary portraits do not
convey much of her charm, but do convey a great deal of her vigour. But,
as anyone may have noticed in the animal spirits of some of the finest
actresses, vigour has sometimes a great deal to do with charm. Now it was
essential to the policy of Cecil, and the oligarchs rich with the loot of the
old religion, that Mary should die for Elizabeth, and Mary, despite her
misfortunes, did not show the smallest disposition to die. Elizabeth, on
the other hand, was still dying rather than still living. And when the
Catholic heir inherited, it might go ill with the Protestant lords. They
therefore applied to Mary, at Fotheringay, one of the sharpest possible remedies
for good health, which has seldom been known to fail.</p>
<p>Her energy, which had thus brought her to her death, had also brought her
through her life; and may be the key to many of the riddles of her life.
It may be that her repeated ill-luck in marriage embittered her more than it
might a woman less normal and elemental; and that the very levities, which led
to her being painted as a harlot or a vampire, sprang from her primary fitness
to be a mother and a wife. It may be (for all I know) that a fairly
healthy person, in such a horrible experience, might have wasted her natural
instincts on some violent adventurer like Bothwell; those things are always
possible; but I confess I could never see that in this case they were necessary.
I have often fancied that the alliance may have been more politic, and even
cynical, than appeared to that fine romantic novelist, the forger of the Casket
Letters. Or it might have been surrender to a sort of blackmail; it might
have been many things. Anyhow, being surrounded by brutes, she chose the
best brute; though he is always represented as the worst. He was the only
one of them who was a man as well as a brute; and a Scotsman as well as a man.
He at least never betrayed her to Elizabeth; and all the others did nothing
else. He kept the borders of her kingdom against the English like a good
subject and a normal soldier; and she might very well have thrown herself under
his protection for that alone. But whether or no she sought satisfaction
in such a marriage, I am sure that she never found satisfaction in it; I am sure
she found only a new phase of the long degradation of living with her inferiors.</p>
<p>There was always in her heart a hunger for civilisation. It is an
appetite not easily appreciated now, when people are so over-civilised that they
can only have a hunger for barbarism. But she loved culture as the Italian
artists of the previous century had loved it; as something not only beautiful
but bright and shining and new; like Leonardo’s first sketches of
flying-machines or the full revelations of perspective and light. She was
the Renaissance chained up like a prisoner; just as Don John was the Renaissance
roaming the world like a pirate. This was, of course, the perfectly simple
explanation of her frequent and friendly toleration of a hunchback like Rizzio
and a young lunatic like Chastelard. They were Italy and France; they were
music and letters; they were singing-birds from the South who had happened to
perch on her window-sill. If there are still any historians who suppose
that they were anything more to her than that, especially in the case of the
Italian secretary, I can only say that such learned old gentlemen must be pretty
much on the moral and mental level of Darnley and his company of cut-throats.
Even if she was a wicked woman, there is no sense in supposing that she was not
an intelligent woman, or that she never wished to turn from her laborious and
life-long wickedness for a little intelligent conversation. The apology
for my own (somewhat belated) experiment in matchmaking is that she might have
been very different, when married to a man who was quite as brave as Bothwell
and quite as intelligent as Rizzio, and, in a more practical and useful fashion,
at least as romantic as Chastelard.</p>
<p>But we must not be romantic; that is, we must not concern ourselves with the
real feelings of real and recognisable human beings. It is not allowed.
We must now sternly turn our attention to scientific history; that is, to
certain abstractions which have been labelled The Elizabethan Settlement, the
Union, the Reformation, and the Modern World. I will leave the Romantics,
those unpresentable Bohemians (with whom, of course, I would not be seen for
worlds), to decide at what date and crisis they would like Don John finally to
fulfil his design; whether his shining ship is to appear in the wide waters of
the Forth as the mad mob in Edinburgh is waving scurrilous scrolls and banners
before the window of the Queen; or, on the contrary, a dark boat with a solitary
figure is to slide across the glassy stillness of Loch Leven; or a courier hot
with haste in advance of a new army hurl a new challenge into the bickering
parleys of Carberry, or a herald emblazoned with God knows what eagles and
castles and lions (and presumably a bar sinister) blow a trumpet before the
barred portals of Fotheringay. I leave that to them; they know all about
it. I am an earnest and plodding student of the dry scientific details of
history; and we really must consider the possible effect on such details as
England, Scotland, Spain, Europe, and the world. We must suppose, for the
sake of argument, that Don John was at least sufficiently strong to assert
Mary’s claim to sovereignty in Scotland to begin with; and, despite the
unpleasant moralising of the mob in Edinburgh, I think such a restoration would
have been generally successful in Scotland. Professor Phillimore used to
say that the tragedy of Scotland was that she had the Reformation without the
Renaissance. And I certainly think that, while Mary and the southern
prince were discussing Plato and Pico della Mirandola, John Knox would have
found himself a little out of his depth. But on the assumption of popular
rulers and a strong Spanish backing, which is the essence of this fantasy, I
should say that a people like the Scots would have gobbled up the strong meat of
the Revival of Learning quicker than anybody else. But in any case, there
is another point to be considered. If the Scots did not figure prominently
in the Renaissance, they had, in their own way, figured most brilliantly in the
Middle Ages. Glasgow was one of the oldest universities; Bruce was counted
the fourth knight in Christendom; and Scotland, not England, continued the
tradition of Chaucer. The chivalrous side of the regime would surely have
awakened noble memories, even in that ignoble squabble. I must here
unfortunately omit a very fine chapter from the unpublished Romance, in which
the lovers ride down to Melrose (if necessary by moonlight) to the reputed
resting-place of the Heart of Bruce; and recall (in ringing phrases) how Spanish
and Scottish spears had once charged side by side upon the Saracen, and hurled
far ahead, like a bolt above the battle, the heart of a Scottish King.
This fine piece of prose must not delay us, however, from facing the next fact;
which is that Mary, once safe, would survive as the Queen of England as well as
Scotland. It is enough to say that medieval memories might have awakened
in the North; and the Scots might even have remembered the meaning of Holyrood.</p><p>(<a href="http://www.gkc.org.uk/gkc/books/Common_Man.html?fbclid=IwAR0fqKEoA22wPW4hS-V7ILevpYvyZlex7gLaHVUQ7cP97PF2VyB4GdyO5Ww#austria" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</p><p> </p><p></p></blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-79326214198092971732024-03-14T01:00:00.005-04:002024-03-14T01:00:00.135-04:00Some Things We Can All Agree On<p> Mel K and James Howard Kunstler.</p><iframe frameborder="0" height="360" scrolling="no" src="https://www.bitchute.com/embed/2YWSKyNyaNrR/" style="border: none;" width="640"></iframe>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-78188849723354741762024-03-14T00:30:00.016-04:002024-03-14T16:21:17.849-04:00A New Chapter in the Haitian Nightmare<p> From Theodore Dalrymple at <i><a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-new-chapter-in-the-haitian-nightmare" target="_blank">The City Journal</a></i>:</p><blockquote>Anyone who has been to Haiti does not forget the experience. It is a beautiful, fascinating, tragic, and horrible place. The American writer, Herbert Gold, who lived there for part of his life, wrote a marvelous <a href="https://www.amazon.com/Best-Nightmare-Earth-Haiti-DESTINATIONS/dp/0671755161/ref=sr_1_1?crid=14VZSF5GHHYX3&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.CRKxK8hM7VNaF8_AVhM1MSfhvbuXhBDLnan5QM-Bkv9iHASkwzsXvReRbp72sKSxQD410c4DFBA3ErHVe_ssdFzRSyyxSp2lABN-iFX8MyCxliwfRLMpAGtYC6XsLMhbWtKzP_weoMsSRYbdfJhrnvLUeWXbI8ndJWhGg0MmhE1mrm38uiq_HEZEzsyTbOwfCxaUllEzzr2R5AAy6hZqYY_5wCqpG-Mmx0yRJxPRmJU.aweEcnQj_nRN6IKrzGAj3JPgf3ftJzq8b8cjgxjzhR0&dib_tag=se&keywords=best+nightmare+on+earth&qid=1710183103&s=books&sprefix=best+nightmare+on+earth%2Cstripbooks%2C124&sr=1-1">memoir</a>, calling Haiti “the best nightmare on earth.” Haiti is the only country I have been to where starveling children have tried to snatch food from my plate, insinuating their stick-thin wrists through the grille that supposedly protected the restaurant’s customers.<br /><br />And that was in the good old days, before the armed gangs took over Port-au-Prince, as <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-68531759">they have now done</a>. The city was always a deteriorating mess, with noisome slums and blackening garbage rotting uncollected (except by the vultures) in the middle of the streets. You thought it couldn’t get worse, but if Haitian history proves one thing, it is that things can always get worse and probably will. It is as if the Haitians were determined to show Gerard Manley Hopkins was right when he wrote, “No worst, there is none.”<br /><br />Astonishing though it may seem, I remember the days when it was perfectly safe to change money in the streets of Port-au-Prince with open air money-changers. They gave you wads of notes in front of passersby, but you were not in danger of robbery. Back then, I went through the Cité Soleil, probably the worst slum in the Western hemisphere, without feeling endangered (a journey brilliantly captured by the Haitian writer, Gary Victor). Now it would be suicidal to undertake such a trip. Thanks to the takeover of the city by competing gangs, people do not go outside except under the direst necessity. It is said that 15,000 people have fled their homes in the last week.<br /><br />It isn’t only Port-au-Prince that is affected. One of the most clearly demarcated borders in the world, that between the Dominican Republic and Haiti (green on one side and brown on the other), is under siege from fleeing Haitians numbering (so it is estimated) 200,000. There is no love lost between the two nations, and reports have surfaced of fleeing Haitians getting beaten back with cruelty and ferocity by the Dominican forces. This will raise the specter of the massacre in 1937, when the Dominican army, under the dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo, killed some 15,000–30,000 Haitians living near the border on the Dominican side of the Dejabón River, known to Haitians as the <i>Rivière du Massacre</i>. With so much going on to distract the world’s attention, another massacre might be under preparation. (<a href="https://www.city-journal.org/article/a-new-chapter-in-the-haitian-nightmare" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</blockquote><p> </p><p>More from <i><a href="https://thenationalpulse.com/2024/03/14/haiti-mass-migration-alert-%E2%9A%A0%EF%B8%8F/?fbclid=IwAR1rtfRtRpSXtlRJYH0bS1_GSmUpAcDnIE8o0Rt2VgVfDLf42j5WJTC1jUk" target="_blank">The National Pulse</a></i>.</p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-197018409968142662024-03-14T00:00:00.001-04:002024-03-14T00:00:00.293-04:00 An Elephant Could Be More Empathetic Than a Human<p> From <i><a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/a-massive-elephant-could-be-more-empathetic-than-a-human?utm_campaign=organicsocial&utm_content=Elephants%3A%20Nature%27s%20gentl&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1rinY95izaNqyYkzQ307txim0xR66gBDQpIDXKLV3TO3UDbImsU3To06w" target="_blank">Discover</a></i>:</p><p><a class="sc-acb0869a-0 bxBBvR sc-be2fc1e4-0 jhHupj" color="accent" href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/blogs/understanding-emotional-lives-of-elephants" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span class="sc-4df7a8a0-0 kkhobw"></span></a></p><blockquote><a class="sc-acb0869a-0 bxBBvR sc-be2fc1e4-0 jhHupj" color="accent" href="https://www.worldanimalprotection.org/blogs/understanding-emotional-lives-of-elephants" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span class="sc-4df7a8a0-0 kkhobw">Researchers</span></a><span class="sc-4df7a8a0-0 kkhobw">
have commonly found that just like humans, elephants have a strong
ability to show empathy. These massive animals can understand and share
feelings with other elephants and even different animals. Despite
their intimidating size, elephants are emotionally intelligent and form
deep familial bonds within their herd. Masson and McCarthy, in their
book, "When Elephants Weep," described elephants clustered around a
dying matriarch. They stroked her, and put food into her mouth, knowing
she wasn't feeling well. Other </span><a class="sc-acb0869a-0 bxBBvR sc-be2fc1e4-0 jhHupj" color="accent" href="https://www.researchgate.net/publication/37245197_Do_Elephants_Show_Empathy" rel="noopener" target="_blank"><span class="sc-4df7a8a0-0 kkhobw">studies</span></a><span class="sc-4df7a8a0-0 kkhobw">
show elephants can recognize another’s emotional state and react to the
emotions of their herd. So, how do elephants compare to how humans show
empathy? </span>(<a href="https://www.discovermagazine.com/planet-earth/a-massive-elephant-could-be-more-empathetic-than-a-human?utm_campaign=organicsocial&utm_content=Elephants%3A%20Nature%27s%20gentl&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&fbclid=IwAR1rinY95izaNqyYkzQ307txim0xR66gBDQpIDXKLV3TO3UDbImsU3To06w" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</blockquote><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-78677191460315948012024-03-13T02:00:00.001-04:002024-03-13T02:00:00.128-04:00Napoleonic Wars and the Emergence of Modern Nationalism<p><table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><tbody><tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_J-Iw_7jClXPNqE3K1bSYLGWDnhOGZx0YgcKwvx3U1s4SzjiwLNnNyPPMKbU6v1Lx5Iebuj7bd9oWQe-Uk9SWlUOC8cZjBqCFOjmfe7RXIz591Rjkzwk9sr5DGFyB-xLclt52sOISuD2cTBjj3C_PxYiDsyyMAwe4fc_bV85TLRaWKnksXzwb2Ip_8U/s1056/napolean-in-egypt.webp" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" data-original-height="696" data-original-width="1056" height="264" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEib_J-Iw_7jClXPNqE3K1bSYLGWDnhOGZx0YgcKwvx3U1s4SzjiwLNnNyPPMKbU6v1Lx5Iebuj7bd9oWQe-Uk9SWlUOC8cZjBqCFOjmfe7RXIz591Rjkzwk9sr5DGFyB-xLclt52sOISuD2cTBjj3C_PxYiDsyyMAwe4fc_bV85TLRaWKnksXzwb2Ip_8U/w400-h264/napolean-in-egypt.webp" width="400" /></a></td></tr><tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: x-small;">Napoleon in Egypt</span><br /></td></tr></tbody></table><br /> From <i><a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/early-modern-era/napoleonic-wars-and-the-emergence-of-modern-nationalism.html" target="_blank">World Atlas</a></i>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>In 1798, French officials came up with a plan to assert a French
presence in Egypt. With Napoleon leading, the Egyptian expedition began
wonderfully, capturing Malta, Alexandria, and the Nile Delta. The
political climate in France was shifting and impossible to foretell. The
peak of this domestic conflict came with a coup d'état towards the end
of 1799. Napoleon had prearranged his comeback and made it back to Paris
by October. The coup, known as the 18–19 Brumaire, saw the resignation
of the directors and the dispersion of legislative councils. It ushered
in a new government, the Consulate, with three consuls— one of which
being Bonaparte. While this was happening, Emperor Paul I of Russia,
Catherine the Great's son, was furious at France's occupation of Malta.
He responded by sending fleets to capture French islands while
assembling a new alliance, which grew to include Britain, Austria, the
Ottomans, and more. </p>
<p data-slot-rendered-content="true">The myth of Bonaparte's
unbeatable power was fragmented after his defeat at The Battle of the
Nile, acting as a catalyst for another European coalition to form.
Despite this, the coalition did not have much unity and fell apart. The
Armistice of Treviso between France and <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/maps/austria">Austria</a>
led to a temporary cessation of hostilities, and the Treaty of Florence
between France and Naples led to French control over parts of
Italy. Like the First Coalition, poor communication and a lack of unity
doomed the alliance from the start. <a href="https://www.worldatlas.com/early-modern-era/napoleonic-wars-and-the-emergence-of-modern-nationalism.html" target="_blank">(Read more</a>.)</p></blockquote><p><br /></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-52050072052507032202024-03-13T01:00:00.017-04:002024-03-13T01:00:00.133-04:00How The GOP Committed Suicide Trying to Stop Trump<p> From <a href="https://www.emerald.tv/p/how-the-gop-committed-suicide-trying-70f?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=263063&post_id=142528622&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=qi1jc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Emerald Robinson</a>:</p><p><span></span></p><blockquote><p><span>When did the GOP cease to be a functioning party? When was the exact moment that you knew the GOP establishment </span><em>stands for nothing</em><span> and </span><em>stands against nothing</em><span>? </span>For
many, this became apparent in the awful months immediately after
Election Day 2020, of course, when a steady stream of GOP leaders took
to the airwaves to let their voters know that “the most secure election
in history” had just taken place. For others, it was the Second
Impeachment of Citizen Trump — a symbolic exercise that only served to
destroy the political career of Mitch McConnell, and raze his reputation
as the bluegrass Machiavelli of our times.</p><p><span>McConnell wanted Trump convicted, that’s for sure. He pushed
that sham until it was clear that he didn't have the votes. The GOP
establishment wanted Trump dead and buried to clear the way for </span><em>Their People</em><span>
in 2024. At the 11th hour, McConnell realized that he didn’t have the
votes and so he told his Republican colleagues: he would no longer vote
to convict President Trump. The entire pointless exercise had only
served to enrage the GOP base. This time there was no ground cover to
hide his double-dealing. </span></p><p>The Turtle had been caught. This was his show.</p><p><span>Two
months earlier, Mitch had told Americans that he would never be bullied
into giving them any more stimulus money for COVID — one week after he
told Americans that he was prepared </span><em>to give the rest of the world $700 billion</em><span>.
Why was McConnell unable to provide some fiscal relief for working
class Americans? (After all, not everybody was lucky enough to marry the
daughter of a Chinese shipping tycoon who happened to leave you between
$5 million and $25 million as a personal gift.) It seemed suddenly
obvious that The Turtle was </span><em>not actually a political genius</em><span>. </span></p><p>What was he doing? He seemed to be leading a revolt of GOP politicians against their own voters. (<a href="https://www.emerald.tv/p/how-the-gop-committed-suicide-trying-70f?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=263063&post_id=142528622&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=qi1jc&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email" target="_blank">Read more.</a>)</p></blockquote><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-18865038085960525312024-03-13T00:00:00.001-04:002024-03-13T00:00:00.127-04:00The Word ‘Freelancer’ Originates with Medieval Mercenaries <p> From <i><a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/weird-facts/freelancer-0016989?fbclid=IwAR047sMFXv9b9kn8QoMcp7VrpnVhb4CjjkKvpK93fQExzN08rdaOk80oR4k" target="_blank">Ancient Origins</a></i>:</p><p></p><blockquote><p>Even though the word freelancer often feels omnipresent, very few
know its etymology. In fact, freelancers have been around for a long
time. The word freelancer has been traced back to Sir Walter Scott’s <em>Ivanhoe</em>, a romantic novel published in 1820 which is set in 12th century England. <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/robin-hood-too-good-be-true-real-folk-hero-or-romantic-embellishment-008084"><em>Ivanhoe</em></a> was included in a list of 100 Novels that Shaped Our World compiled by the <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/mediacentre/latestnews/2019/100-novels" rel="ugc nofollow" target="_blank"><em>BBC</em></a>, due to its influence in renewing interest in <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/how-be-chivalrous-knight-shining-armor-follow-code-009767">chivalric romance</a> and the <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-ancient-traditions/medieval-chivalry-0010505">Middle Ages</a> in general. But that’s not the only way in which <em>Ivanhoe</em> has left a mark. Within the novel, one mercenary makes reference to his “Free Lances,” a term to denote his paid army of <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/news-history-archaeology/viking-mercenary-district-0014176">mercenaries</a>.</p>
“I offered <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/history-famous-people/richard-lionheart-0012843">Richard</a>
the service of my Free Lances, and he refused them—I will lead them to
Hull, seize on shipping, and embark for Flanders; thanks to the bustling
times, a man of action will always find employment,” stated Maurice de
Bracy, the leader of a gang of mercenaries known as the Free Companions
in Scott’s adventure story. This made reference to the warrior’s <a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/human-origins-religions/holy-lance-0012997">lance</a> being “free,” a term which denoted that he was free of any political allegiances. (<a href="https://www.ancient-origins.net/weird-facts/freelancer-0016989?fbclid=IwAR047sMFXv9b9kn8QoMcp7VrpnVhb4CjjkKvpK93fQExzN08rdaOk80oR4k" target="_blank">Read more</a>.)</blockquote>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7534539169157708222.post-35732734598832107882024-03-12T02:00:00.002-04:002024-03-12T17:00:24.484-04:00The Boys in the Boat (2023)<p></p><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQQZHVEAgmZJwaCT-_LDxkHcuwJQsATHL-taVOIIKkdJV_izS2Uha13yQEKn8R7DkNqN_JfpVGKg1_FMoD5dYKMqpYjW4roTLLOto5nFR7_QWtr7vh2Bzb4rKP2HH_npRml2iO7ISC_7zG9YnIcHSZuyi90rdRdIBKL33Gzjh1jgx0MJBvPdpLY3aejQ/s297/boysinboatimages.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="170" data-original-width="297" height="183" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjVQQZHVEAgmZJwaCT-_LDxkHcuwJQsATHL-taVOIIKkdJV_izS2Uha13yQEKn8R7DkNqN_JfpVGKg1_FMoD5dYKMqpYjW4roTLLOto5nFR7_QWtr7vh2Bzb4rKP2HH_npRml2iO7ISC_7zG9YnIcHSZuyi90rdRdIBKL33Gzjh1jgx0MJBvPdpLY3aejQ/w320-h183/boysinboatimages.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><span class="x193iq5w xeuugli x13faqbe x1vvkbs x1xmvt09 x1lliihq x1s928wv xhkezso x1gmr53x x1cpjm7i x1fgarty x1943h6x xudqn12 x3x7a5m x6prxxf xvq8zen xo1l8bm xzsf02u x1yc453h" dir="auto">I can hardly believe that a globalist like George Clooney directed such a
fine film as <i>The Boys in the Boat</i>. It is like a movie from the 1930s, patriotic and wholesome. Nothing crude or lewd, no bad language. A true story.
Definitely for the whole family.</span> From John Zmirak at <i><a href="https://stream.org/the-boys-in-the-boat-a-film-that-will-make-you-miss-the-america-we-once-had/?fbclid=IwAR1y1hKQKNtdaVJ8NvI_0MLxvyw8wtUViKL9tdTQwHBWrCBne3P-5vhOFPA" target="_blank">The Stream</a></i>:<p></p><p></p><blockquote><p>First of all, the movie directed by George Clooney but starring no big
names was gripping, wholesome, and exciting. The acting was uniformly
excellent, and the visuals were beautiful. It was set in the 1930s, so
everyone dressed dapper — even the hobos in the soup kitchen line looked
neat compared to 2024 senators such as John Fetterman.</p><p>And that makes an important point: This movie about the build-up to
the 1936 Olympics is set at the depth of the Great Depression, when four
years of the New Deal had done almost nothing to solve the crisis.
Everyone in the story who’s even employed is desperate to keep his job,
with the wolf at the door.</p>
<p>It’s against that background that we meet Joe Rantz, a young
undergrad at the University of Washington. He’s studying engineering.
Joe is not just the first member of his family to go to college (not
that uncommon in that era). He’s also practically orphaned, after his
mother died and his father abandoned the family to seek work in some
other state. He can’t scrape together tuition, and faces not just
dropping out of school but the prospect of being homeless. Desperate to
find some income, he sees that a job is offered to any student who makes
the rowing (“crew”) team. So he enrolls in that sport.</p>
<p>What he faces is a grinding regime of daily physical training — which
luckily he was prepared for by a lifetime of manual labor. The UW team
is a perennial underdog, striving to beat its much richer rivals at the
University of California. But this year the stakes are far higher: the
leading college team in the U.S. will go to the Olympics to compete in
Munich against the likes of Hitler’s own German team.</p>
<p>Along the way he meets Joyce, a lovely young woman whom it turns out
he once was in love with in grammar school. By some strange chance or
Providence, she remembers him — in fact, she has saved his boyish love
notes. Ashamed of his desperate poverty and broken family background, he
tells her various stories to throw her off the scent, and for a while
ignores her increasingly blatant hints that she’s interested in him. (<a href="https://stream.org/the-boys-in-the-boat-a-film-that-will-make-you-miss-the-america-we-once-had/?fbclid=IwAR1y1hKQKNtdaVJ8NvI_0MLxvyw8wtUViKL9tdTQwHBWrCBne3P-5vhOFPA" target="_blank">Read more.</a>)</p></blockquote><p></p>elena maria vidalhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17129629173535139807noreply@blogger.com0