Recommended Reading

See Slavery — A frank conversation by my dear friend Mustang, who occasionally posts at Politics Rewritten, my friend Layla Elizabeth Kanas-Gonzalez's site.  Worth your time.

About Ukraine

(hat tip to Deplorable Bloggers Alliance for the video in this blog post)

I find myself increasingly uneasy as I watch the push for intervening in Ukraine, because when I find myself in agreement with certain mainstream media and with certain politicians, I take a step back and ask myself, "AOW, what important facts are you missing?" 

The YouTube blurb for the video below:

Lara Logan blows away every Liberal Sleepy DemonRat NWO Shill on earth with Truth about NWO/Fake News Liars/Political Liars/Medical Liars/Putin/Zelensky/Lies About Ukraine etc. Exposes the actual Nazi's operating out of Ukraine all wearing Satanic-Occult Nazi Regalia in the Azov Corps of Ukrainian. Gives people a glimpse of the real history of the region and why everything the 'news' is telling the world is a LIE...

About ten minutes and worth your time: 

Is Lara Logan correct, in part of in whole, about her assertions?

On the other hand, we have this...Volnovakha: America Closes Her Eyes.

Video: The Mass Psychosis And The Demons Of Dostoevsky

(hat tip to DEPLORABLE Bloggers Alliance)

Worth a few moments of your consideration:

 

The desire for power, often paired with self-deception, is eternal and very nearly ubiquitous across Time. 

Also of interest...The Manufacturing of a Mass Psychosis - Can Sanity Return to an Insane World?:

 

Memorial Day 2021

This Memorial Day Weekend, amid shopping for bargains, getting together with family and friends after all the months of pandemic lockdowns, and enjoying the traditional Memorial Day Weekend cookouts, let us remember the significance of Memorial Day: honoring Our Fallen, who made the ultimate sacrifice.  

Gone, but never forgotten.

American military cemeteries around the world:

For many, the concept of honoring Our Fallen holds the deepest kind of personal significance:

   

Surely we can all find time to do some reading appropriate for this weekend...2021 Memorial Day: 30 facts, meaning and history to celebrate this holiday.

Musical Interlude

(For politics, please scroll down) 

Enjoy "Be Still, My Soul" as performed by the British vocal ensemble Voces8:

   

Complete lyrics of this hymn: 

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side. 

Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain. 

Leave to thy God to order and provide; 

In every change, He faithful will remain. 

Be still, my soul: thy best, thy heavenly friend 

Through thorny ways leads to a joyful end. 

Be still, my soul: thy God doth undertake 

To guide the future, as He has the past. 

Thy hope, thy confidence let nothing shake; 

All now mysterious shall be bright at last. 

Be still, my soul: the waves and winds still know 

His voice who ruled them while He dwelt below. 

Be still, my soul: when dearest friends depart, 

And all is darkened in the vale of tears, 

Then shalt thou better know His love, His heart, 

Who comes to soothe thy sorrow and thy fears. 

Be still, my soul: thy Jesus can repay 

From His own fullness all He takes away. 

Be still, my soul: the hour is hastening on 

When we shall be forever with the Lord. 

When disappointment, grief and fear are gone, 

Sorrow forgot, love’s purest joys restored. 

Be still, my soul: when change and tears are past 

All safe and blessèd we shall meet at last. 

Be still, my soul: begin the song of praise 

On earth, believing, to Thy Lord on high; 

Acknowledge Him in all thy words and ways, 

So shall He view thee with a well pleased eye. 

Be still, my soul: the sun of life divine 

Through passing clouds Shall but more brightly shine. 

About "Be Still, My Soul": 

This hymn was a favorite of Eric Liddell, the athlete who became famous in the 1924 Olympics for refusing to run on the Sabbath (see the 1981 movie Chariots of Fire). 

Liddell later became a missionary in China, and was imprisoned during World War II. He is said to have taught this hymn to others in the prison camp (where he eventually died of a brain tumor). 

(the Voces8 YouTube channel)

Orwell Warned Us.

Today, in the 21st Century, we are reaping the whirlwind of "Everybody should go to college":

"A Date which will Live in Infamy"

Silverfiddle Rant!

I wrote this years ago to commemorate Pearl Harbor day.  The chances of our nation being attacked militarily now is almost nil.  An ignorant and debased nation of people easily propagandized is vulnerable to a variety of more subtle, non-violent attacks. Nonetheless, the lesson still applies.

My wife and I took our kids to a museum here in town on December 7th a few years ago. While there, we had the good fortune to meet a WW II Navy veteran who had survived the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. We also encountered the famous WW II picture of the Frenchman crying. These two contrasting encounters taught my family a lesson that I want to share with you.

At the beginning of our tour I spied the aging sailor wearing a veteran’s garrison cap emblazoned with the words “Pearl Harbor Survivor.” I crouched down and quickly tutored my children on the man’s significance upon that historical landscape. Fortunately, the kids grasped the meaning of the moment and we approached the gentleman. A mellow, unassuming man, he treated our questions with kindness and received our thanks with humility.

At the end of our museum tour we came face to face with the elderly veteran’s polar opposite: the picture of the Frenchman crying. Many of my fellow Americans would probably enjoy hearty anti-French belly laughs at this picture, but I feel only sadness.  This is the face of  people everywhere who lack the means or the will to defend their freedoms. This is the face that trades death and destruction for subjugation and humiliation.

I felt just as compelled to introduce my children to the Frenchman crying as I did to the aging hero. I directed my kids’ attention to the picture and asked them to describe it. “He’s crying,” and “That man is sad,” were the answers I got. They could see his distress and wanted to know what had caused it.

I told them this is how you end up when you're unable or unwilling to fight for your freedom. I told them that if they were not prepared to risk their lives for their country, they had better be prepared to stand on the street crying as the conquerors march by. I insisted they study the picture some more, observe the pain on the man’s face, notice the tears running down his cheeks. “Remember that face,” I told them, “and may that never be you.”

Reliance on Maginot Lines and international organizations provides a sense of security--up until the inevitable failure of such contrivances. Then, alas, it is back to blood and steel. Sadly, we are all too human after all.

The veteran and the Frenchman stand in stark contrast. Taken together, they remind us of two unyielding truths: The opposite of war is not necessarily peace, and freedom is never free.

---
As of September 2020, "according to US Department of Veterans Affairs statistics, 325,574 of the 16 million Americans who served in World War II are alive in 2020." (National WW II Museum)

Remember This....

Related reading, from the Patriot Post, July 25, 2020: Stolen Elections Show the Vulnerabilities of Absentee Ballots.  Excerpt:

No question about it: some people need absentee ballots — those with disabilities, those living abroad and others who can’t make it to the polls on Election Day. But pushing for more absentee balloting — even all-mail elections — is unwise. It would make election fraud far easier.

In-person voting occurs under the supervision of election officials, with election observers there to make sure everything is on the up-and-up. This transparency is a vital hallmark of the democratic process. Mail-in ballots, however, are susceptible to being stolen, altered, forged and forced.

All states ban electioneering in polling places, but there are no such bans on electioneering in voters’ homes. This leaves at-home voters vulnerable to intimidation and coercion by campaign staffers, political party activists, and others with a vested interest in the electoral outcome.

Four elections in California, Florida, Indiana, and North Carolina — stolen through absentee-ballot fraud — demonstrate some of the problems.....

Read the rest HERE.

What would Stalin have said about mail-in ballots? Hmmmm?

What Is Ramadan?

[cross-posted to Infidel Bloggers Alliance]

Ramadan 2020 began at sunset on or about April 23 and will end on or about May 23. Muslims, ever contentious about nearly every matter, even disagree among themselves as to when Ramadan should begin.

What does Ramadan really celebrate, particularly Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan? If one understands the history of Islam and, especially, that of Ramadan, one will come to understand that such a commemoration, including iftar dinners at the White House, should be unacceptable to all those who oppose Islamic supremacism.

Ramadan involves more than prayers, fasting, and the giving of alms — all of which are part of the month long observance but which are also the outward signs of another message. By literal definition, of course, Ramadan commemorates Allah's "revealing" the Qur'an to Muhammad. But history clearly indicates that the "revelations" from Allah to Muhammad began around 610, some fourteen years earlier than 624.

Those earlier passages, sometimes referred to as the Meccan verses, are the oft-quoted peaceful verses in the Koran. Contrary to what one might expect, however, the last day of Ramadan does not celebrate the actual date of the earliest peaceful "revelations" of Allah to Muhammad but rather the Battle of Badr, the first significant military victory by the forces of Muhammad.

The Battle of Badr of March 17, 624, is one of the few military conflicts specifically mentioned in the Qur'an and holds a great deal of significance in Islam. Eid ul-Fitr, the final portion of Ramadan, has as its origin the aforementioned battle. Furthermore and most importantly, this battle marked the turning point for Islam, both politically and ideologically.

Having earlier fled to Medina along with followers who accepted him as their prophet whereas most of the tribes of Mecca did not, early on that morning in 624 Muhammad got word that a rich Quraish caravan from Syria was returning to Mecca. He therefore assembled the largest army he had ever been able to muster, some 300 men, with the original intent of raiding the caravan. After his men successfully overtook the caravan and brought back the booty, Muhammad then conveniently received a new "revelation" from Allah — a "revelation" which not only included rejoicing in having captured an enemy's caravan but which also called "proved" that Muhammad had been preaching the true way all along. Fulfilling Destiny, Muhammad and his forces proceeded to trounce the Quraish as punishment for having earlier rejected the prophet's teachings. From this source:

In the name of Allah, the Beneficient, the Merciful.

The battle of Badr was the most important among the Islamic battles of Destiny. For the first time the followers of the new faith were put into a serious test. Had victory been the lot of the pagan army while the Islamic Forces were still at the beginning of their developments, the faith of Islam could have come to an end.

No one was aware of the importance of the outcome of the Battle as the Prophet (S.A.W.) himself. We might read the depth of his anxiety in his prayer before the beginning of the Battle when he stood up supplicating his Lord:

God this is Quraish. It has come with all its arrogance and boastfulness, trying to discredit Thy Apostle. God, I ask Thee to humiliate them tomorrow. God, if this Muslim band will perish today, Thou shall not be worshipped.

[...]

This battle laid the foundation of the Islamic State...

In other words, victory at the Battle of Badr proved to Muhammad and his adherents that Islam should from that time forth take on a militant aspect because such is the will of Allah. From the day of the Battle of Badr on, the tone of the verses in the Qur'an changed. These more recent "revelations," sometimes referred to as the Medinan verses, abrogated the earlier and peaceful Meccan ones. Because preaching and tolerance had not brought Muhammad the following which he needed in order to establish himself and Islam as political forces to be reckoned with, Allah, via a military victory, showed the prophet a more effective way to spread Islam. Therefore, Muhammad's victory at the Battle of Badr symbolizes both the way to bring about the will of Allah and the will of Allah itself.

In sum, Ramadan is, in and of itself, a statement advocating submission to Islam and to the will of Allah. Ah, the dhimmitude and submission of all Western leaders when they send Ramadan greetings to the Islamic world!

Recommended Reading

See How Epidemics of the Past Changed the Way Americans Lived: Past public health crises inspired innovations in infrastructure, education, fundraising and civic debate, dated April 1, 2020 and published at Smithsonian Magazine.


Remember...

A Great Awakening?

Silverfiddle Rant!

Could a rogue virus lead to a grand creative moment in America’s history? Will Americans, shaken by the reality of a risky universe, rediscover the God who proclaimed himself sovereign over every catastrophe?
-- Robert Nicholson


"Thy Kingdom Come"

I have been praying for another great awakening for quite some time, and I'm confident my prayers join those of hundreds of millions of other people of faith, so this article caught my eye: A Coronavirus Great Awakening?

America has experienced three or four Great Awakenings. Are we due for another one? What would it look like? What preachers or churches would lead it?

A physics PhD and deep thinker I used to work for opined last week that this could lead to a new wave of intellectual ferment and new ideas and inventions, just as the black plague of the Middle Ages did.  I'm not that steeped in history, but he averred that the plague forced people to shutter themselves away and spend a lot of time with their thoughts, and that led to many wonderful new ideas that ended up ushering in the Enlightenment. I'm thinking, "yeah, but those people didn't have Netflix, social media and internet porn..."

Have you been praying more?  Reading the Bible? Developing intellectual theories or coming up with a new invention?  If the government ordered you to stay in your home, what have you been doing to occupy your time?

At the Casa Silverfiddle, we have been praying and reading the Bible more.  The kids are doing schoolwork, bracelet-making, origami and playing music. I've been playing a lot of banjo, slowing down and focusing on good technique, and knocking the rust of the old fiddle, reacquainting myself with all the fiddle tunes I used to know.

What say you?


Related Links:
The Comprehensive Timeline of China’s COVID-19 Lies

Pandemic Brings Out the Best and the Worst in the Media

Voices From The Past

Please take a few minutes to watch the two short videos below:





Below is the most-watched YouTube documentary on the topic of the 1918 Spanish Flu epidemic — if you have time to watch (over 4 million views):


Now for my family's own stories.......


My father's younger sister, about age 7, died of "the aftereffects of the flu." Something like the 1990 film Awakenings? Full movie HERE at YouTube, albeit poor quality.  I highly recommend the film! It is available via Amazon Prime Video.

Dad occasionally spoke of what happened when his sister died: "The undertaker embalmed Chrissie at the house — and dumped the blood behind the barn."  The funeral service and burial were private.  The influenza didn't stop until everything was shut down: schools, funerals, churches, etc.  And the government refused to believe that something terrible was happening with Americans' health.  Until, that is, bodies began piling up on the sidewalks and in the streets of Washington, D.C.

My maternal grandmother (1898-1981) had a robust immune system. It fell to her to take care of her brother Walter, who brought influenza to their remote location in the mountains of East Tennessee when he was discharged from the US Army, fell ill himself, and gave the flu to his brother-in-law Fred, my grandmother's husband.  My grandmother sent her two children, one born in 1916 and the other in 1918 to her parents' farm and took care of Walter and Fred.

My grandmother related the story of those days in this way: "I got almost no sleep.  I went back and forth between the river for cold water and the menfolks' foreheads.  They were out of their heads with fever.  My sister brought food, called to me, and set the food down about 25 feet from the house; I fetched the food from there.  I don't remember how long all this went on.  Seemed like forever.  But Walter and Fred got well, and life went back to normal."

I asked Wawa how she stood those weeks of hard work as a nurse.  Her response: "Life isn't about what you want to do.  Life is about what you have to do."  She also told me of a particular safely measure she used: teetotaler though she was, she gargled in moonshine morning and evening.  And she swallowed that moonshine, too.

Bringing us back to today....A view of the front lines of this grim war against Coronavirus (dated March 23, 2020): The Growing Chaos Inside New York’s Hospitals.

And one more thing...in the immortal words of Gilda Radner:

About St. Valentine... (Weekend Blog Post)

(For politics, please scroll down)

From The Gory Origins of Valentine’s Day: The holiday began as a feast to celebrate the decapitation of a third-century Christian martyr, or perhaps two. So how did it become all about love?...

Weekend Video: 60 Images You Must See...

(For politics, please scroll down)

One of my Facebook finds and worth your time:

Another retro video below the fold.

Fifty Years Ago: Apollo 11

(For politics, please scroll down)

[source]

What we today in the 21st Century commemorate with a yawn was not taken for granted in 1969.

From The speech Richard Nixon would have given ‘in event of moon disaster’: The White House prepared remarks in case the Apollo 11 astronauts couldn’t return to Earth (Washington Post, July 12, 2019):

To: H. R. Haldeman
From: Bill Safire
July 18, 1969

IN EVENT OF MOON DISASTER:

Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace.

These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice.

These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding.

They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown.

In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to lead as one; in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man.

In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood.

Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts.

For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

75 Years Ago On The Beaches Of Normandy

Honor The Greatest Generation....

The assault phase of Operation Overlord was known as Operation Neptune.  Operation Neptune began on D-Day (6 June 1944) and ended on 30 June 1944.

Reading for today, from The Last Longest Day by Richard Fernandez:

...It was an all-out throw of the dice. A maximum effort. There was no plan B if it didn't work. Had it failed, Eisenhower would have said: "Our landings have failed and I have withdrawn the troops. My decision to attack at this time and place was based on the best information available. The troops, the air and the Navy did all that bravery could do. If any blame or fault attaches to the attempt it is mine alone." The consequences of defeat would have been incalculable....

[...]

...It is for the current generation to decide whether to build a new dark age of universal surveillance or one of expanding freedom. It is for the present to decide whether to succumb to new cults or keep the flame. The men of the Longest Day have done their job. Only the living can still make history. The past has already made it.

Read the rest HERE.  Worth your time.

The American military cemetery in Normandy, 2003

Claude and Kenneth, two of my cousins, served on the beaches of Normany during Operation Overlord — one cousin in the US Army and one in the US Navy. They were 19 and 21 years old. Miraculously, they both came home physically whole. But psychologically, Claude and Kenneth were forever changed and never again slept through a night without nightmares. Both of my cousins died young, one at the age of 39 and the other at the age of 44.

What Is Ramadan?

(Much of this blog post was previously published in 2011 and 2015)

Ramadan 2019 began at sunset on May 6 and continues for 30 days until June 5.

What does Ramadan really celebrate, particularly Eid ul-Fitr, which marks the end of Ramadan?

If one understands the history of Islam and, especially, that of Ramadan, one will come to understand that such a commemoration, including iftar dinners at the White House, should be unacceptable to all those who oppose Islamic supremacism.

Time For Beauty

(For politics, please scroll down)

One of my Facebook finds:

Roman mosaic, Garden scene, fountain wall (detail), 1st century BCE. Pompeii, Italy. Massa Lubrense. National Archaeological Museum, Naples, Italy.

Remembering D-Day, June 6, 1944

The Silent Wings Museum commemorates the 74th anniversary of D-Day

Read and watch the videos at 5 Fast Facts About D-Day, June 6.

Today is the the 74th anniversary of the Allied invasion that changed the course of history — for the better:

Bill Whittle on The Narrative: The origins of Political Correctness

There are several ongoing narratives. In the 2012 video below, Bill Whittle explains the Marxist background behind the ongoing narratives pushing the world to the Left:


Note that, since this video was first posted, how some of the mentioned narratives are now accepted as infallible truths — even by those who pride themselves on not falling for false narratives.