http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/284066 In our increasingly secular age, as we watch grown men play a boys’ game, as a certain parade sponsored by Macy’s commercializes our streets, and as we look forward to shaking off our tryptophan-induced slumber to wait in line for Black Friday, it is worth remembering, as Calvin Coolidge did, that “the things of […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/284058 Every Cuban-American family has the following black-and-white picture hanging somewhere on a wall: Grandfather and his many brothers, dressed in smart suits with thin ties; wives and sisters in floral and pastel dresses; everyone crowded together, some kneeling, others standing, all beaming broadly. That was Cuba in the 1950s. That was the country that Fidel Castro ruined. […]
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/284061
Eventually social science works its way around to confirming eternal verities. So it is with gratitude.
An article in a psychological journal a few years ago noted that “throughout history, religious, theological and philosophical treatises have viewed gratitude as integral to well-being.” Psychology has recently worked to quantify the wisdom of the ages and confirmed — sure enough — it was correct.
A raft of recent research has established that grateful people are happier people. They are less depressed and less stressed. They are less likely to envy others and more likely to want to share. They even sleep better. As the journal article put it, empirical work “has suggested gratitude is as strongly correlated with well-being as are other positive traits, and has suggested that this relationship is causal.”
http://pjmedia.com/rogerkimball/2011/11/23/the-opium-of-the-intellectuals/?print=1 How many people still remember The Opium of the Intellectuals, the French philosopher Raymond Aron’s masterpiece? First published in France in 1955, at the height of the Cold War, L’Opium des intellectuels was an immediate sensation. It caused something of a sensation in the United States, too, when an English translation was published in […]
http://www.americanthinker.com/printpage/?url=http://www.americanthinker.com/articles/../2011/11/george_washingtons_thanksgiving_wish.html By Joseph Ashby The first official United States Thanksgiving came on November 26, 1789. In the first year of the Constitutional Republic, both houses of Congress recommended to George Washington that he set apart a day for “thanksgiving and payer.” President Washington agreed and proclaimed the fourth Thursday of November that year to be […]
http://daphneanson.blogspot.com/
“Marks & Spencer Stands For Misery & Suffering; Marks & Spencer Stands For Murder & Slaughter” (video)
“Don’t ask the price – it’s a penny.” Thus did Michael Marks (1859-1907), an immigrant to Leeds from Slonim in the Tsarist Empire, where his father was an impoverished tailor,advertise the goods on display at his clothing stall in the Yorkshire city. As is well-known, Marks & Spencer had its origins in the business partnership that the enterprising Leeds stallholder made in 1894 with the non-Jewish Thomas Spencer, who retired in 1903. By the time Marks died, the firm already had 60 clothing stores in various parts of Britain, and was well on its way to becoming one of the staples of the British High Street, known for offering goods of high quality and reliability at a reasonable price. Its flagship store in London’s Oxford Street opened in 1938
Following Michael Marks’s death the firm was run by his son, Simon (1888-1964, who was knighted in 1944 and raised to the peerage as the first Baron Marks of Broughton in 1961), and by his son-in-law Israel Sieff (1889-1972, who became a life peer, Baron Sieff, in 1966), the son of a Lithuanian-born Manchester textile manufacturer and husband of Simon’s sister Rebecca (1890-1966). Marks and Spencer, an enlightened employer which enjoyed excellent staff relations, arguably reached its peak under the leadership of the Sieffs’ son, Sir Marcus Sieff, Baron Sieff of Brimpton (1913-2001; knighted in 1971 and given a life peerage in 1980). Its fortunes declined after the Marks and Sieff families requished control, although it remains, of course, a legendary giant of British retailing.
Simon Marks and Israel Sieff , who knew Chaim Weizmann when he was a scientist in Manchester, were prominent supporters of the Zionist movement and investors in the infrastructure of the Yishuv. Simon Marks was President of the Joint Palestine Appeal and Honorary Vice-President of the Zionist Federation of Great Britain. Israel Sieff was during the 1930s President of the Zionist Federation, and subsequently its Vice-Chairman for many years. His many other positions relating to Jewry and to Israel included the longterm presidency of the Anglo-Israel Chamber of Commerce. Lady Sieff, Simon’s sister, was one of the founders of WIZO, the Women’s International Zionist Movement, and a lifelong champion of Zionism and Israel. Baron Sieff of Brimpton was also an active Zionist. For example, he was President of the Anglo-Israel Chamber of Commerce, Hon. President of the Joint Israel Appeal, and Chancellor of the Weizmann Institute in Rehovot. The well-known Zionist Harry Sacher (1881-1971) who helped to win over the Manchester Guardian to the Zionist cause, and who played a not inconsiderable part in the talks leading to the Balfour Declaration, was married to Simon’s sister Miriam (1892-1975), who was equally devoted to efforts for the Jewish Homeland and shared Harry’s involvement with the Weizmann Institute.
Needless to say, the attachment of the Marks and Sieff families to the Zionist cause did not go unnoticed by Israel’s enemies. In 1973 Israel Sieff’s brother Joseph Edward “Teddy” Sieff (1906–1982), who chaired the firm from 1967-72 and also served as Hon. Vice-President of the Zionist Federation, survived a bungled assassination attempt in the bathroom of his London home by no less a personage than the notorious Carlos the Jackal, firing a gun on behalf of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine.
Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/11/23/weapons-cache-found-during-zuccotti-park-clean-up-sources/?test=latestnews#ixzz1ed8IoKEy A number of weapons were discovered in New York’s Zuccotti Park after Occupy Wall Street protesters were evicted by the Police Department last week, law enforcement sources tell FoxNews.com. Gardeners employed by the park owners, Brookfield Properties, to clean up the mess made by occupiers during their two-month stay discovered various knives, […]
Support Israel “unconditionally” [Google translation] By Michel Gurfinkiel
http://www.dreuz.info/2011/11/soutenir-% C2% AB-unconditionally-% C2% BB-israel /
Most Jews in France unconditionally support Israel. It is a fact. It is also a kind of ontological necessity, which can neither be surprised nor indignant. For three reasons.
First, the particular historical experience of this community. French Jews today are, for half of them survivors of the Holocaust, or direct descendants, one or two generations of survivors. And the other half of the Jews expelled from Islamic countries, or, upon a generation or two again, their direct descendants.
The two tragedies, it should be emphasized, are interrelated. The Holocaust, where it took place, struck indiscriminately Ashkenazim and Sephardim. Ideologies which it has fed, or who made it possible, directly influenced or reactivated ones in the East led to ethnic cleansing or community. In both cases, the Jews were crushed as Jews. In both cases, they were betrayed: by governments in which they had placed their faith and trust in the companies they thought they were full members.
How, then, French Jews would they not attached to the world’s only Jewish state, founded and inhabited by other Holocaust survivors and others expelled from the country of Islam?
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/print/283999 Ahmadinejad is not a law-enforcement problem. For a guy who generally seems solid on national security, Mitt Romney flashed some disturbing weakness at last night’s foreign-policy debate among the Republican presidential hopefuls. When it comes to Iran, the most immediate threat to the United States and its interests, the Romney strategy is — wait for […]
http://www.andrewbostom.org/blog/2011/11/23/romney-versus-gingrich-on-jihad-and-sharia-a-yawning-if-unappreciated-gap/ Romney Versus Gingrich on Jihad and Sharia: A Yawning, if Unappreciated Gap Early and volatile, the Republican Presidential nomination race—at least for now—appears to be settling into a contest between consistent frontrunner Mitt Romney, and the latest surging, “non-Romney alternative”, former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich. Unfortunately the CNN/Heritage Foundation/American Enterprise televised debate [1] of […]
