Links - 10th December 2022 (2 - Meghan & Harry)

Prince Charles gives video message.. with NO picture of Prince Harry - "Prince Charles has given a video message about the Queen's Platinum Jubilee next year with just a single photo of his mother, eldest son and eldest grandchild behind him amid growing concerns about Prince Harry's brutal criticism of his upbringing and his 'pot-shots' at the Royal Family from LA... Royal insiders have expressed their exasperation at Harry and say it is becoming impossible for the family to repair their fractured relationships because of his insistence at taking 'pot-shots' from across the Atlantic."

Prince Harry's hair loss has accelerated since he moved to US, leading cosmetic surgeon says
Amazing what having a horrible wife does to your health

TOSSING HER TIARA! Queen draws line on Harry and Meghan's 'mistruths' - "Queen Elizabeth is taking off her tiara — and the gloves — in her PR battle with Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s Hollywood spin doctors.  According to the Mail on Sunday, the monarch will no longer allow the couple to spew “mistruths” via their American friends and allies. The Mail said it’s a departure from the Queen’s longstanding policy of  “never complain, never explain.”  Now, she’s instructed palace handlers to correct statements that “misrepresent” private conversations among senior Royals. Over the past four months, the monarch is said to have grown exasperated at the steady stream of briefings from pals of Meghan and Harry to friendly media... The latest PR spectacle sent the Queen “over the edge”... when sycophantic U.S.-based reporters friendly to the couple reported that the pair “asked permission” to name their new baby Lilibet, the queen lost it. Lilibet was her childhood nicknamed and used only by those closest to the monarch.  The Royal insider said the conversation between the Queen and Harry was a matter of  “a telling, not an asking”. The BBC reported this week that Harry and Meghan never asked the Queen.   As per usual, the Hollywood royals contacted their lawyers to battle the “false and defamatory” story from the widely respected broadcaster... there is more than a little bit of self-interest: The pair are terrified of being demoted and losing their titles."

Palace refuses to back Harry and Meghan in dispute over baby Lilibet's name - "Buckingham Palace has refused to back the Duke and Duchess of Sussex in a row with the BBC over whether the couple sought the Queen’s permission to name their daughter Lilibet... The Duke and Duchess claimed they would not have used the name if the Queen had not been “supportive” of their choice. The Palace, rather than confirming their version of events, refused to deny suggestions that the Queen was “never asked.”   The Daily Telegraph understands that the Queen was “told” about the name after the baby was born last Friday, rather than her permission being sought in advance. It suggests that if the Duke and Duchess chose the name to curry favour with the Queen and the wider Royal family, the tactic has backfired badly... Although there is little formal protocol around choosing baby names, particularly with great-grandchildren of the monarch, royal sources suggested there was a difference between the couple choosing to name their daughter Elizabeth, in tribute to the Queen, and using her pet name, which had only been used by her parents, the Duke of Edinburgh and a handful of her closest friends and relatives... Even the couple’s spokeswoman stopped short of suggesting the Queen had been told about the name — or asked for permission to use it — before Lilibet was born...   Royal sources drew a distinction between being told of the name and being asked. It suggests the Queen was put in a position where she had a choice of either giving her approval, tacitly or explicitly, or ordering the couple to change their daughter’s name...   Two of the Queen’s granddaughters, Princess Eugenie and Zara Tindall, chose to give their sons the middle name Philip after the late Duke of Edinburgh, who died in April, but royal sources suggested that there was a distinct difference between naming a baby after a close family member and giving a baby someone else’s personal pet name.  Although the Duke and Duchess described Lilibet as the Queen’s “family nickname” in a statement issued at the time of their daughter’s birth, it was only ever used by those of the Queen’s generation and older, including Prince Philip. As a toddler the Queen was unable to pronounce her own name, and pronounced it Lilibet."
Clearly Buckingham Palace must be lying, since we know Meghan always tells the truth

For the Queen to back the BBC over her grandson is not just awkward, it marks a turning point - "This marks a new low in relations between the Sussexes and the wider Royals. If there’s one thing The Firm does well, it’s stick together. But no more. For the Queen to back the BBC over her grandson is jaw-dropping.  How could Harry and Meghan have got themselves into this mess? For decades, the Royals have prospered by following the mantra ‘Never complain, never explain’. It’s served them well. We can only assume that Harry, liberated from the Royal straitjacket in LA, thought to himself ‘well, that’s a load of old cobblers’. Because since he got to America, and with the help of Oprah, James Corden and others, he appears to have spent his whole time doing nothing but complain and explain to anyone who’ll listen – particularly if a TV camera is plonked in front of him.  And what’s it done for him? Plummeting public respect and an ever-widening gulf with his own family.   This is what happens when the Royals start believing their own publicity. This is the result of thinking they’re special not because of the institution of the monarchy but because of who they are individuals.  Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised. If you spend your life surrounded by people who bow, scrape and fawn, then you get to LA and find that the world’s most famous TV personality wants to do a blockbuster interview with you – because what you have to say is so insightful – you might indeed believe you’re worthy of public esteem. Even though you’ve abandoned the very ship that keeps you afloat.   One thing we’ve learned over the last few months is that both Harry and Meghan have experienced significant blows to their mental health. In Meghan’s case, suicide has even been mentioned. And regardless of how privileged and wealthy they may be, they have my complete sympathy. But instead of concentrating on getting the help they so obviously need, they appear to be spending their energies on waging an unwinnable PR battle...   I’ve no doubt that as soon as he landed in LA, Harry found all sorts of smiling faces with perfect teeth and impressive-sounding credentials eager to convince him he deserves so much more. That he’s a victim. That if only people heard his ‘truth’ they’d love him. Oh, and if you would, sir, please just sign on the dotted line.  Yeah, right. They’re leading him down a garden path.  Here’s my advice, and it won’t cost him a dime. Just stop digging. Jettison all these advisors in their LA suits. Sort out your health challenges away from the celebs and the cameras. Be humble. Even normal.  And, above all, recognise that time, not PR gimmicks, heals wounds."

Meghan, Harry's choice of Lilibet is 'rude' towards Queen - "Angela Levin suggested the decision was a bad idea because the private nickname was bestowed on Elizabeth by her late husband, Prince Philip.  “I don’t think it’s a good idea — I think it’s quite rude to Her Majesty Her Queen. It was a very private nickname from her husband, who hasn’t been dead for very long,” Levin said on “Good Morning Britain.”  “Prince Charles would never dream of calling his mother Lilibet.”"

JAN MOIR: It's not just a name... Harry has stolen the Queen's crown jewel - "During a life devoted to public service and being on almost permanent display, Lilibet was the one thing the Queen had that was entirely her own.  It was hers, and hers alone... It was also a private endearment uttered throughout more than 70 years of marriage by her husband who, may I remind certain parties, is recently deceased... And now it is no longer hers, its emotional exclusivity shattered; targeted and then blown apart like a clay pigeon... She turned 95 in April, four days after burying her husband at Windsor Castle. Newly widowed and grieving, she could be forgiven for hoping for an extended period of peace and tranquillity in these late years of her life. God knows she has earned it. Yet through no fault of her own she is pitched from one Sussex-mangled calamity to the next. Poor Lilibet! She has conducted herself with impeccable discretion and good sense during a faultless 69-year-reign, but once more she is dragged into the bear pit by Harry and Meghan who somehow always do so much harm, under the guise of trying to do so much good... What is puzzling is that if the Sussexes wanted to name their baby in honour of the Queen — and what a lovely thing to do — there are many non-contentious Elizabethan options.  Heavens to Betsy! I lost count at 20, including Thea, Tess and Isabella, not to mention the lovely Scottish Elspeth and Ailsa, the French Elise plus a solid Beth, Liza with a Z, Busy Lizzie and Betty Boop to boot.  But no, nothing would do but the one name that would do untold damage, the one name that should have been off-limits, the one name that anyone with a drop of sense would realise was personal, untouchable, just let it go... Even now, the Sussexes still don’t seem to grasp the essential divergence between celebrity and monarchy and that different rules apply, but they will take whatever they can get.  The plunder of the name Lilibet was their solution to a complex problem of status and prestige, but the audacity might rebound on them yet."ne

Camilla Tominey says Prince Harry is being 'exploited' for ratings in the US - "Prince Harry should consider what he's really achieving by speaking out about his mental health battles, and be mindful of the impact on the Queen and Prince Charles, a royal expert has claimed... 'I think you can talk about your own mental health but you have to be aware of the consequences on other people's,' she said.   'Like the fact the Queen has just buried her husband, the father of Prince Charles, and then the son is over across the Atlantic having a go about the way he's been brought up.'... 'Going over to America, the other side of the coin you could say is that there is a degree of exploitation going on,'  she said.   'The Americans are rubbing their heads together with glee, they know this man is quite damaged, disenfranchised from his family... Former MP Gyles Brandreth, who was on the segment with Camilla, quoted Harry Truman and said: 'If you don't like the heat, get out of the kitchen.'... Camilla also said that Harry risked putting people off by talking too much of his own mental health.    'You've got to be quite selective in what you're saying,' she said, adding Harry could lose sympathy rather than garnering it by 'overdoing it.'"
If you actively encourage your "exploitation", is it still exploitation?

Prince Harry Calls First Amendment 'Bonkers,' Sparks Conservative Backlash - "The Duke of Sussex said the constitutional right to free speech was "a huge subject and one which I don't understand" but also indicated he had a lot he wanted to say about it."
As they say about empty vessels...

Harry And Meghan Announce Birth Of Beautiful 'Half-Oppressed, Half-Privileged Baby' | The Babylon Bee - ""Even in these early days, we are making sure to teach our child that she carries the blood of white colonial oppressors, as well as oppressed people of color. This unique mix may make raising our child extremely difficult."  Expert critical theorists also expressed worry that the child may grow up fighting a constant internal battle between her oppressor self and her oppressed self.   "It is very rare that these two sides achieve perfect equilibrium," said sociology Professor Tawdro Dingletook of Yale University. "It's likely this child will either be doomed to a lifetime of being an evil oppressor, or a horribly oppressed minority. She will never fully belong on either side. This is why we need to bring back racial segregation--to keep this kind of thing from happening.""

It will take more than a well-chosen baby name to rebuild the House of Sussex - "An olive branch to his own family or a cynical ploy to curry favour with British opinion? Calling the baby Lilibet could be either or both. Just not neither.  It seems horrible to question the name of a baby who’s only a few hours’ old. But if there’s one family in the world where naming a baby needs a committee of historians and PR experts, it’s the Windsors – even those exiled in LA.  We can rule out any notion that Harry and Meghan selected the Queen’s childhood nickname because it sounded cute. Unlike Lilibet, we weren’t born yesterday... Many ardent republicans would agree that a recently-widowed 95-year-old, who continues to carry out her duties energetically in the seventh decade of her reign, did little to deserve the comments shot across the time zones by her emoting grandson over the last few months. An olive branch is the least she deserves.  But there may well be a dollop of cynicism in there too. Unlike Oprah, most of us haven’t spent hours talking to Harry about his ‘truth’ and trauma, so it’s impossible to know whether he understands just how badly his recent interventions – including his denunciation of his own family on worldwide TV – have played in Britain. My strong suspicion is that Harry has been blindsided.   He wouldn’t be the first Royal to misjudge the mood of the nation. But the avalanche of hostile comments since that first interview with Oprah back in March should tell him that he got it badly wrong. The aftermath saw him plunge into a negative net favourability rating for the first time in his life, and a drop of 15 points in the space of a week. Meanwhile, only three in ten people reported a positive view of Meghan... as Warren Buffett once said, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin”. Rebuilding it can take decades. Just ask Princess Anne, who has been, for many years, one of the most popular Royals, widely respected for her work ethic and sense of duty. But it wasn’t always that way. Back in the 1970s, she was seen as spoiled, moody and petulant – words sometimes used about Harry now."

Prince of Wales gave Duke and Duchess of Sussex a ‘substantial sum’ to start new life - "When the Duke of Sussex told Oprah Winfrey that his family had “literally” cut him off financially, sources close to the Prince of Wales could not hide their surprise. The bank statements, they said, told a different story. It has now emerged that the Prince of Wales gave the Duke and Duchess a “substantial sum” when they stepped back from their official roles, apparently contradicting Prince Harry’s claim that they had only been able to afford their new life in California because of his inheritance from his mother. The Clarence House annual review revealed that Prince Charles gave a total of £4.5 million to the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge and the Duke and Duchess of Sussex during the last financial year, down from £5.6 million the previous year."
Clearly Clarence House is lying. Anyone who doubts Meghan is just showing how racist he is!

Harry and Meghan 'held talks with streaming platform Quibi a YEAR before Megxit' - "Despite this, during the Sussexes' bombshell interview with Oprah Winfrey they claimed they 'didn't have a plan' when leaving the Royal family... Yet a year before they left the UK the Duke and Duchess were reportedly speaking with senior executives at the £1.3billion app that was expected to be the next big rival to YouTube."

Meghan Markle to miss Prince Philip's funeral 'as she doesn't want to be center of attention' - "Ms Markle has also said she is 'ready to forgive' the Royal Family despite telling Oprah they were racist towards Archie and ignored her mental health problems, a friend exclusively told DailyMail.com."
Convenient. As are the leaks

William Requested Cousin Stand Between Him and Harry at Funeral - "Prince William asked for his cousin Peter Phillips to walk between him and Prince Harry during the funeral cortege...   “It’s turned out that Piers Morgan was pretty much right. When Piers said that he barely believed a word that she said, as you go through the claims made in that interview with Oprah Winfrey, you find again, and again, and again, things were either plain wrong or certainly inaccurate”... Several sources have come forward in the weeks following the interview to counter her claims... Claims made last week allegedly by a friend of the former actress that Meghan was “ready to forgive” the Royal Family."

Royal expert Lady Colin Campbell shocks Today hosts with comments about Meghan Markle and Harry - "Lady Colin Campbell today accused Meghan Markle of 'playing the race card to get a free pass to behave badly' and claimed Prince Harry 'would never have married her if she was white' ... Princess Anne was the senior royal who made comments about Archie's skin colour. The Sussexes claimed a relative of Harry's said there were ‘concerns and conversations about how dark his skin might be when he’s born’... she claimed Princess Anne 'wasn't alluding to the colour of this child' but rather Meghan's 'unsuitable' character' and alleged 'constant use of the race card'. 'Meghan weaponises colour with everything,' Lady Campbell told the Today programme.   'You see, as long as she plays the colour card, she gets a free pass to behave as badly and as freely as she would like.  'She has no boundaries and as long as she plays the colour card, it is open season.'  Lady Campbell said that Meghan's colour 'was the one thing that she had going in her favour'. 'Had Meghan been white, there is no way that marriage would have proceeded, because Meghan's past was rather too chequered, and Meghan's personality was very abrasive,' she said.  'The one thing that Meghan had going in her favour was that she was mixed race.' Today host Leila McKinnon then asked Lady Campbell if she believed Meghan had a hard time with the press.  'She was absolutely attacked,' McKinnon said.  Lady Campbell replied: 'Meghan was attacked the way everybody else is attacked  who is in the public eye in Britain.'   'Meghan had a very easy ride of it, but Meghan is a born complainer, and a drama queen.'... 'My understanding is that nobody in the Royal Family is very pleased with the fact that any time they say anything to Harry, it ends up on American television via one of Oprah's friends.   'So, you know, put your self in the shoes of the Royal Family.   'Any family does not want its dirty linen washed in public. Nor do they want to be unfairly accused of prejudices that they do not have because an ambitious girl has married into the family.'... 'Harry ran to Meghan with the objections, Meghan weaponised them on the grounds of colour. We are looking at people who are very eager to spot a slight where doubtless none exist'... they were pointing the finger at Princess Anne, unfairly, and it was a misunderstanding in a discussion about the cultural differences between Brits and American.  Citing a royal insider, she said: 'There were no concerns about Meghan’s colour. Princess Anne was rightly concerned that if the marriage proceeded and there were children there would be huge problems, not because of Meghan’s colour, but because of Meghan’s inability and determination to remain unable to appreciate the cultural differences'.    She added that Anne was concerned that Meghan may not 'actually have respect for the institution in to which she was marrying, and the family in which she was marrying'... 'Nobody is the guilty party in terms of racism. But Princess Anne was the champion in terms of 'don't marry that girl, she is unsuitable. She is wrong for the country, wrong for the job. Well, it's turned out to be true. 'I think it's important that it is out there before it is weaponised by some anti-establishment, anti-monarchist organisation, who will spin things destructively to further their agenda... Previously the Queen responded to the Sussexes’ interview with a deeply personal message saying that while ‘some recollections vary’, the issues raised, particularly that of race, were ‘concerning’ and would be taken seriously.  Significantly, however, she emphasised that from now on their difficulties should be addressed by the family privately... Royal warfare erupted after Harry and Meghan revealed deeply private and confidential conversations with the royal family to a US journalist friend after they appeared on Oprah, despite claiming it would be their 'final word' on their rift with the royals.  The couple told breakfast show host Gayle King the prince had finally spoken to his father and brother - and she went on a major TV network to disclose that the talks ‘were not productive’.  Miss King also suggested that Meghan was unhappy that no-one in the Royal Family had picked up the phone to her yet following their explosive interview with Oprah Winfrey.  And in a thinly-veiled threat, the broadcaster said Meghan had made clear she has ‘documents to back up everything she said on Oprah’s interview’.  The fact that the couple chose to discuss such sensitive discussions between senior members of the royal family with a TV journalist, who broadcast them blow-by-blow within hours, met with an icy response from Buckingham Palace."

Queen 'told Meghan she did not have to give up acting or embrace royal duties' when she married Prince Harry - "The Duchess of Sussex was told by the Queen that she was not obliged to be a full-time member of the Royal Family when she married Prince Harry and was free to keep acting, a royal biographer has claimed... Andrew Morton, who wrote a leading biography of Princess Diana, told the Royally Obsessed podcast that the Duchess was not prevented from pursuing her career or a private life and said Her Majesty gave the Sussexes different routes to take within the family.  “The Queen gave them [the Duke and Duchess] the opportunity to go wherever they pleased,” Mr Morton said. “They were given a degree of latitude.  “They were told: ‘Here are your first class tickets, pick which country you want to go to, we're going to make you youth ambassadors for the Commonwealth.’  "They did say to Meghan: ‘If you don't want to embrace royal duties full time please be our guest and continue your acting career.’ Those opportunities were open to her.” The Duchess told Winfrey that she felt trapped at Kensington Palace, claiming she “left the house twice in four months” in 2019, a claim disputed by Mr Morton, who said the Duchess was often spotted shopping and eating at restaurants in west London... Mr Morton also claimed that the Sussexes had been hasty in stepping back from royal life in 2020 and did not fully consider the consequences of leaving.  “I think neither of them gave it the thought they should have done”"

Piers Morgan drags Princess Diana into Meghan Markle row: ‘She would be horrified’ - "Morgan also called Harry and Meghan hypocrites for profiting off their relationship with the royal family, while publicly castigating them.  “Would they be getting the Oprah Winfrey, two-hour whine-a-thon slot if they weren’t royal? No,” said Morgan.  “Their entire existence is now being financed by their royal connection. The same royal connection which they spent nearly two hours lambasting on global television and saying how much they hate it.   “It’s not just inconsistent, it’s not just hypocritical, it’s actually shameful.   “And to do this to the Queen, who has barely put a foot wrong in 68 years of dutiful service to my country… she is a respected woman because she’s earned that respect.”"

Meghan and Harry have 'regrets' about Oprah interview following Philip's death - "Meghan and Harry now "regret" their interview with Oprah in the wake of Prince Philip's death, reports claim.  The tell-all chat aired while Philip was sick in hospital, and now sources say the Sussexes regret the timing of the interview"

Meghan and Prince Harry warned 'not the time for PR games' amid Oprah regret claim

Prince Philip Thought Meghan Markle and Prince Harry’s Oprah Interview Was ‘Madness’ - "Prince Philip thought Harry and Meghan’s interview with Oprah Winfrey was “madness” and that “no good would come of it,” his official biographer has said.  Gyles Brandreth, a long standing friend of the Duke of Edinburgh, who died aged 99 last week, is the only journalist ever to be granted a full-length sit-down interview with the duke... “The fact that the Meghan and Harry interview was aired while Philip was in hospital did not trouble him. What did worry him was the couple’s preoccupation with their own problems and their willingness to talk about them in public.  “‘Give TV interviews by all means,’ he said, ’but don’t talk about yourself.’  “That was one of his rules. I know he shared it with his children. I imagine he shared it with his grandchildren, too.”"

Queen's cousin speaks out against Meghan Markle and Prince Harry after Oprah interview - "When Alexander proceeds to ask what her view of the Sussexes is, Olga simply shakes her head and says: “Not great.”  Olga continues: "I mean the Queen’s never sat there and said about anything that makes her miserable, has she? She’s always got on with it.  "The most she ever did was that Annus Horribilis which I thought was wonderful. I think a bit of mystique and all that is a very good thing.""

Prince Harry: Meghan opened my eyes to unhappiness of royal life - "Meghan Markle is behind Prince Harry’s attacks on the royal family, the wayward prince suggested in a podcast interview... Harry suggested Meghan’s comments completely changed his view of royal life, the Sun reported. That set him up for the situation he’s in now, publicly criticizing his family, including sniping about Prince Charles’ parenting skills during the podcast."
If there was ever any doubt over who instigated the trouble

Prince Harry Said He Knew He Had To "Fix Himself" To Keep Meghan Markle
"Fix" yourself by destroying your family.

Royal aides ‘want Harry and Meghan to give up their titles’ - "The prince is said to have left senior royals baffled by his “disgraceful” and “woeful lack of compassion”... Harry and Meghan are subsequently being urged to put their titles into “abeyance”, in the same way their HRH honourifics were when the “Megxit” deal was reached... Aides – all of who spoke under the condition of anonymity – supposedly told the paper that members of the royal family are “appalled that he could do this to the Queen when the Duke of Edinburgh is barely in his grave”. “To drag his grandfather into this is so shocking and disrespectful,” one said.  Another criticised Harry for “lecturing” people on how to “live our lives” from his “£11m mansion”... “There is a growing feeling that if you dislike the institution that much, you shouldn't have the titles. They should just become Harry and Meghan. And if they refuse to do that, they have to explain why not.”"

Harry says family tried to STOP him and Meghan from leaving after 'she was going to end her life' - "Prince Harry today dropped another nuclear 'truth bomb' on the Royal Family accusing them of 'total silence' and 'neglect' when Meghan was suicidal, claiming his father Prince Charles made him 'suffer' as a child and insisting he would not be 'bullied into silence' when he alleged 'The Firm' 'trapped', smeared and dumped them - as royal experts warned the latest attack left a 'huge gulf' in the family... royal commentator Richard Fitzwilliams said there is now 'clearly a huge gulf between the Royal Family and the Sussexes', while Harry's biographer Angela Levin called his appearance 'phoney and embarrassing'... Harry launched yet another full-frontal attack on the Royal Family, who are private exasperated and upset about his constant 'pot shots' from across the Atlantic but are unable to respond publicly... Harry launched another volley of attacks on the royals while insisting he wanted 'reconciliation and healing' with his family...  he said would 'never be bullied into silence' in the future... Harry said he felt there were parallels in their stories when he followed in his mother's footsteps and began dating a person of color.   'My mother was chased to her death while she was in a relationship with someone who wasn't white,' he said.   'And now look what's happened... Prince Harry has claimed he and Meghan Markle believed their explosive Oprah Winfrey interview would help reconcile them with the Royal Family"

Prince Philip funeral: Meghan and Harry’s wreath points to wider royal problem - "despite being more than 8500km away, Meghan managed to play a role in the historic funeral.  In a moving tribute to the 99-year-old Duke, a handwritten note penned by the Duchess, a former professional calligrapher, was attached to the wreath sent by Harry and Meghan, one of the only nine family wreaths in the chapel. The arrangement, we know, included Eryngium, or sea holly, to represent Philip’s ties to the Royal Marines, Acanthus mollis, the national flower of Greece in a nod to his heritage, Campanula, to represent “gratitude and everlasting love”, and roses to signify the royal consort’s June birthday.  All incredibly touching and thoughtful.  And all information that somehow – miraculously – has found its way out there in the public domain... What is bewildering here is why and how, on a day which should have been resolutely, solely focused on celebrating the Duke, that still something Sussex-related has managed to end up in the headlines. These symbolic and meaningful blooms by Ms Crossley – who was in charge of the flowers for the Sussexes’ wedding reception and son Archie’s 2019 christening – included deeply personal touches.  But why did anyone feel the need to share this information with the world? While Buckingham Palace has released a cavalcade of specifics about yesterday’s proceedings, everything from precise timings to where exactly Philip’s valets would be standing, no particulars about the other eight wreaths that were placed in the chapel have been released.  In fact, according to The Times, “the rest of the royal family kept details of their floral tributes private”.  Yet the particulars about the Sussexes’ wreath have hit the press.  The unavoidable conclusion here is that the details of the Crossley-created salute are known today, and making headlines, because someone wanted them out there. (It’s not as if any eagle-eyed member of the press was ever going to cotton on to the fact that say Eryngium or Acanthus mollis featured in the arrangement.)  And that is deeply problematic.  The appearance here is that even at this moment of mourning someone Sussex-adjacent has seen the wreath and Meghan’s note as an opportunity to drum up some good PR, hardly edifying stuff. Previously, the now California-based royal couple has chosen to publicise two meaningful royal family-related occasions which could have remained private.  In early September they visited a local preschool to plant forget-me-nots in honour of the anniversary of Diana’s passing while in November, to mark Remembrance Day, the couple visited Commonwealth war graves in Los Angeles.  In both instances, a photographer was on hand and images of the couple were made public.  In recent months both Harry and Meghan’s approval ratings in the UK have cratered to record lows, with both the Duke and Duchess hitting negative figures... Perhaps it was too much to expect that this weekend’s proceedings could have gone off without something Harry and Meghan-related in the mix.  All of this comes as the Queen offered up would be read as a jewel-encrusted olive branch to the self-exiled Sussexes. Her Majesty had been expected to wear a brooch to today’s service that had some connection to her husband of more than 73 years, however instead she opted to don the Queen Mary pearl and diamond Richmond brooch.  The last time she had worn this particular number it was to the Sussexes’ 2018 wedding, suggesting that this could represent something of a subtle peace offering"

Why you shouldn't celebrate Christmas

Shylie Armon Bannon: 

Since Halloween is over, I've seen so many posts and reels of friends and influencers decorating for Christmas and being gleeful about beginning to listen to Christmas music. So many captions involving some form of "Tis the Season!" sentiment. So, earlier than ever, guess it's time for my non-Christian PSA to all of American society:

 

There is no such thing as Secular Christmas. No one who actively observes a religion other than Christianity is persuaded by clever points that Christmas trees and Santa Clause and candlemas all allegedly derived from Pagan celebrations (nor does it make those of us who aren't pagan want to adopt those holidays). Christmas is not an "American" holiday, nor are Christmas traditions part of Americana in anything other than a display of Christian privilege and exclusionary behavior/mindset.

 

Calling something a "Holiday Party," or "Holiday Celebration" and decorating with trees, candy canes, snow flakes, nutcrackers, etc. -- it's not secular and it's not non-denominational. Further, although this year Hanukkah happens to occur at the same time as Christmas--some years it happens during Thanksgiving, so putting a Menorah up at a "Holiday" party in deep December is at best a half-hearted token gesture to acknowledge that Christmas is not the only winter adjacent holiday, but usually quite out of place and demonstrates no true thought or care was put into making it a secular party.

 

Hanukkah is not equivalent in any way to Christmas, and many families do not try to make Hanukkah compete with Christmas. Do not assume that if you are talking to a Jewish family, instead of asking "What are you getting for Christmas?" that asking "What are you getting for Hanukkah" is the right question. Hanukkah is a minor holiday on the Jewish calendar. If you feel you must ask about a winter holiday upon learning that someone is Jewish during the winter months, then a) make sure Hanukkah has not already passed, and b) ask generically "How does your family celebrate Hanukkah?"

 

If you learn that someone is Jewish or, more generally, does not celebrate Christmas, do not offer your condolences, and try to control any pained or sorrowful looks. I'm ok with the fact that I don't celebrate Christmas. I also don't think it's any type of child abuse that my kid doesn't celebrate it, so please do not say "oh, I just feel so sorry for your son that he misses out!" Especially if you happen to be within my child's earshot. Please do not ask if we even celebrate Christmas "a little," (yes this is often a very real question).

 

If you consider yourself an ally or a progressive person, or even a thoughtful person--break with the traditions of the more exclusionary generations that came before you, and start teaching your Christmas-celebrating children from an early age that not everyone celebrates Christmas, that Santa Claus is not real to everyone but is a tradition that is celebrated only by people who celebrate Christmas, and educate them on other cultures and traditions proactively and early, so that your children do not automatically start assuming that everyone is Christmas-observing around them.

 

Have important conversations with your children about why popular Christmas stories such as A Christmas Carol and How the Grinch Stole Christmas demonize and villainize individuals who do not celebrate Christmas. As your children get older, ask them to think about some of the anti-Semitic concepts that are present in stories like A Christmas Carol, and discuss with them how non-Christians were often persecuted in places like Portugal, Spain and pre-revolutionary Russia/Ukraine/Poland for failing to celebrate Christian holidays.

 

If you truly think that the "magic" of Christmas is believing that Santa visits homes with good children, I would recommend you reframe your mindset. If you are dead-set on doing this because this is how your childhood went, or your parents' childhood went, then I would suggest thinking about other traditions or beliefs that were acceptable when you were children or your parents were children and how you've discarded those. Why are you still holding on to this exclusionary way of thought so tightly? And, G-d forbid, if another child "ruins Christmas" by telling your child the "truth" about Santa Claus--do not put that child on blast on social media or engage in any efforts to ostracize that child or his/her family.

 

If you are a school teacher or a children's programming coordinator in a public school - adding "I have a little dreidel" to a "winter" concert is insufficient. Why are you so committed to having children sing Christmas-themed songs and doing crafts with candy canes? Also - if you insist on having a discussion of holiday observances from other cultures, please talk to the parents of minority children in the classrooms before having the child be put on the spot to explain their own life to others like a show and tell exhibit. Nothing like being "othered" by your teacher (spoken from experience).

 

I promise--those of us who don't celebrate Christmas live very happy and fulfilled lives. I even enjoy seeing Christmas lights around town and enjoying Christmas celebrations at other people's homes when we are invited as guests (much like celebrating a friend's birthday with a party). We have our own traditions and celebrations that we find quite enjoyable. I say Merry Christmas to my friends who celebrate. I’m happy to invite others to Hanukkah parties at my home, or other religious holidays. But I really hope everyone can recognize that there is no ‘default’ celebration in this country—or at least there shouldn’t be.

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Links - 10th December 2022 (1 - History Extra Quoting)

Helen Carr & Suzannah Lipscomb On History Now | History Extra - "‘Historically, the word nostalgia was a sickness, it was, you know, there are records of people even dying of nostalgia. So these these things have changed over time"

Decolonisation To Covid-19: History Education Today | History Extra - "‘It's important we remind ourselves again, by using our skills of, as historians of times when actually there have been real panics about the disappearance of subjects like chemistry, or mathematics. So the threat that history seems to be under right now. And I would actually agree with what Anna said earlier about the numbers of applications falling and it is, it's certainly something we should be considering, I think very seriously. But this is a moment and the moment may shift. And I think it is a product of an understandable push from the government around STEM, which has chimed with, with social forces, including immigration, a changing demographic balance in the UK, perhaps with people coming from outside the UK, from countries, particularly in Central Europe, where there is more of a tradition of technical education. And I think the effect that that can have kind of collectively, particularly in a place like London, where it's a, you know, an absolute melange of people from all over the world, these things can have a kind of building or snowballing effect’"

Extraordinary hoaxes of the 18th century  | History Extra - "'The reason why they were taken in partly was because they were exaggerating what they saw. And this is the classic response to spectators who are fooled by magicians, because they tend to exaggerate what they saw, partly because the magician points them in the right direction. But partly because they want to explain to other people that was how impressive the trick is, and but there's no way that they could be fooled. So they make the trick sound much harder than it is, then it's harder for people to come back and say, well, you should have spotted how that was done. And that was precisely what the witnesses to Anne Robinson were doing. They were claiming, you know, crockery was dancing, and they were giving exact measurements of how far a vase will be flying across the room"

Nancy Goldstone On Maria Theresa: Empress, Warrior, Matriarch | HistoryExtra Podcast | History Extra - "‘Maria Teresa was one of the few princesses who got to marry for love. She married Francis Stephen of Lorraine, he had no real, you know, no real property. In fact, he had to sign away his property, he had to sign away Lorraine in order to marry her, which was something he did not want to do, but was kind of forced on him by her father. And he was actually, she was engaged almost from the time she was six, and he was like, 13, or 14. And so she adored him, she just adored him. And, and for a long time, he was, and he loved her. And he was so supportive during the early years of the marriage, but that Maria Teresa ended up having 16 children in 20 years, and that's going to take a toll on you know, and also she's working all the time. And Francis, her husband started cheating. And he cheated, you know, pretty regularly. And she couldn't, she couldn't bear it. And first she tries the tears and then and all that with him and, and tries to make him feel bad, and he would apologize, but he would do it again. So what she did was she, she decided to legislate that all men should have to be, should have to be monogamous to their, you know, should never be able to cheat on them, no adultery in Vienna. So she, she does this kind of Chastity Commission where she sent out that what will eventually evolve into the secret police to go and if you are a sing, single woman walking the streets, even if you weren't a prostitute, they bundled you out of town, she would invade people's parties, their homes or their dinner parties to make sure that nobody, there was no fooling around going there. And a soldier that went to a brothel that she caught him lost his commission. It was just ridiculous. It didn't last for very long. And the funniest thing was that Casanova happened to be in Austria at that time. And boy, did he get out of town fast. That was not his, his idea of a good time...
Louis XVI, very, I think very strongly believe had autism spectrum disorder. This is a guy who, you can read all the records, you read all the records of observations of his behavior. He never looked anyone in the eye. He bare, he didn't speak at all, when he was younger. He shunned, he didn't look, he didn't play with the other children. In fact, he would go up on the roof and chase cats. Later he would go on the roof and shoot cats. He he had, he had to have a very strict routine. Physically, there was something that, he had all these physical mannerisms and he just perceived, you can see that this is a man who perceived the world differently. He was very smart, he was highly intelligent, Louis XVI. But leadership involves other qualities, you have to be able to look at a leader and he could never speak extemporaneously, he could, he could not make a decision, he relied on the, on ministers. And so he was at such a disadvantage in that way. And on top of all of that, he did not understand how sex worked. And and so, Marie Antoinette, Marie Antoinette’s a virgin, she, when she comes, and so the two of them, she couldn't tell him what to do. And he didn't understand what to do. And it would take until her brother came after Louis, after Louis XV dies and Louis XVI takes over. And it was only after that conversation, where he and Marie Antoinette worked on that afterwards that she became pregnant...
In the 15th century, Charles VI of France had, also a condition, he had a condition. He would every couple of months, he would lose his identity, he would think he was somebody named George. And he would run around the castle, locked up way, they would lock him in the castle, he would rave, he would be naked. He didn't know anyone else around him. He rolled in his own feces. He did all this stuff. And today we say, okay, Charles VI. Very, very likely was schizophrenic. And that is what happened. And we are able to make that condition. Now, if you don't like a label, if you're a person who doesn't like off, the label of autism spectrum disorder, that's fine. But I would point you to him, there's a very funny movie called Analyze This… Billy Crystal plays a psychiatrist and he has to treat Robert De Niro who is a dangerous mobster and Robert De Niro the dangerous mobster, does, if Billy Crystal says anything to him as a psychiatrist that Robert De Niro doesn't like, Robert De Niro says he's gonna kill them. So Robert De Niro comes to Billy Crystal and he says, I'm having, I'm having these terrible, attacks. I can't breathe. I'm sweating. My heart's palpitating. I'm shaking. And Billy Crystal says, oh, you're having a panic attack. And Robert De Niro says, panic attack. I will never have a panic attack and Billy Crystal’s like, no, no, no, no, it's not a panic attack. It's a sweating, breathing hard, palpitation, shaking attack. So if you don't like Autism Spectrum Disorder, that's fine. Just, whenever you think about Louis XVI, think that he is not looking someone in the eye. He is not responding to them. He can, someone can be in the room with him every day for 19 years, and he doesn't acknowledge them. He, he he doesn't play with other children. You're in, when he grows up. He doesn't go around with other children. He must have a routine, he had a routine even after, they was in prison, they gave him a routine. He needed an emotional support with him all the time, that Marie Antoinette filled that emotional support or a minister earlier filled that emotional support. He made weird facial tics. He couldn't address a crowd. He could sit for hours while crowds screamed and didn't say a word. These are things that, this this is the behavior and then he could, he did not know how to consummate a marriage, he did not know how to have a child."

Inside the prehistoric mind | History Extra - "‘People had knowledge, but how did they regard their knowledge? And this is something that, you know, we've got to think about quite carefully, because one of the things that worries me about people's attitudes to the past, is that people tend to patronize the past. They think they were simple. Whereas in reality, I think the breadth of their experience was a great deal wider than ours. I don't necessarily think that, you know, humanity has progressed hugely as we've moved forward in time. You know, I sometimes think if some of the attitudes of some political leaders had been prevalent in the past, would they have been, would they have thrived the way that some dictators and people have in the present day? You know, would Hitler have been possible in the Iron Age? Personally, I rather doubt it. Whereas I think, in some respects, they were more civilized than us."

John of Gaunt: prince without a throne  | History Extra - "'A lot of people seem to think the 100 Years War was a series of famous battles. In actual fact there were very very few battles that were fought during the 100 years war, it was almost a war of evasion in many ways. England would constantly invade France, the English would invade France in various campaigns led by the king or led by, led by his sons, but the French would usually avoid pitched battle because pitched battle didn't go too well for them. Think Crecy, think Poitiers and then later think Agincourt. It didn't ever really go in their favor. What did seem to work was avoiding the English and applying scorched earth policy to the land. So removing any sort of supply, food, access. Any loot from the English path"

Plagues of our past | History Extra - "‘The creation of the modern city. What effect does that have on infectious disease?’
‘Well, cities are a huge part of the story of human disease, because they bring people together, they bring people together. And so they're sharing space, they're sharing air, they're sharing water, they're sharing, they're sharing sewage space, they're sharing insects, they're sharing lice and fleas. And cities were really deadly places. There's, there's just a lot of evidence from a lot of different parts of the world that country life was healthier. People in the country lived longer, they grew taller, they bore less of a burden of infectious disease. But cities still drew migrants, they were economic magnets, they were culturally exciting, throughout most of our past as they are now, and, and so even though there was a huge penalty to pay in terms of health and mortality, cities, drew people and ended up being a demographic sink, and, and creating a kind of place where, where people would go and disproportionately would die. And really no ancient or medieval, or even early modern city could reproduce itself. Its death rates were always higher than birth rates. So they relied on the constant influx of people but but diseases, infectious diseases, thrived in cities. Diseases of waste, like typhoid, diseases of the respiratory tract, like tuberculosis. And so there's a really important dynamic in human history in which cities allow the, the evolution and circulation of diseases and which they create really strong demographic differences between the town and the countryside. But I also want to say cities are places of innovation. And that's a very deep part of the human story’"

Unexpected Edwardians | History Extra - "‘Women now can go to that, that new idea, the department store, and they can go by themselves. And there's a very practical reason why women get this level of independence. It's because they can go out, and they know they'll have somewhere to have a wee. And it's so simple, that's a kind of historical secret in itself. When did women start going out by themselves? As soon as department stores opened with ladies’ bathrooms attached? And it also meant that women could start shoplifting, basically. And there was two sorts of shop, there was the organized shoplifter. And then there was the kind of lady Dowager who saw suddenly went yes, and shoved it into her bloomers. But that demanded a high level of, a number of store detectives, and the store detectives had to be women. But women were still, particularly women in the lower orders, were still pretty invisible in those days. So another typical way that a lady detective might operate would be in a divorce case, where you needed to prove adultery. So a woman, lady detective, posing as a chambermaid could, you know do the business. Could provide evidence whether it was all set up, or whether it wasn't. And then you go back into a slightly more Victorian era. Courting between young women and young men of quality became far easier as women were let off the leash, which of course, meant that young men and young women could meet in private. So it's always handy to keep an eye on what's going on. And who better to spy on them, than a virtually invisible woman, you know, sitting in the park feeding the ducks?’"

Afghanistan: a history of instability | History Extra - "‘Western eyes see this as a problem of quote Islamic fundamentalism, when there's a whole ragbag of different things going on, which are often misinterpreted as religious fundamentalism in inverted commas. In many ways, what I think happened in the last month has strong parallels to what happened in Iran in 1979, where you had what on the surface look like a religious revolution, which certainly brought a religious figure in Iran to power. And the Taliban see themselves as an Islamic Emirate. But behind that lay a whole bundle of, of social, cultural and economic grievances. Why were people raising in Iran against the Shah? It was partly the secret police, partly because of the corruption of the ruling class, partly because of the way that most of the country was not benefiting from the Shah’s rule, the small elite were plundering the country in the eyes of the rural conservative masses. And I think a lot of those factors were to blame for what happened in the last month, there were a lot of people in Afghanistan, who felt a small elite in Kabul were devouring resources that were being poured in. And it was very striking when you went to Afghanistan anytime in the last 20 years that despite the many trillion dollars were supposedly arriving in the country, year in year out, there wasn't even a single road in the country that didn't have potholes, even the, you know, the road from the airport to the presidential palace was was like a backroad in Delhi. And a lot of people felt that this was a matter of justice against injustice, a decadent minority against a worthy, the people, the people in the villages who were missing out, and also just a general conservatism in the face of rapid development. And, and, and this and the word you hear, again, from support of the Taliban is this idea of justice, the idea that the, there was no justice in the old regime, it could be bought, it was the only justice for the rich, the poor, had no access to this. So whether or not one accepts that rhetoric, there's no question that Islamic fundamentalism as perceived from the west is, is a very, very small part of a much more complicated picture of grievances and and motivating factor’...
‘One of the narratives that gets told about Afghanistan is that it is what's called a graveyard of empires. Is that true? And what you think the reasons for that are, if it is true’
‘So, there are obviously been many, many empires which have ruled whole or parts of Afghanistan perfectly successfully. If you go back far enough, the Kushan Empire had had its capital under under Bagram Airbase, and full of treasures of gorgeous Roman glass and beautiful Indian ivory, furniture and beautiful gold objects and it ruled deep into Uttar Pradesh and India from there. The various medieval dynasties, most famously the, I suppose, the Lodis, and then the Moguls. Kabul was the base for Babur’s invasion of of India and Kabul proved an extremely lucrative base for Babur. Then again, you know, other Timurid empires of Shah Rukh in Herat, and so on, presiding over a golden age of painting and architecture and colleges and education. Gor Harshad [sp?], Bizard [sp?], all the great names of of Western Afghan history. So it's not that empires have not succeeded in Afghanistan, it's that Western colonial empires in recent times have found it very difficult to rule Afghanistan. But that said, as we've been discussing, so have most domestic Afghan rulers found it difficult to rule Afghanistan, it's not a, it's not a problem only faced by colonial rulers. And we are seeing signs even now that the Taliban are going to have a lot of trouble extending their authority, or maintaining centralized authority. They're fighting among themselves, we've heard of, there's still continued resistance in panjshir, and demonstrations around the country. So it is a difficult place to rule full stop. It's not, it's not only colonialists who, who've had that problem. And so I mean, history is full of very successful empires, which have ruled Afghanistan. But it's certainly true that the East India Company, the Raj, the Russians, and the Americans all left with a bloody nose, though none were defeated, outright. And this is the point Bijan was making earlier, it's that the real problem is that Afghanistan can't finance its own colonization. If you invade Bengal, there are two harvests a year, there are spectacular natural resources. And there is a extremely rich merchant and middle class, you can tax and you can use that money to recruit soldiers. And you can, and you can make a profit out of colonialism as the British and the East India Company very successfully did, particularly if you bring opium into the trade and turn yourself into a narcotics empire and run on selling, selling narcotics to China. But more recently, the East India Company, which was making a massive profit out of its operations in Bengal, and Bihar, suddenly went into the red when it invaded Afghanistan, because having to support an army in a very distant place from its centre of operations, transport food and weaponry over vast distances with an entire Sikh army between you and your base, and build forts and roads is an extremely expensive business. It later on with the, with the Russians, it famously broke the Soviet economy or helped break the Soviet economy, the cost of continual fighting in Afghanistan. And finally, now with Americans, it wasn't in a sense that they'd actually been militarily defeated and that the Americans could not carry on resisting the Taliban, it was, it was a, domestic politics found it too expensive in terms of cost and body bags. And the fact is, it just simply seemed to go on forever. And and eventually just Joe Biden made that, made the decision to pull the, disastrous decision to pull the plug. But it wasn't actually a defeat. So it's the cost and the difficulty of financing it, as Bijan said earlier, rather than the outright military impossibility of governing it, that in the end seems to cause all these different empires to come to grief.’"

What Would You Ask A Historian, With Greg Jenner | HistoryExtra Podcast | History Extra - "‘There was a Greek Roman doctor called Pedanius Dioscorides, I think it was and he recommended that, if you had a prolapsed anus, so obviously bottom problems, the cure was to zap it with an electric fish. So it's what's known as a torpedo fish, basically like an electric eel, but a slightly different type. And yeah, he would sort of like, bend over, stand there. And then, you know, a jolt of electricity from from Mother Nature, because there's no electricity generated in the inhuman world, but the animal kingdom produces it. And that obviously, is a terrifying image, but also a very funny image from 2000 years distance safety wise. And I was Googling that just going well, this, that can't that there can't be a modern, surely there's not a modern version of that. And then I found a journal article in 2017, in a respected medical journal that said, yeah, no, we've, we've, we haven't used the torpedo fish. But we have been zapping patients’ bottoms. If they have a prolapsed anus, and it helps. It helps restore the muscle strength, it helps tighten things up. It's important for anal incontinence, this stuff works… which also reminds me of Von Humboldt, sort of the great 18th century explorer who also experimented with electricity, he electrocuted himself, he put a cathode in his anus and an anode in his mouth, and shocked himself to see how it felt’"

George III: the tyrant who lost America? | History Extra - "‘It's fair to say that, for many of the Patriots, he was a hate figure. And they did view him as a tyrant. Why do you think that was?’
‘Well, no, I don't believe they did at the beginning of the war at all. They called it the parliamentary army rather than the Royal army. They didn't start pulling down bits of royal insignia off buildings until after the declaration of independence in July 1776. Which, of course, was a good year and a bit after the war had started. Which, if you have April 1775, as the time when Lexington and Concord saw the first shots fired, as well over a year, where they're fighting against somebody who they don't really consider to be a tyrant. It's very much this extraordinary documents, blind English, beautiful phraseology, almost Shakespearean language of the Declaration of Independence that that created this, this very necessary propaganda myth, as far as the Americans were concerned of a tyrant king.’
‘And in the Declaration of Independence, how was this view of him being a tyrant king justified?’
‘Well, it was justified very largely on ex post facto rationalization because it blamed him for things that had already happened after they had started the war in, in many instances. In about half of the 28 clauses refer to things that were, were after the Lexington and Concord. Shots had already been fired. You see, in the 18th century, if you're looking at Samuel Johnson, his Dictionary of the English language, for example, a tyrant, is either an absolute monarch governing imperiously or a cruel, despotic and severe master and, and George III was neither of those. You know, he was not an absolute monarch. He his his Parliaments and his governments that he had to act through. He never overruled an Act of Parliament for example. He certainly didn't govern imperiously, not least because he didn't actually govern himself at all. And far from being a cruel, despotic and severe master, in fact, he was a immensely good natured man, he was a, was far from a despotic person as possible, certainly not in the slightest bit severe. So, you know, under no circumstances, except for those of the exigencies of the necessity of wartime, would anyone call George the Third a tyrant. But today, that when one looks at the American, you know, cyber sphere, cyber sphere and so on, and then newspapers and endless blogs and websites, he's routinely called a tyrant and a despot and a dictator and all of these various quite 20th century concepts, which completely misunderstand what he genuinely was, you know, we see the word dictator, and we think of Mussolini and Stalin and Hitler and so on, people like that. You know, George, the third could not be more different from those kinds of people.’
‘And the point that you make in the feature you've written for the magazine is that British rule in America wasn't necessarily that oppressive anyway, is that fair to say?’
‘Oh, totally. Yes. I mean, Richard Brookhiser refers to it as the freest society in the world. It did not have, you know, armed forces that were marching down the streets, it did not have newspapers that were being closed down, and editors arrested and so on. It certainly wasn't anything like the genuine tyrannies of some of the European states and their, what they were doing in their empires, you know. You had the Spanish executing any number of people in Louisiana when, when that revolt started. You had the Russians killing 10s of 1000s of people in the Pugachev Uprising. Gosh, all over the world's people were acting in the most abominable ways, in genuine tyrannies, and, and so far removed from that the 13 colonies who were allowed pretty much to get on and do whatever they wanted.’
‘So why then do you think they were so keen to push for independence?’
‘Well, the time had come for independence, they were they were a mature state, essentially. They, they had a raring economy that was getting twice the size of Britain's. They had two and a half million people there, which was significant number population, obviously, 600,000 of them were enslaved people, and so they weren't taking part in the, in the advances of the rest of society, but but the rest of them, you know, we're creating a viable state with them. I don't know, Philadelphia had many more bookshops than the whole of the rest of the United Kingdom combined apart from London. You knowthe this was a proper grown up state ready for statehood. And this is the interesting thing, you see, because they revolted for independence, for sovereignty, for self government, all those good things. And I think that makes them pretty exceptional that they were revolting for that, even though they were not being tyrannized. History is absolutely packed with, with any number of examples of people who grabbed their independence against the tyrannising force. You look at the, at the Dutch against the Austrians in Holland, you look at the Greeks against the Turks, the Israelites against the Egyptians, you know, all the way through history, peoples who have grasped their independence against the despotic Master. What makes America exceptional is that in fact, they grasp their independence against the master who was so light touched that some of the states only had about 17 or 20 royal officials working there...
As far as the overall legacy is concerned, of course, ultimately, it was probably not that bad to have lost America in the late 17, 1780s. Because, you know, it was going to happen one day, it was going to become the most powerful and rich country in the world and if we'd still been constitutionally attached to it, we could have been on the, on the receiving end of a sort of reverse takeover, in fact, so, so I think the very happy History of the English speaking peoples is probably better, now that we're separate states.’"

The turbulent Stuart century  | History Extra - "‘I wanted to ask you about the role of the international context in the Civil War because, obviously, of course, we often think of it as a very internalized conflict. But you suggest we need to look beyond that. Why?’
‘Well, certainly contemporaries fitted it into the sort of way in which continental Europe is being convulsed by war. And for those who wanted to see confessional warfare everywhere, there was plenty to see in Germany through the 1630s. And some people felt that actually, Charles the First had been right to keep England out of this great sort of conflagration on the continent that was laying waste so much territory. But then, as historians like John Morell, have said, England then had its own wars of religion in the 1640s. Initially, there is a lot of continental involvement or at least continental experience. So there's been a lot of work done, for example, on the way in which the Scottish covenanting army, a lot of their forces had continental experience in particular the armies of Gustavus Adolphus in Sweden and elsewhere. So initially, there is quite a lot of both expertise, personnel that's brought in. Once the dynamic starts to shift in favor of Parliament from the mid 1640s onwards, part of that is the Cromwellian view of the New Model Army as not being a an Army made up of foreign strangers, that this is an English army fighting for England's interests and seeking a settlement with Charles that only extends to England. And then that's sort of reflected very much in the way in which it's an English decision to put Charles the First on trial. And it's an English decision to execute him. And that's much to the horror of the Scots, even the Scots who have fought against him’
‘How did foreign powers respond to the regicide? Was it universal horror,
‘There is universal horror in 1649. This is why England is devil land. It's not only the execution of the monarch, it’s the public execution of it and the sort of ceremonial that attached to it. I mean, another theme of the book as well is the frequency of assassination. Continental audiences and are very used to the idea of monarchs perhaps being assassinated by a lone extremist, but the idea that you could sort of try and clothe what they see as a totally sacrilegious murder with some form of sort of judicial clothing is utterly unacceptable. What also underlies the horror though, is also a sense that this is something that the English do. It was, after all, Elizabeth the first that puts Charles's grandmother Mary Queen of Scots on trial, and ordered her execution even though she was also a divinely ordained as she saw it, monarch who had been a former Queen Consort in France, as well as a Queen of Scotland. So there is a lot of sense particularly in France, where the shock of Mary Queen of Scots’s execution in 1587 had been extensive, a shock but a sense of what, this is what the English do. I mean, this is why they cannot be trusted. This is why they are out of control.’"

The Spanish Armada: everything you wanted to know | History Extra - "‘The Tudors invented propaganda in our modern sense of propaganda. And we live with myths which the Tudors created to this day. I mean, there's a myth that here is David fighting this gigantically powerful Goliath of naval power. It's not true. In fact, the Armada had fewer ships at sea fighting the English than, than English, the English had, you know, 70 more ships, and they did, they had few, the Spanish had fewer guns than the, than the English. 138 heavy guns compared to the the English’s 251. They had a third less firepower...
Let's just finish with one little piece of propaganda, which which the government disseminated after the Spanish Armada retreated, and it was, it's in the British Library. It's a printed verse, set of verses printed in black letter at the time. And it's all about, it's a government's first official health warning on record. And it's all about is it safe to eat fish, if they have been feeding on the diseased corpses, mainly with venereal disease, diseased corpses of Spanish sailors? And back came the answer: yes, it is. This is how you prepare your fish. Black propaganda but I love it. I love it as a, as a first government health warning.’"

The Medici: everything you wanted to know - HistoryExtra - "‘You did mention myths to do with Catherine poisoning people… how many people did she poison? Do we know? Or is it all myth?’...
‘This is not a period when they had, you know, CSI and forensics, you know, almost anybody who dies an untimely death, particularly if they're involved in politics, and have got some enemies, a rumor of poison pops up. And it's actually very, very difficult to prove. I mean, there are cases where individuals are tortured into confessing, there are cases where there's kind of quite strong circumstantial evidence. I've not particularly seen, you know, there are much better cases for the Medici engaging in poisoning of people… there are much better documented cases of poisoning by members of the Medici than anything I'm aware of attaching to Catherine.’"

The battle over the Benin Bronzes - HistoryExtra - "‘There are some hilarious I think hilarious depictions of of what the Portuguese look like when they arrive. So I highly recommend any of the ones that include the Portuguese alongside. They have sort of pointy noses and little beards, and they have those Conquistador type helmets on. And I recommend those...
I think it is useful to have something in a variety of world cities where lots of Nigerian people live. That, you know, reminds people outside of Nigeria, that if Africa had these artistic traditions, and you know, it's constantly a battle, as somebody who teaches African history, it's constantly a battle to get people to know that, you know, it was not the quote unquote, dark continent, right, like that, that has all these artistic traditions and and then these complex forms of State Building, etc. But I think that actually the best way of doing that, and this is not a, this is not an official position. This is just my own personal view is that actually, the technology for making replicas is so good these days that actually we could give the the originals back to Benin City, and have replicas in the other museums.’"
Of course she has to see the modern value of the Benin Bronzes in terms of identity politics - so much so that the Bronzes should be in cities where lots of Nigerians live
If the technology for making replicas is so good, they can give replicas to Benin City

The Trials Of Ethel Rosenberg | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘There were no Jews on the jury. But again, many Jews, prospective jurors had excused themselves, because the Jewish community was completely divided. It's one of the most interesting aspects of the story that successful Jews wanted to distance themselves from these commie Jews who they felt weren't patriotic. I mean, Ethel and Julius argued that they were patriotic, they just wanted a better America. And they felt that Russia deserved to share in this information. They wanted to bring a little bit of the idealism they believed they saw in communism into America. We could debate whether that's patriotic or not... Irving… in his summing up, accused Ethel because she was three years older. I mean, there's the misogyny of the period, a woman who's three years old must be the master and leading her young husband astray. And she's really a senior partner in all of this. So there's horrific sexism at work...
Imagine a story that unites people like Einstein, the Pope, John Paul Sartre, certainly in France, but in many other countries, of Europe, of Australia, they all felt it simply was not necessary to electrocute a woman. I mean, the death penalty in general was already under discussion. We didn't abolish the death penalty in England until 1965. So you know, we did still kill people, but for murder. I think the point is that Ethel was being killed for a crime other than murder, the only woman in modern American times to suffer that penalty’"
Weird. I thought it'd be sexist to say that the woman couldn't be responsible because she was a woman

Highland Clearances: Everything You Wanted To Know | HistoryExtra Podcast - HistoryExtra - "‘Why do some people blame the English for the Highland Clearances? Is that something you've come across?’
‘Well, I wouldn't come across it in serious historical work or anything like that. But you also see it in popular culture, I mean, there's a tradition in Scotland of blaming the English for everything...
[On migration] If you look a relatively short period between the early 1850s and the early 1860s, around about a decade, especially in the West, and the Western islands, we're talking about maybe 25,000 people removed. Either by charitable agencies, or by, or by landlord decision, and  landlord support. And interestingly enough, what's mixed into that story is rampant racism. The fact is that people are arguing in the southern newspapers, how did it come about that one part of a modernized Great Britain, you know, the the the industrial society par excellence, the world's most powerful economy. Why is it in that one area there is this degree of poverty, and even crisis and famine, and the conclusion they increasingly came up with, that the people were inadequate, they were racially inadequate. The Celt, like the Irish Celt, didn't have the capacity for self help and enterprise. And one guy, one very influential government official, Sir Charles Trevelyan who'd also been active during the Irish famine crisis. He tried to engineer the great program of the expulsion of 45,000 Gaels, that is Highlanders. And the places which had been vacated, would then be peopled by incoming Germans who, of the Teutonic race, because as he put it, they were much more capable of industriousness and enterprise than the the racially inadequate Celtic population. There was an extraordinary situation to happen because it meant also that there was a racist dimension to clearance, which increasingly there was, that made the people, that ensured that people would be tra-, would be treated in a much harsher way. Because they were regarded as, if not subhuman, yet, not in the same level, as people of the, of the lowland or English race, or even, in fact, the Teutonic German German race’...
‘How many people died in the clearances?... How significantly was the population of the Highlands reduced?’...
‘There’s no significant evidence of what you may call a clear increase in mortality. Even during the period when the entire population of the Western Highlands zones was threatened by the potato failure, one does not see any clear evidence, there’s obviously a degree of increase in mortality. But it's very limited and it's ephemeral. It's nothing like the Irish situation… What does leave a dent in population is through the actual act of eviction. And through the fact that at the end of the day, this society could not support a very large increase in population. Because of its limited areas of arable land. Its lack of raw materials and minerals such as coal. And its failure to industrialize because of competition from the lowlands. So if you have a 50% increase, or 60% increase in population, as you did have in some parts of the Highlands, in the first half of the 19th century, it's either destitution or leave... Eviction aggravated that process of an imbalance between resources and population. But fundamentally, it did not cause it. If there had been no clearances, many of the population would still have had to leave. Because by the later part of the century, the 19th century, to live in that, those kind of destitute conditions, was becoming increasingly intolerable. And they saw, they saw greater opportunity elsewhere. I mean, if you move to Canada, for example, you're still able to take a plot of land or even greater than a plot of land. And one of the great advantages of going to Canada or the USA, was there were no landowners. If you went to Canada, you became your own proprietor. Even it was a very small area. And that also was an interesting incentive. And what you therefore also see, sadly, in some parts of the Highland diaspora, and we see it, especially in Australia, in relation to Aboriginal people. There's clear evidence there, that Highlanders who had been evicted or encouraged to, to move during the period of compulsory emigration, were beginning to act in the same way towards the Aboriginal population, as they had been treated in the Highlands’"
Weird. We're told that race was invented to justify colonialism outside Europe by Europeans

Links - 9th December 2022 (2 - General Wokeness)

My Cheshbon HaNefesh for Cowardice in the Face of Wokeness - "an offshoot of the loosely-knit movement, the Movement for Black Lives (M4BL), issued a platform, which, among other things, denounced Israel for committing genocide. Jewish leaders accused the authors of anti-Semitism, and Black lives activists countered by accusing Jewish leaders of “decentering” the Black experience and distracting attention from their claims (a charge I would hear over and over again)... The white Jewish leaders who attended the meeting were told in advance that they were expected to come and listen, to be seen and not heard. There would be a time to ask questions in small groups, but we were not allowed to challenge anything we heard during the main discussion. They were authentic voices of the marginalized, and we were to behold their words. There were many firsts that evening. It was the first time I heard Black Jews say white Jews had benefited from white supremacy and needed to “shed your whiteness,” or the cultural identity that afforded whites advantage. White Jews, they told us, had taken full advantage of white privilege and their proximity to the white power structure. I later came to understand that like other privileged ethnicities, such as Asian Americans, many Jews were “white adjacent.” We were expected to acknowledge our complicity in white supremacy. Many American Jews define white supremacists as racists who parade around with tiki torches and white hoods. For the Black activists at that meeting, however, white supremacy describes the fundamental organizing principle of America and the West, a system meant to uphold white domination... Our role moving forward, we were told, was to acknowledge our own guilt, “make space” for and “lift up” Black voices. This was not your father or mother’s civil rights movement. It was certainly not a dialogue, and I doubt the organizers would have described it as such. We were complicit in the oppression of Black people in America and of Black Jews. We “had work to do” on ourselves and in the larger society. At the end of the meeting, one of the organizers drew the Black participants into a circle. She preached “I was blind but now I am woke.” The participants repeated the chant and proclaimed Amen. I have always been moved by the spiritual effusiveness of the Black church... I was initially confused when witnessing that same fervor during what was understood to be a political program. What I later concluded was that the call to be woke was, in fact, a profession of faith... It felt like I was witnessing a religious revival in service of a new spiritual, political and social movement. Wokeness sees itself not merely as a social movement to end racism but as a complete worldview that supersedes the existing white supremacist order. It has its own internal logic. Its own vocabulary. Its own history, philosophy and conception of morality and law. And it carries, like all religions, a dogma that is not to be questioned... Raised by an immigrant who practically worshipped the United States, I embraced the narrative of an America that is constantly striving to live up to its ideals. The America I grew up in was not racist but had racism in it. I still hold by that narrative today. The woke claim that America is white supremacist strikes me as both wrong and dangerous. For all its faults, America is the most successful experiment in pluralism in world history. Immigrants with black and brown skin still flock here, and my eccentric family was proof of the opportunity that lies at its doorsteps... I am astonished to see how the woke faith has insinuated itself into mainstream opinion and institutions. Its appeal grows out of the profound (and rightly felt) collective guilt of white society. From what I saw, wokeness insists that only Black people have the right to enunciate their experiences and claims against society, and that everyone else must abide by their pronouncements. It asserts the same about Jews and other minorities as well. Anyone who wants to be in the good graces of the Black activists, it seemed, would have to adopt these pieties. It turns out that many progressives are eager to be in their good graces... Must each of us now outsource our views on racism to those with first-hand experience? As wokeness initially worked its way through college campuses and corporate diversity seminars, few mainstream liberals took the threat of it seriously... some fringe fads eventually escape into the mainstream... No one wants to look like they are against diversity, and their superiors bend to their will. Unopposed, the idea metastasizes. One day the quiet skeptic wakes up and finds that wokeness enjoys the enthusiastic support of a critical mass of progressives. Today, much of the established Jewish community has been swept up by the woke tsunami. Jewish organizations have short circuited the usual deliberations, a hallmark of Jewish civic life. Seemingly overnight they have changed the language they use in describing the power dynamics of American society. Advantages became “privilege.” Equality became “equity.” Dominant culture became “supremacy.” Emotional hurt became “harm.” Each of these terms carries ideological connotations beyond their literal meanings... before adopting them, they should gain an understanding of what they mean in the context they are used and deliberate, openly, on whether they agree with those meanings. So far that hasn’t happened. All three non-Orthodox denominations have enunciated their support for critical race theory. No one bothered to ask rank and file members if they believe America today is a white supremacist state. Perhaps the leaders of these movements are scared of the answer they might receive from their own members. At the altar of woke ideology, not only have some made a mockery of the deliberative tradition, some have even ditched their moral compass. In the name of racial justice and “Jewish values,” Jews, even rabbis, bully other Jews. These “kindly inquisitors” shame and ostracize others for daring to think differently. Some proclaim that we need “to get everyone on the same page on racial justice.” They accuse white Jews of having “privilege” for uttering non-woke perspectives. The normal laws of civility don’t apply. The activist Rabbi Michael Adam Latz informs me that “Civility is the elixir of the privileged""

No remorse in NYC pummeling of Jewish man: DA - "The Brooklyn man accused of beating a Jewish man in a hate attack in Midtown proclaimed from his jail cell that he would “do it again,” prosecutors said on Saturday. Waseem Awawdeh, 23, was held on $10,000 bail in the Thursday attack, in which he is accused of beating Joseph Borgen, 29, with crutches and punching, kicking and pepper-spraying him... Awawdeh called Borgen a “dirty Jew” and said, “F–k Israel, Hamas is going to kill all of you.”"
Damn white supremacy!

Larry on Twitter - "Forcing Kyrie Irving to pay $500k to the ADL and preventing him from working because he posted a youtube video will definitely show him that jews don’t run and control everything"
Can they be unaware of the optics of ruining people over anti-Semitic claims?

Meme - "Spirit: White woman with a Persecution complex *Handmaid's Tale*"

Meme - "How to recognize a stroke? Twisted mouth. Arm paralysis. Incoherent speech
I am a male feminist. There are 112 genders and counting. The burqa empowers women and islam is a religion of peace"

Anti-Chinese prejudice: from gold rushes to exclusion laws | HistoryExtra - "I think the coolie trope has been, it's been so powerful as a kind of protean idea that can adapt to changing conditions. So it gets reiterated and reproduced over time. Well past the years of the gold rush, even into the 20th century, the idea that Chinese are a mass of servile and despotic people persists and that is reproduced in part by ongoing laws that discriminate against the Chinese, but also it's reproduced through the experience of wars in the Asia-Pacific waged by the United States. World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, the ongoing occupation of Pacific islands. You know, in wars, the enemies are always painted as being subhuman. Right? You have to get your soldiers to slaughter other soldiers, you have to convince your troops that the enemy is somehow not fully human. But in the Chinese case or in the Asian case, that has a very particular kind of idiom. So through the 20th century and all the wars in Asia, certain ideas become prominent. Such as, Asian lives are cheap. Asian people consider lot, their lives to be cheap. Or Asians fight with barbaric methods so we have to combat them with like means. You know, in fact, it's the United States that dropped the atom bomb, that used napalm. It's the United States that considered Asian life cheap, not Asian people themselves. This is the propaganda that got spread. So I think the coolie myth has had a, several afterlifes according to changing conditions"
Amazing. Apparently World War II, the Korean War and the Vietnam War were started by the US and the US was the villain in them (not to mention she seems to think that the US and China were on opposite sides in both world wars). And she is somehow unaware of the Rape of Nanking and how the Japanese were prepared to defend Japan to the last man, and it was estimated 5-10 million Japanese would die in the atom bomb had not been dropped.

Anti-Racism as Office-Politics Power Play: a Canadian Academic Case Study - "The pandemic has been a challenging period for Canadian universities... And yet none of these issues is listed on the October 27th Universities Canada meeting agenda. Laurentian University isn’t mentioned at all, in fact. And the only substantive reference to the COVID pandemic consists of an aside to the effect that “women are disproportionately being impacted negatively during the pandemic.” Instead, all of the agenda’s main action items are dedicated to social justice... The conservative case against doctrinaire anti-racist ideology typically focuses on its upstream intellectual influences—including Marxism, postmodernism, Critical Theory, and other movements that present a revolutionary critique of liberal, capitalist societies. But with its PowerPoint style and jargony content (complete with references to “best practices,” “evaluation rubrics,” “deliverables,” “synergistic solutions,” and “Strategic Planning Logic Models”) Building a Race-Conscious Institution often reads more like a send-up of corporate MBA-speak than a radical call-to-arms. In one memorable flourish, readers are instructed that “mechanisms to promote coordinated decentralization will ensure [that] dedicated and distributed efforts are aligned and synergistic,” words that reminded me more of a Dilbert cartoon than anything written by Paulo Freire or Ibram X. Kendi. Critical Theory is about challenging existing power structures. But the 53 university presidents and principals who met on October 27th presumably like the current academic power structure just fine, since they’re the ones sitting on top of it. And for all the talk of ruthless personal self-interrogation contained in the opening pages of Building a Race-Conscious Institution, its author doesn’t seem interested in prodding corner-office university administrators to actually surrender their plum posts in favour of less white, less rich, less privileged replacements. Just the opposite: She calls on them to become a vanguard force that suppresses “colour-blind” ideology and imposes a top-down program of anti-racist institutional control. While the language of the report is nominally progressive, the overall tone is deeply conservative. The report’s author—a McMaster University professor and administrator named Arig al Shaibah... As for her stipulation that anti-racism officers “must be adequately compensated,” Ms. al Shaibah leads by example. According to publicly available records, her 2020 salary and benefits at McMaster totalled about $249,000... The author’s policy prescriptions, in particular, seem to combine the worst of both worlds, with university administrators being urged to weaponize the idiom of anti-racism as a means to impose ideological uniformity, expand their own powers, raise their own salaries, and strip academics of their traditional prerogatives... In her report, Ms. al Shaibah argues that a “trained Equity Advisor” should be personally involved in every hiring decision... All in all, Ms. al Shaibah lists no fewer than 17 “best practices for inclusive excellence in hiring,” which, taken together, would seem to put those “trained Equity Advisors” and their EDI colleagues in the driver’s seat on pretty much every personnel decision... (Remember that going to bat for objective, race-neutral evaluation standards is itself described in Building a Race-Conscious Institution as prima facie evidence of harboring intent to “frustrate” anti-racism. And we all know what the opposite of anti-racism is.)... Ms. al Shaibah stipulates that “Senior EDI Officers” such as herself should not only be vested with broad executive powers to act on their own initiative (as noted above), but also to “establish a coordinated decentralized network of distributed campus-wide leaders who cooperate within a community of practice”—or, in other words, a bureaucratic sub-structure that sits outside the university’s ordinary chain of executive command. Radical ideological manias typically flame out quickly because their demonstrated excesses make them unattractive to new recruits. But as Building a Race-Conscious Institution helps demonstrate, anti-racism will be different—as its adherents have succeeded in embedding their precepts into the ostensibly neutral administrative machinery of the institutions they serve. This, in turn, has allowed them to expand their powers, inflate their ranks through control of the hiring process, neutralize ideological opponents with threats of investigation, and even stigmatize doctrinal criticism as a form of bigotry. In short, proponents of this ideology have found a way to neutralize the checks and balances that typically govern the intellectual life of a university. Moreover, they’ve done it in plain sight, while earning six-figure salaries and winning public plaudits for their commitment to social justice. Even if you don’t agree with Ms. al Shaibah’s ideas, you have to admit that, from a purely Machiavellian perspective, her approach is very clearly situated within the Zone of Excellence."
Clearly governments are underfunding education and more money is needed

Actress Apologizes to Kirk Cameron, Says Hollywood Told Her To Hate Him Because He Wasn't Gay, Muslim, or Atheist - "An actress and former contestant on the reality television show “America’s Next Top Model” has issued an apology to Kirk Cameron for judging him based on his Christian faith, admitting she was a “bigot and an a**hole.” Adrianne Curry told her 1.4 million followers last week that she was surrounded by “Godless people” in Hollywood who had convinced her that anyone who was not a Muslim, an atheist, or a homosexual, was “very bad and stupid.”"

Meme - "Man, imagine putting 'UltraMAGA' in your profile like... it's a good thing. But, hey, thanks for the warning."
"she/her | autistic I I BLM | TLM I ACAB"

Opinion: Jamie Oliver is veering into cultural appropriation. Because he's Jamie Oliver - "Celebrity chef Jamie Oliver’s recent Sunday Times interview in which he said he has “teams of cultural appropriation specialists” to make sure he doesn’t get into hot water over his recipes, has caused a stir – as the topic of cultural appropriation always does... In 2018, Oliver was criticized for a recipe called “punchy jerk rice,” when jerk marinade is specific to meat. And in 2014, he faced backlash over his “jollof rice” recipe which contained many elements not found in the dish. Indeed, author Reni Eddo-Lodge tweeted that: “Jamie Oliver’s jollof rice hurts my soul.” In these cases, Oliver is both appropriating dishes, and inaccurately conveying their essence... The issue central to cultural appropriation is power. Therefore, no matter how many people Oliver is surrounded by, he is always going to be veering into the arena of cultural appropriation. He can, as can anyone, cook whatever cuisine he wants to. He can do this with respect, with research and with correct accreditation (which in the recipe world includes naming a dish correctly). But when someone is making money, or gaining recognition and kudos, off the back of something that is not their own – and therefore off others’ work, histories, talents, techniques, culture – that is an appropriation. The teams that Oliver has, to watch out for cultural faux pas, are presumably non-White. In which case the responsibility of a White chef’s professional conduct is left to the shoulders of brown and Black people; an appropriation of knowledge, albeit one that is attached to a salary or consultancy fee."
Clearly food and culture do not evolve and white people can never cook non-white people food. White people should never promote non-white food, so it can languish in obscurity

Dame Kiri remarks strike sour note - "Maori leaders have criticised comments by international opera star Dame Kiri Te Kanawa to an Australian newspaper that her fellow Maori lack a work ethic and need attitude to succeed in life. Dame Kiri told the Melbourne-based Herald Sun newspaper in an interview that her early career had faced obstacles because she had not wanted to learn. "I think I was a bit Maori and everything was 'tomorrow, tomorrow'," she said. But she added that she was now driven by hard work. "I see too many people living on benefits... it just drives me mad. I've known someone, a Maori, who's been on a benefit for 37 years. Now what sort of pride is that? Not good." "I just wish we had a bit of attitude in our culture. We have slipped through the cracks of education, that's the saddest thing". Dame Kiri's comments follow remarks by Associate Maori Affairs Minister John Tamihere who told a recent conference in Auckland that state-run welfare schemes were killing Maori with kindness... NZ First MP Pita Paraone told the New Zealand Herald that Dame Kiri's comments were offensive and came from someone "who does not have any understanding of Maori and its culture". A Maori teacher, Ken Mair, told TV3: "I think that this is a reflection of Dame Kiri's isolation from her own people and the best way that she could do something for her people is to come back home and be a positive role model". But one Maori academic, Professor Ranginui Walker, backed her remarks. "I think it's a correct call for Kiri to finger the hard-core of unemployed and that's a clarion call to politicians, to policymakers to come up with some solutions to that problem to get people off welfare dependency""
Lived Experience is only valuable when it helps the liberal agenda

'Occidentophobia': The Elephant in the Room - "relatively little attention is paid to "Occidentophobia," or more appropriately (since, like 'Islamophobia," it does not constitute a true "phobia") anti-Western sentiments among Muslims. An international Pew Research Center report, with the innocuous title "Muslim-Western Tensions Persist," discussed the extent of Muslim anti-Western prejudice. The report summarized the results of a survey of Western stereotypes of Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries such as Indonesia, Egypt and Pakistan. A median of 68 percent of the Muslim respondents associated "selfish" with Westerners, while only a median of 35 percent of non-Muslims living in countries such as Great Britain, the United States or Germany associated "selfish" with Muslims. One could conceivably attribute anti-Western hostility to the fact that Muslims living in predominantly Muslim countries may not have come into personal contact with Westerners. After all, this Pew survey report did not provide data about the attitudes of Muslims living in the West. However, an earlier Pew Research Center report released in 2006 titled "The Great Divide: How Muslims and Westerners View Each Other" also surveyed Muslims living in European countries and offered a fairly bleak picture of the anti-Western prejudice among European Muslims. Muslims in Britain had an especially negative response, as 69 percent of those surveyed attributed three or more negative traits such as "greedy," "selfish," "arrogant" or "immoral" to Westerners. This antagonistic attitude was in sharp contrast to the comparatively positive views of the non-Muslim general public in Britain, of whom only 30 percent attributed three or more negative traits to Muslims. The "selfish" or "greedy" traits attributed by Muslims in Britain to Westerners are especially noteworthy, since the majority of the top-ranking ranking countries in terms of charitable behavior, as measured by the World Giving Index of the Charities Aid Foundation (CAF), happen to be countries that are typically associated with "Western culture," such as Australia, Canada, Switzerland, USA or Great Britain. According to the CAF, people living in Western countries appear to be far more likely to donate money or volunteer their time than those living in predominantly Muslim countries. This even holds true for relatively wealthy Muslim countries such as the UAE or Saudi Arabia, which came in at ranks 50 and 86 for charitable behavior, whereas Great Britain achieved an international rank of 8. These facts therefore raise questions about the seeming mis-perception of Western culture. Is the Muslim anti-Western prejudice due to ignorance, or is it the consequence of a very selective view of Western society? Is such anti-Western prejudice perhaps fueled by organizations with a political or ideological agenda, similar to those that promote anti-Muslim prejudice as uncovered by the Center for American Progress? Does anti-Western prejudice of Muslims living in the West manifest itself differently in Europe and in North America? Western Muslims frequently emphasize the rich cultural heritage and diversity of Islam as a means to combat anti-Muslim prejudice... However, when I discuss the concept of Western culture with Western Muslims, I often find that their perception of Western culture does not include the same desirable standard of openness. "The West" is regularly seen as some combination of loss of moral values, imperialism and drone attacks -- a description reminiscent of the Star Trek Borg species that assimilates into and then destroys other cultures. Many struggle with recognizing their own "Western" identity and few seem to associate "the West" with its grand cultural heritage, which reaches far back to Plato's The Republic but also includes Baroque music, Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique," and the environmental movement. Even though many Western Muslims that I have met encountered Western culture and history during their grade school and university education, these encounters appear to be frequently tinged with an unnecessary denigration of Western culture. Allowing Muslims in Europe and North America to appreciate the rich mosaic and diversity that comprises "Western" culture might be an important step towards overcoming anti-Western prejudice... It would be a fallacy to believe that prejudice and hostilities between Muslims and non-Muslims can be resolved by just asking non-Muslims to show more tolerance and understanding, without demanding reciprocity from Muslims."
The West hates itself, so good luck with that
Hating the West is "punching up" and is considered good

I've Been Fired. If You Value Academic Freedom, That Should Worry You - "Orthodoxy whether of the right or of the left is the graveyard of creativity. ~Chinua Achebe
Until a week ago, I was a tenure-track assistant professor at a small college... I was then supposed to meet professors and students for lunch, but instead my guide delivered me to an empty room where I received a number of texts from my host: The professors had found my RationalWiki entry, which accuses me—inter alia—of writing “racist bullshit for the right-wing online magazine Quillette.” Notwithstanding its name, which indicates a commitment to thought and reason, RationalWiki is a highly partisan and tendentious site which its authors use to mock and defame their political opponents. (They have also refused to update misinformation about my work and views even after I have written corrections.) Which is to say that it is not a reliable source of information about anything, still less a sound basis upon which to judge a person’s character. Professors routinely warn their students not to cite Wikipedia, but the lies and misrepresentations on my RationalWiki page were thought to be so unanswerable that the faculty who read them refused to meet with me so I could speak in my own defense. (A handful of other curious professors did extend me the courtesy of a meeting, and we enjoyed a perfectly civil chat.)... The atmosphere was hostile, and the audience was eager to challenge me, but I was able to deliver my talk as planned. The Q and A that followed was quite rowdy, however—one of the students yelled that I was a racist and someone else accused me of promoting the long-discredited pseudoscience of phrenology. And so on. It was not an especially cordial or constructive exchange of ideas. Shortly after my talk, the student newspaper published a clearly slanted article about the event that casually quoted anonymous criticism that my work “resembles the pseudoscience employed by eugenicists.” This criticism was completely irrelevant to my talk, in which I never discussed anything resembling “eugenics,” and was likely included to poison the study of human biological variation by associating it with other unsavory intellectual traditions. The group that invited me to speak also issued an unconditional apology to attendees of my talk and vowed to do better. My lecture, they explained, was “non-scientific” (it formed the basis for an article that passed three reviewers at a professional psychology journal) and they had been unaware of what I planned to say (I had provided them with an outline of my talk at least two months in advance, which they had approved). And as soon as controversy arose, they denounced me and my expressed views (most of which are undisputed in the relevant literature), and explained that the invitation they had extended had been a mistake... I naively assumed that the norms of academic freedom would prevail. They did not... we should not rely upon tenure to uphold free inquiry. Academic health is not served by a message that tenure can only be secured by those prepared to embrace political orthodoxies. After all, if tenure is intended to protect people who challenge dogmas and orthodoxies, why would we support a system that punishes non-conformists and that sieves them out before they are capable of safely challenging prevailing views? Many people disagree with my views about human population variation, about conservativism, about immigration, about economics, indeed about almost everything. That is just part of living in a liberal democracy. Disagreement is what powers intellectual progress, and without it neither the political process nor the scientific method can function. But unless we can agree on the foundational value of academic freedom, all scholars will become vulnerable to ideologically motivated punishment. Science, the great intellectual achievement of civilization, will become the servant of politics. I followed all of the protocols of academia. I published articles in peer-reviewed journals. I shared my ideas, always politely, on Twitter, and I encouraged people to debate me and to criticize my ideas. And I was fired. If it can happen to me, then it can happen to any academic who challenges the prevailing views of their discipline. You may disagree with everything I believe, say, and write, but it is in everyone’s interests that you support my freedom to believe, say, and write it."

Assistant professor says he's been fired because he dared to talk about human population variation - "Relevant, widely followed American Association of University Professors policy says that even professors on probationary appointments should enjoy the same academic freedom as those with tenure, even if they don't have the same due process protections... Race-based science debates don't just happen in psychology. In January, for example, Philosophical Psychology faced a boycott for publishing an article in defense of race-based research on intelligence. The gist of that article, written by Nathan Cofnas, a Ph.D. candidate in philosophy at the University of Oxford, was that when advances in science reveal “genetic variants underlying individual differences in intelligence,” we won’t be ready for it... Cofnas said at the time that those "who argue that we should wait for the genetics and neuroscience of intelligence to become more advanced before we attempt to study this issue often claim that, in the meantime, we should accept the environmental explanation for the purpose of policy making" and more. But that is a "political, not a scientific, position."... Intelligence researcher Richard Haier, professor emeritus in the pediatric neurology division at the School of Medicine at the University of California, Irvine, said that the questions Winegard is working on are “controversial and emotional” -- and “well within the bounds of reasonable debate.” What happened at Marietta is, therefore, “an apparent violation of academic freedom,” Haier said. “I don’t know all the details, but I do know that it is very hard to defend academic freedom for issues that are not just controversial but also extremely emotional. And a lot of people in academia are happy to say that they support academic freedom but there are many examples of occurrences that appear to violate academic freedom, and the local academic community has not stood up for academic freedom.” Haier added, “The hard thing about science is to go where the data take you. Without tenure and even with tenure, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to address controversial ideas, where some points of view do not acknowledge the legitimacy of other points of view, and therefore shut down discussion. That’s not how science works.” Lee Jussim, distinguished professor of psychology at Rutgers University and co-author of a recent paper on political bias in social science research, said that the topic of race and IQ "is poison.""
Not like tenure is that useful if you offend SJWs

'Black Panther: Wakanda Forever' changed Atlantis "out of respect," director says - "Associations between the fictitious story of Atlantis and the real civilizations of Mesoamerica are often steeped in racist narratives. For centuries, pseudo-historians have claimed that the technological feats of the Aztecs, Mayans, and their contemporaries were thanks to fantastical intervention by Atlanteans. Such ideas are not only scientifically bankrupt, but divorce indigenous South Americans from their accomplishments."
Atlantis: The Antediluvian World - Wikipedia - "Many of its theories are the source of many modern-day concepts about Atlantis, including these: the civilization and technology beyond its time, the origins of all present races and civilizations, and a civil war between good and evil. Much of Donnelly's writing, especially with regard to Atlantis as an explanation for similarities between ancient civilizations of the Old and New Worlds, was inspired by the publications of Charles Étienne Brasseur de Bourbourg and the fieldwork of Augustus Le Plongeon in the Yucatan. It was avidly supported by publications of Helena Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society as well as by Rudolf Steiner...
it became, in the course of ages, a populous and mighty nation, from whose emigrants the shores of the Gulf of Mexico, the Mississippi River, the Amazon River, the Pacific coast of South America, the Mediterranean, the west coast of Europe and Africa, the Baltic, the Black Sea, and the Caspian were populated by civilized nations... the gods and goddesses of the ancient Greeks, the Phoenicians, the Hindus, and the Scandinavians were simply the kings, queens, and heroes of Atlantis; and the acts attributed to them in mythology are a confused recollection of real historical events... the implements of the "Bronze Age" of Europe were derived from Atlantis. The Atlanteans were also the first manufacturers of iron... the Phoenician alphabet, parent of all the European alphabets, was derived from an Atlantis alphabet, which was also conveyed by them from Atlantis to the Mayans of Central America... Atlantis was the original seat of the Aryan or Indo-European family of nations, as well as of the Semitic peoples, and possibly also of the Turanian races."
Damn anti-white racism!
See also, Greek Fire being from aliens etc