Month: June 2024

A London theatre has sparked ridicule after publishing a set of minimum 12-page-long “self-care guides” giving guests “content warnings“, support and more in order to help them “look after yourself”.

The guides, which are produced to accompany a range of shows at the Bush Theatre in West London, contain a string of “self-care suggestions” for sensitive theatre-goers, which describe how they can go about finding support if they consider any of the themes in the productions “difficult”.

The suggestions include ideas like bringing a friend, discussing “distressing” themes with trusted associates, or contacting a range of charities and helplines if needed.

One charity to which the guides link “provides various services for psychological support for people who identify as Black, African, South Asian and Caribbean”.

It also informs viewers to “find some nature”, and reassures guests that “there is nothing wrong with deciding this isn’t for you or it’s too much”, suggesting they can “walk away or turn it off, do what feels right for you”.

In the main handout lies a smaller guide inside on “grounding exercises”; via the following three methods, it says, audience members can “relieve stress” induced by the theatre’s offerings:

1. “Notice five things you can see, four things you can feel, three things you can hear, two things you can smell and one thing you can taste.”
2. “Sit with your feet on the floor and back against your chair and either gently tap each leg or cross your arms and tap your shoulders.”
3. “Wash your hands, have a shower or drink some water.”

Elsewhere, it provides a sprawling “content warnings” list, in which what it deems potentially sensitive themes like the criminal justice system, favouritism and anxiety are flagged via easily-recognisable “emojis”.

The documents – some of which reach as many as 14 pages – contain a full scene-by-scene breakdown of the shows peppered with said emojis to alert readers to the topics at hand.

The synopses of the plays mean guests in need of “content warnings” can read through an entire production ahead of time in order to check for any sensitive topics.

In one play, “Lady Dealer”, about a female drug kingpin reckoning with her mental health, flags the presence of themes of drugs and sexual content alongside “references to body hatred and fatphobia’ and ‘references to blood”.

While another, “Favour”, about a multi-generational family conflict in a Pakistani household in Ilford, warns of references to drink-driving and “difficult family dynamics”.

One more, “Shifters”, cautions viewers that they may encounter “a depiction of a panic attack”, strong language, and “discussion of disability and neurodiversity”.

Reacting to the guides on GB News, host Stephen Dixon mocked the “utter nonsense” guidelines and suggested that those “triggered” by the theatre should “go to a soft play area and sob” instead.

And commentator Nigel Nelson agreed that the guidelines were “nonsense” but argued that those attending “don’t have to read the guide”.

GB News has approached the Bush Theatre for comment.

https://www.gbnews.com/news/london-theatre-trigger-warning-woke

On today’s #NCFWhittle author and veteran political journalist and commentator Peter Hitchens tells us why he believes the prospect of a Starmer-led Labour governement is so catastrophic that it is worth voting for the Conservative Party if it means keeping Labour out of power. He does not believe the current polling is accurate and believes a Labour majority is not guaranteed. Consequently, despite previously calling for the death of the Conservative Party, he now believes that voters should cast their votes for whichever party is likely to prevent a Labour MP from being elected in their constituency.

By S.R. Piccoli

Once upon a time, we were told that the peoples of the Western world — which includes countries like Australia and New Zealand, although located in the Eastern Hemisphere — are heirs and trustees of Western civilization, imbalances and excesses included.  Often referred to simply as “the West,” Western civilization is a broad concept used to understand the cultural, social, political, and economic norms, traditions, values, and institutions that originated in or are associated with Europe.  It has its roots in Ancient Greece and Rome as well as in Christianity, humanism, the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and the Industrial Revolution. It values rationalism, democracy, and individual freedoms and rights.

Later on, Marxist and otherwise far-left historians argued that the history of the West is marked by exploitation and conflict among different social classes, from feudal lords and serfs in the Middle Ages to capitalists and workers in the modern era.  Marxists, in particular, introduced the concept of cultural hegemony, formulated by Antonio Gramsci to describe ideological domination of the bourgeoisie over the proletariat.  In other words, according to this type of approach, the dominant cultural norms and values of Western civilization serve to maintain the power of the ruling class.

As of now, the left-wing narrative is that Western civilization is an illusion.  Postmodern and deconstructionist historians have claimed that the West is a late invention of the 18th-century philosopher. Skeptical of the grand narratives that have historically been used to describe Western civilization, such as progress, enlightenment, etc., they argue that these narratives often oversimplify complex histories and marginalize alternative perspectives.

It is in this context that the new book How the World Made the West, written by Josephine Quinn, professor of ancient history at Oxford University, needs to be read.  It’s aimed to bring to fulfillment the goal and the dream of legions of leftists the world over and from time immemorial.  Quinn’s purpose is not to trash what generations of schoolchildren and college students have been taught to take pride in as Western values and achievements.  Rather, she wants to demolish the underlying concept of what she calls “civilizational thinking,” which suggests that there is no such thing as “Western civilization.”  By the way, as she puts it, this “civilizational thinking” provided the cultural rationale for western European supremacy during the 19th century, enabling colonial expansion and racial hierarchies.

Quinn points out that Western civilization would not exist without its Islamic, African, Indian, and Chinese influences, and that so-called Western values — freedom, rationality, justice and tolerance — are not only or originally Western.  Rather, “the West itself is in large part a product of long-standing links with a much larger network of societies.”

Nobody has ever thought that ancient cultures existed in hermetical separation.  The trouble with Quinn is that if there are no monolithic “civilizations,” she seems to deny even that there are (at least) distinct cultures.  This is, quite frankly, the same as thinking a square has five sides, a challenge to common sense and to the most evidence-based certainties.

In short, Quinn’s radicalism — or a (perhaps unconscious) desire to please the “woke” and “cancel culture” people — is her Achilles heel.  It is inevitable, at this point, to recall G.K. Chesterton’s prophetic words:

Everything will be denied. Everything will become a creed. It is a reasonable position to deny the stones in the street; it will be a religious dogma to assert them. It is a rational thesis that we are all in a dream; it will be a mystical sanity to say that we are all awake. Fires will be kindled to testify that two and two make four. Swords will be drawn to prove that leaves are green in summer.

What is perhaps most surprising about the book is its warm welcome from critics in the United Kingdom, where How the World Made the West was published by Bloomsbury on February 29, 2024.  This unequivocally means that the capitulation of the British cultural establishment to “woke” culture — and  other elite obsessions — is complete.  Take a look at these reviews to get an idea: “The history of the West is not quite what you learned in school” (The Economist), “How the World Made the West by Josephine Quinn review — rethinking ‘civilisation’” (The Guardian), “The myth of ‘the West’” (New Statesman), “How the World Made the West — a scuttling of civilisational myths” (Financial Times).

The latter has a good question (after generous praise):

At the end of this supremely professional history, I was left with the question of who is it for? Approaching the 50th anniversary of Edward Said’s seminal Orientalism, our undergraduates certainly don’t lack for cultural relativism or calls for decolonisation. In the UK, Generation Z already has precious little appetite for defending “western civilisation”, with a recent YouGov poll showing 38 per cent of under-40s say they would refuse to serve in the armed forces in the event of a new world war, and 30 per cent say they would not serve even if Britain was facing imminent invasion.

The book will be published in North America by Penguin Random House on September 3, 2024.

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2024/06/how_the_west_was_lost_at_oxford_university.html

A Massachusetts couple who were prevented from becoming foster parents because of their adherence to Catholic teaching and their faith-based opposition to LGBT ideology and can move forward with their lawsuit after a federal judge rejected a motion to dismiss their case.

In his court order, the judge wrote that the decision of the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF) caused Mike and Kitty Burke to face a “fundamental dilemma in this case: they could renounce their religious beliefs and receive a foster license, or they could adhere to those beliefs and forfeit the license,” the Massachusetts Family Institute (MFI) reported.

“This is a major win that is likely to have significant implications for Christian families in the Commonwealth and beyond,” wrote attorney Sam Whiting of MFI.

The Burkes, a Catholic couple who have struggled with infertility, applied to the DCF foster care program in 2022. They “underwent hours of training” and were recommended by their instructor for “positive contributions in the class,” according to a press release from Becket law firm.

During home interviews, the couple “emphasized their willingness to foster children from diverse backgrounds and with special needs” but “were troubled that much of the questions centered on their Catholic views on sexual orientation, marriage, and gender dysphoria,” the release continues, noting that the Burkes stressed that they “would love and accept any child, no matter the child’s future sexual orientation or struggles with gender identity.” 

According to the lawsuit, interviewers with the DCF recognized the “family’s strengths, this including their willingness to parent a child w/moderately significant medical, mental health and behavioral needs” and that the couple “really seem to understand adoption/foster care.” 

However, the “one reason… given for [the] denial” was the assertion that the Burkes “would not be affirming to a child who identified as LGBTQIA.” The author of the couple’s license study described them as “lovely people” but ultimately decided that “their faith is not supportive, and neither are they.” 

“After months of interviews and training, and after years of heartbreak, we were on the verge of finally becoming parents,” the couple said. “We were absolutely devastated to learn that Massachusetts would rather children sleep in the hallways of hospitals than let us welcome children in need into our home.” 

“Massachusetts cannot exclude religious couples like the Burkes from fostering because they are religious, nor can they punish qualified families for their deeply held religious beliefs. If this can happen to the Burkes, it can happen to loving, qualified foster families of diverse faiths across Massachusetts,” wrote Becket.

The complaint makes clear that the couple stands by their faith-inspired beliefs “that all children should be loved and supported, and they would never reject a child placed in their home.” Additionally, the document specifies their belief “that children should not undergo procedures that attempt to change their God-given sex, and they uphold Catholic beliefs about marriage and sexuality.” 

The lawsuit invokes the First and Fourteenth Amendments, which “require Defendants to cease discriminating against Plaintiffs and those who share Plaintiffs’ religious beliefs on the basis of their religious beliefs, exercise, and expression.”

In similar cases, lawsuits were recently filed by two Christian families in Vermont who had their licenses revoked because of their faith-informed views on human sexuality, according to their complaints. 

Vermont foster care state licensing rules stipulate that “all foster parents are prohibited from engaging in any form” of so-called “discrimination” against foster children based on “sexual orientation” and “gender identity.” They must specifically “support children in wearing” any clothing affirming a presumed “gender identity.”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/catholic-couple-blocked-from-fostering-children-for-rejecting-lgbtqia-ideology-win-first-court-battle/?utm_source=featured-news&utm_campaign=usa

TEC TV’s Inside Brussels host Zsófia Tóth-Bíró sits down with Mick Hume and Scarlett Karoleva to look at the stakes in the European elections, the importance of voting, and what exit polls in early voting countries tell us.

https://europeanconservative.com/articles/interviews/inside-brussels-ep-8-eu-elections-the-final-countdown

Breathe a sigh of relief before the upcoming European Championships: shortly before the big event, police and state security possibly thwarted a terrorist attack on a public viewing event. The German-Moroccan-Polish national Soufian T. (23) was planning to apply as a steward. Checks revealed that he was an Islamist.
Shortly before the upcoming European Championships, the German police and state security forces may have prevented a terrorist attack at a public viewing event. As the newspaper ‘Bild’ learnt, the German-Moroccan-Polish national Soufian T. (23) was planning to apply as a steward.
When checking the application, the investigators discovered that Soufian T. was already known to the State Security Service and the Office for the Protection of the Constitution as an Islamist. Based on these findings, the Cologne Police Headquarters rejected the accreditation for the European Championships.

In addition, state security established that the Islamist had also applied for two other accreditations – namely for Rock am Ring and the 24-hour race at the Nürburgring. These applications were also rejected.

During further investigations, the Federal Police informed the state security officers that the terror suspect had already booked a one-way ticket from Cologne/Bonn Airport to Istanbul at the beginning of May, ‘Bild’ also reported.
As a result, the Federal Criminal Police Office was called in to carry out further investigations into the Islamist’s cash flows and internet activities. As the suspicion of a terrorist connection continued to grow, the Federal Public Prosecutor General opened an investigation on suspicion of supporting a terrorist organisation abroad.

Anschlag geplant? Islamist versucht sich als Ordner bei der Fußball-EM zu bewerben | Exxpress

A new discovery in Italy suggests children in ancient Rome drew violent images from the events of their daily lives. 

Experts say the children used to witness gladiator fights and hunting scenes and later sketched them on their mansions’ walls.

The findings came during restoration work at the famous Pompeii archaeological park.

The drawings were in charcoal and assumed to be from the hands of a child, “due to the simplicity of the execution, the naive nature of the line and the simplifications of the iconographic schemes,” a press release stated. 

The site’s director Gabriel Zuchtriegel says the graffiti was likely made by children around 5-7 years of age due to the sketches showing legs and arms coming straight out of the head.

Researchers believe the children drew these after witnessing the events firsthand, not by recreating a scene from another pictorial model. 

“Probably one or more of the children who played in this courtyard … had witnessed fights in the amphitheater, thus coming into contact with an extreme form of spectacularized violence, which could also include executions of criminals and slaves,” Zuchtriegel said. 

The drawings reveal kids of that generation were exposed to “extreme forms of violence,” which is a concern still today with video games and movies.

“The drawings show us the impact of this on the imagination of a young boy or girl, subject to the same developmental stages that are still found today,” Zuchtriegel said. 

In a neighboring house, archaeologists found a portrait of a hooded child, possibly the son of the owners, and the remains of a man and a woman who died during a volcanic eruption.

Pompeii unveils violent images drawn by children 2,000 years ago (livenowfox.com)

Workers in Mexico City who have had enough of LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations quite literally took matters into their own hands and tore into pieces two massive rainbow banners that hung at the government’s National Housing Fund for Workers (INFONAVIT) building.

Union leader Rafael Riva Palacio ordered the destruction and removal of the banners, saying that they are “unworthy.”

“I personally and a group of colleagues cannot allow it, and as many times as they want to put it up, as many times as they put it up, we are going to remove it,” said Palacio, pointing to the rainbow banner, according to a report by El País.

Carlos Martinez, the director of INFONAVIT who describes himself as “gay,” denounced on X the tearing down of the banners as an act “of barbarism, hatred, homophobia and discrimination,” and swore “The flags will be raised again and as many times as necessary.”

🇲🇽 Workers revolt against Pride Month at a government institution in Mexico City:

"The only flag is our national flag" pic.twitter.com/O9X3nG5PVV

— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) June 6, 2024

Two days later, Martinez posted another photo boasting that at least one of the banners had been quickly replaced.

Se volvió a poner la bandera. pic.twitter.com/8w9rIbvHQY

— Carlos Martínez V. 🏳️‍🌈 (@carlosmartinezv) June 6, 2024

He also said that “Members of the LGBTTTIQ+ populations had repaired the damaged flags with staples, thread and tape, proposing to use them in the 2024 Pride March.”

“The revolution of consciences is going to triumph,” declared Martinez, suggesting that those who do not accept homosexuality and transgenderism need to conform to LGBTQ+ ideology.

The tearing down of the rainbow banners comes on the heels of the election of Mexico’s woke, pro-LGBTQ+ president Claudia Sheinbaum earlier this week.

Sheinbaum has made her support of LGBTQ+ political ideology clear in recent years.

In 2022, she celebrated the legalization of homosexual “marriage” in the states of Guerrero and Tamaulipas with the statement: “Today the entire country makes progress in equal rights with the passage of marriage equality (sic) in Guerrero and Tamaulipas. I celebrate this demonstration of the will of the people and the search for justice for all men and women by both state congresses. Love is love.”

That same year, she became the first mayor of Mexico City to take part in the city’s LGBT “pride” parade.

In 2023, on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe, she posted a photo of herself to X stating, “My dream is to continue to fight for sexually diverse people as I did in Mexico City.”

https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/workers-revolt-against-pride-month-in-mexico-city-tear-down-unworthy-banners/?utm_source=most_recent&utm_campaign=catholic

On today’s #NCFNewspeak, NCF Director Peter Whittle, Senior Fellow Rafe Heydel-Mankoo and Amy Gallagher of Stand Up To Woke discuss: * D-Day and our nation’s historical ignorance * Nigel Farage and Reform: Can they beat the Tories? * American cultural Marxism has swept through our institutions and may topple the West

The European Parliament elections represent an existential battle between the open borders agenda of elites in Brussels and those who wish to reclaim national sovereignty and save their countries and cultures from being subsumed by mass migration, a French MEP told Breitbart News.

In an exclusive interview before the French public heads to the polls on Saturday to select their next representatives in the EU Parliament, National Rally Member of the European Parliament Patricia Chagnon said that the “crucial” vote will see people decide whether they want to continue being under the thumb of the centralised “imperialistic management” of EU technocrats or citizens taking back control of their own destinies.

For Chagnon, one of the most glaring infringements on national sovereignty has been on immigration, with EU directives superseding national law and European courts enforcing the diktats, with the latest example coming in the form of the new Migration Pact, which she said is an “absolute disaster” that “makes illegal immigration legal”.

“If the Germans want to take in a million migrants from Africa, they can do whatever they like, but given the fact that we have Schengen [the EU’s internal open borders system] and they can just walk right into France, there is a problem because that has not been decided by my country,” she told Breitbart London.

“It is a country that should decide on its migration policy, definitely not a one-shoe-fits-all decided by some technocrats in Brussels,” Chagnon said. “I profoundly believe that only the National Assembly, where the French people are represented, has sovereignty over my country.”

The MEP said that she has personally experienced the negative ramifications of mass migration, saying that — especially as a woman — she felt the French way of life is slipping away.

Chagnon explained that even as a sixty-year-old woman, she “adapts” how she dresses when she goes to Paris, taking care to cover up when on the streets or public transport. She also said that her own daughter decided to leave the French capital and move to Australia after being attacked on the streets of Paris twice.

“The whole way of life is being changed,” she lamented. “People are adapting their way of life under the terrible pressure that we have from these Muslim gangs going around trying to enforce adherence to their Sharia Islamic laws. They have used the freedoms in Europe to curtail ours.”

Highlighting the change, the National Rally politician said that even in her small rural beachside town, she saw women wearing Islamic “burkinis” — a full-body covering alternative to the bikini for Muslim women to abide by the religion’s draconian dress codes — whereas, before the open borders societal transformation, starlets like Brigit Bardot would famously sunbathe on French beaches topless.

“You wear bloody burkinis in Saudi Arabia, what may be liberation for women over there is a terrible regression in France,” Chagnon said.

The populist politician said mass migration was being inflicted upon the people of Europe by globalists in Brussels, who do not see immigration as a problem, but rather as “their project”.

“They want to dilute this ‘horrible’ Western civilisation of colonialism and the Second World War, with the white male at the root of all problems in the world today, the West needs to pay for that,” she said.

“Immigration is their project, it is not seen as their problem, they just can’t say it like that because they would have everyone on the streets saying ‘it is a problem, come and see where I live’.”

Meanwhile, the globalist project has been bolstered with support from the far-left, whom she argued have “lost their traditional labour electorate, and are purposefully looking at getting these new ‘French citizens’ to vote for them in opposition to ‘bad, old colonial France’.”

However, Chagnon said that there is a burgeoning awakening in France of the need to curtail immigration, saying that people are coming to realise that “we can’t integrate them, they are not going to school, they are dealing drugs, they are running wild,” pointing to last year’s race-inspired riots following the police killing of Algerian-heritage teen.

This is the main reason why, she said, that her party’s leader, 28-year-old Jordan Bardella, has had such a successful campaign for the EU Parliament elections, with his National Rally widely projected to come out on top after the votes are cast on Saturday, with polls predicting the populist party will likely enjoy twice the support of President Emmanuel Macron’s party.

“Bardella has had such a successful campaign because a lot of people have realised that we are submerged by immigration, we can’t handle it, insecurity is rampant, drug dealers run total neighbourhoods, it’s out of control, we need to get a grip on this and the vast majority of the French people agree with us,” she said.

The rise of the National Rally in France comes amid a wider populist pushback across the bloc. Chagnon said this will provide a historic opportunity for conservatives and populists to band together in the EU Parliament and give back power to national governments to set their own migration policies, pointing to Denmark, which negotiated opt-out clauses from Brussels diktats and therefore has been able to enact stringent migration policies, as a potential model.

“This election is really about two views of the world, one governed by technocrats in centralised Brussels and the other of EU cooperation between free nation-states.”

https://www.breitbart.com/europe/2024/06/07/exclusive-from-brigitte-bardot-to-burkinis-french-way-of-life-being-destroyed-by-mass-migration-says-mep