Etymology, Part 7: Oxford English Dictionary

Uncategorized 5 Minutes

The Oxford English Dictionary (OED) defines more than a half million words and it took more than seventy years to research and write the original “twelve tombstone-size volumes.” It is the gold standard of the English language.

On August 14, 1879, Scottish polymath James Murray was given the go-ahead by the Philological Society of England to begin the work of tracing the history of every single word in the English language and providing a definition faithful to its meaning. As the editor of the OED, he had the task of finding all the words as used in classical and standard written works in English. His historical starting point was the year 1150 AD.

Denholm, birthplace of James Murray, is located in the Scottish Borders Council Area

Murray was a “self-educated country boy” from the Scottish Borders village of Denholm. He had to leave school at fourteen for lack of funds, but he continued learning on his own, with a special interest in etymology — “He was captivated by words and strange languages.”

Murray mastered Spanish, French, Catalan, Italian and Latin and, “to a lesser degree”, Portuguese, Vaudois, and Provençal, as well as other various dialects. He also acquired a working knowledge of Gaelic, Dutch, German, Danish, Slavonic and Russian. He knew Hebrew and Syriac well enough to sight read the Old Testament and picked up to a lesser degree Coptic, Phoenician and Arabic. He taught school and worked in a bank as an administrator in London, but his real passion was language.

James Murray lived in this Oxford home on Banbury Road from 1885-1915

By 1879, at the age of forty-two, James Murray began his real life’s work creating the Oxford English Dictionary. All eleven of his children lived to maturity and they, his wife, and eventually, grandchildren all helped in the project. He was permitted to use an iron shed on the property of the school where he taught, which he had outfitted with a thousand pigeon-holed rack to hold the quotations slips for the words.

Before long, the “scriptorium” was ready and the project was begun. Through the Philological Society he issued “An Appeal to the English-Speaking and English-Reading Public” in Great Britain, America and the British Colonies, asking for a thousand readers for the next three years to supply him with good quotations, thus determining how various English words were used over the centuries. They were to avoid Bible Concordances, Shakespeare, and Edmund Burke — sources already combed.

Image Credit: Oxford University Press, LA Times

Dictionary slips and their sorting became a major part of life for the Murray family. People from all over the world sent in slips with the desired information. Several sub-editors and the children sorted through them and into the pigeon holes they went. One of Murray’s sons provided 27,000 quotations on his own, according to the introduction in the first volume.

The entire story is amazing — the perseverance, erudition and dedication of Murray became legendary, as did some of the characters that sent in quotes. One of the best, most erudite and apparently brilliant contributors turned out to be a murderer from America, locked up in a prison for the criminally insane in England! (As recounted in “The Professor and the Madman” by Simon Winchester).

Seven of the twelve volumes of the Oxford English Dictionary

When William Chester Minor heard about the project, he heavily got involved with it. At that point in his life, the former American army surgeon was a patient at Broadmoor (an asylum). William had murdered a stranger named George Merrett in 1872 due to paranoia. The assailant thought that his victim had broken into his room. The court ruled that William was not guilty by reason of insanity, and he was sent to the psychiatric facility in Crowthorne, Berkshire.

Image Credit: Unknown Author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

In fact, William got a pension for his military service and was not adjudged to be dangerous. Therefore, he had access to comfortable housing and a plethora of books at the facility. This is why it is not surprising that he became one of the biggest contributors to the dictionary. He sent in more than 10,000 entries! It is true that the widowed Mrs. Merrett used to visit him and bring him books on his list. Even though Winchester’s writing suggests that they could have had an affair, the author did say he was unsure about this facet of the surgeon’s life.

Winchester further said this about the man— “Minor concentrated very hard, and some synapse(s) in his brain presumably fired in such a way as to eliminate his symptoms of schizophrenia.” All this time, James had no idea about William’s past. However, when he finally learned the truth, their relationship was unaffected. The lexicographer even described the “madman” as “a fine Christian gentleman, the same as myself.”

However, in 1902, William’s paranoia became worse. He had delusions wherein he was being abducted every night and was made to go as far as Istanbul to commit sexual assaults on children. Therefore, he cut off his own penis. By 1910, James campaigned for William’s release as well. Winston Churchill was the home secretary then and ordered that the patient be deported back to America.

There, William was admitted to St. Elizabeths Hospital in Washington D.C. (which is where his schizophrenia was diagnosed). He passed away in 1920 in Hartford, Connecticut. James had passed away in 1915 due to pleurisy. Up until that point, however, he continued to work hard on the dictionary come hell or high water. The year before his death, he was awarded an Oxford honorary doctorate. Moreover, despite being knighted for his efforts in 1908, James continued to be a relative outsider at the university.

After reading all the quotations sent in for a particular word, Murray would write the “concise, scholarly, accurate, and lovingly elegant definition for which the Dictionary is well known.” The task was enormously difficult but for thirty-five years Murray stuck to it till the day of his death.

The dictionary was completed after the two passed away, however, their contributions to the book cannot be ignored. Did you know that in the end, all the information was compiled in 10 volumes? There were 414,825 words that had been defined, and 1,827,306 citations were used to illustrate their meanings.

The magnificent story of this singular Christian lexicographer was finally told by Murray’s granddaughter K.M. Elizabeth Murray in “Caught in the Web of Words: James Murray and the Oxford English Dictionary,” (1977).

K.M. Elizabeth Murray

Words have meaning, but when a culture redefines the fixed understanding of words, demagogues take advantage of the uncertainty and chaos that results, to change the culture itself. We must be wary of the malleable ways that enemies of the original intent of words, deconstruct meaning, to the destruction of morality and truth.

Did you know that the book “The Professor and the Madman” was made into a movie with Mel Gibson and Sean Penn? The script was adapted from Simon Winchester’s book called ‘The Surgeon of Crowthorne: A Tale of Murder, Madness and the Love of Words.’ (It was, however, renamed ‘The Professor and the Madman: A Tale of Murder, Insanity, and the Making of the Oxford English Dictionary’ for the audiences in America and Canada).

Mel Gibson and Sean Penn

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Army veteran (1976-1979), retired with entirely too much time on my hands

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169 thoughts on “Etymology, Part 7: Oxford English Dictionary”

        1. As soon as it gets light enough, I’ll take a picture – we got a LOT, let me just say that! Way more than the paltry 1-3 inches the weather report was claiming last night – it continued snowing after dark. But, then, they focus on the Sioux City/Iowa area most of the time, not out here.

          Liked by 1 person

      1. I had to look it up myself altho I had heard the name…..from a Wales newspaper so I expect it is quite slanted….

        “If you use social media you’ve probably come across Andrew Tate in the last few days. The former YouTube star has had quite the week – first hitting headlines for his high-profile spat with Greta Thunberg in which she questioned the size of his manhood after he boasted about his vast collection of gas-guzzling cars, before he was arrested at his luxury villa in Romania as part of a human trafficking and rape investigation on Thursday, December 29. But who is he?

        Tate, 36, who was born in Washington DC but raised in Luton, was a professional kickboxer in his teens and 20s between 2005 and 2014 – winning two International Sport Kickboxing Association (ISKA) championships during his brief career in the sport. After leaving professional sport he rose to fame on several social media platforms including Twitter and Youtube – before he was then banned from all of them for repeated misogynistic posts. His Twitter profile has since been reinstated following Elon Musk’s takeover of the platform.

        Hungry for fame, Tate appeared on reality show Big Brother in 2016 but he was kicked off the show early after a video emerged allegedly showing him hitting a woman with a belt and asking her if she knew why she was being beaten. She later said the relationship between them and the actions within the video were consensual and posted a selfie with Tate to prove they were friends. During his time on Big Brother Tate gained further notoriety for his sexist and misogynistic views.

        Alongside his social media work, Tate began an online webcamming company in which he claimed that 75 women, some of them ex-girlfriends, were working with him. Tate and his younger brother Tristan, who have experience in the webcam industry having started their first webcam company from their Luton home more than a decade ago, ran the studio where the models, dressed in lingerie, took calls from fans at $4 per minute. Fans could ask for private shows and pay extra “at their own risk”. In an interview with the Sunday Mirror Tate has admitted that the business was “a total scam” but added that he had no regrets about doing it.

        His main business venture in recent times has been Hustler’s University – an online course teaching men cryptocurrency and stock investing in return for a monthly membership fee. Members receive commission for recruiting others to the platform. By August 2022 there were more than 100,000 subscribers – or “students” – to the website.

        After being reinstated on Twitter, Tate sparked a row with Greta Thunberg this week when he shared a picture of himself standing next to his Bugatti. Tagging Thunberg, he boasted about his 33 cars and wrote: “Please provide your email address so I can send a complete list of my car collection and their respective enormous emissions.” Thunberg responded by saying, “Yes, please do enlighten me” and shared the fake email address smalldickenergy@getalife.com. Her tweet went viral and has been seen by more than 200 million people.

        A day later, Tate was arrested in Romania at his villa. The Mirror reports that a handcuffed Tate was filmed being led from the villa by police on Thursday, December 29. Tristan, 34, was also arrested, with both men being held for 24 hours in Bucharest.

        According to the BBC, the brothers have been under investigation since April. The Daily Mail reports that Tate’s arrest was set off by his tweet to Thunberg, which may have tipped off his location. Stories circulating in Romania suggest police were able to identify Tate as being in their country because of pictures and videos he posted, including one which featured a Romanian pizza box with identifiable branding.

        Romanian prosecutors said the Tate brothers along with two unnamed people “appear to have created an organised crime group with the purpose of recruiting, housing and exploiting women by forcing them to create pornographic content”. A spokesperson for Tate told the Daily Mirror: “We cannot provide any details at the moment regarding alleged reports that they have been detained; however, Andrew and Tristan Tate have the utmost respect for the Romanian authorities and will always assist and help in any way they can.”

        https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/who-andrew-tate-former-youtube-25862599

        Liked by 1 person

  11. what wasteful, wasteful bullshit…

    Liked by 1 person

  13. Liked by 2 people

  14. impeach both their asses!!! ultra maggot and mayorkas!!!

    from tcth

    Citizen 817
    Citizen 817
    December 30, 2022 2:32 am

    Lyin’ Biden’s DHS Releases 1363 Illegal Alien Convicts From Custody Into US Communities—in 3 Months

    Other than perhaps Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman Mark Milley, who continue to weaken U.S. Armed Forces, Joe Biden and DHS head Alejandro Mayorkas comprise the most damaging duo in the administration, with Attorney General Merrick Garland and Secretary of State Antony Blinken rounding out the top three.

    The latest Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) data reveals that from October through December 18, Biden’s DHS has released 1,363 illegal-alien convicts into American communities, along with more than 1,800 illegals with pending criminal charges.

    As reported by Breitbart, among the total number of illegal alien convicts released from DHS custody, 463 were bonded out (a joke), 421 were given an order of recognizance (another joke), 371 were given an order of supervision (ROFL), and 108 were paroled (insane). Why were 108 criminally-convicted illegal aliens paroled into America, rather than promptly kicked the hell out of the country? (See: Biden and Mayorkas)

    R.J. Hauman, with the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), believes that the Biden administration may be violating the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act (INA), with the mass release into the U.S. interior of illegal alien convicts from DHS custody.

    https://redstate.com/mike_miller/2022/12/29/lyin-bidens-dhs-releases-1363-illegal-alien-convicts-from-custody-into-us-communities-in-3-months-n680633

    Liked by 1 person

  17. “Criminal Malfeasance: Pfizer Knew 275 People Suffered Serious Strokes in the First 90 Days After Vaccine Rollout
    December 29, 2022 • by The Vigilant Fox
    Pfizer’s conclusion: “This cumulative case review does not raise new safety issues.”

    EXCERPT: “Seventy-five years. That’s how long Pfizer and the FDA tried to hide the Pfizer documents from public view — long after just about everyone affected is dead. It wasn’t until renowned attorney Aaron Siri led a FOIA case against the FDA that a federal judge ordered the documents to be released in 108 days, the same amount of time it took the FDA to approve the Covid-19 injections.

    Within the Pfizer documents is Document 5.3.6 (Post-Marketing Experience), a cumulative analysis of adverse event reports occurring in the 90 days after the public rollout of the Covid-19 mRNA injection. And within that report, 275 people suffered a stroke suspected to be attributed to the vaccine between days 1 to 41; 50% of these occurred within the first 48 hours after injection.

    It’s important to note that strokes are life-altering events, which occur “when the blood supply to part of the brain is interrupted or reduced, preventing brain tissue from getting oxygen and nutrients. Brain cells begin to die in minutes.”—Mayoclinic

    It’s a medical emergency. And prompt treatment is crucial. “Many stroke survivors experience paralysis on one side of the body or inability to move a specific part of the body.” And “Some stroke survivors may experience trouble using or understanding language (aphasia) or have trouble swallowing liquids or foods (dysphagia).”—thestrokefoundation.org

    Video: https://dailyclout.io/criminal-malfeasance-pfizer-knew-275-people-suffered-serious-strokes-in-the-first-90-days-after-vaccine-rollout/

    Liked by 1 person

    1. all my questions sounds ridiculous…like how is 275 NOT a stop in your tracks number? are they using “new” safety issues so they can avoid liability (it was actually KNOWN not new)?
      but it all comes down to the benjamins!!!!

      Liked by 1 person

  18. “DAVOS 2023: WEF shifts into high gear in preparing for the next Pandemic
    …by ending health disparities and systemic racism…what on earth could that mean?”

    Robert W Malone MD, MS
    13 hr ago

    (Research and editorial essay by Jer In America for MaloneInstitute.org)

    EXCERPT: “This follow-up is to my recent sub stacks attempting to connect the dots of the World Economic Forum (WEF) and their goals for expanding their agenda in order to stick to their timeline regarding the continent of Africa.

    I look at things this way when I think about the WEF: hypothetically speaking, if a gang decides to get together once a month with knives and decide under the cover of darkness to go out and slash the tires of every car parked on residential streets of a city, and the next day all the tires of every car parked on those streets have in fact been slashed, you may not be able to prove the gang did it, but if it happens enough you might start to suspect and question what is happening and who is responsible.

    After covering this for some time now, I am convinced not only does the WEF consistently tell you what they are going to do, they sure love to prepare in advance/undertake all of these preparations before they implement what they are going to carry out. For example, before COVID-19 and Monkey pox, they prepared for and ran their germ games; then COVID-19 and Monkey pox happened.”

    https://rwmalonemd.substack.com/p/davos-2023-wef-shifts-into-high-gear

    Liked by 1 person

    1. so the way to prevent the gang from going out and slashing tires, would be to attack their home base and keep them constantly playing defense instead of offense, right?

      Liked by 1 person

  19. “Note From San Francisco — On the way home after the holidays, notes on “cherry-picking” and a few other odds and ends”
    Matt Taibbi
    9 hr ago

    EXCERPT: “Having seen the redwoods with the boys by day, sampled dim sum last evening, and overdosed nights on San Francisco movies (Bullitt, Vertigo, the underrated Zodiac), I’m headed home tonight. A terrific trip, which I won’t forget.

    In the coming days you’ll find a new thread on Twitter, along with a two-part article here at TK explaining the latest #TwitterFiles findings. Even as someone in the middle of it, naturally jazzed by everything I’m reading, I feel the necessity of explaining why it’s important to keep hammering at this.

    Any lawyer who’s ever sifted though a large discovery file will report the task is like archaeology. You dig a little, find a bit of a claw, dust some more and find a tooth, then hours later it’s the outline of a pelvis bone, and so on. After a while you think you’re looking at something that was alive once, but what?

    Who knows? At the moment, all we can do is show a few pieces of what we think might be a larger story. I believe the broader picture will eventually describe a company that was directly or indirectly blamed for allowing Donald Trump to get elected, and whose subjugation and takeover by a furious combination of politicians, enforcement officials, and media then became a priority as soon as Trump took office.

    These next few pieces are the result of looking at two discrete data sets, one ranging from mid-2017 to early 2018, and the other spanning from roughly March 2020 through the present. In the first piece focused on that late 2017 period, you see how Washington politicians learned that Twitter could be trained quickly to cooperate and cede control over its moderation process through a combination of threatened legislation and bad press.

    In the second, you see how the cycle of threats and bad media that first emerged in 2017 became institutionalized, to the point where a long list of government enforcement agencies essentially got to operate Twitter as an involuntary contractor, heading into the 2020 election. Requests for moderation were funneled mainly through the FBI, the self-described “belly button” of the federal government (not a joke, an agent really calls it that).

    The company leadership knew as far back as 2017 that giving in to even one request to suspend this or that set of accused “hostile foreign accounts” would lead to an endless cycle of such demands. “Will work to contain that,” offered one comms official, without much enthusiasm, after the company caved for the first time that year. By 2020, Twitter was living the hell its leaders created for themselves.

    What does it all mean? I haven’t really had time to think it over. Surely, though, it means something. I’ve been amused by the accusation that these stories are “cherry-picked.” As opposed to what, the perfectly representative sample of the human experience you normally read in news? Former baseball analytics whiz Nate Silver chimed in on this front:

    https://taibbi.substack.com/p/note-from-san-francisco

    Liked by 1 person

              1. I can’t believe you’ve never had Rocky Mountain Oysters!!!! My Mom slices them up, dips them in buttermilk and then flour, and fries them. Delicious!!! Castration day at the track was always the prelude to a nut feed!!!

                Liked by 1 person

  25. OK, finally getting light outside…..willow tree in front:

    I saw my neighbor out plowing on his JD late last night – and yes, he did my driveway, too! Time for another bottle of RumChata for them!

    Garden beds…

    Liked by 1 person

  28. As soon as I opened the blind, LM was there wanting his breakfast. Now that he’s eaten, he’s sitting about 2 feet from the doggie door stalking birds. I’m seeing Jays and Cardinals on the open feeder this morning. The danged squirrels made short work of the corn and I had to chase them off the suet once last night. It’s still too cold for me – 17 at the moment – once it warms up a bit, I’ll go put out more corn for them.

    Liked by 1 person

    1. it’s near 40* currently here. yesterday afternoon, hubby ran the tractor up and down the driveway trying to mush up the ice on the driveway and this morning there are some spots we can actually SEE the driveway beneath. but at the top here–right outside the garage and of course at the top of the hill– it’s an ice skating rink. (we don’t sit at the very top of the mountain, so whenever it melts, it flows right down the driveway–then it freezes up and it’s awful.)
      he’s gonna try taking the tractor up and down at lunchtime and throw some salt out on it so hopefully we can go grocery shopping tomorrow…we’ll see.

      Liked by 1 person

  30. BREAKING: “Andrew Tate Speaks Out Following Romanian Arrest, Release From Custody
    Andrew and Tristan Tate were arrested and released from custody on Thursday.”

    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “Former kickboxer and popular internet commentator Andrew Tate has officially responded after being arrested in Romania as part of a human trafficking probe on Thursday. Tate was arrested after posting a video in which a pizza box has been cited as the reason police knew he was in the country and vulnerable to arrest.

    However, Tate had posted a video of himself in the country just a few days prior with the caption “Romania,” casting doubt on the pizza box theory.

    Within a few hours of news of the arrest breaking in the US, Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan were released from custody.

    (NF: This Tweet about them being released has now been removed)

    Tate officially responded to the arrest in a tweet posted Friday morning that read, “The Matrix sent their agents.” He has not posted any further information or details about the situation.

    Tate was mass deplatformed by many Big Tech companies earlier this year. “99% of my content was aimed at men, it had nothing to do with women at all,” Tate said at the time. “They attacked me with that misogyny garbage, but the truth is 99% of my content was aimed at men, telling them the truth.”

    “One of the great things about the masculine journey is that we have all live a semi-similar story,” Tate added. “It’s kinda cool, like we’ve all been the teenager who gets heartbroken… We’ve all kinda lived the same kind of journey.”

    https://valiantnews.com/2022/12/breaking-andrew-tate-speaks-out-following-romanian-arrest-release-from-custody/

    Liked by 1 person

  31. the committee was salivating to get their hands on his returns…and the only thing they can say when they release them, is that it’s the IRS’s fault for not taxing him enough? the irs does not tax, idiots. they make sure laws YOU ASSHOLES created are followed. the fault is someone else taking advantage of loopholes and regs you created to allow yourselves to profit…
    FTA
    Ways and Means Committee Democrats released a report on Trump’s taxes last week that showed the former president paid little to no federal income taxes on his multimillion-dollar income from 2015 to 2022, as he claimed millions in business losses.

    The analysis within the reports conclude that any lack of proper taxation on Trump’s earnings appears to have been ultimately a failing of the IRS and not the result of pressure or obfuscation from the White House.

    Trump’s family of enterprises used reported losses, foreign tax credits, deductions, charitable donations and many other financial maneuvers to great effect in offsetting taxation on profits.

    These business tactics frequently shrank his otherwise sizable tax requirements down to miniscule amounts — sometimes under $1,000, according to the committee.

    https://www.foxnews.com/politics/democrats-release-former-president-donald-trump-tax-returns

    Liked by 1 person

      1. i think it also refers to foreign “investment companies” who get places that manage retirement accounts to invest and then they abscond with retirement funds and the american public is left high and dry

        Liked by 1 person

  35. Liked by 1 person

  36. “Nashville airport officials refuse to answer questions after officers threaten arrests”
    Rachel Wegner – Nashville Tennessean
    ENTIRE ARTICLE: “Nashville airport officials have repeatedly declined to answer questions after a viral video showed airport police threatening to arrest Southwest Airlines customers with canceled flights. The Tennessean emailed questions about the officers in the video and requested an interview with David Griswold, who is listed on the airport website as its chief of police and assistant vice president. In response, Nashville International Airport spokesperson Paul Lindsley referred to the statement the airport released Wednesday.

    “With the high number of flights impacted at BNA on Sunday evening, travelers were asked to visit the pre-security ticketing counters for help to rebook flights,” part of the statement said. “We understand and appreciate the frustrations travelers may have, and we are working to provide the best passenger experience for all.” Lindsley said Thursday that the airport would not comment further on the matter or grant an interview with Griswold at this time.

    (Shelley Morrison speaks to airport police officers the night of 12/25 at the Nashville International Airport)
    Video shows Nashville airport officers threaten to arrest stranded Southwest customers for trespassing — The viral video stirred questions about what authority the officers had and how the situation was handled. It showed an officer approaching people standing in line at a service desk on Christmas night inside an airport concourse. The officer said those with canceled tickets needed to leave the secured area and go to a pre-security ticket desk for help. He proceeded to tell them they would be arrested for trespassing if they did not leave.

    That sparked a conversation between the officer and Shelley Morrison, who was traveling with her three children. Her daughter, Amani Robinson, a 20-year-old Nashville resident and Tennessee State University student, filmed the interaction. The video went viral on TikTok and across social media.

    Before the officers arrived, Morrison said, a Southwest Airlines employee announced over the intercom that the employee was leaving and security had been called. That left one worker to handle the long line of people. Nobody told the people waiting they had to leave or go to another desk, Morrison said. Southwest Airlines spokesperson Chris Perry told The Tennessean the company commonly relies on law enforcement officers to assist with crowd control, and customer and employee safety. Perry did not have information about what happened at the Nashville airport on Dec. 25.

    Lawyer: Nashville airport police response was ‘clearly inappropriate’ — Nashville criminal defense lawyer David Raybin called the airport police response in this situation “clearly inappropriate.” He has practiced law for nearly 50 years and has represented people arrested by airport police. However, he said he has never seen someone arrested for trespassing after having a canceled flight.

    “These people were there lawfully,” Raybin said. Airport police have full law enforcement authority. “They’re not rent-a-cops,” Raybin said. “They’re not guards.” The airport’s Department of Public Safety is a fully independent agency and not associated with the Metro Nashville Police Department, an MNPD spokesperson confirmed. Based on his understanding, Raybin said what happened at the airport on Christmas night did not rise to the level of criminal trespassing. If someone became belligerent or made threats, airport police would have grounds to take action, he said.

    “The rules are much different once you’re in the secured area, because your behavior has to be consistent with security issues,” Raybin said. “There was nothing that these people were doing that would constitute any kind of breach of the peace or any kind of bad behavior.”

    Raybin said it also would have been reasonable, given the circumstances, for the airport to close certain areas and disperse large crowds for security reasons. But usually that happens in an orderly, calm manner, he said. Rabyin called the space between when a person’s flight is canceled and when they are no longer allowed in the secured section of the airport a “gray area.” Just because a flight is canceled does not always mean travelers have no other options to get on another flight, he said.

    “That is more than enough legitimate reason to be back there and most assuredly does not constitute criminal trespassing,” Raybin said. “I think that the officer was acting very inappropriately, clearly without sensitivity.”

    Raybin also said it was not appropriate for the officers to engage individuals in the group, like Morrison. Instead he said it would be best to direct the group as a whole, move them to where they needed to be and readmit those with valid tickets. “As you target people, one at a time, you could be making mistakes,” Raybin said. “You just don’t go in there and start cherry-picking people in this line or that line unnecessarily. The police are supposed to be there to help regulate safety and accommodate people who are just trying to get home.”

    Video: https://www.tennessean.com/story/news/local/2022/12/30/nashville-airport-wont-answer-questions-after-video-threatening-arrests/69764667007/

    Liked by 1 person

  37. “Sam Bankman-Fried had four White House meetings THIS YEAR: Bombshell report reveals disgraced crypto mogul met with top Biden aides as recently as September”

    – Democratic donor met with senior Biden advisor Steve Ricchetti on September 8
    – He had at least three other meetings with staffers, report Thursday stated
    – Bankman-Fried’s brother Gabriel also had White House talks on May 13
    – Further evidence of his deep ties with Washington and the Democratic party
    – White House has refused to say if Biden will give back donations from him

    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11583847/Sam-Bankman-Fried-four-meetings-Biden-aides-year.html

    Liked by 1 person

  38. Find Tom Cruise, you’ll find Miscavige!!!

    “Scientology Leader David Miscavige ‘Nowhere To Be Found’ As Federal Prosecutors Search To Serve Him Child Trafficking Lawsuit”

    EXCERPT: “Scientology leader David Miscavige is apparently “nowhere to be found” as prosecutors search to serve the controversial figure with a federal child trafficking lawsuit, RadarOnline.com has learned. Federal authorities have reportedly attempted to serve the mysterious 62-year-old Scientology leader 27 separate times over four months in Los Angeles, California and Clearwater, Florida.

    According to Daily Mail, security guards on duty at the California and Florida Scientology properties were “clueless” when lawyers arrived in search of Miscavige. The three plaintiffs in the lawsuit – Gawain and Laura Baxter and Valeska Paris – have also since hired a private investigator in an attempt to track down the evasive church leader. Although Miscavige does not have a recorded permanent address, his last known address was the church’s international headquarters in Los Angeles.

    In court filings connected to the federal child trafficking lawsuit against him, two former Scientology members said Miscavige lives in a gated church community called Hacienda Gardens just outside of Clearwater. “Miscavige cannot be permitted to continue his gamesmanship,” said Neil Glazer, a lawyer representing one of the plaintiffs in the case. Glazer also said Miscavige is taking part in an “intentional concealment of his location and evasion of service.”

    The Baxters and Paris filed the lawsuit against the church leader earlier this year and claim they were forced to work on Scientology boats after signing a one-billion-year contract in exchange for no money. Paris also claims she was a victim of sexual assault by church members while still a minor and that she was locked inside an engine room when she was 17 as punishment for her mother leaving Scientology.”

    https://radaronline.com/p/scientology-leader-david-miscavige-nowhere-found-federal-prosecutors-serve-child-trafficking-lawsuit/

    Liked by 1 person

  39. I was a tad bit concerned that LM might have gotten used to pooping/peeing in a litter box and would start doing his thing on the patio. Nope – just saw him out digging a hole in the snow next to the garden bed, doing his thing, and then covering it up. Yess!!!! I’ve also decided to be kinder to Jake, considering how out of sorts he is these days, and him being sick. I picked up some soft treats for him at the store and now when he and LM come face-to-face thru the door, he gets a treat and doesn’t yowl as badly. I also reassure him that LM is NOT coming inside, scratch his ears and brush him a little bit. He is much happier.

    Liked by 1 person

  40. Entire Article @ AmericanThinker: “December 30, 2022
    ‘Go woke go broke’ is in the air
    By Silvio Canto, Jr.
    “Maybe “go woke go broke” is something that the “wokes” should take a look at. How many more in-your-face messages do you need? Last week, I read that 2022 was “an annus horribilis” for the people who make movies:

    ‘Major studios, streamers, cable providers, and other media giants lost a combined $542 billion in market value in 2022, with left-wing studios the Walt Disney Co., Netflix, and Comcast accounting for the bulk of the bloodshed.’

    You don’t need to speak Latin to know that losing that kind of money makes it “an annus horribilis.” Maybe the next movie from Hollywood is “Salire de tecto,” or Latin for bean counters jumping off the roof. It’s tough to lose money but it’s hard to feel sorry for a company that invested millions in a movie aimed at seven-year-olds focused on climate change or homosexuality. Hard to get parents to spread a good word about that flick! People had no trouble spreading the word and filling up the theaters to see Top Gun: Maverick, non-woke, pro-American, and a movie that portrays masculinity in a positive way. Who knew that people would enjoy movies like that?

    The other example is the NBA. It went one on one against the NFL on Christmas Day and it wasn’t pretty:

    ‘On Christmas Day, the most-viewed NFL game of the day was the contest between the Miami Dolphins and Green Bay Packers, pulling in 25.92 million viewers, according to NFL analyst Ari Meirov. In comparison to the NBA’s highest-viewed game, which was between the Boston Celtics and Milwaukee Bucks, it was a blowout with basketball only pulling in a little over six million viewers.’

    To be fair, the NFL games had post-season implications and the NBA was just another day on the schedule. Nevertheless, a lot of fans like me are sick and tired of political messages rather than good basketball. Where is Oscar Robertson when we really need him? The NBA also has a China problem and it gets more hypocritical by the minute. Speaking for me, I have no interest in the NBA these days. They lost me a couple of years ago and a lot of my sports buddies say the same thing.

    So maybe the public has had it with woke. Maybe the bean counters will mention that the next time they are talking about funding another woke movie.”

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  41. “The World Economic Forum (WEF) is pushing for “battery passports” to be fitted to electric vehicles (EVs) to track the driver’s impact on “climate change.” The WEF is promoting the “battery passport” as a plan to fight climate change by ensuring that the public meets the organization’s “green agenda” goals. The group argues that EVs should be monitored to make sure the “car batteries’ footprint” complies with “clean green energy” use.

    Klaus Schwab’s organization is promoting the efforts of an institution called the Global Battery Alliance (GBA). The GBA has just published the WEF-endorsed Greenhouse Gas Rulebook. A piece on the group’s site manages to work a type of digital ID into the whole story, as a component in monitoring the impact car batteries have on the environment, with the rulebook designed to calculate and track the “greenhouse gas” footprint linked to lithium-ion batteries, whether used in vehicles or elsewhere.”

    The post, penned by Co-Chair of the Global Battery Alliance Benedikt Sobotka and German chemicals giant BASF CEO and Chairman of the Board of Executive Directors Martin Brudermuller, first speaks about this basically being the year of a huge global energy crisis, one they think will result in a move away from natural gas and oil.

    And while growing electric car sales are viewed as a positive thing, the authors say there is not enough “transparency” when it comes to their effect on the environment. The fact is mentioned that although electric cars are considered environment-friendly, the batteries are actually made from materials like lithium, copper, and iron – this, in the context of the mining industry not being the “cleanest” out there.”

    https://slaynews.com/news/wef-proposes-digital-battery-passport-track-ev-drivers/

    Liked by 1 person


  44. (LaVoy and Jeanette Finicum in Oregon in 2016. (Courtesy of Jeanette Finicum)
    “7 Years After Police Shot LaVoy Finicum in Back, Arizona Family Asks Supreme Court to Hear Case” — By Beth Brelje December 29, 2022 Updated: December 29, 2022
    ENTIRE ARTICLE @ TheEpochTimes: “It was senior recognition night at Jeanette Finicum’s daughter’s high school basketball game on Jan. 26, 2016, when Jeanette started hearing that something had happened to her husband, Robert “LaVoy” Finicum.

    A Mohave County, Arizona, cattle rancher, father of 12, and foster parent, LaVoy Finicum was among a group of people who participated in a 41-day occupation of Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in Oregon, 700 miles from his home. It started on Jan. 2, 2016. They were protesting federal land use policies—something LaVoy Finicum had been speaking about a lot on his YouTube channel, “One Cowboy’s Stand for Freedom.”

    Jeanette had just visited him at Malheur and everything was fine. She was sure it still was until she went to the hallway to charge her phone and he didn’t answer when she called. “I knew something was wrong because he promised that he would always pick up,” Jeanette Finicum told The Epoch Times. Soon she received a call from Lisa Bundy, whose family lives on a ranch neighboring the Finicum’s ranch and whose husband, Ammon Bundy, had been following LaVoy’s vehicle from Malheur to a speaking engagement.

    They were invited by Grant County Sherriff Glenn E. Palmer to give a public presentation on land rights and the Malheur occupation. Palmer was friendly to the group. It should have been a simple trip to give a speech.

    Shot in Back

    (LaVoy Finicum speaks to reporters in Burns, Ore., on Jan. 15, 2016. (Rob Kerr/AFP/Getty Images)

    But Lisa Bundy had terrible news. “She is hysterical and screaming in the phone to me. ‘They shot and killed LaVoy! They shot and killed LaVoy!’ I dropped the phone and got hysterical.” Jeanette’s brother-in-law was next to her. They held each other and cried.

    “People were real quiet around us. They didn’t know what to say,” she recalled. “This is a small town here. [LaVoy’s] dad and mom were there at the basketball game. My other children were there. They paused the basketball game, had our family come down, and we were all informed—my children, his parents. The local police officer invited us to come across the street to the sheriff’s department to make phone calls to see if we could get any confirmation of any kind.”

    The family tried to get answers from Oregon law enforcement. “They refused to give us any information,” Jeanette said. “They were really rude, unkind, and would not offer even the police officers any information in reference to who was killed and who was wounded.” The family went home without answers. It was three days before the sheriff’s department went to the Finicum house and officially informed them that LaVoy had been shot in the back and killed by law enforcement—state police or the FBI—during a roadblock stop on a snowy, desolate section of Oregon Highway 395.

    No Warrant

    (This photo taken from an FBI video shows Robert “LaVoy” Finicum after he was fatally shot by police on Jan. 26, 2016, near Burns, Ore. On March 8, 2016, authorities said police were justified in killing Finicum. (FBI via AP)

    Unmarked SUVs operated by an Oregon State Police SWAT team and an FBI Hostage Rescue Team prepared roadblocks for the two vehicles, while an FBI aircraft hovered overhead shooting video. Occupants in Finicum’s pickup also recorded video from inside the vehicle. “[The government] wanted a swift resolution to the problem at Malheur. People were starting to listen to them. Their gatherings were becoming 200, 300, 400 people,” Jeanette Finicum said.

    LaVoy became a natural spokesman for the group because he was able to communicate in a clear style that resonated with people. “They would have been talking about the Constitution, property rights, liberty and to stand up, because they were in an area where there were a lot of ranchers, and they were all similarly being affected by the overreach of the government that was happening there.”

    Finicum was not at Malheur when he encountered law enforcement. The roadblock was an hour away. Driving in the first vehicle, Finicum stopped at the first roadblock where state police pointed guns with red lasers at him. He stayed in his truck. “I’m going over to meet the sheriff in Grant County. Come along with us, and we can talk about this over there,” Finicum told law enforcement in a video recorded by passenger Ryan Bundy. “You can go ahead and shoot me. Put the laser right there. Put the bullet through the head. OK boys? It’s going to get real. You want my blood on your hands? Get it done. Because we’ve got people to see and places to go.”

    There was no arrest warrant and no probable cause to arrest, according to attorney Roger Root, who is handling a wrongful death case for the Finicum family. “They just claimed they were doing a felony stop. Under the Fourth Amendment, which is the right of the people to be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures, including seizures of a person, there’s no such thing in the law as a felony stop,” Root told The Epoch Times. “They need probable cause to believe a particular crime is committed by a particular person.”

    Finicum and his passengers considered calling someone for help, but 20 miles from town, there was no cellphone signal. Finicum figured the sheriff they were meeting was about 50 miles away. He sped away from the first roadblock. But around a curve, another roadblock was waiting, with law enforcement standing in front of vehicles. He tried to drive around it and got stuck in the deep snow on the side of the road. Shortly after, he got out of the vehicle and walked through deep snow with his hands up.

    The next part of the video is a matter of controversy. His hands went down and instantly, he was shot in the back and fell to the ground. It is unclear why Finicum’s hands went down. He may have been trying to balance his steps in the deep snow or motion to police. Law enforcement say he was going for a gun they found in his pocket. But he always kept his gun in his holster unless he was driving. Then it was kept under a blanket on the dashboard, Jeanette Finicum said. She believes the gun could have been planted on him after the shooting.

    The Epoch Times requested comment from the Bureau of Land Management, the U.S. Department of Justice, Oregon State Police, Deschutes County Major Incident Team, and the Harney County District Attorney’s Office. “It is always a tragedy when a life is lost, regardless of the circumstances,” a spokesman for the Oregon State Police told The Epoch Times in an email. “We also acknowledge the significant number of resources provided by the agencies who conducted the investigation and review of this incident.”

    Supreme Court Next

    (A makeshift roadside memorial for rancher LaVoy Finicum stands on a highway north of Burns, Ore., on Jan. 31, 2016. Finicum was killed in a confrontation with the FBI and Oregon State Police on a remote road. (Nick K. Geranios/AP Photo)

    In 2018, the Finicum family brought a wrongful death lawsuit against the Oregon State Police, the FBI, and the Bureau of Land Management. The family says Finicum was ambushed and killed because he had been speaking against the government. But it is difficult to litigate against the government in its own courts.

    “The case languished in the trial court for over three years because there were so many savage motions to dismiss by all these agencies,” said Root, who took the case from previous attorneys. “Basically, the lawyers for the Finicums were forced to just constantly respond to these motions to dismiss to try to keep the case alive. And it was a brutal, brutal defense by the state of Oregon, the FBI, and the U.S. Justice Department—some of the top lawyers for these government agencies. It never got to depositions. There never was much discovery.”

    Ultimately. the judge dismissed the case, essentially saying the plaintiffs were not working hard enough to move the case forward. “Failure to prosecute,” Root said. “All these questions about shooting a guy in the back, or having his hands in the air, have never been resolved.”

    The family will now ask the U.S. Supreme Court to consider the case and expects, in the next 60 days, to file a request to be heard. It is important, Jeanette Finicum said, for the facts of her husband’s death to be understood. “If they can make this go away to where the American people don’t ever hear the truth about this story, then they have won the media, they’ve won the narrative, they’ve won on so many other levels,” Finicum said. “It’s not about money for our family. It’s about the truth coming out and having LaVoy’s good name protected. That’s what’s so hard, because we’re up against this giant media propaganda machine, not to mention the government, the FBI, and the deep state within it.”

    Media reports have labeled Finicum a racist, militia member, extremist, and terrorist. None of that was true, Jeanette Finicum said.

    “He was just an average father, a rancher who was concerned for his country and the direction that he saw it moving,” she said. “He valued and honored the Constitution. He studied it, he understood it. He felt it was a divine document—that the men who wrote it were inspired to write it. … He was very religious. He looked to a higher power for his guidance, and for his strength and for his courage. He had integrity. He was soft, and kind. He was giving unconditionally. He would give the shirt off his back to the less fortunate, and I’ve seen him do those things. He was a good American, someone you would want to be involved with and participate with.”

    Constitution and God His Guide

    (LaVoy Finicum in Oregon with copy of the Constitution in his pocket in 2016. (Courtesy of Jeanette Finicum)

    The ranch of LaVoy Finicum’s neighbor, Cliven Bundy, was the scene of a 2014 dispute with the Bureau of Land Management over cattle grazing rights. Finicum and other ranchers showed support for Bundy. When the situation was resolved, Finicum started a YouTube channel talking about constitutional rights and land rights. “It’s easy to see that our government has eviscerated the Constitution. They are a lawless government, unwilling to be governed by the supreme law of the land, by the laws that ‘We the People’ placed upon them. And so what do we do?” Finicum said in a 2014 video. “This thing isn’t going to be solved legislatively. It’s too far gone. And there’s too few politicians with real conviction, with real courage. The establishment is too firmly entrenched.”

    He wondered how citizens should respond and, through study, Finicum determined that God intended man to be free. “When a man stands for freedom, he stands with God. And as long as he stands for freedom, he stands with God; even if he stands alone, he still stands with God,” Finicum said in 2014. “I think there’s about 50 million Americans out there that love freedom as much as I do. They’re willing to put their lives on the line—their fortunes, their sacred honor—as our Founding Fathers did in the beginning. Because the conflict is building, the storm clouds are gathering over this very same issue: will man be free or must he be coerced?”

    He said people should still fight for freedom using the legislative and judicial avenues. “But we know when our natural rights are being violated, when we are being trampled upon, it’s time for us to say, ‘No more,’” Finicum said. He advocated for banding together and speaking up.

    “If your property rights are being violated, I’ll come stand with you,” Finicum said. “I know there’s 50 million of us, willing to stand together and say, ‘No. Leave his property alone.’ No aggression. No hate—willing to stand and willing to defend by all means necessary, to say leave us alone. Don’t bother us. Let us raise our family. Let us enjoy this land upon which we live. Let us be free to make our own choices. It’s a great land. I’m going to live as a free man. I invite you, too, to stand up and defend the Constitution, and the rights that are guarded by this document. Stand for freedom. Stand for the Constitution.”

    A series of documentaries was produced by the Center for Self Governance about the entire situation, before and after Finicum was killed. The newest in the series, “The Final Verdict,” will be released Jan. 6. Proceeds for viewing videos in the series go to the Finicum legal fund. “You know, you don’t even understand until it becomes personal. But it has become very personal for a lot of people throughout this country in 2022, has it not?” Jeanette Finicum said.

    She was troubled when she heard about the FBI investigating parents speaking at school board meetings, innocent individuals, she says, who are peacefully standing up for the rights of their children. She was also troubled when Antifa and Black Lives Matter emerged, protesting violently in the streets. “These people that had contention, they wanted to talk to their government, and they were going about it very violently,” Jeanette Finicum said. “And in contrast to the people that were in Malheur, they weren’t violent, they were peaceful. They were trying to have their voices heard in a peaceful way. And the treatment of them, versus what happened to my husband, which resulted in his death, it angered me and I was frustrated with the government. Why is there a double standard for the subject matter? Everyone in this country is entitled to their due process. Why is it that it is okay for a whole community to completely destroy itself and be hailed heroes for doing it?”

    Until it happens to you, you don’t understand the depth of the corruption and how isolated you feel as an American citizen in this free country, she said.

    “It’s going to take a lot of us to continue to stand up; that’s what my husband would say. He said it doesn’t matter how it ends, it matters how you stand. And so we have to keep standing and keep fighting in respectful, responsible ways, like my husband was trying to do,” Jeanette Finicum said. “He was not anti-government. He was not a militia member. He was pro responsible, limited government. He was standing for the Constitution and for our right to have that First Amendment right to speak, and the Second Amendment right to carry while speaking and doing it responsibly.”

    “We’ve watched other protests where that very same thing happened and no roadblock was set up. Nobody was shot three times in the back after being fired upon six separate times before being murdered. You watch those cases throughout the country where maybe there’s been police brutality, and they have every right to stand up for that brutality and to demand justice,” she said. “But their cases are handled swiftly and with resolve. We’ve had to fight, travel the country, and try to get anybody to listen to us, and to raise the funds to continue to move forward. It’s been a very long, hard journey.”

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  45. Harry Reid was deeply involved in this, too! Remember the black eye from the alleged “fall in the shower?”

    GRAPHIC: Investigators Release Synced Video Of LaVoy Finicum Traffic Stop And Shooting

    This is apparently a “saved” link because I tried my link a few minutes ago and the video is gone.
    President Obama Ordered Hammond Ranch Destroyed

    ——————-
    Why the Hammonds? “The story is like an onion, you just keep peeling back the layers,” Maupin said.

    In an effort to stave off what they feared was a pending Clinton/Babbitt monument designation in 2000, a group of ranchers on the scenic Steens Mountain worked with Oregon Representative Greg Walden, a Republican, to draft and enact the Steens Mountain Cooperative Management and Protection Act that would prevent such a deed. The ranchers agreed to work with special interest “environmental” groups like the aggressive Oregon Natural Desert Association and others to protect the higher-than 10,000-foot peak. A number of ranchers at the top of the mountain traded their BLM permits and private property for land on the valley floor, allowing Congress to create a 170,000 acre wilderness in 2000, with almost 100,000 acres being “cow-free.”

    “The last holdouts on that cow-free wilderness are the Hammonds,” said Maupin. Though some still have BLM grazing permits, the Hammonds are the last private landowners in the area. “It’s become more and more obvious over the years that the BLM and the wildlife refuge want that ranch. It would tie in with what they have,” said Rusty Inglis, an area rancher and retired U.S. Forest Service employee. Rusty Inglis, the local area rancher and retired U.S. Forest Service employee who is mentioned in the article, made the comment, “It would tie in with what they have,” referring to the Hammond Ranch.

    That begs the question, what exactly is it that they (the feds) have? The answer to that question comes from another source, who sent me the video below. Aside from the video’s title, “EMERGENCY – Obama Ordered Hammond Ranch Destroyed,” there are several other things that are very troubling, the first of which is the date. The video was uploaded one day before the scheduled protest , which was the same day the militia took over the federal refuge, or January 1st.

    Why would Obama order the ranch destroyed before any of the last 24’s events took place? From what YouTuber William Mount says, there is MUCH more to this story, and in typical Obama fashion, it’s all absolutely FILTHY… every damn bit of it. Mount says that “what the feds have” with the rest of the land surrounding the Hammond Ranch, is well documented in U.S. Geological Survey Bulletin 1740-B. Download it now before it gets taken down.

    It turns out that the land the feds own, and the land in question at the Hammond Ranch have enormous amounts of Natural Gas, Uranium, Mercury, and Arsenic.”

    If you follow me regularly, you know I cover the economy and the looming financial implosion of the U.S. Dollar very closely, and I’ve been saying for some time that the Dollar collapse is imminent.
    William Mount reports that the Treasury Department is well aware of the pending crash and has plans to issue a new Dollar later in 2016, that will be backed by natural gas and oil, and the Hammond Ranch is the only thing holding up the extraction of the resources owned by the feds.

    Furthermore, Mount says in an effort to appease our largest creditor, Obama has already cut a deal with the Chinese to take the Uranium for their nuclear program. At this point, if you’re like me, you’re thinking that all sounds nice, a bit far fetched perhaps, despite the supporting U.S. Geological Survey, but not impossible right? BUT, how exactly is all that mining going to get done, who’s going to do it, and how is the Uranium allegedly going to get to China?

    Mount suggests none other than Democrat Congressmen DeFazio. He suggests “following the money.” When you do that, OpenSecrets.org shows that the bulk of Congressmen DeFazio’s campaign money all came from the following industries: air transit, transportation unions, building materials and equipment, railroads, and industrial unions.”

    From 2016: https://conspiracy-cafe.com/apps/blog/entries/show/43718656-obama-orders-hammond-ranch-destroyed-

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  46. they arrested a man in connection with the Idaho murders…HERE IN PA!!
    FTA
    A 28-year-old man, Bryan Kohberger, was arrested Friday morning in Pennsylvania’s Pocono Mountains in connection with the murders of four University of Idaho students, law enforcement sources told ABC News.

    Sources said that authorities knew who they were looking for and had tracked Kohberger down to Pennsylvania.

    A SWAT team entered the location where he was staying in order to take him into custody Friday. Kohberger appeared before a judge Friday morning.

    Moscow police officers, members of Idaho State Police, Moscow city leaders and University of Idaho officials will hold a news conference at 1 p.m. local time Friday.

    https://abcnews.go.com/US/idaho-murders-police-hold-news-conference-friday-afternoon/story?id=95976902

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  47. “Forty Years of Freedom Slipped Away So Quickly”
    BY Jeffrey A. Tucker, DECEMBER 30, 2022 ECONOMICS, HISTORY, PHILOSOPHY

    EXCERPT: “Was it all just an illusion? An illusion that lasted forty years? Surely not but something went very wrong, perhaps midway through the long stretch of seemingly growing freedom. When the time came to take it all away – and take it away they did! – the social, intellectual, and cultural bulwarks to hold freedom in place gave way. And we lost what we loved. For a time, the world went dark.
    —————–
    Then came 2020. In a matter of weeks, the progress of decades was crushed underfoot. Hardly anyone could have predicted the trigger: fear of a virus plus an intellectually preposterous response, followed by an appalling three years of lies and coverups that continue to this day. Perhaps on reflection that does make some sense. If you are the owner and operator of the Leviathan state in the second decade of the 20th century, and the loss of control of the people was palpable, and you were really clever about tightening the grip over the social order, what excuse might you drum up?
    ——————
    But in the 21st century, when the old excuses wore thin, and when our faith was in infinite progress, the best tactic might be to posit the appearance of an invisible pathogen that if we do not stop in its tracks, threatens to destroy us all. And looking back, it is obvious now that this narrative was in the works for years.

    Thus did the modern state unleash mass fear of the most primitive of forces, one about which the knowledge of past generations had failed to port over to a new generation. Had people truly understood infectious disease, they would have known that this type of problem is not nearly as much of a pressing matter today as it had been in the past. And they would have dismissed the manufactured mania out of hand, especially once the data became available. Even then, we should have known enough to see through the ruse.
    —————–
    Somehow, this didn’t happen. To this day, we continue to wonder why this occurred. We find ourselves intrigued by every clue we can find. We’ve recently been enlightened, for example, by discovering the extent to which the tech venues that we believed were granting us more freedom had actually been taken over by deep-state actors who had every ambition to control what we said and to whom we said it.

    We also had not fully understood the sheer political power of the big-box stores, the dominance of the major players in the social media industry, the chasm of interest that had opened up between hands-on work and laptop work, the endemic collusion of Big Tech and Big Media with government, and the ambitions of the administrative state to remind the whole population about who and what is in charge.
    ——————
    And here we are almost three years later still living amidst the rubble, with shattered public health, a traumatized generation of children, a demoralized and terrorized population with crushed civic associations and friend networks, familial losses, the international conflicts, the loss of moral center, and a devastating loss of faith and trust in the elites of all institutions in society.

    We cannot escape the suspicion that going into the pandemic period, something fundamental about culture and society had eroded to make this possible. What went wrong and how can it be restored? These are the burning questions of the day.”
    ——————-
    Nothing in this world operates as if by autopilot. There is no meta-narrative, no wind of change that operates independently from the choices we make. Ideas are the authors of history, and those are an extension of human minds. There is no sector of life that is not in need of moral courage and the determination to defend human rights against all invasion.

    The coming year will undoubtedly be filled with more revelations, more scandals, more unearthing of the horrible missteps, more interest-group manipulations of the public mind, and growing cries for justice in light of all we have lost.”

    https://brownstone.org/articles/forty-years-of-freedom-slipped-away-so-quickly/

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  48. “Ayaan Hirsi Ali says 2022 is ‘the year the West erased women’: ‘A tale of 2 different final chapters’

    EXCERPT: “Human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali believes 2022 is “the year the West erased women,” expressing concern about embracing an ideology that seeks to treat trans-identified males the same as women. Ali, an ex-Muslim Somali-born woman who endured genital mutilation, wrote a column for UnHerd, titled “The Year the West Erased Women.” She criticized the Cambridge Dictionary’s new definition of woman to mean “an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.”

    The former Dutch Parliamentarian and author concluded that “progressives care more about semantics than emancipation.” “If 2022 has been the year of the ‘woman,’ it is a tale with two different final chapters: one hopeful, one less so,” she wrote.

    After praising women in theocratic regimes like Iran for “demanding their emancipation,” Ali lamented the situation playing out in a “Western nation where the word ‘woman’ itself no longer has any meaning, its definition rewritten to include ‘an adult who lives and identifies as female though they may have been said to have a different sex at birth.'”

    “This is the paradox of the past 12 months: the existence of women is being questioned in the very place where female emancipation has come furthest, while in places where women remain shackled to medieval notions of honor and chastity, true feminism is at its strongest,” she wrote.”

    Ali said there are consequences of the effort to “divorce ‘woman’ from its biological implications.” “The past year has seen reports of transgender women attacking women in female-only spaces and unfairly winning trophies in women’s sports,” she added. “The spirit of these failures was perhaps best-distilled in the words of Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, who in March was unable to define what being a woman entailed during her Senate confirmation hearing. ‘I’m not a biologist,’ she said, as if one needed to be a professional biologist to know basic biological facts.”

    https://www.christianpost.com/news/ayaan-hirsi-ali-says-2022-is-the-year-the-west-erased-women.html

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