A week from today, my trial will commence at the District of Columbia Superior Court - which will mean, perforce, that my eye on events hither and yon will be shrunk to the stunted perspective of a rather unprepossessing Washington courtroom. So I make the most of this last se'nnight to survey the scene:
~To modify an old line of mine (because old lines are the only lines I have these days): If you live in Israel, Hamas is about Israel's right to exist; if you live in Europe and other parts of the "western" world, Hamas is about your right to exist. Take a gander at this "protest" at the Cenotaph (!) in Whitehall, and tell me it's about some faraway struggle in the Middle East:
The midget dictator says that there is no place for "hate" in this city?
Then arrest every single person on the streets today calling for the eradication of Israel.@SadiqKhan watches on as our city becomes a ghetto.
We need to take London back.pic.twitter.com/R39cAU8F39
— Laurence Fox (@LozzaFox) October 21, 2023
As I said half a lifetime ago:
'Diversity' is not a virtue; it's morally neutral: A group of five white upper-middle-class liberal NPR-listening women is non-diverse; a group of four white upper-middle-class liberal NPR-listening women plus Sudan's leading clitorectomy practitioner is more diverse but not necessarily the better for it.
And thus the above scenes in the heart of London, a few yards from Downing Street and the Palace of Westminster. Do you ride the Tube to work? The driver feels as that Air Canada pilot did, but, unlike Mostafa Ezzo, he's in no danger of being suspended:
"Free Free Palestine" @TfL London Underground Tube's driver lead the passengers in a chant, he said I wanted to join the protest but couldn't get the day off. #LondonStandsWithPalestine #Palestine #Israel #غزة_تستغيث #فلسطين_الان pic.twitter.com/62jx8xLtyz
— Farid Ahmed (Qureshi) (@FaridQureshi_UK) October 21, 2023
After that, he invited his passengers to agree with "From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free" - ie, screw your "two-state solution"; we don't want even the smallest rump of a Jewish statelet.
I wonder how my many Jewish showbiz friends in London feel about riding mass transit these days.
Yet, as I said, for citizens of developed societies, ultimately it's not about Jews: you are watching the death of the west in real time. The leaders of western nations have made your bed, and they will watch you die in it.
~The American right generally takes the view that it's not as far advanced down that grim path as are Britain and Europe. However:
President of Detroit synagogue found stabbed to death outside home
Samantha Woll was active in Democratic politics and had been deputy district director for Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-Mich.)
Hmm. Progressive activists coming a cropper in the world they have made is turning into something of a trend. I was struck by this comment from a friend:
'Whatever you were thinking or doing before, talking with Sam allowed you to put the nonsense of the world aside for just a moment,' he said.
Alas, "the nonsense of the world" has a habit of reasserting itself. But relax, say the coppers:
No evidence of hate crime in Jewish leader Samantha Woll's slaying
So it's just part of the general and increasing difficulty in insulating oneself from the pathologies loosed upon the land.
~On Friday, Andrew Bridgen, MP, a great friend of The Mark Steyn Show, led the first debate in any parliament anywhere on the phenomenon across the vaccinated world of "excess deaths". Unfortunately, it's hard to have a real debate when the chamber has been entirely abandoned and you could hunt buffalo on its vast empty plains. A pity, because Mr Bridgen's speech was a corker:
~Not all Israeli children die at the hands of Hamas butchers. A poignant headline:
Israeli boy featured in COVID vaccine campaign dies of heart attack at age 8
Yonatan Moshe Erlichman was the grandson of an eminent physician, Mati Erlichman. Three years ago he starred in this push for mass child vaccination:
יונתן ארליכמן ז"ל בן 8 מת מדום לב 😥😥😥
— א.בלב Avishag Balev (@AvishagBalev) October 1, 2023
לא מזעזע אתכם ? היכן הכותרות ? החקירות? כמה ילדים עוד ימותו על מזבח הזהב?
ובייחוד שיש כבר שני מחקרים מבוקרים המעידים כי חיסוני ה mRNA גורמים לבעיות לבביות. עד מתי תתחפרו ? כמה עוד תכחישו?
תזכרו שבכל רגע נתון זה יכול לקרות לילדיכם... pic.twitter.com/PUYlLN4jDr
Alas, eight-year-old Yonatan has now "died unexpectedly of cardiac arrest while taking a bath".
But don't worry; that's totally normal for eight-year-olds.
~Forget the Fall of Kabul; America's joke military has moved on to losing the next war:
Naval Academy seeks 'Gender and Sexuality Studies' professor
~No such diversions from strategic priorities at the Hamas Military Academy. Our friend Laura Rosen Cohen is impressed by the sophisticated analysis such as one finds at New York magazine:
Maybe the babies cut their own heads off? https://t.co/sDkM5i58BS
— Laura Rosen Cohen 🪬 🪬 🪬 (@LauraRosenCohen) October 22, 2023
Sad to watch a man self-decapitating in public.
When I get weary of the BBC et al framing this story solely in terms of mawkish sob-sister drivel about the humanitarian toll in Gaza and I pine for more balanced coverage, I turn, of course, to Saudi Arabia's Al Arabiya. Here's the spunky Rasha Nabil showing the west's grisly Hamas suck-ups how to do it. You won't see this on the Beeb:
~As most readers know, a few weeks back I filed my second Statement of Claim against the UK media censor Ofcom in the King's Bench Division of the English High Court. Many readers, listeners and viewers have inquired about how to support my landmark lawsuit against Lord Grade and his goons over their throttling of honest discussion of the Covid and the vaccines. Well, there are several ways to lend a hand, including:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;
b) buying a chum a SteynOnline gift certificate; or
c) ordering a copy of my latest book The Prisoner of Windsor. You won't regret it.
With the first two methods, one hundred per cent of the proceeds and, in the last, a significant chunk thereof go to a grand cause - and you or your loved one gets something, too.
~Notwithstanding Mark's one-step-forward-three-steps-back health, we had a busy weekend at SteynOnline, starting with Mark himself back in the anchor seat of our Clubland Q&A. On Saturday Rick McGinnis's weekend movie date plumped for Anthony Hopkins in The Silence of the Lambs, and Mark's Sunday Song of the Week found him singing along to Israel's biggest hit.
Our marquee presentation was the return of Steyn's Sunday Poem - because video poetry is where the big bucks are. And they don't get any bigger than with poems about Montenegro.
If you were too busy spending the weekend asking Hamas for a reference for that US Homeland Security job, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a new week begins.
