Greetings one and all and welcome back to another edition of Laura's Links. The leaves are turning brilliant colours and some trees are bare already. Fall is so beautiful, but I really dread the cold winters. (So does Mr. C because he bears the nightly brunt of my cold toes until spring.)
Many moons ago, while in elementary and high school, I sang in a few choirs. One of our deliriously talented elementary school choirmasters ("Wiggy", G-d rest his soul), had a knack for picking out songs that most of us kids found completely ridiculous and silly or pompous because we were such ridiculously silly and immature kids. We eye-rolled them all. But as I get older, I find myself humming and singing a lot of those songs and hymns and getting all choked up – and even feeling haunted – by how beautiful some of the arrangements are, how much they have withstood the test of time, and just how magnificent the words are and will forever remain.
We sang a musical version of Emily Brontë's Fall Leaves Fall and as a child I found it so incredibly creepy and dark. Fall leaves fall! Die flowers away! Lengthen night and shorten day! But age has mellowed me and given me an adult appreciation for punctuation in poetry and for reading full texts, among other things, and I find that same poem comforting, optimistic and a healthy reminder of the cycle of life.
November brings with it falling leaves and also Remembrance Day. For many years, I would go to the Remembrance Day ceremony with the Wingates. I don't know if there are any surviving members left in this world, and I am not even sure if my local Jewish community centre is holding a ceremony this year or not. Things have changed. Lest We Forget seems to have been forgotten by many, and never even uttered by most.
When my children were younger, I often used to sit in their rooms with them as they fell asleep. I'd breathe in their clean smell after baths, tuck them into their beds and watch as their breathing became rhythmic. I was spellbound. And many nights, I would look out the window at the wind blowing the trees, thanking G-d for my safe and warm home and for all my blessings. I would consciously thank G-d for letting me be a free person, a free Jew in a free land, when only mere decades earlier my family had been slaughtered solely for being Jews in Europe. Miraculously, by the Grace of G-d, all four of my grandparents got out of Poland and landed on these shores, otherwise I wouldn't be here today.
My children are older now, but I still look out the window in the evenings and watch the trees in the wind as it gets dark. I still feel blessed, but I no longer feel free. For the past almost two years, cursed in part by a moderately extensive knowledge of history and the Bible, I have been trying to dampen the deep sense of dread that I feel in my bones that things will never be the same or as free as they were until March 2020. I can't shake it, much as I try. Remembrance Day, unfortunately, is bringing me a certain added acuity to my dreaded premonition.
As I often say, I love being right, but I'd be overjoyed to be wrong about this.
I believe that the convergence of the digital and technical spheres with evil, totalitarian ideas and decadent Western complacency is ushering anti-human, un-free, murderous and depraved impulses and policies into our lives with extreme force and determination, and I believe some to be irreversible.
These dark forces are tsunamis of evil. They are the spiritual cousins of the ghosts of World War 2, the likes of which we haven't seen since humankind naively thought we ended them forever in the dust clouds of Nagasaki and Hiroshima and in the liberation by Allied forces of the blood-soaked earth of Europe. Those who have grown up in unprecedented freedom and never bothered to crack open a history book or thank a veteran for their service, who cannot accurately identify Winston Churchill, tell Verdun from Normandy, name the years the world wars were fought, or tell Axis from Allied, are getting a history lesson delivered right to their doorsteps, through their smartphones, under their masks, via Zoom – and it ain't pretty.
Pray for better days, strength and moral fortitude.
Lest We Forget.
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North America:
Oh nothing to see here: "...in one morning I had to ground 3 out of 3 pilots due to vaccine injuries."
Dr. Andrew Bostom examines the issue of pregnancy and Covid vaccines.
"Doctors must be honest with parents about unknown risks of COVID-19 emergency vaccine."
Batya Ungar-Sargon tries to explain class elitism to CNN's Chief Potato very sloooooooowly.
"Peter Doshi, editor of the British Medical Journal is the last righteous man standing and holding the line in the senior medical research community, speaking truth to power and fighting for our right to question the established wisdom."
I am clearly in the wrong line of work.
Does anyone in America except Julie Kelly and MTG care about American political prisoners? Asking for a friend.
"The Temptations of the West Reconsidered." Worth the read/listen. Via Booksmart Studios.
Excuse me, I thought this was America.
Can we please hit pause on the roll out for children? There's good reasons to pause. There's something extremely creepy about this. About all of this. Here, too.
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Jews and Israel:
At the next ZOG meeting I am gonna kill the blabbermouth Yid who let the cat out of the bag.
"Finding Henri 75 years after his death."
Two Weddings and a Sorrowful Wife (really good).
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The Formerly Great Britain:
"How Britain betrayed the elderly." Terrible. Actually, it's worse than terrible. It's wicked.
"I can be a voice for Lucy that she never had."
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Europe:
Members of the European Parliament stand up for freedom.
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Evil, Barbaric, Murderous, Communist China:
Wuhan Flu more deadly to South Asians? Good lord this is awful.
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Predatory and Kook Left, Wokestapo and Trans:
These people hate you and want to destroy your children.
When the Wokestapo go after lesbian feminist professors. Full story here. More here.
Meanwhile: "Twelve trans prisoners convicted of violence or sexual crimes have been accommodated in Scottish women's jails within the past 18 months, according to figures released under Freedom of Information laws."
"Churchill was a raaaaaaaaaaaacist."
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Human Grace:
What is the secret to a long life? Apparently playing cricket, "being happy and smiling a lot, red wine, and keeping fit with yoga."
The secret of a 75 year marriage.
"I'd always wanted to be a Dad..."
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