BOOKS Comments turned off

‘John of Salisbury’: The Statesman’s Book and Its Contemporary Relevance By David Solway

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://pjmedia.com/culture/david-solway-2/2021/10/13/john-of-salisbury-the-statesmans-book-and-its-contemporary-relevance-n1523801

There are many theories purporting to explain the “march of history,” as, for example, the hoary notion of “scientific socialism” with its dialectical certainties, the “great man” hypothesis that focuses on towering figures like Napoleon or Winston Churchill who determine the course of events, or the “from below” perspective treating of the lives and social movements of the lowly, marginal, oppressed or otherwise unacknowledged peoples, most famously espoused in Howard Zinn’s politically skewed and tendentious A People’s History of the United States.

One theory that receives little exposure we may call the idea of the “virtuous leader” as the indispensable factor that allows for the establishment of a decent, well-governed, and “happy” state. The concept of the “virtuous leader” is a classical trope, going back to Epictetus (Enchiridion), Plato (Republic), Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics), and Cicero (On Obligations). The idea enjoys little traffic because there are so few such leaders and because virtue itself is a problematic concept. Indeed, whatever “virtue” might entail, we are all, as poet W.H. Auden wrote, “articled to error.” No human person, lay or elect, can be said to be unblemished, devoid of foibles, frailties, and defects of character, but so unfortunate a fact does not invalidate the approach to an elusive standard of virtue and exemplary leadership.

The subject was taken up by John of Salisbury, a 12th-century theologian, philosopher, and moralist who eventually became Bishop of Chartres and who is scarcely known today, but was an important figure in the late medieval Renaissance. An influential commenter on the affairs of the court of Louis VII, King of France (their dates are coterminous), with particular regard to Louis’ wife, the celebrated Eleanor of Aquitaine, he understood courts and royal goings-on and was intimately acquainted with the consequences of troubled statesmanship. The Policraticus, translated as The Stateman’s Book, is his most notable volume. As he writes, “This book concentrates in part on the frivolities of the courtiers…and busies itself with the footprints of philosophers”—a spectrum covering the terrain between foolishness and wisdom, the “yoke of vice” and the “rule of virtue.”

The themes he addresses are perennially relevant and particularly so in our current historical moment.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Useless Green Energy Hitting The Wall Francis Menton

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.manhattancontrarian.com/blog/2021-10-13-useless-green-energy-hitting-the-wall

In the field of litigation settlements, people sometimes talk about a “win, win” scenario — a settlement structure where both sides can get some advantage and simultaneously claim victory. By that criterion, what is “green” energy (aka intermittent wind and solar power)? The public pays hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies to get the things built, and in return it gets: sudden shortages and soaring prices for coal, oil, gas and electricity; and dramatically reduced reliability of the electrical grid, leading to periodic blackouts and risks of many more of same; and despite it all fossil fuel use doesn’t go down. It’s a “lose, lose, lose.”

As the world comes out of the pandemic and the international economy returns to attempting to fulfill normal consumer demand, you can see green energy hitting the wall pretty much everywhere you look. It’s just a question of which data points you want to collect for a day’s entertainment.

The current energy crisis in Europe and Asia is of course getting next to no coverage in the U.S. media. But over at Bloomberg News they have a big story on October 4. That’s Bloomberg News as in Mike Bloomberg — the man with four private jets and at least ten houses who devotes his public life to hectoring you to cut your “carbon footprint.” But now suddenly the Bloomberg News people seem to have figured out that periodic energy crises are an inevitable consequence of increasing reliance on the undependable wind and sun. The headline of the article is “Global Energy Crisis Is the First of Many in the Green Power Era.” The Bloomberg piece itself is behind paywall, but extensive excerpts can be found at Climate Depot here, where they call it a “moment of clarity”:

The next several decades could see more periods of energy-driven inflation, fuel shortages and lost economic growth as electricity supplies are left vulnerable to shocks.. . . . The world is living through the first major energy crisis of the clean-power transition. It won’t be the last. . . . Wind and solar power production have soared in the last decade. But both renewable sources are notoriously fickle — available at some times and not at others. And electricity, unlike gas or coal, is difficult to store in meaningful quantities. That’s a problem, because on the electrical grid, supply and demand must be constantly, perfectly balanced. Throw that balance out of whack, and blackouts result.

No kidding.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

The silver lining in the Democrats’ assault on kids in the public schools By Peter Skurkiss

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/the_silver_lining_in_the_democrats_assault_on_kids_in_the_public_schools.html

A dark cloud is hovering over America’s K–12 public schools.  Look at the landscape.  Some school districts still mandate that kids wear face masks throughout the school day.  Not only don’t the masks prevent viral spread, but they’re unhealthy both a physical and a psychological standpoint.  Plus, the masks severely retard the learning process. This is the last thing the U.S. public schools need. They are academically low performing as it is.  Then there’s the Los Angeles School District.  It’s requiring its students to be vaccinated with the inadequately tested COVID vaccine.

Then there’s the Democrat war on parents and parental authority. 

Former Virginia governor and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Terry McAuliffe says parents should have no say in what their children are taught.  To top it off, the Department of Justice is threatening to label parents who complain at school board meetings about what’s going on in their schools as domestic terrorists and to sic the FBI on them.  As George Neumayr of the American Spectator puts it: “The Orwellian memo from Attorney General Merrick Garland in defense of public school boards stems from the view that public schools should have the right to miseducate children with impunity, free of any parental oversight.”  That nicely sums up the Democrat view. 

This is not America.  It’s a grotesque version of the country brought about by the actions of Democrats from the lowest level to the very top.  But like with every storm cloud, even this one has a silver lining.  In two ways, actually. 

One is that a record number of parents are abandoning the public school.  They are opting for private schools for their children or going the homeschooling route.  Either one is a better choice than public education.  Hopefully, this abandonment of the public schools will turn into a tidal wave.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE Comments turned off

Thanks to Biden’s policies, prepare for a cold, expensive winter By Andrea Widburg

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/10/thanks_to_bidens_policies_prepare_for_a_cold_expensive_winter.html

One of the wonders of the modern age is that fossil fuel allows us to avoid freezing in the winter or overheating in the summer. Climate change fanatics, however, who ignore that the Earth’s climate has cycled endlessly between hot and cold for billions of years, desperately want to return us to a pre-modern state. Their efforts are paying off, for the U.S. government is warning of a 54% increase in winter heating bills.

Upon entering the Oval Office, Biden immediately shut down the Keystone Pipeline and ended news drilling on federal lands. While Trump had brought America to energy independence and affordable energy, Biden reduced America to a vassal of oil-producing countries.

Thanks to this policy, gasoline prices keep climbing. In my neighborhood, they’ve increased by almost 78% in just nine months. The same is true everywhere.

Like all Biden policies, this is devastating for the middle and working classes for it doesn’t just make commuting more expensive, it increases the price of every single item in America. Fuel is needed for farming, manufacturing, shipping, wholesaling, and retailing. Every aspect of life becomes more expensive when fuel prices rise, with the middle and working classes bearing the ultimate burden.

All of this is in the name of fighting alleged climate change. That, of course, is a faith, not a science. We humans can pollute, and I believe we have a moral obligation to keep our environment clean and healthy, but the whole climate change theory is a joke and a bad one at that.

But around the world, not just in America, energy production has been collapsing thanks to various governments’ misguided anti-fossil-fuel policy. Smart governments would have invested in making fossil fuel cleaner. Stupid governments, which means all of them, decided to focus on renewables that will never be able to replace fossil fuels. (Only nuclear power will but lefties make sure nobody has that either.)

With winter coming, the price we’re paying for this mass stupidity is going to be high. Very high:

With prices surging worldwide for heating oil, natural gas and other fuels, the U.S. government said Wednesday it expects households to see their heating bills jump as much as 54% compared to last winter.

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The New Gender Religion Tricks Liberals into Betraying Children Without a divine revelation or even a grounding in the liberal tradition, the new gender religion can claim only linguistic astrology as evidence for its astounding claims.  By Sean Ross Callaghan

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/13/the-new-gender-religion-tricks-liberals-into-betraying-children/

Since sexual reproduction first appeared on planet Earth some 1.2 billion years ago, sex has been determined—not assigned—based on compatibility for reproduction. That 1.2-billion year streak will soon end at a school-board meeting near you. If you attend, bow in silence: you’ll be entering the temple of a new religion—albeit a temple with fluorescent lights and folding chairs, where establishment shamans hand down the new laws of nature with absolutely no consultation with nature. The calendar on the wall will display the year zero.

The new gospel requires school staff to say “she” even when they mean “he.” It lets boys play on girls’ sports teams and compete against other girls. It lets boys into girls’ locker rooms to change for swim class. Gender may be “reassigned.” Biological sex dissolves. Everything that once reflected sex is now said to reflect gender. “Transitioning” is this religion’s central sacrament.

How do gender priests transform the bread and wine of contradiction into undeniable truths? How do they claim to know that your children should be bound by their shocking new laws? Is it biology? Liberal ideals? Divine revelation?

No. Gender priests claim to find their new religion in the mysteries of language itself. In other words, word games. We should no sooner listen to a gender priest inspired by word games than to a medicine man inspired by astrology.

A sick establishment uses word games to force society to accept contradictions. That isn’t the theory of some Christian zealot or Reaganite culture warrior. It’s the theory of Herbert Marcuse, the late founder of the New Left. His 1964 classic One Dimensional Man inaugurated a critical theory still used by Marxists today—and gender religion would be far too much, even for a liberal like him. 

The new gender religion is, in fact, a triumph of what Marcuse most despised—a bad kind of thinking he ironically called “positive thought.” Positive thought leads to a kind of word gaming called “positive language.”

NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

Is America Becoming Rome Versus Byzantium? Our Byzantine interior and Roman coasts are quite differently interpreting their shared American heritage as they increasingly plot radically divergent courses to survive in scary times.  By Victor Davis Hanson

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://amgreatness.com/2021/10/13/is-america-becoming-rome-versus-byzantium/

In A.D. 286 the Roman emperor Diocletian split in half the huge Roman Empire administratively—and peacefully—under the control of two emperors. 

A Western empire included much of modern-day Western Europe and northwest Africa. The Eastern half controlled Eastern Europe, and parts of Asia, and northeastern Africa. 

By 330 the Emperor Constantine institutionalized that split by moving the empire’s capital from Rome to his new imperial city of Constantinople, founded on the site of the old Greek polis of Byzantium. 

The two administrative halves of the once huge empire continued to drift apart. Soon there arose two increasingly different, though still kindred versions of a once unified Romanity. 

The Western empire eventually collapsed into chaos by the latter 5th century A.D..

Yet the Roman eastern half survived for nearly a thousand years. It was soon known as the Byzantine Empire, until overwhelmed by the Ottoman Turks in 1453 A.D..  

Historians still disagree over why the East endured while the West crumbled. And they cite the various roles of differing geography, border challenges, tribal enemies, and internal challenges. 

We moderns certainly have developed unfair stereotypes of a supposedly decadent late imperial Rome of Hollywood sensationalism that deserved its end. And we likewise mistakenly typecast a rigid, ultra-orthodox bureaucratic “Byzantine” alternative that supposedly grew more reactionary to survive in a rough neighborhood. 

Yet in both cases, separate geography multiplied the growing differences between a Greek-speaking, Orthodox Christian, and older civilization in the east, versus a more or less polyglot and often fractious Christianity in the Latin West. 

Byzantium held firm against ancient neighboring Persian, Middle Eastern, and Egyptian rivals. But the West disintegrated into a tribal amalgam of its own former peoples.  

Unlike the West, the glue that held the East together against centuries of foreign enemies, was the revered idea of an ancient and uncompromising Hellenism—the preservation of a common, holistic Greek language, religion, culture, and history.   

By A.D. 600, at a time when the West had long ago fragmented into tribes and proto-European kingdoms, the jewel at Constantinople was the nerve center of the most impressive civilization in the world, stretching from the Eastern Asia Minor to southern Italy. 

There is now much talk of a new American red state/blue state split—and even wild threats of another Civil War. Certainly, millions of Americans yearly self-select, disengage from their political opposites, and make moves based on diverging ideology, culture, politics, religiosity or lack of it, and differing views of the American past. 

More conservative traditionalists head for the interior between the coasts, where there is usually smaller government, fewer taxes, more religiosity, and unapologetic traditionalists. 

WORLD NEWS Comments turned off

Germany: Cologne Mosques to Begin Outdoor Broadcasting of Muslim Call to Prayer by Soeren Kern

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17858/germany-mosques-call-to-prayer

The city of Cologne, once a stronghold of Christendom in Germany, has authorized mosques in the city to begin sounding Muslim calls to prayer over outdoor loudspeakers. The move, ostensibly aimed at promoting multicultural diversity and inclusion, represents a significant step toward the cultural normalization of Islam in Germany. It is taking German multiculturalism into uncharted territory.

Critics say that comparing Islamic prayer calls to church bells is a false equivalence because the muezzin proclaims religious slogans such as “there is no god but Allah” and “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is the Greatest”).

“The Muslim call to prayer is not like the ringing of church bells, which are a reminder of a scheduled worship service. Instead, it is a creed and a statement of political Islam, which has unfortunately been abused in many ways in recent years. The call ‘Allahu Akbar’ is not only a call to prayer, but it has also become the battle cry of jihad by Islamist terrorists.” — Necla Kelek, Turkish-born German Islam expert.

“It’s not about ‘religious freedom’ or ‘diversity,’ as Mayor Reker claims. The mosque operators want visibility. They celebrate the muezzin as a show of power over their neighborhoods.” —Ahmad Mansour, Israeli-Arab and German Islam expert.

“The Muslim call to prayer, the muezzin call, is now permitted in Cologne. Cologne’s Lord Mayor Henriette Reker calls this a ‘symbol of diversity.’ For me it is the opposite — a sign of discrimination…. In 2015, I had to flee from Bangladeshi Islamists because I publicly criticized Islamism. When I hear ‘Allahu Akbar’ from loudspeakers in Germany, I think of a lot, just not diversity…. The muezzin call reminds me of the killing of my six blogger friends by Islamists and the brutal repression of minorities…. This call from the speakers of conservative mosques is above all a show of power. The fact that the city of Cologne now allows the muezzin call with reference to tolerance is a sign of false tolerance for me.” — Shammi Haque, a Bangladeshi-born journalist in exile in Germany.

Acceding to demands from Islamic organizations sponsored by the Turkish government, the city of Cologne, once a stronghold of Christendom in Germany, has authorized mosques in the city to begin sounding Muslim calls to prayer over outdoor loudspeakers. The move, ostensibly aimed at promoting multicultural diversity and inclusion, represents a significant step toward the cultural normalization of Islam in Germany. It is taking German multiculturalism into uncharted territory.

EDUCATION Comments turned off

Teaching Educators a Necessary Lesson in Court How parents and teachers are fighting back against social justice indoctrination. Richard L. Cravatts

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/teaching-educators-necessary-lesson-court-richard-l-cravatts/

On September 29th, an association sent an impassioned and grim plea to President Biden’s office in which they “solicit[ed] the expertise and resources of the U.S. Department of Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), U.S. Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Secret Service, and its National Threat Assessment Center” be employed to address “threats  and  acts  of  violence [that] have  become  more  prevalent –  during  public school board meetings, via documented threats transmitted through the U.S. Postal Service, through social media and other online platforms.”

“These threats or actual acts of violence,” including by “extremist hate organizations,” the letter read, should even require “appropriate enforceable actions against these crimes and acts of violence under the Gun-Free School Zones Act [and] the PATRIOT Act in regards to domestic terrorism . . . “

Who were the extremists and terrorists the letter warned the President about? Islamist terror cells planning domestic attacks? MS-13 gang members who had penetrated the porous southern border and were marauding through American streets and committing criminal acts and murdering American citizens? No, incredibly, the letter was written by The National School Boards Association (NSBA) concerning school board meetings and the threat it described was purportedly coming from concerned parents attending those meetings and questioning, among other topics, critical race theory and mask mandates.

More remarkable, and troubling, is that, in response to the letter, Attorney General Merrick Garland outrageously issued an action plan designed, ostensibly, to suppress any further dissent from concerned parents—citizens whose taxes actually pay for public education. In his October 4th response, while Garland begrudgingly acknowledged that “spirited debate about policy matters is protected under our Constitution,” he, nevertheless, was “directing the Federal Bureau of Investigation, working with each United States Attorney, to convene meetings [to] facilitate the discussion of strategies for addressing threats against school administrators, board members, teachers, and staff, and will open dedicated lines of communication for threat reporting, assessment, and response.”

The warning was stern and the message, although it will likely (and hopefully) be ignored, is clear: parents should not even think of challenging the current ideology of public school educators, and their race-based, equity-seeking, social justice informed teaching in which white children are oppressors and black children the oppressed. Yet, even with this admonition from the highest level of law enforcement in the land and this naked attempt to criminalize dissent and weaponize the Justice Department, angered parents, students, and even teachers have refused to be bullied and ignored by truculent school boards and have turned to the courts for relief.

ENVIRONMENT AND JUNK SCIENCE, NATIONAL NEWS & OPINION Comments turned off

The West’s Suicidal Energy Policies Global warmists’ pipe-dreams and bad science. Bruce Thornton

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/10/wests-suicidal-energy-policies-bruce-thornton/

History and common sense tell us that for a nation to survive, it must secure and control critical natural resources. In recent decades, Western nations have increasingly ignored this imperative in order to pursue dubious environmental goals dressed up as science, but more often the consequence of cultural ideals, political agendas, or profitable industries supported by government subsidies.

The current rise in the costs of energy in the U.S. and Europe is a flashing red light warning us that irresponsible energy policies are threatening the global economy, with dangerous consequences for our freedom, security, and way of life.

History provides us with examples of what happens to a state when it loses control of a critical resource. Ancient Athens depended on imported grain to feed its people. Recognizing the importance of foreign grain, the Athenians controlled the ports and sea-lanes that facilitated grain transport from the Black Sea region. Its dependence on those imports in fact led to its defeat by Sparta in the 27-year-long Peloponnesian War. Sparta’s naval victory at Aegospotamai at the mouth of the modern Dardanelles cut off Athenian imports from the Black Sea. Faced with starvation, the Athenians capitulated.

Twenty-two centuries later, the West faced a similar, though not as disastrous, challenge–– the 1973-74 Arab Oil Embargo. OPEC cut off imports of oil to the U.S. and other nations for supporting Israel during the 1973 Arab-Israeli, or Yom Kippur War. Dependent on imported oil, the U.S. faced the “oil shock”: gasoline prices rising 43%, gas rationing, long lines at gas-stations, a tripling of oil costs per barrel, stagflation, a stock market crash, and further damage to the global economy. The silver lining of this crisis was the development of policies and measures intended to wean the U.S. from its dependence on imported oil.

ISRAEL Comments turned off

No Time for Guilt Over Israel’s Self-Defense Moshe Phillips

Posted By on October 14th, 2021

https://www.algemeiner.com/2021/10/12/no-time-for-guilt-over-israels-self-defense/

This month’s anniversary of the 1953 battle of Qibya has triggered yet another outpouring of Jewish guilt. But Israel has no more reason to feel guilty about Qibya than the Allies do for bombing Dresden, Hiroshima, or Nagasaki.

The Biblical book of Kohelet (Ecclesiastes) was read by Jews during Sukkot. Even non-synagogue-going Jews know it’s verse “a time of war, and a time of peace” — thanks to the 1959 Byrds hit “Turn! Turn! Turn!” But it should be made clear that nowhere in Kohelet does one find a verse declaring that there’s “a time of guilt.” And there’s good reason for that.

In the early 1950s, Palestinian Arab terrorists based in Jordan frequently crossed into Israel and perpetrated savage attacks against Israeli civilians. Instead of hitting back, Israel’s leaders first tried diplomacy. On June 8, 1953, they signed an agreement with Jordan that was supposed to prevent the cross-border attacks. How did that work out? Each evening for the next three days, Palestinian Arab terrorists coming from Jordan murdered Israeli civilians, including children, in Jerusalem, Lod, Mishmar Avalon, and Kfar Hess.

The Israeli cabinet met in an emergency session. Jordan denied responsibility, claiming the terrorists were actually just burglars. That was, of course, a blatant lie: throwing grenades through the windows of homes, and not stealing anything, is not the way burglars operate.

Foreign Minister Moshe Sharett pleaded with the United Nations to do something. Long weeks passed, as Israel waited in vain for the international community to respond. There were crickets.

The final straw came when terrorists from Jordan slaughtered an Israeli mother and her two young children in the town of Yehud. Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion decided to stop waiting for international sympathy, and to undertake a military response. So he sent an Israeli army unit headed by Ariel Sharon to hit the nearby Jordanian town of Qibya on the night of October 13, 1953.