Programming note: Mark will be back on the telly with Tucker this evening. Tune into Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News at 8pm ET / 5pm PT to watch.
Good day, and welcome to a new batch of Laura's Links, filed from an increasingly frosty Deranged Dominion where it's now too cold for porch visits (not that I was ever a big fan of such things) and outdoor walks with friends to maintain social contact. I still find myself getting a little over-chatty with total strangers when I see other humans: are you the same? (I characterize myself as admittedly and unabashedly over-chatty because I'm normally very chatty.)
One of my kids' friends had a great line that I'll share with you. She said that social activity and interaction is like a muscle. When we don't exercise it it becomes inert and weak. Smart kid. As I've said for some time, we have to grab back whatever little bits and pieces of normal that we can. As Mark himself said earlier this week on an episode of The Mark Steyn Show, "I miss life".
I do, too and it takes a lot of energy every day to remember the way things were, the way they are meant to be, and that we are not abnormal for wanting our normal lives back. It will be interesting to see if the people who said things would go back to normal "once there's a vaccine" have any plans to actually implement normal ever again now that there's, you know, a vaccine. I'm not convinced. The goal posts keep shifting, the targets for re-normalizing are never articulated, quantified or, frankly, even aspired to by anyone of consequence currently in power.
These are moderately dark feelings to articulate out loud, and incongruous with the approaching holiday season, which is a season of light for so many around the world. This week, the Jewish people will celebrate Chanukah. It is a story of the victory of faith over godlessness, of Jewish pride and identity over assimilation. It's a holiday where more light is added every single day into the home with the addition of more candles on the menorah. It's the story of a miracle. I pray that the Chanukah lights will bring light and goodness into your homes and lives, and a special miracle for those closest to us, and a very special someone right here in the extended Mark Steyn Club family who needs one so badly.
Bear with me as I remain in full In-House Jewish Mother mode this week. Over the past couple of weeks the Torah portion has been telling the story of Jacob. Vayishlach is my favourite portion. This is when Jacob wrestles with the angel at night: when he has won the match, he transforms into Israel. The Jews are then known as the Children of Jacob and also The People of Israel. Jacob struggles in the material world and Israel is the eternal. From this, I take that it is OK, and even expected, that we humans will struggle – with faith, with the challenges we face, with what G-d has put on our path. It's OK to argue with G-d and even to be mad. But in the end, it is our faith in a higher power, and in His infinite mercy and goodness, that we must default to especially – and most acutely – when we and those we love and care about are facing dreadful events and ends.
In case you missed anything from the great Mark Steyn over the past week, make sure to catch up with all of the posts, shows and special appearances. There was Good Cop-Defender, Bad Cop-Defunder and a new episode of The Mark Steyn Show, "Hitler of the Week". If you missed the live Clubland Q&A, you can catch the replay right here. Mark's lovely Song of the Week was They Didn't Believe Me and the Monday episode of The Mark Steyn Show this week was Seven Days in Shenanistan. Don't miss a single thing.
Stay strong and well, and give out extra hugs always to those you love whenever you're able. I'll see you in the comments.
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America:
The art of keeping it simple: this should be the operating theme. "Prove Us Wrong."
From the great Daniel Greenfield: the woke housewives of Silicon Valley.
Everything is raaaaaacist.
China has friends in the top echelons of America. No kidding!
This is pretty funny. This as well.
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Jews and Israel:
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Middle East:
"By condemning the killing of Fakhrizadeh, the EU has found itself on the side of Palestinian terror groups such as the Iran-backed Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad." Indeed.
New Middle East. More updates featured regularly here. Who would have ever thought this possible just a few months ago? It is amazing to me.
This is also wild. Beitar's historic roots are Revisionist Zionist (Jabotinsky) so this is astonishing.
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The Formerly Great Britain:
As per Mark Steyn: the land where everything policed except crime. And hey, maybe there's no crime if this is all they are bleating about.
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Random:
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Humourless Kook Left, Wokestapo and Trans:
The pronoun choices at an American university. This is not a joke apparently and not parody.
Will de-transitioners blow up the entire intersectionality movement? Persuasive argument here, echoing a lot of what Douglas Murray has discussed previously.
Behold: "Chestfeeding".
Not unrelated: the misogyny of trans activism. (podcast via Spiked).
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Human Grace:
They just don't make 'em like this anymore.
It's open thread time! Log into SteynOnline and let Laura know what you think of these stories or other happenings from week that was or the election results that never will be. Commenting privileges are among the many perks of membership in The Mark Steyn Club. While going off topic is permitted on Laura's Links, do stick to the other rules as you engage: no URLs, no profanity, and no ad hominem attacks. Meet your fellow Club members, including Laura, in person by joining us on our rescheduled Mediterranean cruise alongside Tal Bachmann, Michele Bachmann, and Conrad Black among Mark's other special guests.
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14 Member Comments
Loving your Laura Links a bit belatedly, Laura. The young dynamo Rabbi in town has been holding a host of Chanukah activities kicked off last Sunday night with a Babka baking Zoom session (can't be enough of those to make the world happier) with his wife surrounded by young daughters leading the tutorial introduced by a talented young female vocalist from Kenosha, Wisconsin. A lot of joy went into those breads and friends from as far away as Potomac, Maryland were engaged in the festivities. Then Rabbi's mid week event was another zoom session with an illusionist from South Africa. Amazing mind reading tricks unfolded before our eyes halfway around the planet.
I hardly was able to keep up with the world while the celebrations continued through to Sunday night when a local theater offered their parking lot and put up a drive-in screen and the Rabbi showed a live three-piece band playing all the traditional Chanukah pop songs. I didn't know that they had such a song category. I packed up my Glog in a thermos and fresh baked donuts were handed out for all five hundred attendees. It was nippy outside the cars or I'm sure there would've been dancing in the parking lot. I wished you were there. If I was beleaguered by a post-fraudulent election mood, this past week celebrating with my Jewish friends busted that right up and light streamed right through. Thanks for the light you shed on the darkness in all you do! YOU were the one who encouraged me to seek out this local Chabad house. And the Rabbi and his wife just had their eighth bundle of joy yesterday, a precious little girl.
Listened to the Julie Bindel podcast about radical transgenderism. Bindel, a lesbian, weirdly presumed to argue that she didn't want women to be "counted" as victims of gender bias hate crime. Easy for her to say because she's saying it only about the cis-sisterhood, not herself, for lesbians are "counted." In several cases of murder and stranger rape I've researched in America and Britain, authorities openly tried to determine if an offender was acting with homophobic or transphobic rage or was just raping and killing a woman -- or five, or fifty. Thanks to the shameless perversities of hate crime enforcement, the former two motives are officially "worse" crimes than the latter. Bindel is doing the very thing she's griping about when transgender radicals attack her: denying the humanity of heterosexual victims of gender violence by alloting them a lower legal status than gay or transgender ones. I'd love to see the repeal of hate crime laws: entire justice systems rot out beneath their identity games. But as long as we have such laws, who is Bindel to say that non-gay women aren't stalked and raped and killed because they're women? Or, in several notorious serial killings, boys or men? Really, the best way to fight the hate crimes regime is to force them to use these laws in every single case: the all-important stats would immediately cease to be politically useful to the left. With prolific serial killers nearly getting parole in America and serial child-rapists in West Yorkshire being sent mere mail notices to appear in court a decade after their crimes, one would think Bindel of all people would understand the dangers of caste in criminal justice.
Ka Ching! No one has ever said that Ilhan Omar doesn't know how to work the system. That's an interesting link.
Laura, great Links as usual. The contrast between the idiot "woke" housewives and how they throw-away and use their money for harm and the police officer and his wife who adopted the little girl in need is my take-away from the Links.
p.s. Watching Mark on Tucker last night, I couldn't help but notice his hair, for some reason it reminded me of a rocker from the 70's or 80's, but I just can't come up with the name.
Thanks as usual!
My pronouns are yo, yos, yoself--as in go f*** yoself. Just so we're clear.
As for the New Middle East, it's taking me a while to get with the times. I used to despise all the sports enterprises that bore the Emirates logo: Arsenal Football Club, the Dubai Golf Championship, etc. If South Africa was to be shunned for apartheid, how could we consort with proud and avowed antisemites? But that was then. Now, I'm supposed to buy out the gift shop and fill my wardrobe with Gunners gear? And won't it clash with the Fulham scarf I bought when they were but Third Division pups? Shia makes strange bedfellows.
As for the Chinese fellow lamenting that they bought America fair and square, but that, under Trump, it didn't stay bought--can you blame him? From 1992 to 2016, almost a quarter of a century, they had the partner they wanted in Washington, regardless of who was president. They weren't the pirates and thieves we called them; they just paid their licensing fees directly to the politicians, high government officials, and opinion makers who allowed the piracy and thievery to continue. Isn't that, in the quaint capitalist expression, "doing business as business is done"? If there is someone else to pay, kindly submit his/her/zir name to the Comptroller, and remuneration will be forthcoming. Crikey, they even bought a low-life (and I say that without judgement) like Hunter Biden. We can't be angry with them if we sold our soul. They paid good money for it; more than it was worth.
"Bare with me..."
Okay, Laura, I'm game but only if you go first.
More seriously (appropriately?), thanks for yet another fine assemblage of links.
LOL. Noted (and fixed).
I saw that, Laura. Thanks for making a clean bre... Oh, never mind.
I posted this elsewhere and I think it should be of more interest than none. So I'll try again:
Am I the only one to notice how many high ranking Republicans and Trump people have come down with Covid? Yet, I haven't heard of any important Dems who have.
Now you may say that's because Trump and his kind don't take the virus seriously and foolishly expose themselves to it out of ignorance of Science. The only problem with that is the almost daily stories about Dems breaking all the virus rules that Science gives us. Yet they don't seem to get Covid. Hmm....
(Note: When saying "Science", say it like Thomas Dolby does in the song "She Blinded Me With Science")
I did see the previous time you posted this. Someone else (maybe Crenshaw?) pointed out that we know the Dems don't take it seriously because they create the lockdown rules but don't follow them themselves.
As for "Science!" Thomas Dolby had the help of Magnus Pyke, who you can see in the video for the song. He was on a television show that I remember watching in late seventies. Can't seem to find out what it was. From that I immediately recognized him in Dolby's song.
Dear Eric Swalwell,
Your girlfriend might be a Chinese Spy if she:
was born and raised in China but speaks flawless English, is always in a good mood and on time, never complains, listens intently, produces anonymous bulk cash to support your elections and, finally, is genuinely happy when you get work promotions which mean more time away from her.
"Friend in high places"... and many others. Canada proposing to train PLA in "winter survival" and the classic honey pot fun and games in US. Just wondering how a Ski-Doo 850 Summit can be weaponized.? Maybe a new model.. the MX -Xi -XRS?
Laura,
You're best ever.
Bless,
Tim
Thank you, Tim. That's sweet.