Catching my breath after the attack on the Capitol, I’m reflecting on all that we have to do. First, everyone involved in the insurrection, from the President to Josh Hawley to the Lectern Guy must be held accountable. That appears to be happening. But... 1/9

Long after Lectern and Viking Guy are in jail, and ex-President Trump is wrestling with various prosecutors, we will be struggling with the toxic apocalyptic violent hate religion that is their legacy. 2/9
Second, this isn’t just Lectern and Viking Guy and a deranged President. This letter was sent by a parent in New Canaan whose child’s teacher had offered suggestions on how to talk to kids about the attack. Every sentence is provably untrue and filled with hate and violence. 3/9
For context, New Canaan is an enormously affluent, educated center-right town. It’s GOP, but old-school New England Republican. I actually won the town for the first time in 2020, thank you Donald Trump.

And yet, one of it’s citizens produces a screed worthy of Alex Jones 4/9
Speaking of Alex Jones, here’s a video of him at DC’s pre-insurrection MAGA rally: grievance, rage, incitement of violence. IMO, it’s this stuff, not the wokeness of Professors of Semiotics at Middlebury that put 1A at risk. The professors have never tried to kill me. 5/9
Third, there’s religion. I was overwhelmed by the intensity of the “Christianity” that pervaded the MAGA rally. In case you haven’t seen it all, here’s Roger Stone at the MAGA rally telling us about his relationship with God. 6/9
Here’s more. You don’t need to know a lot of history to know the mayhem that comes from mixing religion with violent political movements. BTW, “Deus Vult” is a crusader thing: “God wills it”. 7/9
Like all religions, Christianity is fragmented and diverse, but as an Elder in the Presbyterian church, I will say that no branch should consider itself exempt from self-reflection. 8/9
Like I said, WE have work to do. All of us. We the people. Government can’t solve this. If we don’t start taking our obligations to be careful and humble stewards of our democracy seriously, it will go away. It almost did. Here’s what I saw in its heart last week. 9/9

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Canada is failing to act on Climate Change. @wef @WorldBank @IMFNews @IPCC_CH @UNDPGAIN @AntiCorruptIntl @Pontifex @JustinWelby @OCCRP @StopCorpAbuse @TaxJusticeNet @FairTaxCanada @ecojustice_ca @WCELaw @CanEnvLawAssn @envirodefence @IBA_Canada #cdnpoli


Covid recovery money is going to the oligarchy.

Ottawa and the provinces have put very little on the table to help clean-tech companies directly during Covid 19 while targeting fossil-fuel producers with more than $16 billion in aid.

Coast to coast people have demanded treaties be honored. We demanded climate action, divestment and land back but Canada is not listening. This video shows 10 years of rallies in Waterloo Ontario. City & regional council declared a climate emergency. 🚨

The Bank of China (BOC), SNC-Lavalin and WE Charity were recipients of taxpayer-funded the Covid 19 Canadian Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS)
How does a government put a legislation on 'hold'? Is there any constitutional mechanism for the executive to 'pause' a validly passed legislation? Genuine Koshan.


So a committee of 'wise men/women' selected by the SC will stand in judgement over the law passed by


Here is the thing - a law can be stayed based on usual methods, it can be held unconstitutional based on violation of the Constitution. There is no shortcut to this based on the say so of even a large number of people, merely because they are loud.


Tomorrow can all the income tax payers also gather up at whichever maidan and ask for repealing the income tax law? It hurts us and we can protest quite loudly.

How can a law be stayed or over-turned based on the nuisance value of the protestors? It is anarchy to allow that.

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Although these beings had to be respected, not all of them were powerful enough to be considered gods. Offerings would be made to the spirits that had greater influence on human life. Spells and incantations would invoke their


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I just finished Eric Adler's The Battle of the Classics, and wanted to say something about Joel Christiansen's review linked below. I am not sure what motivates the review (I speculate a bit below), but it gives a very misleading impression of the book. 1/x


The meat of the criticism is that the history Adler gives is insufficiently critical. Adler describes a few figures who had a great influence on how the modern US university was formed. It's certainly critical: it focuses on the social Darwinism of these figures. 2/x

Other insinuations and suggestions in the review seem wildly off the mark, distorted, or inappropriate-- for example, that the book is clickbaity (it is scholarly) or conservative (hardly) or connected to the events at the Capitol (give me a break). 3/x

The core question: in what sense is classics inherently racist? Classics is old. On Adler's account, it begins in ancient Rome and is revived in the Renaissance. Slavery (Christiansen's primary concern) is also very old. Let's say classics is an education for slaveowners. 4/x

It's worth remembering that literacy itself is elite throughout most of this history. Literacy is, then, also the education of slaveowners. We can honor oral and musical traditions without denying that literacy is, generally, good. 5/x