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Yes, it's me! Mark Steyn of that ilk - and not dead yet. It may be Christmas Bank Holiday Wednesday in some of the loucher fleshpots of the west, but here at Steyn HQ we're back at work with another full-strength edition of our Clubland Q&A, taking questions from Mark Steyn Club members around the planet. The fun starts at 3pm North American Eastern/8pm Greenwich Mean Time.
Today's show is our last session of 2023, so I'm happy to take questions on what you feel were the most significant events of the last twelve months and what are the principal challenges facing us in the year ahead. Christmas brought us some telling details of the Big Picture. First, from our "Nothing works anymore" files:
More families say their festive plans are in ruins after waking up on Christmas morning to discover their Asda, Sainsbury's and Tesco turkeys are 'mouldy' and 'rancid'.
As the old Australian novelty song has it, "You Can't Baste a Busted Bustard", the bastards. Klaus Schwab's plan to force you into serving a cockroach roast is going swimmingly.
Elsewhere, the "War on Christmas" is increasingly literal. On any Sunday morning there are more Anglicans at church in Nigeria than in the pews of the Church of England, the Anglican Church of Canada and the Episcopal Church of the United States combined. Something has to be done about that:
BREAKING:
Horrific videos appear, showing the mass-murder of Christians by Muslims in Nigeria.
Only 2 toddlers can be seen alive next to their mother's bodies.
140 Christians were killed in attacks against 20 villages over Christmas
Any protest marches scheduled in London? pic.twitter.com/bg8k4XtT63
— Visegrád 24 (@visegrad24) December 26, 2023
I don't know about London, but in Minnesota the depraved governor venerates kiddie killers, so what's the big deal?
In Europe, in the remnants of Christendom, we are merely at the point where sidewalk Santas get beaten up and church statuary is beheaded. But it will come to the Nigerian phase - for where does Islamic ecumenism shine? Nigeria? "Palestine"? Southern Thailand..?
In the English Midlands, Coventry's Gothic cathedral was reduced to rubble by the Luftwaffe, but its shell is preserved next to the modernist structure built after the war. The latter is not to everyone's taste, but it supposedly symbolises "peace and reconciliation". That's not the vibe I get from this scene - Muslims holding Islamic prayers, presumably with the blessing of the Diocese, in what remains of the old cathedral:
🇬🇧 UK: 🤲🕋 Prayers at Coventry Cathedral. Muslims performed Surah Al-Fatiha.
— शून्य (@Shunyaa00) December 26, 2023
Why they went to a church...??? pic.twitter.com/W61PySot2r
To answer that bewildered Mohammedan's question: "Why they went to a church..???" Because it is an act of domination, and annexation.
Bonus: Do you feel the western world wants for "refugees"? Well, what's the best way to attract them? As the Welsh Government has figured out, entice them with schoolgirls:
UK: Welsh Government is using 14-year-old Welsh girls to attract migrant men to the country
Migrants arriving in Europe come from Africa and Asia where pedophilia is wide spread.
Wales is using little girls to encourage migrants to move to Wales and claim benefits and housings. pic.twitter.com/pjKIeoCQae
— Klaus Arminius (@Klaus_Arminius) December 26, 2023
What else is going on on this this third day of Christmastide? Oh, wow: Asa Hutchinson, the schoolgirl-mutilators' friend, is rocketing up to one per cent in Iowa. Please don't attempt to over-excite me by bringing that up - or I may have to start playing heartwarming pet videos:
This is one of the funniest things I've seen 🤣🤣🤣🤣pic.twitter.com/pWp9gIH1qt
— The Sage (@SarkySage) December 19, 2023
Actually, those two mutts may have just given the pithiest impression of Uniparty dinner-theatre: It's all bared fangs when they're on opposite sides of the great divide on cable news, but then the show's over and they're all curled up together like Lindsey Graham and Joe Biden giving each other a bipartisan tongue-bath.
So we'll talk about the big picture on today's show. With Giuliani having declared bankruptcy and still facing at least a dozen more suits, I'm also happy to take any questions on my own upcoming trial, which starts January 16th at the DC Superior Court.
Rudy will never have a penny to his name ever again. His present young lady is a former New Hampshire neighbour of mine, and I wouldn't be surprised to see them back here, perhaps in the rusting double-wide down the road. As another Trump official, Peter ("Bingo!") Navarro, put it re his own legal travails:
In an interview on Fox News Wednesday afternoon, Navarro said hiring a lawyer would cost so much, he would lose his retirement savings.
"This is going to cost a half a million dollars, from what I'm being told," he said. "I'll be eating dog food if I stay out of jail."
A mere half-a-mil! Boy, after twelve years in the sewer of the District of Columbia, I'd love a bargain-basement case like that! Good luck with the dog food, Peter: I dream of Purina Pro Plan, but I can only afford generic brand from Dollarama.
Assume for the moment that the polls are accurate and Trump were to win: who can afford to serve in a Republican administration?
~Many viewers, listeners and readers have asked how they can support my important free-speech cases on both sides of the Atlantic. There are several ways - and, if your Christmas gift for your beloved failed to do the trick and you urgently need to restore household tranquility, the first two below can be digitally delivered:
a) signing up a friend for a Steyn Club Gift Membership;
b) buying a near-and-dear one a SteynOnline gift certificate;
c) ordering a copy of my latest book, The Prisoner of Windsor (you won't regret it);
d) snapping up one of our limited-edition SteynOnline Liberty Sticks; or
e) treating your loved one to a once-in-a-lifetime Mark Steyn Caribbean Cruise.
~Whether or not you're a member of The Mark Steyn Club, you can listen to our Clubland Q&A live as it happens wherever you chance to be on this turbulent earth: Club membership is required only to ask a question. We love to hear from brand new members, and among the additions to our ranks on Christmas Day was a newbie from Bethlehem! (Bethlehem, Rhode Island, that is.) So, whether from Chippenham or Chevy Chase, if you've joined this week either for a full year or a see-how-it-goes experimental quarter do shoot me a head-scratcher for today's show.
But, if you're not interested in joining, no worries, as they say in Oz: We seek no unwilling members - and as always the show is free to listen to, so we hope you'll want to tune in.
~Notwithstanding my one-step-forward-three-steps-back health, we had a busy Christmas at SteynOnline, starting with the conclusion of my serialisation of Charles Dickens. Rick McGinnis's Yuletide movie date starred Cary Grant, Loretta Young and David Niven in The Bishop's Wife, and our holiday video offering was a Mark Steyn Christmas Show special starring Randy and Tal Bachman. Christmas dawned with my traditional Yuletide cornucopia, and on Boxing Day I tipped my hat to some of the musical figures who took their leave in 2023.
Our marquee presentation was my annual programme of Christmas Eve Lessons and Carols with musical guests from the worlds of folk, jazz, rock, opera and beyond. "Just a wonderful show, Mark," said Ontario Steyn Clubber Wendy Leonard. "A moving and phenomenal program," agreed First Fortnight Founding Member Philip Paustian.
If you were too busy spending the holiday beheading the Nativity scene outside your local church, we hope you'll want to check out one or three of the foregoing as a shortened work week begins.
