Society's ChildS


Books

Agatha Christie revisions are the writing on the wall

Bruce Pardy
National Post
Wed, 05 Apr 2023 00:01 UTC
agatha christie
© HarperCollinsHarper Collins is removing references to physique, race and ethnicity in new editions of the hugely popular mystery novels by Agatha Christie, seen above in 1949.
And then there were none (books, that is).

Last week The Telegraph reported that Agatha Christie's novels are being sanitized for re-release. HarperCollins, their publisher, is removing references to physique, race and ethnicity in new editions of Miss Marple and selected Poirot novels. Christie joins Roald Dahl and Ian Fleming on the list of dead literary icons whose works have met similar fates in recent weeks. Shakespeare, Dr. Seuss and Mark Twain have been curbed in other ways. If it seems like small potatoes, you may be missing the big picture. When publishers defile literature, you know the writing is on the wall.

These rewrites are not censorship, at least not in the legal sense. Governments don't need to order it. Publishers are choosing to sanitize their literary icons on their own. Anyone who holds copyright can alter a work as they please, especially when dead authors are not around to object. Just as Christie had no obligation to write her books in the first place and no publisher was required to print and sell them, so these publishers today have no legal duty to reprint them in their original form.

Comment: Speaking of irony: University puts TRIGGER WARNING on Orwell's 1984

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NPC

Federal judge backs firing of Indiana teacher who refused to use transgender students' names, pronouns

Taylor Penley
Fox News
Mon, 10 Apr 2023 11:30 UTC
pronouns jacket
© Lauren DeCicca/Getty ImagesA person wears a gender-neutral pronoun jacket at a Rainbow Runway for Equality to kick off Pride Month at Central World Mall on June 01, 2022, in Bangkok, Thailand.
Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld a lower court's decision on Friday.

An Indiana music theory teacher pushed out of his job for refusing to call transgender students their preferred names and pronouns took a hit from a federal judge Friday who upheld a lower court's ruling that the school district did not violate his rights.

Former Brownsburg High School teacher John Kluge sued the school district alleging religious discrimination after he cited his personal religious convictions for refusing to abide by the name and pronoun policy, opting to address transgender students by their last names instead.

The school district, after enacting the policy in 2017, initially agreed to let Kluge use last names to address the students instead, according to The Associated Press.

Comment: See also:

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Pistol

Louisville gunman Connor Sturgeon shot woman in back, waited for police to arrive: report

Snejana Farberov
New York Post
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 11:31 UTC
connor strugeon
© LinkedinConnor Sturgeon, 25, livestreamed himself killing and injuring his colleagues at Old National Bank in Louisville on Monday, beginning with a woman he shot in the back after she greeted him.
Louisville gunman Connor Sturgeon began his rampage Monday by shooting a woman who'd just said "good morning" to him — and it took him just a minute to carry out the massacre before he paused and waited for police to arrive, according to his Instagram livestream.

The footage documenting the harrowing incident has been scrubbed from the social media platform, but a Louisville city official described its contents to CNN.

Sturgeon, 25, was reportedly suicidal and on the verge of getting fired from Old National Bank when he carried out the mass shooting, which left five people dead and eight others wounded.

Comment: See also: Kentucky: 4 dead in mass shooting after bank employee goes berserk - Shooter live-streamed massacre on Instagram

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Eye 1

FBI used undercover agent to target Catholic Church: Jim Jordan

Katherine Fung
Newsweek
Mon, 10 Apr 2023 15:32 UTC
christopher wray
© Win McNamee/Getty
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) allegedly used an undercover agent to target the clergy and leadership of the Catholic Church, according to GOP Representative Jim Jordan.

On Monday, Jordan, who chairs the House Judiciary Committee, sent a letter to FBI Director Christopher Wray alerting Wray that he was being subpoenaed for an investigation into the agency's handling of a domestic extremism analysis that proposed developing sources among church leaders to look for signs of radicalization among Catholic parishioners.

The subpoena is the latest development in Jordan's probe into the FBI's alleged misuse of domestic violent extremism resources. House Republicans first accused Wray of exploiting those resources for "political purposes" after an eight-paged internal memo was leaked by a former special agent.

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Cell Phone

FBI warns of phone charger threat


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 02:15 UTC
phone charging station
© Spencer Platt / Getty Images
The federal law enforcement agency said that public phone charging sites are vulnerable to "bad actors".

The FBI has urged Americans to stay away from free phone charging stations found at airports, hotels, and other public places, saying they could be used to hack into devices and may pose a threat to privacy.

While it's unclear what prompted the advice, the bureau's Denver office recently made a case against public charging sites in a social media post, reflecting a similar guidance offered on the FBI's website.

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NPC

Army CGSC teaching officers that only "whites" can be racist - Gender is a social construct

Danny
TRMLX
Wed, 12 Apr 2023 06:27 UTC
army woke training cgsc 1
Army Majors currently attending ILE (intermediate level education) at the Command and General Staff College (CGSC) at Fort Leavenworth are being taught that only the dominant racial group can be racist (whites), and all other ethnicities are simply prejudiced in their actions. The course is also teaching that gender is a social construct while sex is a biological category given at birth. According to students going through the course right now, an individual who is white and male is not allowed to feel like someone is racist or sexist towards them because they're in the majority.

army woke training cgsc 2
Text between student in ILE and their spouse
Army Majors attend ILE as a prerequisite to become eligible for promotion to Lieutenant Colonel. According to their mission statement, "The United States Army Command and General Staff College (CGSC) educates and develops leaders for full spectrum joint, interagency and multinational operations; acts as lead agent for the Army's leader development program; and advances the art and science of the profession of arms in support of Army operational requirements." ILE is a ten month, graduate level program which teaches leadership philosophy, military history, and the military planning and decision making processes.
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Eye 1

Character assassination theater 101

CJ Hopkins
cjhopkins.substack.com
Fri, 07 Apr 2023 06:18 UTC
Matt Taibbi Medhi Hasan
I don't normally do the "take" thing in my columns, but I'm making an exception this one time, because I just watched the Mehdi Hasan Show interview with Matt Taibbi, and ... well, damn.

OK, this isn't really my "take" on the interview. It more a free lesson on how to deal with character-assassination theater, which is what the "interview" in question was.

Let me make a few points clear before I do that. (1) Matt Taibbi blew the interview. It was not a good performance for Matt Taibbi. I'll get into why it wasn't in a minute. (2) I'm a huge Matt Taibbi fan. I'm not at all objective about Matt Taibbi. I like Matt, and I respect him as a journalist. Matt has blurbed my books, and interviewed me. (3) I've also been pretty tough on Matt regarding the "Twitter Files" and Elon Musk, but that doesn't change the fact that I like him, and respect him, immensely, and applaud his reporting on the "Censorship Industrial Complex."

So, there you go ... full disclosure. I am extremely biased in favor of Matt Taibbi.

That said, Matt absolutely blew the interview. He blew the interview because it wasn't an interview. He showed up to a character assassination armed with ... well, not really armed at all. Matt has this weird thing about professionalism, as in he expects people to have some, and exhibit it, occasionally. So, he plugged into The Medhi Hasan Show expecting to do an interview, or something vaguely resembling an interview. What he got instead was 25 minutes of badgering, bullying, smearing, sneering, shouting down his attempts to respond, and other pseudo-inquisitorial abuse.
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MIB

Hundreds of former feds have flocked to jobs in Big Tech

Diana Glebova
Daily Caller
Mon, 10 Apr 2023 01:32 UTC
facebook twitter
Google, Twitter, Meta and TikTok's executive ranks have included over 200 former employees of surveillance government agencies, creating an employment pipeline between the government and Big Tech companies, a Daily Caller investigation found.

The technology companies recruited 248 employees from the DOJ, FBI, CIA and DHS, a LinkedIn search revealed. The hiring occurred mostly between 2017-2022, with several filling top director positions after having decade-long careers in the surveillance agencies.

Google hired 130 former DOJ, DHS, CIA and FBI employees, the Daily Caller's key term search on LinkedIn found. Meta, the company that owns Facebook and Instagram, employed 47 people for those three entities who were previously at the DOJ, FBI or DHS. TikTok, the Chinese-based app embattled with national security concerns, employed 25 former DOJ, FBI, DHS or CIA employees. Twitter had 46 executives who had previously spent time working for the three-letter agencies.

Reed Rubinstein, former deputy associate attorney general under President Trump, told the Daily Caller that Americans should be "concerned" about "terrifying" integration of Big Tech companies and federal agencies.

"The revolving door has been a feature of D.C. for as long as I can remember. Any business that is heavily regulated is going to be concerned about managing the regulators, and one way to do that is by purchasing them," Rubinstein said.

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Stock Down

Ongoing inflation & energy crisis forcing France's bakeries to shut down at record rate

Kari Apted
Tell Me Best
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 23:25 UTC
bread bakery baguette
France is considered the cultural home of bread baking. In fact, French bakeries are such a quintessential part of the nation's history that French President Emmanuel Macron ensured the baguette was given UNESCO heritage status in 2022. Unfortunately, skyrocketing costs are shuttering small businesses like bakeries across France.

French bakeries are the lifeblood of many cities, towns, and villages, providing daily sustenance to people at every point of the socioeconomic spectrum. Therefore, the loss of a beloved bakery has a strong impact when it happens. But the costs of energy and raw ingredients are doubling and tripling so fast that many bakers simply call it quits.

CNN interviewed Elodie Chavret, a bakery owner and part-time firefighter in the small town of Millery, France. She is worried that she cannot keep up with the electric bill any longer. It multiplied nearly tenfold between December and January.

Comment: Perhaps there's some (brief?) relief on the horizon for both Macron and the people of France: Macron refuses to back US line on China

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Smoking

Russia to regulate e-cigs like tobacco, sales to minors will be banned


RT
Tue, 11 Apr 2023 17:51 UTC
proposed bans e-cigs
© AP Photo/Bebeto MatthewsFILE PHOTO: Inam Rehman, manager of Jubilee Vape & Smoke Inc., displays a flavored vaping solution his store sells, Monday Sept. 16, 2019, in New York.
Russian lawmakers have passed a bill which would put e-cigarettes, including heated tobacco products and vape devices and cartridges, on a par with traditional cigarettes and tobacco products. This would mean a total ban on sales to minors and restrictions in terms of promotion and trade.

The Russian State Duma passed the proposal in the third reading on Tuesday in a landslide vote, with over 400 MPs supporting it. It now has to be approved by the upper chamber of the Russian parliament and signed by the president before coming into force.

The bill amends several existing laws, including the law that regulates the trade and consumption of tobacco. It also applies to vape cartridges that do not contain nicotine and bans flavored varieties which experts consider to be more attractive to younger consumers.

Comment: At least, of right now, Russia isn't moving towards the tyranny of prohibiting tobacco sales of tobacco entirely, as is increasing the case across much of the West: New Zealand passes world's most tyrannical tobacco laws

See also: And also check out SOTT radio's: The Health & Wellness Show: The Truth about Tobacco and the Benefits of Nicotine

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