Marriage is like a railroad sign.
First you stop, then you look, and then you listen.
*.*
What’s the difference between USA and USB?
One connects to your devices and accesses all of your data.
The other is a hardware standard.
*.*
Due to Russia’s ongoing attacks against Ukraine, the U.S. military has forbidden service members from playing Russian Roulette.
“This is the Department of Defense’s own kind of sanction, a sign of solidarity,” Col. Andrew McDowell told journalists while pouring a bottle of Mr. Boston vodka down a drain. “History will remember how well the United States military supported our ally at the onset of World War III.”
Service members have also been banned from other popular off-duty activities, such as playing Russian characters in Call of Duty and marrying Russian mail-order brides.
*.*
Smoking will kill you.
Bacon will kill you.
But smoking bacon will cure it.
*.*
There’s a fertilizer shortage because of Sleepy Joe’s policies and we couldn’t get enough for our crops.
I guess we’ll just have to make doo.
Quote of the Times;
“Accomplishments matter, and no one “accomplished” their race.” - Derek Hunter
Link of the Times;
https://thecradle.co/Article/columns/8853
Issue of the Times;
The State Department Failed To Prevent The War. Will It Now Prevent The Peace? by David Sacks
The following piece is the transcript of a keynote address entrepreneur and investor David Sacks gave at The American Conservative and American Moment’s “Up From Chaos” conference in Washington, D.C., on March 31, 2022.
I want to thank the American Moment for the invitation to speak here today. As I appear before you, I’m reminded of the immortal words of Admiral James Stockdale: “Who am I? Why am I here?” As a tech entrepreneur and venture capitalist, I cannot claim to be one of those “experts” in foreign policy that we are constantly being told to listen to. However, my area of expertise does involve placing intelligent bets on future outcomes and identifying existential risks. And I’d trust in our expert class more if what I heard from them sounded anything like intelligent forecasting and risk assessment.
We face the most dangerous situation in American foreign policy since the Cuban Missile Crisis. The Russians have put their nuclear arsenal on high alert and warned us to stay out of their invasion of Ukraine. Our “experts” in government and the media feed us a stream of information oscillating between fear-mongering and hopeful arrogance: They tell us on the one hand that Russia’s territorial ambitions won’t stop at Ukraine and will eventually threaten all of Europe, but on the other hand that the Russian army is bogged down and on the brink of humiliating defeat. They tell us in one breath that we can safely escalate our involvement, but in their next panicked breath declare that Putin is a madman who is capable of anything. They reassure us that a “No Fly Zone” won’t precipitate World War III, while sometimes openly declaring that we’re already in World War III so let’s just get on with it already.
How can any American citizen listening to these contradictory and reckless statements have confidence in our expert class? We’ve just lived through more than two years of another group of experts giving us a constantly-shifting set of theories and guidelines around Covid, only to see many of those confident predictions and pronouncements unravel.
But while those health experts got a lot wrong, our foreign policy establishment has gotten everything wrong for over two decades. They spent trillions of dollars in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, and Libya and only made all of those situations worse, unleashing staggering death and destruction. In every case, they told us we were winning and our policy objectives were being achieved, up until the very moment when our withdrawal laid bare the extent of our total failure. This is the same foreign policy establishment that gave us the policy of Constructive Engagement towards China, feeding that baby tiger until it became a dragon that can challenge us for global hegemony. So maybe it’s time to listen to some new voices.
And that’s why I’m here. Perhaps a voice from outside the Beltway needs to remind our experts, especially at the State Department, that their job is to keep us out of war, and one way to do that is through effective diplomacy. I realize that after two decades of nearly continuous wars, they may not have much practice at this. Their diplomatic skills may have atrophied from lack of use. This has made the current situation much worse than it needed to be for many brave and innocent Ukrainians. It has also placed us at risk of a wider war, rising inflation, a steep recession, massive food insecurity, and even a potential nuclear confrontation if this war spins out of control. So we should all be very concerned at the incompetence that’s been on display, first in the months leading up to the war, and now as the combatants attempt to negotiate peace. I want to speak to each of these two situations.
This War Was Preventable
First, it is my belief that the war in Ukraine could have been prevented. Asserting this in no way implies that anyone other than Vladimir Putin is responsible for starting this war. He ordered this invasion, and the blood spilled is ultimately on his hands. But just because his actions caused the war doesn’t mean it was inevitable or that we couldn’t have taken steps to prevent it. Years ago, a number of academics—albeit not ones favored by our foreign policy establishment—predicted a future crisis in Ukraine that would wreck the country. If a war is predictable, shouldn’t it also be preventable?
There are two ways to prevent conflict: strength and diplomacy. Consider the American Eagle depicted on the Great Seal of the United States that’s also on our dollar bill. In one talon, the eagle clutches 13 arrows, and in the other it clutches an olive branch. This reflects our nation’s understanding of how to make and maintain peace since our founding: strength and diplomacy. This administration failed on both fronts.
First, President Biden failed to project American strength when he gutted our energy independence, canceling the Keystone pipeline on his very first day in office and restricting domestic energy production. Meanwhile, other NATO countries like Germany made themselves even more dependent on Russian gas by shuttering their nuclear power plants. Putin must have concluded that the West needed his gas too much to sanction him effectively. Next, the Biden administration botched the withdrawal from Afghanistan. The Afghan army that we had spent many years and countless billions of dollars to “stand up” was exposed as a fraud in a matter of days. Then our troops and their local allies beat a chaotic retreat from the country that revealed tactical incompetence in the general corps, with zero accountability to follow. Lastly, in the crucial days and weeks leading up to the war, Biden appeared to give the green light to a “minor incursion” into Ukraine by Putin’s forces, suggesting that wouldn’t necessarily trigger the sanctions and other penalties.
But of course in Washington there is never a shortage of those who will chide an administration for failing some test of strength in foreign policy. What is rarer and therefore more vital is to point out failures of diplomacy, which can just as easily lead to unnecessary war. And I believe our State Department failed in its diplomatic mission in the run-up to the Ukraine invasion.
Ever since the Bucharest Declaration of 2008, when NATO opened the door to membership for Ukraine and Georgia, the Russians have indicated that membership for these two border nations was an unacceptable “red line” for them. They quickly proved their seriousness later that year by invading Georgia and securing territory where predominantly-Russian populations were located. (Doesn’t that sound eerily familiar?) For the last 14 years, Putin and the entire Russian elite have spoken with one voice: NATO membership for Ukraine was an intolerable security threat. We ignored this red line, continuing to push for NATO expansion and transitioning Ukraine’s military onto a NATO platform even before official membership.
In response, a Russian troop buildup began on Ukraine’s border around the beginning of last year. This had the intended effect of getting the new president’s attention. Biden called for a summit and met with Putin in Geneva in June last year. We don’t know exactly what was said in the room but we do know that Biden said publicly at that time that corruption in Ukraine prevented its entry into NATO. Putin seemed mollified, and tensions seemed to abate. According to recent reporting by The Intercept based on U.S. intelligence sources, the Russian military buildup on Ukraine’s border started to subside after the Biden-Putin Summit and did not increase again until October/November. So what happened in between to upset the apple cart?
On September 1, Ukrainian President Volodomyr Zelensky visited the White House. This was the first such visit by a Ukrainian head of state, fulfilling one of Kiev’s long-standing diplomatic objectives. On that day, the U.S. and Ukraine issued a “Joint Statement” affirming deep economic and military ties between the two nations, including support for Ukraine’s NATO membership. This likely reflected weeks of back-channel negotiations that preceded Zelensky’s visit, suggesting Biden’s reassurances to Putin were dead-letter virtually from the day he made them. On November 10, Secretary of State Blinken and the Ukrainian foreign minister signed a massive 10-year Charter Agreement, which was the long-form version of the Joint Statement issued earlier.
Predictably, the Russians hit the roof. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said they had reached “the boiling point.” They delivered a virtual ultimatum to the U.S. in December demanding written assurance that Ukraine would not become part of NATO. A month of furious negotiations began in January between Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Lavrov, during which Blinken gave no ground on NATO membership. In fact, he seemed proud of western intransigence, making statements like “There has been no change; there will be no change.” And: “NATO’s door is open, remains open, and that is our commitment.”
Yet that’s not what Blinken was saying privately. We now know, thanks to a stunning recent interview by Fareed Zakaria, that Zelensky was privately told that Ukraine wasn’t going to be admitted into NATO but that the door had to remain publicly open.
What could possibly be the rationale for this diplomatic approach? We refused to accede to the Russians’ most long-standing and important demand even though we privately admitted to Ukraine that we had no intention of following through. In other words, we refused to give the Russians “the sleeves off our vest,” a concession that was largely meaningless to us but of paramount importance for them.
Was it really so hard for us to imagine that the Russians might have a genuine concern about being encircled on a 1200-mile border by what they regard as a hostile military alliance? Aren’t diplomats supposed to be able to put themselves in the other guy’s shoes? Even if we see NATO purely as a defensive alliance, is it really inconceivable that Russia could see that vast military power as having offensive potential? After all, they watched NATO take offensive action to topple Moammar Ghaddafi in Libya and to bomb their Serbian allies during the Kosovo War. Is it really so hard to understand Russian paranoia about having American troops, weapons, and bases on their Ukrainian border, from which they’ve been attacked throughout history? The United States itself was willing to risk a nuclear confrontation with the Soviets over offensive weapons placed ninety miles off our shores in 1962, yet we treat the same concern by the Russians as crazy or a bluff.
But let’s say I’m wrong. Let’s say you believe that NATO expansion was not a real concern of the Russians but rather just a pretext for Putin’s invasion. We should still have been willing to give that guarantee to take it off the table as a casus belli. Polling of the Russian people showed that they favored an invasion to prevent Ukraine joining NATO by 2 to 1, but a majority did not favor attacking Ukraine for reunification. Even if it was just a pretext, we should have robbed Putin of that pretext in order to drive up his negatives among the Russian people. Just today, a new poll by Levada Centre showed that 80 percent of the Russian people support Putin so obviously we failed at that.
Nobody can claim that American negotiators didn’t know the Russians’ key demand. The Associated Press headline on January 19 practically screamed it: “Russia says it will take nothing less but NATO expansion ban.” Yet we never relented on the public assertion that Ukraine would join NATO while privately saying that it wouldn’t. It’s as if Blinken trained at some Bizarro World school of diplomacy where you say publicly what you should say privately, and privately what you should say publicly.
What was our goal? The degree of our State Department’s obtuseness has caused some commentators to speculate that American intransigence was a deliberate ploy to goad the Russians into an Afghan-style quagmire. I suspect that’s giving the administration too much credit. As Hanlon’s razor states, “Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
Whether we thought the Russians were bluffing, or were hoping to goad them into a mistake, we know what happened next. The talks broke down, and after a two-week pause for the Beijing Olympics so as not to upset his buddy Xi Jinping, Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24.
Let me reiterate what I said earlier for any media types determined to twist my words. The invasion of Ukraine was solely Putin’s decision. He had other options. The repercussions for that criminal decision—the war, the deaths, the humanitarian disaster—fall entirely on him. I’m not seeking in any way to diminish his culpability for the monstrous atrocity of this war. But I do believe that, by not giving Putin the sleeves off our vest, the State Department failed to do everything it could to avoid this war.
It was diplomatic malpractice, pure and simple. Of course, incompetence like this always has to be covered up. So as soon as the war began, administration officials started claiming that the invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with NATO expansion, and anyone who said differently, according to Jen Psaki, was “parroting Putin talking points.” Their goal was to create a taboo around the subject that has lingered to this day. Nobody was even allowed to discuss the causes of the war without having their loyalties questioned.
Following Psaki’s logic, were George Kennan, Henry Kissinger, Bill Bradley, and Sam Nunn all parroting Putin talking points when they warned years ago that expanding NATO up to Russia’s front porch would eventually result in disaster? Was former defense secretary Robert Gates parroting Putin talking points when he wrote in his memoir that trying to bring Ukraine into NATO “was truly overreaching” and a case of “recklessly ignoring what the Russians considered their own vital national interests”?
Are we to conclude that Biden’s own CIA director Bill Burns was parroting Putin talking points in his famous 2008 memo, “Nyet Means Nyet,” when he wrote to then-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, that NATO expansion to Ukraine is “the brightest of all redlines for the Russian elite (not just Putin)”?
It became necessary to memory-hole all of these warnings and many more by a long litany of eminent foreign policy thinkers to cover up the administration’s diplomatic incompetence prior to February 24.
Will Peace be Prevented Too?
That brings us to the present day. We can all agree that we sympathize with the Ukrainians in their desire to defeat Russian aggression and to be free of Russian domination. The Ukrainians have fought fiercely and bravely for their sovereignty. While opposing U.S. military involvement, I have supported arming the Ukrainians under Cold War rules so they can fight for their own freedom. I also believe that targeted sanctions can create pressure on Russia to come to the negotiating table. But it must be our objective now to help achieve a ceasefire and negotiated peace rather than protract the conflict.
Peace negotiations have been underway for a few weeks now, and the broad contours of a potential deal have been clear for some time: Ukrainian neutrality in exchange for international security guarantees; the recognition of Russia’s annexation of Crimea, which has been a fait accompli since 2014 and which is supported by the vast majority of people who live there; and some form of independence for the Russian-speaking areas in the Donbas, Donetsk and Luhansk, which would bring an end to the bloody civil war that has been raging there.
The United States should do everything it can to support such a deal. We don’t have a vital national interest in the details of who rules the Donbas. We do have a vital national interest in avoiding the existential risks of a protracted war. These risks include escalation into a wider war that could even involve nuclear weapons, the escalation of economic warfare or inflation that tips the West into recession, and damage to the global food supply chain causing potential famine around the world.
Of course, Antony Blinken and his State Department will be forced to eat a lot of crow given his many public declarations that we would never close NATO’s door or recognize Crimea. It’s only because of these previous statements that perfectly reasonable accommodations to achieve peace—that are really just the status quo—will be seen as appeasement by the Washington war machine. That’s not a reason to let our diplomatic corps fail us again. As President Obama said, “we have to be very clear what our core interests are and what we’re willing to go to war for.”
It’s bad enough that we aren’t leading the effort to reach a peace. We don’t even seem to be participating in it. Blinken and the U.S. seem curiously absent while France’s Macron, Israel’s Naftali Bennett, and even Turkey’s Erdogan step into the peacemaker roles. If anything, Blinken seems to be throwing cold water on the progress of the peace talks, harrumphing at a press conference Tuesday that he has seen “no signs of real seriousness” from the Russians in pursuing peace. Of course, “trust but verify” has always been good policy when making any deal with the Russians, but a more optimistic public stance is typically what American diplomats who are trying to lead two warring nations to a settlement would offer.
Are we sandbagging a deal because we want to bog Putin down in a long Ukrainian insurgency that bleeds his regime? It’s not wild speculation to conclude that, as Niall Ferguson and others have done. The ultimate aim of such a strategy would have to be the destabilizing and toppling of Putin’s regime. It’s clear that elements in Washington, particularly at the State Department, not-so-secretly want that. This faction believes that Biden’s “gaffe” last weekend that Putin “cannot remain in power” should be official U.S. policy and was a gaffe only in Michael Kinsley’s famous definition of the word: when a politician in Washington accidentally tells the truth.
All our attempts at regime change over the past 20 years have failed spectacularly, leaving humanitarian catastrophes and power vacuums in their wake. There is no reason to think regime change in Russia will be any exception. Our diplomats should be agents of peace, not agents of regime change.
If it is true that the Russian invasion has stalled, the policy choice we now face is akin to Bush 41 vs Bush 43. George Herbert Walker Bush had the wisdom to stop on the road to Baghdad after repulsing Saddam’s aggression. George W. Bush kept going, pursued regime change, and created an epic disaster.
Restraint never feels as good as maximalism. When Bush 41 stopped, he was widely called a wimp, whereas Bush 43 got to declare “Mission Accomplished” on an aircraft carrier. It took years to prove that Bush 41 had been right.
In his final days, George Herbert Walker Bush, heartbroken over the way that Cheney and Rumsfeld had ruined his son’s presidency, warned against that style of diplomacy: He called it the “iron ass view of everything”; he called it “arrogant”; he said it “doesn’t care what the other guy thinks,” it “just wants to kick ass and take names.”
I can’t think of a better description of our State Department’s intransigence before the war, and its disinterest in peace now. I can’t imagine a more toxic combination than a State Department that only conducts iron-ass diplomacy while defining American interests so broadly that it includes checking aggression virtually anywhere in the world. That is a recipe for an America that is permanently at war.
To be clear, I’m not a dove. War is sometimes a necessary evil when our vital national interests are truly threatened. In those narrowly defined cases, you will find me to be as hawkish as anyone in Washington. But perhaps the bird we should strive to be is neither hawk nor dove, but the American Eagle depicted on our Great Seal: flying above the fray, avoiding unnecessary conflict, willing to reign down arrows like Tomahawk missiles when our vital interests are truly threatened, but only after we have fully exhausted the olive branch of diplomacy and seized every last opportunity for peace.
Thank you.
News of the Times;
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2022/04/the_unrestrained_influx_of_illegal_aliens_continues_on_the_texas_border.html
https://neonnettle.com/features/1602-under-obama-us-became-world-s-number-1-for-sex-trafficking-and-pedophilia
https://pjmedia.com/columns/kevindowneyjr/2022/04/03/a-victim-too-far-how-transgenders-will-bring-down-the-lefty-marxists-who-want-to-destroy-america-n1586542
https://moonbattery.com/maxine-waters-tells-homeless-to-go-home-reporter-not-to-report/
https://www.bizpacreview.com/2022/04/05/colorado-gov-polis-signs-into-law-radical-and-disturbing-abortion-up-to-birth-bill-report-1221791/
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/398529.php
https://pjmedia.com/columns/paula-bolyard/2022/04/06/beware-wikipedia-is-not-the-neutral-source-it-pretends-to-be-heres-how-we-know-n1587285
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/confused-puppet-biden-ends-speech-asks-handlers-now-finding-little-girl-crowd-creep-video/
https://twitchy.com/sarahd-313035/2022/04/06/the-federalists-rachel-bovard-hopes-youll-remember-when-joe-biden-voted-for-an-actual-dont-say-gay-bill-video/
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/blog/2022/04/05/eu-commission-triggers-financial-sanctions-against-hungary-for-electing-wrong-candidate/#more-231191
https://redstate.com/bonchie/2022/04/06/liberals-freak-out-over-being-called-groomers-n546263
https://fee.org/articles/inflation-tax-will-cost-families-this-many-thousands-this-year-bloomberg-analysis-warns/
https://www.theepochtimes.com/cdc-survey-44-percent-of-us-high-school-students-felt-persistently-sad-or-hopeless-in-2021_4383041.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/update-jaw-dropping-769-athletes-collapsed-competing-past-year-avg-age-players-suffering-cardiac-arrest-just-23-video/
https://nypost.com/2022/04/14/driver-repeatedly-runs-over-woman-in-shocking-road-rage-attack/
Prevent?
Cesspools?
It's been six months since I joined a gym and still no results.
I'm going to actually go there tomorrow and see what's going on.
*.*
The big joke going around on Facebook is someone claiming they were just robbed.
When police asked for a description of the robber, the person says, "It was Pump 9."
*.*
In a devious 4D chess move, Vladimir Putin has ordered all his armored divisions to fly Planned Parenthood flags so no one will criticize them for committing unthinkable genocide against innocent people.
"It is very simple," said Putin. "Eliminating Ukrainian civilians is healthcare. I am just a pro-choice activist exercising my right to eliminate all lives that inconvenience me in any way."
At the first sight of Planned Parenthood flags waving in the breeze, Ukrainian forces were ordered to lay down their weapons and celebrate the brave, powerful Russian army for standing up for their right to autonomy.
"We are so sorry for this misunderstanding," said Ukrainian President Zelensky in a statement. "The Russians are just living their truth as they slaughter our population and we will not stand in their way. We are not bigots, after all."
*.*
Oneliners:
Apparently, "Tequila" isn't a proper response when the boss asks for an idea to improve team meetings.
Whoever has been in charge of keeping a hot dog and a soda $1.50 at Costco, let's put them in charge of gasoline.
I hope when I die, it's early in the morning so I don't get up early or go to work that day for nothing.
Some of my friends exercise every day, meanwhile I'm watching a TV show I don't like because the remote dropped on the floor.
At my age, happy hour is a nap.
My friends are tired of Linkin Park references, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.
Tuesday was Apple's first product event of 2022. Product events are designed to introduce what's new and exciting and to make you feel that no matter how new your iPhone is, it's inadequate.
VISA has suspended service in Russia. Just last week, they had changed their official slogan in Russia to "Everywhere you want to be... except Ukraine."
How do our brains remember that we forgot something when we can't remember what that thing was?
*.*
SIGN AT A SONIC:
Chicken loses job.
Chicken is broke.
Chicken strips $3.79.
Quote of the Times;
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.” Isaiah 5:20
Link of the Times;
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/governor-abbott-directs-texas-to-send-illegal-migrants-to-d-c-on-charter-buses/
Issue of the Times;
Public Schools Are Cesspools of Debauchery. Get Your Kids Out Now, Before It's Too Late by Paula Bolyard
If there’s one thing we’ve learned during the pandemic it’s that many parents had no idea what was going on in their kids’ schools. Oh, parents knew there was crazy stuff going on in other schools, but by and large, there was a sense of NIMBY — it’s not happening in my backyard. Sadly, we’ve become increasingly aware of the abuses and indoctrination children across the country are suffering at the hands of unhinged teachers — teachers pushing their left-wing political agendas, encouraging children to be sexual deviants, and treating parents like they are not qualified to raise their own children without the state intervening in their families.
Here are but a few examples:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2022/03/23/warning-these-pics-from-a-book-in-a-georgia-school-district-will-shock-and-disgust-you-n1568584
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2022/03/22/think-your-deep-red-county-is-safe-from-radical-k-12-curriculum-think-again-n1567810
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2022/03/11/desantis-goes-beast-mode-on-woke-culture-disney-and-the-media-lies-about-the-dont-say-gay-bill-n1565768
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/01/26/do-you-still-dont-think-lgbtq-is-a-cult-n1553143
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/01/21/teacher-caught-taping-a-mask-to-the-face-of-a-young-student-n1551528
https://pjmedia.com/culture/megan-fox/2022/03/12/chasten-buttigieg-leads-kids-in-pledge-to-the-gay-flag-n1565901
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2021/10/01/concerned-parents-are-immediate-threat-says-national-school-boards-association-president-some-are-even-domestic-terrorists-n1521073
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/23/how-one-bad-teacher-almost-destroyed-a-new-mexico-family-using-the-state-as-a-weapon-n1583540
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/29/florida-teacher-says-shell-break-the-law-to-keep-secrets-about-sexuality-from-parents-n1585274
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/07/loudoun-county-school-district-called-cps-on-dad-for-asking-questions-about-bad-teachers-n1564479
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/02/10/parent-livid-after-school-instructs-8th-graders-to-describe-sex-acts-using-pizza-toppings-n1558165
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/02/09/parents-sue-after-12-year-old-daughter-attempts-suicide-at-school-twice-after-secret-trans-counseling-n1557937
https://pjmedia.com/columns/kevindowneyjr/2022/02/02/leftist-loudon-county-wants-to-suspend-maskless-kids-but-not-a-transgender-rapist-n1555527
Ok, that was more than a few. But you get the point.
And, of course, we all know the damage that has been done to children as a result of lockdowns, forced masking, and sub-par education delivered by local schools. Kids have shown serious declines in both education and their mental health.
Many parents are completely fed up with the nonsense being shoved down their kids’ throats in public schools. Not only that, many realized during the lockdowns that they enjoyed having their kids home and overseeing their education and began to seriously consider homeschooling as a viable option.
The results are simply stunning. The homeschool population, as estimated by Dr. Brian Ray at the National Homeschool Education Research Institute, has grown from 2.6 million school-aged children in 2019 to a whopping 3.7 million in 2021.
Homeschooling had been growing steadily from 2016 to 2020, but the explosive growth in the educational option is staggering.
“Over the last two years, with government lockdowns of schools and parents becoming much more aware of the limitations of institutional schooling and how much the institution called school controls children’s and families’ lives, many thousands more parents have been awakened to the freedom space that is parent-directed home-based education,” Dr. Ray told PJ Media. “Rather than education being controlled by an institution that is often non-accommodating to a student’s needs and dreams or hostile toward a family’s values, homeschooling opens up many more possibilities, freedoms, dependabilities, and joys. Parents are learning that homeschooling is associated with academic success, strong social development, children with a joy to learn, and family life that is not controlled by the vicissitudes and dubious values of a state-run institution.”
At the end of the day, I believe that parents know what’s best for their own children and that God has entrusted them and them alone to make decisions about education. And I’m fully aware that not all parents are able to homeschool for a variety of reasons (more on that in a minute). But at what point do we say it’s abusive to force a child to spend 6.64 hours per day, 180 days a year, being indoctrinated by people who don’t have your child’s best interest at heart and who are actively recruiting them into a radical left-wing ideology, not to mention the LGBTQLMNOP cult?
Of course, there are still a lot of good teachers out there — including my daughter-in-law and several good friends — who aren’t abusing and indoctrinating kids, but they are fewer and farther between with each passing year. America’s universities are hotbeds of radicalism, and the teachers coming out of them are products of those regressive indoctrination machines. They’d rather teach kids to be woke, to question their gender, and to disregard the authority of their parents than teach the three Rs. It’s appalling — indeed, terrifying — to see the lengths many teachers will go to in order to subvert the will of parents. Every sane person knows it’s wrong, but we’ve now had several generations of children who have suffered through such abuse and indoctrination. A quick glance at any social media platform will give you a glimpse into the world of teens and college students. It’s a sea of delusion, mental illness, and downright evil.
The notion of truth itself is in dispute. The wokesters are telling your kids that if they can imagine it, they can make it true. Don’t like what God did when you were conceived in your mother’s womb — when he wrote your gender into every cell in your body? Then change it! Are you a male who can’t succeed in men’s sports? Put on a skirt and crush the real women in competition! The sky’s the limit!
But that’s not even the worst of it. It’s one thing for a bunch of people with mental problems to deny reality, but it’s another thing completely to force children to go along with their delusion and then punish them when they refuse to repeat the lies. Several generations of anti-bullying programs in schools have conditioned children to remain silent when confronted with statements that go against their faith and their families’ values. There are dire consequences for dissenters. Go against the grain and you will be punished, branded a bigot, a racist, or worse.
Can America even survive this? It’s hard to imagine how — unless parents step in to stop the madness. And one of the best ways to stop the madness is to pull your kids out of public schools and homeschool them.
But, Paula, I can hear you thinking. I can’t afford to homeschool! Our family needs two incomes to survive! Besides, I would go crazy having my kids home all day. And anyway, I’m not qualified to teach my own children (the stuff you allegedly learned when you were in school). And perhaps for many families, that is true. But maybe you could do without the second car or give up fancy vacations or buy your clothes at the thrift store, or shop at Save-a-Lot instead of Whole Foods — or all of the aforementioned, as many, many homeschooling parents do. As our family did. What’s it worth to you to protect your kids from what’s going on in public schools? Is any sacrifice too great? Our family went without a lot of things so I could stay home with our kids. It wasn’t always easy and sometimes it was downright scary, but do you know what I learned? That God provides for those who are faithful to Him and He gives us what we need when we need it. Note the use of the word “need” rather than “want.” I’m here to tell you that the sacrifices are worth it.
One thing I know for sure is that there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in public schools and kids are spending the majority of their waking hours with people who are not their parents — who couldn’t possibly love them as much as you do.
If you’re worried about how your homeschooled kids will turn out, there’s plenty of research demonstrating that they’ll do just fine — and probably even better on any number of indicators than their peers in public schools. Like, way better.
Dr. Ray told PJ Media that the reasons for the explosive growth of homeschooling in recent years “are deep and fundamental, such as a desire for stronger family relationships, better academic achievement than in state/public schools, more pedagogical freedom, treating children as individuals rather than as a homogeneous group, a safe and friendly environment, and for passing on values and beliefs dear to a family rather [than] allow the state-run school [to do] the values-teaching.” Who wouldn’t want that for their family?
Look, I’m not here to tell you what to do. What you do with your own children is none of my business. But I urge you to at least consider homeschooling. There are so many resources out there to assist parents and support the decision to homeschool that it’s easier than ever to teach your kids at home. What have you got to lose?
News of the Times;
https://rairfoundation.com/australian-senator-stuns-parliament-unmasks-klaus-schwab-and-his-marxist-world-economic-forum-video/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/04/four-more-years-hungarys-orban-declares-victory-over-international-left-soros-empire-mainstream-media/
https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/russian-ruble-relaunched-linked-to-gold-and-commodities-rt-com-q-and-a/
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-04-04-basf-warns-germany-collapse-without-russian-oil.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/german-retailers-increase-food-prices-20-50-monday
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/really-disgusted-republicans-telling-us-move-base-feel-though-massive-civilization-injustice-done-charlie-kirk-turning-point-usa-2020-elect/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/05/man-arrested-connection-sacramento-shooting-released-early/
https://freebeacon.com/courts/ketanji-brown-jackson-granted-covid-release-to-defendants-in-serious-crimes/
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/04/03/the-nyc-health-official-birthing-people-vs-mothers-debacle-n459745
https://thewashingtonstandard.com/former-disney-star-bella-thorne-i-was-molested-from-6-to-14-everyone-around-me-saw-did-nothing/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/disney-cruise-ship-employee-caught-camera-molesting-11-yr-old-girl-elevatordisney-security-guard-investigating-sexual-assault-told-keep-mouth-shutdisney/
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/disney-vp-gets-six-years-prison-child/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10684161/Hundreds-New-York-City-prosecutors-quitting-low-pay-long-paperwork-hours.html
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/30/army-reducing-its-numbers-in-face-of-recruiting-difficulties/
https://summit.news/2022/04/04/mask-wearing-has-left-a-generation-of-toddlers-struggling-with-speech-and-social-skills/
I'm going to actually go there tomorrow and see what's going on.
*.*
The big joke going around on Facebook is someone claiming they were just robbed.
When police asked for a description of the robber, the person says, "It was Pump 9."
*.*
In a devious 4D chess move, Vladimir Putin has ordered all his armored divisions to fly Planned Parenthood flags so no one will criticize them for committing unthinkable genocide against innocent people.
"It is very simple," said Putin. "Eliminating Ukrainian civilians is healthcare. I am just a pro-choice activist exercising my right to eliminate all lives that inconvenience me in any way."
At the first sight of Planned Parenthood flags waving in the breeze, Ukrainian forces were ordered to lay down their weapons and celebrate the brave, powerful Russian army for standing up for their right to autonomy.
"We are so sorry for this misunderstanding," said Ukrainian President Zelensky in a statement. "The Russians are just living their truth as they slaughter our population and we will not stand in their way. We are not bigots, after all."
*.*
Oneliners:
Apparently, "Tequila" isn't a proper response when the boss asks for an idea to improve team meetings.
Whoever has been in charge of keeping a hot dog and a soda $1.50 at Costco, let's put them in charge of gasoline.
I hope when I die, it's early in the morning so I don't get up early or go to work that day for nothing.
Some of my friends exercise every day, meanwhile I'm watching a TV show I don't like because the remote dropped on the floor.
At my age, happy hour is a nap.
My friends are tired of Linkin Park references, but in the end, it doesn't even matter.
Tuesday was Apple's first product event of 2022. Product events are designed to introduce what's new and exciting and to make you feel that no matter how new your iPhone is, it's inadequate.
VISA has suspended service in Russia. Just last week, they had changed their official slogan in Russia to "Everywhere you want to be... except Ukraine."
How do our brains remember that we forgot something when we can't remember what that thing was?
*.*
SIGN AT A SONIC:
Chicken loses job.
Chicken is broke.
Chicken strips $3.79.
Quote of the Times;
"Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil.” Isaiah 5:20
Link of the Times;
https://www.nationalreview.com/news/governor-abbott-directs-texas-to-send-illegal-migrants-to-d-c-on-charter-buses/
Issue of the Times;
Public Schools Are Cesspools of Debauchery. Get Your Kids Out Now, Before It's Too Late by Paula Bolyard
If there’s one thing we’ve learned during the pandemic it’s that many parents had no idea what was going on in their kids’ schools. Oh, parents knew there was crazy stuff going on in other schools, but by and large, there was a sense of NIMBY — it’s not happening in my backyard. Sadly, we’ve become increasingly aware of the abuses and indoctrination children across the country are suffering at the hands of unhinged teachers — teachers pushing their left-wing political agendas, encouraging children to be sexual deviants, and treating parents like they are not qualified to raise their own children without the state intervening in their families.
Here are but a few examples:
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2022/03/23/warning-these-pics-from-a-book-in-a-georgia-school-district-will-shock-and-disgust-you-n1568584
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/stacey-lennox/2022/03/22/think-your-deep-red-county-is-safe-from-radical-k-12-curriculum-think-again-n1567810
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/jeff-reynolds/2022/03/11/desantis-goes-beast-mode-on-woke-culture-disney-and-the-media-lies-about-the-dont-say-gay-bill-n1565768
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/01/26/do-you-still-dont-think-lgbtq-is-a-cult-n1553143
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/rick-moran/2022/01/21/teacher-caught-taping-a-mask-to-the-face-of-a-young-student-n1551528
https://pjmedia.com/culture/megan-fox/2022/03/12/chasten-buttigieg-leads-kids-in-pledge-to-the-gay-flag-n1565901
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/gwendolynsims/2021/10/01/concerned-parents-are-immediate-threat-says-national-school-boards-association-president-some-are-even-domestic-terrorists-n1521073
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/23/how-one-bad-teacher-almost-destroyed-a-new-mexico-family-using-the-state-as-a-weapon-n1583540
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/29/florida-teacher-says-shell-break-the-law-to-keep-secrets-about-sexuality-from-parents-n1585274
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/03/07/loudoun-county-school-district-called-cps-on-dad-for-asking-questions-about-bad-teachers-n1564479
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/02/10/parent-livid-after-school-instructs-8th-graders-to-describe-sex-acts-using-pizza-toppings-n1558165
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/megan-fox/2022/02/09/parents-sue-after-12-year-old-daughter-attempts-suicide-at-school-twice-after-secret-trans-counseling-n1557937
https://pjmedia.com/columns/kevindowneyjr/2022/02/02/leftist-loudon-county-wants-to-suspend-maskless-kids-but-not-a-transgender-rapist-n1555527
Ok, that was more than a few. But you get the point.
And, of course, we all know the damage that has been done to children as a result of lockdowns, forced masking, and sub-par education delivered by local schools. Kids have shown serious declines in both education and their mental health.
Many parents are completely fed up with the nonsense being shoved down their kids’ throats in public schools. Not only that, many realized during the lockdowns that they enjoyed having their kids home and overseeing their education and began to seriously consider homeschooling as a viable option.
The results are simply stunning. The homeschool population, as estimated by Dr. Brian Ray at the National Homeschool Education Research Institute, has grown from 2.6 million school-aged children in 2019 to a whopping 3.7 million in 2021.
Homeschooling had been growing steadily from 2016 to 2020, but the explosive growth in the educational option is staggering.
“Over the last two years, with government lockdowns of schools and parents becoming much more aware of the limitations of institutional schooling and how much the institution called school controls children’s and families’ lives, many thousands more parents have been awakened to the freedom space that is parent-directed home-based education,” Dr. Ray told PJ Media. “Rather than education being controlled by an institution that is often non-accommodating to a student’s needs and dreams or hostile toward a family’s values, homeschooling opens up many more possibilities, freedoms, dependabilities, and joys. Parents are learning that homeschooling is associated with academic success, strong social development, children with a joy to learn, and family life that is not controlled by the vicissitudes and dubious values of a state-run institution.”
At the end of the day, I believe that parents know what’s best for their own children and that God has entrusted them and them alone to make decisions about education. And I’m fully aware that not all parents are able to homeschool for a variety of reasons (more on that in a minute). But at what point do we say it’s abusive to force a child to spend 6.64 hours per day, 180 days a year, being indoctrinated by people who don’t have your child’s best interest at heart and who are actively recruiting them into a radical left-wing ideology, not to mention the LGBTQLMNOP cult?
Of course, there are still a lot of good teachers out there — including my daughter-in-law and several good friends — who aren’t abusing and indoctrinating kids, but they are fewer and farther between with each passing year. America’s universities are hotbeds of radicalism, and the teachers coming out of them are products of those regressive indoctrination machines. They’d rather teach kids to be woke, to question their gender, and to disregard the authority of their parents than teach the three Rs. It’s appalling — indeed, terrifying — to see the lengths many teachers will go to in order to subvert the will of parents. Every sane person knows it’s wrong, but we’ve now had several generations of children who have suffered through such abuse and indoctrination. A quick glance at any social media platform will give you a glimpse into the world of teens and college students. It’s a sea of delusion, mental illness, and downright evil.
The notion of truth itself is in dispute. The wokesters are telling your kids that if they can imagine it, they can make it true. Don’t like what God did when you were conceived in your mother’s womb — when he wrote your gender into every cell in your body? Then change it! Are you a male who can’t succeed in men’s sports? Put on a skirt and crush the real women in competition! The sky’s the limit!
But that’s not even the worst of it. It’s one thing for a bunch of people with mental problems to deny reality, but it’s another thing completely to force children to go along with their delusion and then punish them when they refuse to repeat the lies. Several generations of anti-bullying programs in schools have conditioned children to remain silent when confronted with statements that go against their faith and their families’ values. There are dire consequences for dissenters. Go against the grain and you will be punished, branded a bigot, a racist, or worse.
Can America even survive this? It’s hard to imagine how — unless parents step in to stop the madness. And one of the best ways to stop the madness is to pull your kids out of public schools and homeschool them.
But, Paula, I can hear you thinking. I can’t afford to homeschool! Our family needs two incomes to survive! Besides, I would go crazy having my kids home all day. And anyway, I’m not qualified to teach my own children (the stuff you allegedly learned when you were in school). And perhaps for many families, that is true. But maybe you could do without the second car or give up fancy vacations or buy your clothes at the thrift store, or shop at Save-a-Lot instead of Whole Foods — or all of the aforementioned, as many, many homeschooling parents do. As our family did. What’s it worth to you to protect your kids from what’s going on in public schools? Is any sacrifice too great? Our family went without a lot of things so I could stay home with our kids. It wasn’t always easy and sometimes it was downright scary, but do you know what I learned? That God provides for those who are faithful to Him and He gives us what we need when we need it. Note the use of the word “need” rather than “want.” I’m here to tell you that the sacrifices are worth it.
One thing I know for sure is that there’s a lot of bad stuff going on in public schools and kids are spending the majority of their waking hours with people who are not their parents — who couldn’t possibly love them as much as you do.
If you’re worried about how your homeschooled kids will turn out, there’s plenty of research demonstrating that they’ll do just fine — and probably even better on any number of indicators than their peers in public schools. Like, way better.
Dr. Ray told PJ Media that the reasons for the explosive growth of homeschooling in recent years “are deep and fundamental, such as a desire for stronger family relationships, better academic achievement than in state/public schools, more pedagogical freedom, treating children as individuals rather than as a homogeneous group, a safe and friendly environment, and for passing on values and beliefs dear to a family rather [than] allow the state-run school [to do] the values-teaching.” Who wouldn’t want that for their family?
Look, I’m not here to tell you what to do. What you do with your own children is none of my business. But I urge you to at least consider homeschooling. There are so many resources out there to assist parents and support the decision to homeschool that it’s easier than ever to teach your kids at home. What have you got to lose?
News of the Times;
https://rairfoundation.com/australian-senator-stuns-parliament-unmasks-klaus-schwab-and-his-marxist-world-economic-forum-video/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/04/four-more-years-hungarys-orban-declares-victory-over-international-left-soros-empire-mainstream-media/
https://www.bullionstar.com/blogs/ronan-manly/russian-ruble-relaunched-linked-to-gold-and-commodities-rt-com-q-and-a/
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-04-04-basf-warns-germany-collapse-without-russian-oil.html
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/german-retailers-increase-food-prices-20-50-monday
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/really-disgusted-republicans-telling-us-move-base-feel-though-massive-civilization-injustice-done-charlie-kirk-turning-point-usa-2020-elect/
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/04/05/man-arrested-connection-sacramento-shooting-released-early/
https://freebeacon.com/courts/ketanji-brown-jackson-granted-covid-release-to-defendants-in-serious-crimes/
https://hotair.com/jazz-shaw/2022/04/03/the-nyc-health-official-birthing-people-vs-mothers-debacle-n459745
https://thewashingtonstandard.com/former-disney-star-bella-thorne-i-was-molested-from-6-to-14-everyone-around-me-saw-did-nothing/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/04/disney-cruise-ship-employee-caught-camera-molesting-11-yr-old-girl-elevatordisney-security-guard-investigating-sexual-assault-told-keep-mouth-shutdisney/
https://thefreethoughtproject.com/disney-vp-gets-six-years-prison-child/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10684161/Hundreds-New-York-City-prosecutors-quitting-low-pay-long-paperwork-hours.html
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/30/army-reducing-its-numbers-in-face-of-recruiting-difficulties/
https://summit.news/2022/04/04/mask-wearing-has-left-a-generation-of-toddlers-struggling-with-speech-and-social-skills/
Stop?
Not a single person asked if I could run fast in my new shoes today.
Being an adult is stupid.
*.*
Ricky Gervais, if he had been hosting the Oscars, says he would have said this: "I'd start with 'Hello. I hope this show helps cheer up the ordinary people watching at home. If you're unemployed for example, take some comfort in the fact that even if you had a job, your salary probably wouldn't be as much as the goody bag all the actors have just been given.'"
*.*
A young and foolish pilot wanted to sound cool on the aviation frequencies. This was his first time approaching a field during the nighttime.
Instead of making any official requests to the tower he said, "Guess who?"
The controller switched the field lights off and replied, "Guess where?"
*.*
Me in heaven:
GOD: You're about to get your wings.
ME: Spicy or Honey Barbecued?
GOD: Get out!
*.*
It takes 42 muscles to make a frown.
So you could say, "I'm not in a bad mood, I'm exercising."
Quote of the Times;
Wearing a mask is a public humiliation ritual. - Denninger
Link of the Times;
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/27/joe-biden-eliminates-u-s-tariffs-on-more-than-350-china-made-products/
Issue of the Times;
The Democrats have a pedo problem by Todd Gregory and Erik Gregory
Progressives have a pedophilia problem. Full stop, as the Barack Obamas of the world might say. From CNN producers to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chiefs and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field agents; from the woke Disney corporation to Democrat donors; from Hollywood to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA); from Facebook/Meta to the Lincoln Project to America's public school system — the progressive Left has a demonstrated prurient interest in underage children.
This is not guilt by association, innuendo, or conjecture; it is a firmly established fact pattern. And this is not to suggest that no Republicans have ever espoused or committed similar atrocities against children; extremely rare countervailing exceptions like Republican Dennis Hastert (who, unlike Democrats, was actually imprisoned in part for his crimes of child molestation) prove the rule that many Democrats have a strong affinity for pedophilia and the normalization of the same.
Empirically and factually, an overwhelming majority of public figures who are confirmed and aspiring pedophiles (along with pedo-friendly corporations like Disney) are progressive Democrats in terms of political orientation. All of this is hushed up by our progressive media, and thanks to progressive privilege, virtually nobody is ever prosecuted or punished.
Why is it never a national scandal when Democrats routinely prey on young children? Simple — because the progressive media protect Democrats far better than Rome's Praetorian guard ever protected any of the Caesars.
If Jeffrey Epstein's client roster had been chock-full of identifiable Republicans (instead of Democrats from Bill Clinton to Bill Gates to Bill Richardson — we knew nothing!), or if FOX News producers were outed as skeevy pedo perverts, the earsplitting cacophony from the media would be maximally amped with hysterical shrieks of sustained, collective outrage.
Moreover, if the progressive Epstein had instead been a prominent conservative donor and activist, he would've been rightly imprisoned decades ago. Perhaps he would even be alive today rather than conveniently dead.
Instead of truth and exposure, we have media silence. A favorite media tactic is the lie by omission. If a station chief or agent from John Brennan's beloved and woke CIA sexually abuses a two-year-old baby, but CNN producers and the media decide it is not a scandal, then poof, it all goes away. Like the tree falling in the forest with nobody to see or hear it, perhaps it simply never happened at all.
The one time the media did make a national scandal of child molestation was when they saw it as an opportunity to take down the Catholic Church in the wake of the Church's scandals and cover-ups. But even there, the media's motive was strictly to discredit and destroy the Church itself, not to condemn the practice of predatory homosexual pedophilia.
If the mental health "professionals" of the progressive American Psychiatric Association (APA) weren't themselves so deeply mentally and emotionally disturbed, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) would do a deep dive on why the denizens of the left seem vastly more predisposed to acts of pedophilia than traditionalists and people on the Right.
Instead, the official position of the APA and most psychiatrists is that conservatives are mentally ill because, well, they're conservative.
Pick a deep blue state at random — say, Oregon. A former longtime mayor of Beaverton, Dennis "Denny" Doyle, was recently charged with possession of child pornography. But that was nothing new in the Beaver state. There was also popular Portland mayor Sam Adams, who relished pederasty with underage boys. Oh, there was also Democrat governor Neil Goldschmidt, who committed statutory rape against a 13-year-old girl and went on sexually abusing her for many years afterwards.
Goldschmidt's victim's life was destroyed, and she died decades later at age 49, with drugs, alcohol, and mental illness as contributing factors.
Unlike Dennis Hastert, none of these progressive figures went to prison for his crimes of molesting children. They all got a free pass. And most voters and politicians living near Oregon's deep blue I-5 corridor between Portland and Eugene didn't (and don't) care.
As long as progressive pedophiles and their institutional cheerleaders and enablers have a (D) next to their name, pedophilia does not necessarily conflict with the values of Democrat voters or progressive Supreme Court appointees like Ketanji Brown Jackson. This is the same political party that always screams without irony that it's for the children.
Democrats, their corporate affiliates, and their voters are likewise indifferent to the widespread sexual trafficking of children near America's porous border with Mexico, even as they wildly celebrate President Brandon's recent endorsement of sex "reassignment surgery" and hormone-blockers for children.
To rephrase a couple modern figures of speech: Democrats gonna Democrat. And yes, that is who they are.
News of the Times;
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/leaked-documents-show-how-teachers-recruit-students-form-gay-and-transgender-clubs-in-schools
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/
https://nypost.com/2022/04/02/ketanyi-brown-jackson-even-chose-leniency-in-baby-sex-cases/
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/03/25/hunter-biden-laptop-revelations-uncover-depth-of-elite-institutional-corruption/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/two-black-girls-wrote-all-n-words-should-die-graffiti-in-latest-hate-crime-hoax/
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/appeals-court-upholds-gibsons-bakery-massive-verdict-against-oberlin-college/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phdVRvWV5ww
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/gazprom-halts-gas-shipments-europe-critical-pipeline
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cesar-chavez-history-anti-immigration-positions-biden-bust
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2022/04/02/desantis-nuclear-option-what-would-happen-if-florida-revoked-disneys-special-governing-arrangement-n1586369
https://www.americanexperiment.org/the-ghost-of-milton-friedman-is-haunting-president-biden/
https://reason.com/2022/03/31/blame-insane-government-spending-for-inflation/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/federal-reserve-contact-complains-about-whopping-golf-membership-fees
https://wirepoints.org/chicago-feds-woke-enemy-of-free-speech-heading-for-promotion-to-federal-reserve-board-wirepoints/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH5zCWxVxrA
Being an adult is stupid.
*.*
Ricky Gervais, if he had been hosting the Oscars, says he would have said this: "I'd start with 'Hello. I hope this show helps cheer up the ordinary people watching at home. If you're unemployed for example, take some comfort in the fact that even if you had a job, your salary probably wouldn't be as much as the goody bag all the actors have just been given.'"
*.*
A young and foolish pilot wanted to sound cool on the aviation frequencies. This was his first time approaching a field during the nighttime.
Instead of making any official requests to the tower he said, "Guess who?"
The controller switched the field lights off and replied, "Guess where?"
*.*
Me in heaven:
GOD: You're about to get your wings.
ME: Spicy or Honey Barbecued?
GOD: Get out!
*.*
It takes 42 muscles to make a frown.
So you could say, "I'm not in a bad mood, I'm exercising."
Quote of the Times;
Wearing a mask is a public humiliation ritual. - Denninger
Link of the Times;
https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2022/03/27/joe-biden-eliminates-u-s-tariffs-on-more-than-350-china-made-products/
Issue of the Times;
The Democrats have a pedo problem by Todd Gregory and Erik Gregory
Progressives have a pedophilia problem. Full stop, as the Barack Obamas of the world might say. From CNN producers to Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) station chiefs and Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) field agents; from the woke Disney corporation to Democrat donors; from Hollywood to the North American Man/Boy Love Association (NAMBLA); from Facebook/Meta to the Lincoln Project to America's public school system — the progressive Left has a demonstrated prurient interest in underage children.
This is not guilt by association, innuendo, or conjecture; it is a firmly established fact pattern. And this is not to suggest that no Republicans have ever espoused or committed similar atrocities against children; extremely rare countervailing exceptions like Republican Dennis Hastert (who, unlike Democrats, was actually imprisoned in part for his crimes of child molestation) prove the rule that many Democrats have a strong affinity for pedophilia and the normalization of the same.
Empirically and factually, an overwhelming majority of public figures who are confirmed and aspiring pedophiles (along with pedo-friendly corporations like Disney) are progressive Democrats in terms of political orientation. All of this is hushed up by our progressive media, and thanks to progressive privilege, virtually nobody is ever prosecuted or punished.
Why is it never a national scandal when Democrats routinely prey on young children? Simple — because the progressive media protect Democrats far better than Rome's Praetorian guard ever protected any of the Caesars.
If Jeffrey Epstein's client roster had been chock-full of identifiable Republicans (instead of Democrats from Bill Clinton to Bill Gates to Bill Richardson — we knew nothing!), or if FOX News producers were outed as skeevy pedo perverts, the earsplitting cacophony from the media would be maximally amped with hysterical shrieks of sustained, collective outrage.
Moreover, if the progressive Epstein had instead been a prominent conservative donor and activist, he would've been rightly imprisoned decades ago. Perhaps he would even be alive today rather than conveniently dead.
Instead of truth and exposure, we have media silence. A favorite media tactic is the lie by omission. If a station chief or agent from John Brennan's beloved and woke CIA sexually abuses a two-year-old baby, but CNN producers and the media decide it is not a scandal, then poof, it all goes away. Like the tree falling in the forest with nobody to see or hear it, perhaps it simply never happened at all.
The one time the media did make a national scandal of child molestation was when they saw it as an opportunity to take down the Catholic Church in the wake of the Church's scandals and cover-ups. But even there, the media's motive was strictly to discredit and destroy the Church itself, not to condemn the practice of predatory homosexual pedophilia.
If the mental health "professionals" of the progressive American Psychiatric Association (APA) weren't themselves so deeply mentally and emotionally disturbed, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) would do a deep dive on why the denizens of the left seem vastly more predisposed to acts of pedophilia than traditionalists and people on the Right.
Instead, the official position of the APA and most psychiatrists is that conservatives are mentally ill because, well, they're conservative.
Pick a deep blue state at random — say, Oregon. A former longtime mayor of Beaverton, Dennis "Denny" Doyle, was recently charged with possession of child pornography. But that was nothing new in the Beaver state. There was also popular Portland mayor Sam Adams, who relished pederasty with underage boys. Oh, there was also Democrat governor Neil Goldschmidt, who committed statutory rape against a 13-year-old girl and went on sexually abusing her for many years afterwards.
Goldschmidt's victim's life was destroyed, and she died decades later at age 49, with drugs, alcohol, and mental illness as contributing factors.
Unlike Dennis Hastert, none of these progressive figures went to prison for his crimes of molesting children. They all got a free pass. And most voters and politicians living near Oregon's deep blue I-5 corridor between Portland and Eugene didn't (and don't) care.
As long as progressive pedophiles and their institutional cheerleaders and enablers have a (D) next to their name, pedophilia does not necessarily conflict with the values of Democrat voters or progressive Supreme Court appointees like Ketanji Brown Jackson. This is the same political party that always screams without irony that it's for the children.
Democrats, their corporate affiliates, and their voters are likewise indifferent to the widespread sexual trafficking of children near America's porous border with Mexico, even as they wildly celebrate President Brandon's recent endorsement of sex "reassignment surgery" and hormone-blockers for children.
To rephrase a couple modern figures of speech: Democrats gonna Democrat. And yes, that is who they are.
News of the Times;
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/leaked-documents-show-how-teachers-recruit-students-form-gay-and-transgender-clubs-in-schools
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/has-media-ignored-sex-abuse-in-school/
https://nypost.com/2022/04/02/ketanyi-brown-jackson-even-chose-leniency-in-baby-sex-cases/
https://www.dailysignal.com/2022/03/25/hunter-biden-laptop-revelations-uncover-depth-of-elite-institutional-corruption/
https://www.thecollegefix.com/two-black-girls-wrote-all-n-words-should-die-graffiti-in-latest-hate-crime-hoax/
https://legalinsurrection.com/2022/03/appeals-court-upholds-gibsons-bakery-massive-verdict-against-oberlin-college/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=phdVRvWV5ww
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/gazprom-halts-gas-shipments-europe-critical-pipeline
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/cesar-chavez-history-anti-immigration-positions-biden-bust
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/chris-queen/2022/04/02/desantis-nuclear-option-what-would-happen-if-florida-revoked-disneys-special-governing-arrangement-n1586369
https://www.americanexperiment.org/the-ghost-of-milton-friedman-is-haunting-president-biden/
https://reason.com/2022/03/31/blame-insane-government-spending-for-inflation/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/federal-reserve-contact-complains-about-whopping-golf-membership-fees
https://wirepoints.org/chicago-feds-woke-enemy-of-free-speech-heading-for-promotion-to-federal-reserve-board-wirepoints/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH5zCWxVxrA
Obviously?
The Cat in the Hat" turns 65 this year.
He's thinking of working into his 70's to maximize those social security checks.
*.*
Heidi Montag is the latest celebrity to try the "Raw Meat and Animal Organs Diet."
I don't know whoever came up with that one, but they probably should have spent a little more time on the name.
*.*
MOSCOW - Amid mass arrests on Friday, Russian senior leadership admitted their April Fools prank on Ukraine may have gone too far, but insisted the invasion was “all in good fun.”
“Sadly, we see this a lot,” said Interpol President Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, referring to Interpol’s annual statistics on April Fools pranks. “A group of friends gets excited about pulling a prank together, inevitably take it too far, and end up committing war crimes.”
Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu, who was arrested on charges related to the practical joke, insists that Russia did nothing illegal.
“Everyone has those nights where you intend to just have a couple drinks, but then things get wild and you decide to invade Ukraine. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly ribbing between neighbors.”
Interpol noted that the bulk of the trouble seemed to stem from the fact that many of the pranksters were Russian teenagers who were "not quite in on the joke."Al-Raisi revealed that when this happens, any charges are typically dropped and the pranksters are allowed to call their moms to come pick them up.
*.*
A Northern California man has pled guilty to taking two bear cubs out of a den and trying to raise them at home.
He let authorities know when they became just too much to try and raise.
The broken furniture, sleeping in his bed, porridge everywhere...
*.*
A bunch of new rule changes in baseball: both leagues will now use designated hitters, extra-inning games will no longer stick a guy on second base to start each inning and there will be no catchers mask mandate after April 18th
Quote of the Times;
I have a buddy who works for a PMC. They got a brief today. Its a shit show. He said every Israeli arms dealer in the world is in Ukraine buying weapons: Stingers/Javelins/etc. He said Ukrainian commanders are selling and using the money to take their families to Poland. Western countries just rush dumped a bunch of arms there and they are getting bought for pennies on the dollar and shipped out. Zelensky admin is in charge of nothing. He said "Why would he be? He's a CIA puppet".
Link of the Times;
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/watch-disney-executive-producer-admits-regularly-adds-queerness-childrens-programming/
Issue of the Times;
Obviously, Inevitably, The White Devil Did It by David Thompson
So, anyway, as you may have heard, at a recent awards ceremony, a black millionaire celebrity slapped another black millionaire celebrity. The root cause, however, has only now been discovered:
This is about a much larger systemic issue rooted in white supremacist culture designed to police the behaviour of Blacks amongst the who’s who in Hollywood and beyond.
It says so here:
Respectability politics suggest that equity and fair treatment require that Black people — both inside and outside of Hollywood — conduct ourselves in a manner deemed acceptable to whites. Furthermore, expressing any emotion other than complacence, apathy, or agreeance directly violates those norms, disqualifying Black people from receiving the same equitable treatment that whites enjoy as a birthright. And sadly, there is a large group of Blacks who have internalized this toxic messaging.
You see, when Mr Will Smith, a black millionaire celebrity, publicly assaults Mr Chris Rock, another black millionaire celebrity, on live television, and is promptly given a prestigious award, for which he is applauded, and is then seen celebrating triumphantly at the award after-party, this is somehow proof of victimhood, of being racially “policed” by “respectability politics” and other works of the White Devil. Mr Smith, we’re told, is “not receiving the same equitable treatment that Whites enjoy as a birthright.”
Readers will note the implication that any black viewers who regard Mr Smith’s behaviour as not entirely optimal are merely parroting views “deemed acceptable to whites,” having somehow “internalized” the “toxic messaging” of “white supremacist culture.” For what it’s worth, I don’t have strong feelings on the incident one way or the other – it all seemed rather farcical – but I doubt my first impulse would be to suggest that black people who disapproved, however much or little, are merely aping whitey and don’t know their own minds. But such is wokeness.
The author of the piece, published in Forbes, is Maia Niguel Hoskin, a “writer, activist, and college professor,” whose areas of supposed expertise include “oppression, difference and mental health,” including “racial battle fatigue,” and who claims, modestly, to “facilitate cultural consciousness.” As a self-styled “speaker of truth,” she is, of course, schooled in “critical race theory.”
And so, Ms Hoskin tells us that she does not condone violence, while insisting that responsibility for violence must be shifted from those who indulge in it, provided they are black, and attributed instead to the insidious, all-pervasive, yet oddly nebulous, power of pallor. The “racist system that was designed to incubate his and so many others’ frustrations.” And which, in ways never quite specified, compels very rich comedians to tell bad jokes, and makes very rich actors slap the people who tell them. This, we’re assured, is “white supremacist culture.”
And the way to be scrupulously “anti-racist” is to erase any agency or expectation of self-possession from people with brown skin.
News of the Times;
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/joe-rogan-slams-mentally-ill-woke-activists-silicon-valley-tech-companies
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/30/federal-judge-blasts-double-standards-in-j6-sentences-n1585486
https://bombthrower.com/articles/cancel-culture-goes-full-hobbesian/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/taxes/defense-department-missing-6-5-trillion-up-from-2-3-trillion-in-2001/
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-doj-kills-trump-era-program-catch-chinese-spies
https://www.rebelnews.com/john_cleese_defends_right_to_offend_after_slavery_joke_goes_viral
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245509
https://www.frontpagedetectives.com/p/nj-facebook-murder-children-women-family-torture
https://www.lifenews.com/2014/03/28/12-year-old-girls-speech-on-abortion-leaves-her-pro-choice-teacher-speechless/
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/03/25/nolte-disneys-support-for-child-grooming-is-a-game-changer/
https://valiantnews.com/2022/03/cawthorn-dc-insiders-invite-me-to-orgies-and-top-politicians-do-coke-all-while-media-gathers-blackmail/
https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/29/senators-release-receipts-showing-direct-payments-from-foreign-oligarchs-to-hunter-biden/
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2022/03/dealers-annoyed-with-price-of-ev-charger-installs/
https://www.wnd.com/2022/03/medical-student-says-purposely-botched-procedure-patient-questioned-pronoun-pin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcCJc2xDlm8
He's thinking of working into his 70's to maximize those social security checks.
*.*
Heidi Montag is the latest celebrity to try the "Raw Meat and Animal Organs Diet."
I don't know whoever came up with that one, but they probably should have spent a little more time on the name.
*.*
MOSCOW - Amid mass arrests on Friday, Russian senior leadership admitted their April Fools prank on Ukraine may have gone too far, but insisted the invasion was “all in good fun.”
“Sadly, we see this a lot,” said Interpol President Ahmed Naser Al-Raisi, referring to Interpol’s annual statistics on April Fools pranks. “A group of friends gets excited about pulling a prank together, inevitably take it too far, and end up committing war crimes.”
Russian Minister of Defense Sergey Shoigu, who was arrested on charges related to the practical joke, insists that Russia did nothing illegal.
“Everyone has those nights where you intend to just have a couple drinks, but then things get wild and you decide to invade Ukraine. There’s nothing wrong with a little friendly ribbing between neighbors.”
Interpol noted that the bulk of the trouble seemed to stem from the fact that many of the pranksters were Russian teenagers who were "not quite in on the joke."Al-Raisi revealed that when this happens, any charges are typically dropped and the pranksters are allowed to call their moms to come pick them up.
*.*
A Northern California man has pled guilty to taking two bear cubs out of a den and trying to raise them at home.
He let authorities know when they became just too much to try and raise.
The broken furniture, sleeping in his bed, porridge everywhere...
*.*
A bunch of new rule changes in baseball: both leagues will now use designated hitters, extra-inning games will no longer stick a guy on second base to start each inning and there will be no catchers mask mandate after April 18th
Quote of the Times;
I have a buddy who works for a PMC. They got a brief today. Its a shit show. He said every Israeli arms dealer in the world is in Ukraine buying weapons: Stingers/Javelins/etc. He said Ukrainian commanders are selling and using the money to take their families to Poland. Western countries just rush dumped a bunch of arms there and they are getting bought for pennies on the dollar and shipped out. Zelensky admin is in charge of nothing. He said "Why would he be? He's a CIA puppet".
Link of the Times;
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/watch-disney-executive-producer-admits-regularly-adds-queerness-childrens-programming/
Issue of the Times;
Obviously, Inevitably, The White Devil Did It by David Thompson
So, anyway, as you may have heard, at a recent awards ceremony, a black millionaire celebrity slapped another black millionaire celebrity. The root cause, however, has only now been discovered:
This is about a much larger systemic issue rooted in white supremacist culture designed to police the behaviour of Blacks amongst the who’s who in Hollywood and beyond.
It says so here:
Respectability politics suggest that equity and fair treatment require that Black people — both inside and outside of Hollywood — conduct ourselves in a manner deemed acceptable to whites. Furthermore, expressing any emotion other than complacence, apathy, or agreeance directly violates those norms, disqualifying Black people from receiving the same equitable treatment that whites enjoy as a birthright. And sadly, there is a large group of Blacks who have internalized this toxic messaging.
You see, when Mr Will Smith, a black millionaire celebrity, publicly assaults Mr Chris Rock, another black millionaire celebrity, on live television, and is promptly given a prestigious award, for which he is applauded, and is then seen celebrating triumphantly at the award after-party, this is somehow proof of victimhood, of being racially “policed” by “respectability politics” and other works of the White Devil. Mr Smith, we’re told, is “not receiving the same equitable treatment that Whites enjoy as a birthright.”
Readers will note the implication that any black viewers who regard Mr Smith’s behaviour as not entirely optimal are merely parroting views “deemed acceptable to whites,” having somehow “internalized” the “toxic messaging” of “white supremacist culture.” For what it’s worth, I don’t have strong feelings on the incident one way or the other – it all seemed rather farcical – but I doubt my first impulse would be to suggest that black people who disapproved, however much or little, are merely aping whitey and don’t know their own minds. But such is wokeness.
The author of the piece, published in Forbes, is Maia Niguel Hoskin, a “writer, activist, and college professor,” whose areas of supposed expertise include “oppression, difference and mental health,” including “racial battle fatigue,” and who claims, modestly, to “facilitate cultural consciousness.” As a self-styled “speaker of truth,” she is, of course, schooled in “critical race theory.”
And so, Ms Hoskin tells us that she does not condone violence, while insisting that responsibility for violence must be shifted from those who indulge in it, provided they are black, and attributed instead to the insidious, all-pervasive, yet oddly nebulous, power of pallor. The “racist system that was designed to incubate his and so many others’ frustrations.” And which, in ways never quite specified, compels very rich comedians to tell bad jokes, and makes very rich actors slap the people who tell them. This, we’re assured, is “white supremacist culture.”
And the way to be scrupulously “anti-racist” is to erase any agency or expectation of self-possession from people with brown skin.
News of the Times;
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/joe-rogan-slams-mentally-ill-woke-activists-silicon-valley-tech-companies
https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/matt-margolis/2022/03/30/federal-judge-blasts-double-standards-in-j6-sentences-n1585486
https://bombthrower.com/articles/cancel-culture-goes-full-hobbesian/
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/world-news/taxes/defense-department-missing-6-5-trillion-up-from-2-3-trillion-in-2001/
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/biden-doj-kills-trump-era-program-catch-chinese-spies
https://www.rebelnews.com/john_cleese_defends_right_to_offend_after_slavery_joke_goes_viral
https://market-ticker.org/akcs-www?post=245509
https://www.frontpagedetectives.com/p/nj-facebook-murder-children-women-family-torture
https://www.lifenews.com/2014/03/28/12-year-old-girls-speech-on-abortion-leaves-her-pro-choice-teacher-speechless/
https://www.breitbart.com/entertainment/2022/03/25/nolte-disneys-support-for-child-grooming-is-a-game-changer/
https://valiantnews.com/2022/03/cawthorn-dc-insiders-invite-me-to-orgies-and-top-politicians-do-coke-all-while-media-gathers-blackmail/
https://thefederalist.com/2022/03/29/senators-release-receipts-showing-direct-payments-from-foreign-oligarchs-to-hunter-biden/
https://www.thetruthaboutcars.com/2022/03/dealers-annoyed-with-price-of-ev-charger-installs/
https://www.wnd.com/2022/03/medical-student-says-purposely-botched-procedure-patient-questioned-pronoun-pin/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcCJc2xDlm8
Bright?
The guy who stole my diary died.
My thoughts are with his family.
*.*
INTERVIEWER: So, where do you see yourself in five years?
ME: I'd say my biggest weakness is listening.
*.*
A minister waited in line to have his car filled with gas just before a long holiday weekend. The attendant worked quickly, but there were many cars ahead of him in front of the service station. Finally, the attendant motioned him toward a vacant pump.
"Reverend," said the young man, "Sorry about the delay. It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip."
The minister chuckled, "Same in my business."
*.*
The economy is terrible. At the beginning of the year, the politicians promised things would improve by the last quarter.
Well, I'm down to my last quarter and they haven't improved!
*.*
How rare is it for a cow to be struck by lightning?
Medium rare.
Quote of the Times;
"I want ordinary citizens of Western states to hear me too. They are now trying to convince you that all your difficulties are the result of some hostile actions of Russia... the truth is that the problems faced by millions of people in the West are the result of years of actions by the ruling elites in the West." – Putin
Link of the Times;
https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/2022/03/95-of-committee-members-advising-on-u-s-dietary-guidelines-had-ties-to-big-pharma-big-food
Issue of the Times;
The Bright Ages by Michael Davis
Anti-Christian bias leads modern historians of the Middle Ages into some hilarious gaffes.
Around the year 849, a group of Byzantine monks paid a young woman to accuse the Patriarch of Constantinople, Methodius I, of seducing her. His defense ought to be studied by every law student on the planet. At his trial, Methodius lifted his robes, triumphantly exposing himself to the court. They gasped. The Primate’s manhood was shriveled almost beyond recognition.
Methodius explained that, as a young priest, he’d asked St. Peter to save him from lustful urges. St. Peter obliged, and the result was now plain for the whole Empire to see. The Primate was acquitted and eventually canonized. The monks were excommunicated.
No story, in my opinion, better captures the medieval “thing.” The Middle Ages are full of magical, mystical happenings. We all know the bit in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle where dragons appear in England, a portent of the Viking invasion in which “heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.” Still, Thronies may be disappointed by the dearth of dragons in medieval history. Withered genitalia is more usual.
That’s why we love the Middle Ages. That’s what makes John Julius Norwich’s facts more enchanting than George R. R. Martin’s fiction. It’s so plausible. Even the miracles are a little pedestrian. You hardly notice them at all. It’s as if they were commonplace in medieval Europe. And who knows? Maybe they were.
Whether you believe in miracles or not, one thing is clear. A history of the Middle Ages may be anything but boring. At least I thought so until I read Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry’s new study The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe.
Most of what makes the book so tedious is the book’s political agenda. And to be fair, the authors are upfront about that agenda. They wrote The Bright Ages, they explain, because medievalism is bound up with ultraconservative politics. “Sometimes symbols of the Middle Ages are used approvingly by the far right,” they write, “emblazoned on shields in Virginia, fluttering on flags as the U.S. Capitol is stormed, or peppered across the screed of a mass murderer in New Zealand.”
The only way to cure these fifteen or twenty teenage boys of their delusion is to declare an all-out war on history. The authors state their opposition to “whiteness,” which they call “a modern idea with medieval roots.” The myth of whiteness is also used to prop up “the fiction of Europe and the invented concept of Western civilization.” In other words, white supremacism is wrong because white people haven’t done anything to be proud of. Actually, white people don’t even exist. Feel stupid yet, bigot?
Academics love to play these little word games. Meanwhile, the rest of us know that it’s okay to be proud of the achievements of one’s ancestors. Nobody really thinks I’m racist because I, Michael Warren Davis, have more of an affinity for the British Isles than I do for the Andean Mountains or the Great Steppe. But Gabriele and Perry make a truly heroic effort to defend their point. The authors say of these white supremacists, “They looked into both the medieval and classical European past and imagined they found white faces, like theirs, looking back at them. They were wrong about all of this.”
You’ll have to take my word for it, but there’s no context for this remark. The authors seem to be arguing that whiteness doesn’t exist because 10th century Europe was actually full of black people. If so, that would certainly take the wind out of the alt-right’s sails, though I’d really like to see their proof.
Over and over, this obsession with “debunking white nationalist myths” leads them to ridiculous, ahistorical conclusions. For instance, they recall how Pope Gregory the Great decided to launch his mission to England. According to the Venerable Bede, Gregory was strolling through the Roman slave markets when he saw a group of boys with fair skin and blonde hair being sold as chattel. He was shocked to learn that the boys were not Christians and immediately resolved to send missionaries to their homeland. Gabriele and Perry omit the part of the story where Gregory asks what their people are called: Angles. Gregory says the name is fitting since they’re as beautiful as angels. (You see what he did there.) Gregory sends a monk named Augustine to establish a new mission in England.
The authors declare: “This story is apocryphal, deeply unlikely to be true.” Well, no. It’s actually likely, even deeply likely, to be true. We know that English slaves were sold in Rome during Gregory’s reign. In fact, it’s unlikely that a pope would have encountered the Angles in any other way. As for the pun, Gregory probably wasn’t the first person to compare small children to angels and he certainly wasn’t the last.
Why, then, do the authors conclude that this story is deeply unlikely to be true? Why, because it may encourage racists, of course. According to the authors, the story of Gregory and the Angles is “a founding myth for white supremacist ideas about the past.” Well, let’s say this about that: First of all, you’re not going to find the Venerable Bede quoted in The Daily Stormer. Secondly, it isn’t a myth. It’s not even “apocryphal,” as Gabriele and Perry claim. Bede was a historian who was only one generation removed from Gregory I. He was surrounded by men who had known the missionary Augustine and perhaps even Gregory himself.
There’s no reason to doubt this story, unless you assume that Christians are pathological liars. And, indeed, Gabriele and Perry declare that in studying medieval history, “we must surely move beyond the writings of Church Fathers and their theological goals.” That’s not history. It’s sectarianism.
You’ll hardly be surprised to find that this bias doesn’t extend to Islam. Predictably, the authors are as mindlessly pro-Muslim as they are anti-Christian. But at least here the authors are subtle. For instance, they explain that “dhimmis (Arabic for non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) possessed specific rights, protections, and obligations.” That word “obligations” bears the brunt of the load.
Dhimmis were given the freedom to worship, but they had to do so virtually in secret. They were forced to pay an exorbitant tax rate—much higher than that paid by Muslims. They needed permission from Muslim authorities to repair their churches and synagogues, and were forbidden from building new ones. Their houses had to be smaller than Muslims’ houses, and they were forbidden from marrying Muslim women. They were forced to wear certain clothes, so as never to be confused with Muslims. They were forbidden from riding horses, camels, and sometimes even mules. Criticizing Islam or trying to convert Muslims was a capital offense. In court, the word of a dhimmi was worth less than that of a Muslim man.
It’s impossible that two men with PhDs in Medieval History could be ignorant of all this. Their decision to downplay dhimmitude is not only intentional but ideological. Seriously, imagine if a conservative historian said, “For black South Africans, apartheid brought specific rights, protections, and obligations.” We would call that dishonest and offensive. Yet, because Christians and Jews were the victims of dhimmitude, nobody really cares. Gabriele and Perry are free to twist the facts—and they know it.
Naturally, the authors also take up the thesis, which has now been embraced by most American educators, that Spain was lucky to be invaded by the Umayyad Caliphate in 711, and the only people who didn’t want to be colonized by Berbers and Arabs were racists. Unlike (say) the British settlements in North America, Muslims and people of color exploiting divisions among white Christians to colonize their lands is totally fine. In fact, it’s not even colonialism. According to Gabriele and Perry, the Umayyad are guilty of nothing more than “bringing closure to a civil war.” Really, they were doing the Spanish a favor! I wish I was making this up.
If that seems implausible to you, that’s because you’ve been brainwashed by Francisco Franco. According to the authors, support for the Reconquista—Spaniards fighting to reclaim Spain from their colonizers—was “mainstreamed” by “Spanish nationalism and contemporary Roman Catholic reactionism, and then embraced by Franco’s fascists just before World War II.” Gabriele and Perry continue: “According to Franco’s authoritarian nostalgia, just as medieval Christians fought against Islam, so he fought to retake the country once more, this time from republicans, anarchists, and Communists. Unsurprisingly, this framing remains prevalent to this day.”
Some may find it improbable that the U.S. education system has been unknowingly teaching Francoist propaganda. Did the Generalissimo send spies to infiltrate the history departments of American colleges? Did wealthy Spaniards with ties to Franco’s government quietly fund campus programs, the way China does today? Gabriele and Perry never say.
Then we have the Crusades. According to the authors, “we honestly don’t know—can never know—what was in Pope Urban II’s mind” when he called the First Crusade in 1096. The one thing we cannot say is that the Christians were “making a sober, militarily justified defensive action in response to an unprovoked attack.” Sorry to nitpick but, actually, that’s exactly what they were doing.
Gabriele and Perry note that when Caliph Omar took Jerusalem in 638, he issued a decree allowing toleration for non-Muslims. (At that point, the Holy City was full of Jews and Greek Christians.) True enough, but that still meant a life of dhimmitude for the locals in the best-case scenario. Rarely did the Muslim invaders comply with Omar’s orders. Christian villages were routinely sacked; their inhabitants slaughtered. On holy days like Easter, churches would be burned and worshippers killed. Whole convents full of nuns were raped and murdered. Few Westerners ever seem to wonder how Palestine, the Semitic homeland, came to be populated by Arabic Muslims. Well, that’s how.
And Jerusalem was only the beginning. In the 650s, the Rashidun Caliphate attacked the islands Cyprus, Cos, and Crete. In 653, a Rashidun general named Mu’awiya invaded Rhodes and destroyed the famed Colossus. Mu’awiya would soon become the first Umayyad caliph.
In 645, the Umayyads invaded Armenia. For a while, they allowed Armenian nobles to rule as their vassals. Then, in 705, the local Arab viceroy invited over a thousand of the country’s leading Christians to a meeting in Nakhichevan. The Armenians were locked inside and burned. The survivors were crucified. From then on, the Arabs ruled Armenia directly.
Six years after the massacre at Nakhichevan, the Umayyads invaded Spain.
In 827, the Aghlabid Emirate invaded Sicily. It took seventy years of fighting (and several massacres) to conquer the whole island.
In 840, the Aghlabid armies invaded mainland Italy. They took the cities of Taranto and Bari, sacked Capua, and occupied Benevento. They also raided Rome twice, once in 843 and again in 846.
In 870, the Aghlabids invaded Malta. The capital of Melite was besieged and its inhabitants slaughtered. The rest of the Maltese population was either killed or banished. For a hundred years, the island—now home to over 500,000 people—was deserted.
Then, beginning around the year 1070, Seljuk Turks massacred the populations of Jerusalem, Gaza, Tyre, and Jaffa. Within ten years, Muslims were officially barring Christians from entering Jerusalem. Bands of armed pilgrims would try to fight their way into the city, but those who weren’t killed by Muslim bandits along the way were butchered by Muslim soldiers.
We can be fairly confident that all of this “was in Pope Urban II’s mind” when he called the First Crusade. Those historians like Gabriele and Perry who act like Christians woke up one day and decided to commit genocide are lying, and they know it.
That’s not even the most egregious example of their irrational anti-Christian bias. One chapter of The Bright Ages is dedicated to praising the Vikings, presumably because the Vikings proper were not Christians. It’s true that past historians have wrongly characterized the Norse as bloodthirsty savages. But the grounds on which Gabriele and Perry choose to praise them are bizarre. After describing a Viking ritual in which slave girls were drugged, raped, and then set on fire, the authors declare: “Their society featured significant gender parity, at least in key parts of society. Their cities were vibrant hubs of mercantile exchange. Their men were extremely snazzy dressers.”
I wish it went without saying that nobody who drugs, rapes, and murders women believes in gender parity. Also, “mercantile exchange” is an odd euphemism for raiding and slave trading. But what really gets me is the line about Norsemen being snazzy dressers. This is one of the cardinal sins among modern historians like Gabriele and Perry. They absolutely refuse to take their subject seriously. The Vikings were history’s most ruthless warriors, and yet you’d think the authors were gossiping about characters in an HBO miniseries.
According to Gabriele and Perry, whereas the mass rapists of Scandinavia are proto-feminists, the Byzantines are woman-haters. Why? Because they subjected Empress Theodora (490–548) to “sexist and classist scorn.” Like her husband Justinian, Theodora was born a commoner. She worked as an actress, a trade associated with loose morals even in medieval Byzantium. Much of what contemporary critics wrote about her is vile—too vile to repeat here—and the reputation stuck. Despite being one of the most powerful women in Byzantine history (and a saint in the Orthodox Church), she’s still best remembered for her alleged wantonness. According to Gabriele and Perry, “the story of Theodora reminds us of the enduring power of patriarchal norms when it comes to depicting and attacking powerful women.”
I guess the obvious parallel in modern politics would be Melania Trump, a Slovenian ex-model who rose to prominence by securing an advantageous marriage. I searched the authors’ tweets to see if either of them had said anything about the former First Lady. Of course, they both had, and none of it was flattering. My favorite was Prof. Gabriele asking, “[Does] anyone else think Melania looks like Sherri Ann Cabot from Best in Show?” According to Wikipedia, “Sherri Ann Cabot is the plump, buxom, overly-made-up trophy wife of the elderly Leslie Ward Cabot, her sugar daddy.”
Now, I really don’t care about the tweet, and neither should you. But it goes to show how disingenuous Gabriele and Perry are.
Granted, just because Mrs. Trump’s critics often resort to sexist and classist insults, that doesn’t exempt her from serious criticism. But the same may be said of Theodora, who happened to live in an age when it was common for actresses to perform sex acts on stage and to moonlight as escorts. Not to speak ill of the dead, but one could easily believe the worst about her.
What’s more, virtually every historian agrees that she and her husband were poor rulers. Yes, the Code of Justinian is a triumph, and their reign saw Byzantine culture flourish. But just five years after taking the throne, a huge revolt broke out in Constantinople. The principal causes were the crushing taxes that Justinian and Theodora levied, especially on the poor, and systemic corruption in the royal bureaucracy. Known today as the Nika riots, it broke out during a sporting event, and ended with government mercenaries blocking the entrances to the stadium and butchering 30,000 civilians. Justinian wished to show mercy to the riots’ leaders, but Theodora insisted he make an example of them. The leaders were promptly executed; their bodies dumped in the sea.
To dismiss all of Theodora’s critics as classists and sexists is like saying the Syrian people only revolted against Assad because they didn’t like his mustache.
I could go on (and on and on) about all the strange, needless errors in this strange, needless book. But I’d rather not. Actually, I try to avoid writing negative book reviews. I only made an exception this time because, at some level, the authors must know this is a bad book.
The Bright Ages is the product of the modern university system, which prioritizes making money above everything else. Academics aren’t promoted for their ability to teach; it’s all based on their publication history. Professors like Gabriele and Perry pad their resumes by writing these “accessible” histories for big-name publishers like HarperCollins.
To stand out in a crowded field, they give their books ludicrous theses like There were no white people in medieval Europe, or high school history teachers are all secret Francoists. The theses can’t be supported by facts. But that doesn’t matter. The point of the book isn’t to inform. The point is to show that the author’s values are those of an 18-year-old middle-class white girl: the key demographic for college admissions departments. And what do white girls like? Sexy feminist Vikings.
Still, I don’t think Gabriele and Perry spent all those years working on their PhDs just so they could spread lies and slander about medieval Europeans. I wonder, when did they first fall in love with the Middle Ages? Maybe it was reading The Canterbury Tales in high school. Maybe it was a visit to Notre-Dame de Paris. Or maybe they played too much Age of Empires growing up, like me. Deep down they must be tired of burying their passion under mountains of politically correct nonsense. Part of them must want to share that love, not suffocate it.
There are thousands of talented scholars all over the country who are forced to adulterate their scholarship by pandering to braindead teenagers, so administrators can give themselves fat bonuses. Yes, that should make us angry. But we should feel pity more than anything else.
We deserve a better history of medieval Europe than The Bright Ages.
We deserve better historians than Gabriele and Perry.
News of the Times;
https://victorygirlsblog.com/fraud-billions-in-covid-relief-used-for-perks-instead/
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/fake-news-goes-into-overdrive-to-suppress-japans-success-of-treating-covid-19-with-ivermectin/
https://leoaffairs.com/woman-charged-after-killing-2-state-troopers-and-a-civilian-on-i-95-while-driving-on-shoulder/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/minnesota-non-profit-set-feed-children-accused-massive-fraud-and-misappropriating-tens
https://notthebee.com/article/idaho-banned-the-teaching-of-critical-race-theory-in-schools-but-that-didnt-stop-the-teachers-from-changing-the-name-and-continuing-the-same-racist-practices
https://waynedupree.com/2022/03/michigan-election-fraud-2020/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10612285/California-mom-claims-LA-school-encouraged-daughter-transition-blame-suicide.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/black-supremacist-killed-two-nypd-officers-gets-speaking-gig-new-york-college/
https://trendingpolitics.com/the-hidden-truth-about-joe-bidens-brother-involvement-in-iraq-tonii/?utm_source=ElWiz
https://www.diamondandsilkinc.com/tabletalknews/diamond-and-silk-biden-supreme-court-pick-conspirator-in-hillary-clinton-email-scandal-mnbg5
https://humandefense.com/iowa-latest-state-to-defund-planned-parenthoods-sex-ed-curriculum/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/horror-group-teens-carjack-73-year-old-grandmother-drag-death-front-neighbors/
https://www.iwf.org/2022/03/17/whats-the-long-game-behind-fat-pride/
https://therightscoop.com/here-we-go-bidens-army-leaders-reduce-standards-so-more-women-can-pass-fitness-test/
https://www.joannejacobs.com/2022/03/students-search-for-meaning/
My thoughts are with his family.
*.*
INTERVIEWER: So, where do you see yourself in five years?
ME: I'd say my biggest weakness is listening.
*.*
A minister waited in line to have his car filled with gas just before a long holiday weekend. The attendant worked quickly, but there were many cars ahead of him in front of the service station. Finally, the attendant motioned him toward a vacant pump.
"Reverend," said the young man, "Sorry about the delay. It seems as if everyone waits until the last minute to get ready for a long trip."
The minister chuckled, "Same in my business."
*.*
The economy is terrible. At the beginning of the year, the politicians promised things would improve by the last quarter.
Well, I'm down to my last quarter and they haven't improved!
*.*
How rare is it for a cow to be struck by lightning?
Medium rare.
Quote of the Times;
"I want ordinary citizens of Western states to hear me too. They are now trying to convince you that all your difficulties are the result of some hostile actions of Russia... the truth is that the problems faced by millions of people in the West are the result of years of actions by the ruling elites in the West." – Putin
Link of the Times;
https://freedomfirstnetwork.com/2022/03/95-of-committee-members-advising-on-u-s-dietary-guidelines-had-ties-to-big-pharma-big-food
Issue of the Times;
The Bright Ages by Michael Davis
Anti-Christian bias leads modern historians of the Middle Ages into some hilarious gaffes.
Around the year 849, a group of Byzantine monks paid a young woman to accuse the Patriarch of Constantinople, Methodius I, of seducing her. His defense ought to be studied by every law student on the planet. At his trial, Methodius lifted his robes, triumphantly exposing himself to the court. They gasped. The Primate’s manhood was shriveled almost beyond recognition.
Methodius explained that, as a young priest, he’d asked St. Peter to save him from lustful urges. St. Peter obliged, and the result was now plain for the whole Empire to see. The Primate was acquitted and eventually canonized. The monks were excommunicated.
No story, in my opinion, better captures the medieval “thing.” The Middle Ages are full of magical, mystical happenings. We all know the bit in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle where dragons appear in England, a portent of the Viking invasion in which “heathen men made lamentable havoc in the church of God in Holy-island, by rapine and slaughter.” Still, Thronies may be disappointed by the dearth of dragons in medieval history. Withered genitalia is more usual.
That’s why we love the Middle Ages. That’s what makes John Julius Norwich’s facts more enchanting than George R. R. Martin’s fiction. It’s so plausible. Even the miracles are a little pedestrian. You hardly notice them at all. It’s as if they were commonplace in medieval Europe. And who knows? Maybe they were.
Whether you believe in miracles or not, one thing is clear. A history of the Middle Ages may be anything but boring. At least I thought so until I read Matthew Gabriele and David M. Perry’s new study The Bright Ages: A New History of Medieval Europe.
Most of what makes the book so tedious is the book’s political agenda. And to be fair, the authors are upfront about that agenda. They wrote The Bright Ages, they explain, because medievalism is bound up with ultraconservative politics. “Sometimes symbols of the Middle Ages are used approvingly by the far right,” they write, “emblazoned on shields in Virginia, fluttering on flags as the U.S. Capitol is stormed, or peppered across the screed of a mass murderer in New Zealand.”
The only way to cure these fifteen or twenty teenage boys of their delusion is to declare an all-out war on history. The authors state their opposition to “whiteness,” which they call “a modern idea with medieval roots.” The myth of whiteness is also used to prop up “the fiction of Europe and the invented concept of Western civilization.” In other words, white supremacism is wrong because white people haven’t done anything to be proud of. Actually, white people don’t even exist. Feel stupid yet, bigot?
Academics love to play these little word games. Meanwhile, the rest of us know that it’s okay to be proud of the achievements of one’s ancestors. Nobody really thinks I’m racist because I, Michael Warren Davis, have more of an affinity for the British Isles than I do for the Andean Mountains or the Great Steppe. But Gabriele and Perry make a truly heroic effort to defend their point. The authors say of these white supremacists, “They looked into both the medieval and classical European past and imagined they found white faces, like theirs, looking back at them. They were wrong about all of this.”
You’ll have to take my word for it, but there’s no context for this remark. The authors seem to be arguing that whiteness doesn’t exist because 10th century Europe was actually full of black people. If so, that would certainly take the wind out of the alt-right’s sails, though I’d really like to see their proof.
Over and over, this obsession with “debunking white nationalist myths” leads them to ridiculous, ahistorical conclusions. For instance, they recall how Pope Gregory the Great decided to launch his mission to England. According to the Venerable Bede, Gregory was strolling through the Roman slave markets when he saw a group of boys with fair skin and blonde hair being sold as chattel. He was shocked to learn that the boys were not Christians and immediately resolved to send missionaries to their homeland. Gabriele and Perry omit the part of the story where Gregory asks what their people are called: Angles. Gregory says the name is fitting since they’re as beautiful as angels. (You see what he did there.) Gregory sends a monk named Augustine to establish a new mission in England.
The authors declare: “This story is apocryphal, deeply unlikely to be true.” Well, no. It’s actually likely, even deeply likely, to be true. We know that English slaves were sold in Rome during Gregory’s reign. In fact, it’s unlikely that a pope would have encountered the Angles in any other way. As for the pun, Gregory probably wasn’t the first person to compare small children to angels and he certainly wasn’t the last.
Why, then, do the authors conclude that this story is deeply unlikely to be true? Why, because it may encourage racists, of course. According to the authors, the story of Gregory and the Angles is “a founding myth for white supremacist ideas about the past.” Well, let’s say this about that: First of all, you’re not going to find the Venerable Bede quoted in The Daily Stormer. Secondly, it isn’t a myth. It’s not even “apocryphal,” as Gabriele and Perry claim. Bede was a historian who was only one generation removed from Gregory I. He was surrounded by men who had known the missionary Augustine and perhaps even Gregory himself.
There’s no reason to doubt this story, unless you assume that Christians are pathological liars. And, indeed, Gabriele and Perry declare that in studying medieval history, “we must surely move beyond the writings of Church Fathers and their theological goals.” That’s not history. It’s sectarianism.
You’ll hardly be surprised to find that this bias doesn’t extend to Islam. Predictably, the authors are as mindlessly pro-Muslim as they are anti-Christian. But at least here the authors are subtle. For instance, they explain that “dhimmis (Arabic for non-Muslims living under Muslim rule) possessed specific rights, protections, and obligations.” That word “obligations” bears the brunt of the load.
Dhimmis were given the freedom to worship, but they had to do so virtually in secret. They were forced to pay an exorbitant tax rate—much higher than that paid by Muslims. They needed permission from Muslim authorities to repair their churches and synagogues, and were forbidden from building new ones. Their houses had to be smaller than Muslims’ houses, and they were forbidden from marrying Muslim women. They were forced to wear certain clothes, so as never to be confused with Muslims. They were forbidden from riding horses, camels, and sometimes even mules. Criticizing Islam or trying to convert Muslims was a capital offense. In court, the word of a dhimmi was worth less than that of a Muslim man.
It’s impossible that two men with PhDs in Medieval History could be ignorant of all this. Their decision to downplay dhimmitude is not only intentional but ideological. Seriously, imagine if a conservative historian said, “For black South Africans, apartheid brought specific rights, protections, and obligations.” We would call that dishonest and offensive. Yet, because Christians and Jews were the victims of dhimmitude, nobody really cares. Gabriele and Perry are free to twist the facts—and they know it.
Naturally, the authors also take up the thesis, which has now been embraced by most American educators, that Spain was lucky to be invaded by the Umayyad Caliphate in 711, and the only people who didn’t want to be colonized by Berbers and Arabs were racists. Unlike (say) the British settlements in North America, Muslims and people of color exploiting divisions among white Christians to colonize their lands is totally fine. In fact, it’s not even colonialism. According to Gabriele and Perry, the Umayyad are guilty of nothing more than “bringing closure to a civil war.” Really, they were doing the Spanish a favor! I wish I was making this up.
If that seems implausible to you, that’s because you’ve been brainwashed by Francisco Franco. According to the authors, support for the Reconquista—Spaniards fighting to reclaim Spain from their colonizers—was “mainstreamed” by “Spanish nationalism and contemporary Roman Catholic reactionism, and then embraced by Franco’s fascists just before World War II.” Gabriele and Perry continue: “According to Franco’s authoritarian nostalgia, just as medieval Christians fought against Islam, so he fought to retake the country once more, this time from republicans, anarchists, and Communists. Unsurprisingly, this framing remains prevalent to this day.”
Some may find it improbable that the U.S. education system has been unknowingly teaching Francoist propaganda. Did the Generalissimo send spies to infiltrate the history departments of American colleges? Did wealthy Spaniards with ties to Franco’s government quietly fund campus programs, the way China does today? Gabriele and Perry never say.
Then we have the Crusades. According to the authors, “we honestly don’t know—can never know—what was in Pope Urban II’s mind” when he called the First Crusade in 1096. The one thing we cannot say is that the Christians were “making a sober, militarily justified defensive action in response to an unprovoked attack.” Sorry to nitpick but, actually, that’s exactly what they were doing.
Gabriele and Perry note that when Caliph Omar took Jerusalem in 638, he issued a decree allowing toleration for non-Muslims. (At that point, the Holy City was full of Jews and Greek Christians.) True enough, but that still meant a life of dhimmitude for the locals in the best-case scenario. Rarely did the Muslim invaders comply with Omar’s orders. Christian villages were routinely sacked; their inhabitants slaughtered. On holy days like Easter, churches would be burned and worshippers killed. Whole convents full of nuns were raped and murdered. Few Westerners ever seem to wonder how Palestine, the Semitic homeland, came to be populated by Arabic Muslims. Well, that’s how.
And Jerusalem was only the beginning. In the 650s, the Rashidun Caliphate attacked the islands Cyprus, Cos, and Crete. In 653, a Rashidun general named Mu’awiya invaded Rhodes and destroyed the famed Colossus. Mu’awiya would soon become the first Umayyad caliph.
In 645, the Umayyads invaded Armenia. For a while, they allowed Armenian nobles to rule as their vassals. Then, in 705, the local Arab viceroy invited over a thousand of the country’s leading Christians to a meeting in Nakhichevan. The Armenians were locked inside and burned. The survivors were crucified. From then on, the Arabs ruled Armenia directly.
Six years after the massacre at Nakhichevan, the Umayyads invaded Spain.
In 827, the Aghlabid Emirate invaded Sicily. It took seventy years of fighting (and several massacres) to conquer the whole island.
In 840, the Aghlabid armies invaded mainland Italy. They took the cities of Taranto and Bari, sacked Capua, and occupied Benevento. They also raided Rome twice, once in 843 and again in 846.
In 870, the Aghlabids invaded Malta. The capital of Melite was besieged and its inhabitants slaughtered. The rest of the Maltese population was either killed or banished. For a hundred years, the island—now home to over 500,000 people—was deserted.
Then, beginning around the year 1070, Seljuk Turks massacred the populations of Jerusalem, Gaza, Tyre, and Jaffa. Within ten years, Muslims were officially barring Christians from entering Jerusalem. Bands of armed pilgrims would try to fight their way into the city, but those who weren’t killed by Muslim bandits along the way were butchered by Muslim soldiers.
We can be fairly confident that all of this “was in Pope Urban II’s mind” when he called the First Crusade. Those historians like Gabriele and Perry who act like Christians woke up one day and decided to commit genocide are lying, and they know it.
That’s not even the most egregious example of their irrational anti-Christian bias. One chapter of The Bright Ages is dedicated to praising the Vikings, presumably because the Vikings proper were not Christians. It’s true that past historians have wrongly characterized the Norse as bloodthirsty savages. But the grounds on which Gabriele and Perry choose to praise them are bizarre. After describing a Viking ritual in which slave girls were drugged, raped, and then set on fire, the authors declare: “Their society featured significant gender parity, at least in key parts of society. Their cities were vibrant hubs of mercantile exchange. Their men were extremely snazzy dressers.”
I wish it went without saying that nobody who drugs, rapes, and murders women believes in gender parity. Also, “mercantile exchange” is an odd euphemism for raiding and slave trading. But what really gets me is the line about Norsemen being snazzy dressers. This is one of the cardinal sins among modern historians like Gabriele and Perry. They absolutely refuse to take their subject seriously. The Vikings were history’s most ruthless warriors, and yet you’d think the authors were gossiping about characters in an HBO miniseries.
According to Gabriele and Perry, whereas the mass rapists of Scandinavia are proto-feminists, the Byzantines are woman-haters. Why? Because they subjected Empress Theodora (490–548) to “sexist and classist scorn.” Like her husband Justinian, Theodora was born a commoner. She worked as an actress, a trade associated with loose morals even in medieval Byzantium. Much of what contemporary critics wrote about her is vile—too vile to repeat here—and the reputation stuck. Despite being one of the most powerful women in Byzantine history (and a saint in the Orthodox Church), she’s still best remembered for her alleged wantonness. According to Gabriele and Perry, “the story of Theodora reminds us of the enduring power of patriarchal norms when it comes to depicting and attacking powerful women.”
I guess the obvious parallel in modern politics would be Melania Trump, a Slovenian ex-model who rose to prominence by securing an advantageous marriage. I searched the authors’ tweets to see if either of them had said anything about the former First Lady. Of course, they both had, and none of it was flattering. My favorite was Prof. Gabriele asking, “[Does] anyone else think Melania looks like Sherri Ann Cabot from Best in Show?” According to Wikipedia, “Sherri Ann Cabot is the plump, buxom, overly-made-up trophy wife of the elderly Leslie Ward Cabot, her sugar daddy.”
Now, I really don’t care about the tweet, and neither should you. But it goes to show how disingenuous Gabriele and Perry are.
Granted, just because Mrs. Trump’s critics often resort to sexist and classist insults, that doesn’t exempt her from serious criticism. But the same may be said of Theodora, who happened to live in an age when it was common for actresses to perform sex acts on stage and to moonlight as escorts. Not to speak ill of the dead, but one could easily believe the worst about her.
What’s more, virtually every historian agrees that she and her husband were poor rulers. Yes, the Code of Justinian is a triumph, and their reign saw Byzantine culture flourish. But just five years after taking the throne, a huge revolt broke out in Constantinople. The principal causes were the crushing taxes that Justinian and Theodora levied, especially on the poor, and systemic corruption in the royal bureaucracy. Known today as the Nika riots, it broke out during a sporting event, and ended with government mercenaries blocking the entrances to the stadium and butchering 30,000 civilians. Justinian wished to show mercy to the riots’ leaders, but Theodora insisted he make an example of them. The leaders were promptly executed; their bodies dumped in the sea.
To dismiss all of Theodora’s critics as classists and sexists is like saying the Syrian people only revolted against Assad because they didn’t like his mustache.
I could go on (and on and on) about all the strange, needless errors in this strange, needless book. But I’d rather not. Actually, I try to avoid writing negative book reviews. I only made an exception this time because, at some level, the authors must know this is a bad book.
The Bright Ages is the product of the modern university system, which prioritizes making money above everything else. Academics aren’t promoted for their ability to teach; it’s all based on their publication history. Professors like Gabriele and Perry pad their resumes by writing these “accessible” histories for big-name publishers like HarperCollins.
To stand out in a crowded field, they give their books ludicrous theses like There were no white people in medieval Europe, or high school history teachers are all secret Francoists. The theses can’t be supported by facts. But that doesn’t matter. The point of the book isn’t to inform. The point is to show that the author’s values are those of an 18-year-old middle-class white girl: the key demographic for college admissions departments. And what do white girls like? Sexy feminist Vikings.
Still, I don’t think Gabriele and Perry spent all those years working on their PhDs just so they could spread lies and slander about medieval Europeans. I wonder, when did they first fall in love with the Middle Ages? Maybe it was reading The Canterbury Tales in high school. Maybe it was a visit to Notre-Dame de Paris. Or maybe they played too much Age of Empires growing up, like me. Deep down they must be tired of burying their passion under mountains of politically correct nonsense. Part of them must want to share that love, not suffocate it.
There are thousands of talented scholars all over the country who are forced to adulterate their scholarship by pandering to braindead teenagers, so administrators can give themselves fat bonuses. Yes, that should make us angry. But we should feel pity more than anything else.
We deserve a better history of medieval Europe than The Bright Ages.
We deserve better historians than Gabriele and Perry.
News of the Times;
https://victorygirlsblog.com/fraud-billions-in-covid-relief-used-for-perks-instead/
https://bigleaguepolitics.com/fake-news-goes-into-overdrive-to-suppress-japans-success-of-treating-covid-19-with-ivermectin/
https://leoaffairs.com/woman-charged-after-killing-2-state-troopers-and-a-civilian-on-i-95-while-driving-on-shoulder/
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/minnesota-non-profit-set-feed-children-accused-massive-fraud-and-misappropriating-tens
https://notthebee.com/article/idaho-banned-the-teaching-of-critical-race-theory-in-schools-but-that-didnt-stop-the-teachers-from-changing-the-name-and-continuing-the-same-racist-practices
https://waynedupree.com/2022/03/michigan-election-fraud-2020/
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-10612285/California-mom-claims-LA-school-encouraged-daughter-transition-blame-suicide.html
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/black-supremacist-killed-two-nypd-officers-gets-speaking-gig-new-york-college/
https://trendingpolitics.com/the-hidden-truth-about-joe-bidens-brother-involvement-in-iraq-tonii/?utm_source=ElWiz
https://www.diamondandsilkinc.com/tabletalknews/diamond-and-silk-biden-supreme-court-pick-conspirator-in-hillary-clinton-email-scandal-mnbg5
https://humandefense.com/iowa-latest-state-to-defund-planned-parenthoods-sex-ed-curriculum/
https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2022/03/horror-group-teens-carjack-73-year-old-grandmother-drag-death-front-neighbors/
https://www.iwf.org/2022/03/17/whats-the-long-game-behind-fat-pride/
https://therightscoop.com/here-we-go-bidens-army-leaders-reduce-standards-so-more-women-can-pass-fitness-test/
https://www.joannejacobs.com/2022/03/students-search-for-meaning/
Several animals were savagely beaten in the making of this page, including but not limited to; kittens, rabbits, zebu, skunks, puppies, and platypus. Also several monkeys where force fed crack to improve their typing skills.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.
And someone shot a duck.
An Images & Ideas, Inc. Service.
No Vegans were harmed in the making of this site. We're looking for a new provider.