As a litigation attorney, whenever I prepared a client for a deposition, I would emphasize: “Tell only the truth. Do not lie; do not obfuscate. Your job is to be honest. My job is to figure out how to save you despite that.” The rabbinic reason to be honest is that it is good for your soul and helps open a door for you to Paradise, the Garden of Eden, after your life on this earth. You have been sworn in by the court officer, and G-d commanded not to take His Holy Name in vain and not to be a false witness. It all is “recorded” — in Heaven. That is the rabbinic perspective. However, I was not being paid the big bucks for my Talmudic learning and religious devotion. Rather, I was being paid to be as good an attorney as the law firm expected when they hired me. And I knew that it simply is the best litigation tactic to be honest because, if you lie, you will have to remember every detail of that lie for the rest of your life, or someday it will come back to bite you. It all is recorded — by the deposition stenographer. Before We Move On To More Important Things… Now to Harris: Besides being very correctly attacked for her shameful immorality in entering public life, her extremely woke record in California politics, and her failed 2020 presidential campaign, Harris also has been mocked repeatedly for several things — primarily her cackling and her word salads. I have written elsewhere that we now have moved beyond the introductions and honeymoon, and it is time to focus for the next three months on 12 extreme-left policies and issues that lie at the core of her entire political identity. Nevertheless, I would like to tie one last knot: the three memes. Many in the Republican conservative world have mocked three particular Harris memes that have emerged in TikTok Land and Instagram Universe: the coconut tree, the Venn diagrams, and the yellow school buses. In and of themselves, all three should be left alone. It is time to move on to the serious stuff: the 12 issues and policies. But a big asterisk should be appended. I am a big believer in being fair. If my cause is just, it will not suffer for being fair to the other side when “fair is fair.” So I have written elsewhere that, truth be told, President Trump spoke much too long at the Republican National Convention. His scripted speech was pitch-perfect, and he should have mostly stuck to it, with just a bit of segueing. True is true. Fair is fair. As to Harris, I see no reason to mock her narrative that her mother would say to her when she would do or say something drawing parental comment, “Did you just fall out of a coconut tree?” I think that is charming. It is exactly the kind of thing President Trump does all the time. He pulls something out of somewhere, a segue prompted by something only he can understand, and we who support him love that stuff. It is so real. It is so different from the over-scripted Biden, Romney, and McCain types who dare not speak off-script at all and, consequently, show no personality. We don’t trust them because we know only what their speech writers think, not what they think. In our guts, we don’t trust them at all because we know they are reading, not speaking from the gut. We may like what they have to say, but we don’t trust that the speakers themselves believe what they are reading. When Harris tells her coconut memory, that is charming. When Trump goes off script and goes wherever he will, his supporters love that. The man is real. The Venn Diagram Thing, Like the Coconut Tree Thing, Is Charming If he wants to talk about Hannibal the Cannibal, even though his speechwriters are going crazy backstage, we know we can trust him when he says he will close the border and more. In the same vein is Harris’s Venn. When she starts talking about how much she loves Venn diagrams, that indeed is weird, but it is charming. I remember a Trump speech I was watching on TV in 2016 with my beloved wife Ellen of blessed memory, during which Trump had a fly passing in front of him. He gently swatted it away. Next thing you know, he was talking about mosquitoes, seals, and sharks. One minute, he is promising to build the border wall, to stand up to Putin and Kim Jong Un, and to move the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, and the next minute or two it goes from mosquitoes to sharks to seals. Ellen and I just laughed and laughed and laughed. We loved that stuff! So did the 63 million Americans who elected him president. He is so real. McCain would not do that. Jimmy Carter would not do that. Romney would not do that. Jeb Bush would not do that. Clinton would not do that. And y’know what? They also would not close the border, stand up to Putin and Kim Jong Un, and move that embassy to Jerusalem. So, fair is fair: I have no issue with Harris waxing on about her love for Venn diagrams and her memory of her mother asking whether she just had fallen out of a coconut tree. After all: if not now, Venn? Who Doesn’t Love a Yellow School Bus? But the third meme. Ah, the yellow school bus. Who does not love a yellow school bus? When I was a boy, I attended yeshiva Jewish parochial school all my pre-college years. They do not have a yeshiva every three blocks like Starbucks. All yeshiva kids go to school by school bus. Our yeshiva, Brooklyn’s Yeshiva Rambam, used a company named “Reliable Buses, Inc.” And, yes, as predictable, one of their six or so buses that served Rambam would break down every week. That was what was so reliable about them — they guaranteed at least one breakdown reliably per week. Reliable Buses, Inc. had six drivers who served the school year after year. I still remember three of them 60 years later: Willie, Joe, and Tony. Willy was humorless and no-nonsense. He parted his silver hair down the middle. Joe was gruff-looking and intimidating, but an OK guy. And Tony — oh, Tony!  We always hoped each year that this year Tony would be assigned our route. He insisted we call him “Tony Baloney.” How could a kid not love such a guy? And his super-dopey single joke had us in stitches for eight years of grade school. He would ask another kid every day, in his Brooklyn Italian accent: “Hey, ya know what?” The kid would answer “No. What?” And he would answer: “That’s what.” And we all would be laughing hysterically for the next 10 minutes. We loved the school bus. We could talk with our friends. Criticize our teachers behind their backs. Plan recess activities. Get into arguments about who is better, the Yankees or the Mets. The boys could make fun of the girls. The girls could make fun of the boys. (We all ended up marrying happily, and we never expanded beyond two genders.) If Toby Keith could write and sing I Love This Bar, we could have sung I Love This Bus. We just did not know how to write it. Or to sing it. When Kamala Harris tried to be charming and started waxing warmly reminiscent, cackling “Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus?” I could have filed that with the charming coconut and Venn memes. Only one thing: In 2020 she was seeking the Democrat nomination for president. She fizzled out rapidly after an abrupt, concise moment when she briefly surged to the top. She never even made it to the Iowa caucuses. Her brief golden moment came when she correctly associated Joe Biden with bare-knuckles racism for having worked closely with racist Democrat senators to oppose busing and, thus, prevent school integration. By contrast, Kamala portrayed herself as a pitiable victim of American Jim Crow society, a victim of racists like Joe Biden and his bigoted white buddies, because she was that martyr who got a break by being bused to school for integration. Suddenly, a yellow school bus was not a subject for cackling gleefully but a cynical political weapon to wield against an old, privileged, and prejudiced White male. She tugged at American left-wing hearts as she practically cried, a casualty of persecution saved only by government fiat that put her onto a school bus. That is why we tell our law clients never to lie or mislead. It may work at today’s deposition. But it will be recorded. And your public mendacity will come back later when you slip and forget how you characterized school buses four years earlier. That debate night, a yellow school bus brought tears to the cameras. Now, having forgotten her public drama, she waxes reminiscent and cackles: “Who doesn’t love a yellow school bus?” So much fun, all through the town. It is just as she lied shamelessly to us, looking us in the eye for four years, telling us without a blink that Biden was sharp, incisive, and mentally keen. And physically hard to keep up with. No, Harris. We can keep up with Biden. The challenge is to keep up with your unblinking falsifications to our faces. Subscribe to Rav Fischer’s YouTube channel here and follow him on X (Twitter) at @DovFischerRabbi to find his latest informative and inspiring classes, interviews, speeches, and observations. The post Of Kamala’s Coconuts, Venn Diagrams, and Yellow School Buses appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Las miradas de los actuantes parecen, en las instantáneas fotográficas de incidentes revolucionarios,  mitad cretinas mitad dementes.   In the candid snapshots of revolutionary incidents,  the looks of the participants seem half cretinous,  half-demented.  — Nicolás Gómez Dávila Marie Antoinette, the queen consort of France, went to her death on Oct. 16, 1793, in a horse-cart, so that she might be subjected to the jeers of the mob as she passed down the Rue Saint-Honoré towards the guillotine casting its shadow over the Place de la Révolution. Her hair was closely shorn to her scalp, and she was bound like a dog by a chafing rope leash. She somehow maintained her queenly dignity to the very end, refusing to speak to the so-called constitutional priest assigned to hear her last confession. When she accidentally trod on the executioner Sanson’s foot, she uttered her last recorded words: “Pardonnez-moi, monsieur. Je ne l’ai pas fait exprès.” “Pardon me, sir. I did not do it on purpose.” If those were indeed her last spoken words, her last thoughts, we may safely surmise, were directed towards a power far greater than that of the Committee of Public Safety — le Seigneur, le Père, le Créateur, le Dieu Tout–Puissant. After her head was separated from her body by the guillotine’s angled blade, and her remains hastily consigned to an unmarked grave in the Cimetière de la Madeleine, the revolutionary mass-murderer Maximilien de Robespierre would greedily claim for himself a memento of his greatest crime: the queen’s prayer book, in which she had written, in her last morning on earth, Mon Dieu ayez pitié de moi! Mes yeux n’ont plus de larmes pour pleurer pour vous mes pauvres enfants. Adieu, Adieu! “My God, have pity on me. My eyes have no more tears to cry for you, my dear children. Farewell! Farewell!” In perhaps the best-known passage in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, Edmund Burke recalled having seen the queen of France, then still a dauphiness, on the luxurious grounds of Versailles, where she decorated and cheered “the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like the morning star full of life and splendor and joy.” Upon hearing of her mistreatment at the hands of the Parisian mob, Burke had assumed that “ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look that threatened her with insult.” Yet those 10,000 swords remained in their sheathes, leading Burke to conclude that “the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever.” Never, never more, shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom! The unbought grace of life, the cheap defense of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone. It is gone, that sensibility of principle, that chastity of honor, which felt a stain like a wound, which inspired courage whilst it mitigated ferocity, which ennobled whatever it touched, and under which vice itself lost half its evil, by losing all its grossness. Such is the lasting legacy of the French Revolution. Opening Ceremony Performance Mocked Marie Antoinette Our own age is far less chivalrous even than Burke’s, so it comes as little surprise to find Marie Antoinette still being subjected to mockery by the Parisian mob some 231 years after her execution on trumped-up charges of high treason, conspiracy, and “depletion of the treasury.” (Imagine if the last of those remained a capital offense.) And so it was that viewers of the Olympics Opening Ceremony on July 26, 2024, were treated to, among a great many other vulgar images, the spectacle of the heavy metal band Gojira performing the revolutionary anthem Ah! Ça ira from the windows of the Conciergerie, the prison where Marie Antoinette was imprisoned, accompanied by decapitated figures in 18th-century attire, and tangles of crimson streamers representing the copious blood shed for what the video screen assured us was Liberté. Like much of what the Spectator’s Gareth Roberts dubbed “la grande débâcle” in Paris, which included “a headless Marie Antoinette, a piano inexplicably set alight, and – inevitably – a bevy of slaying and sashaying drag queens and ‘non-binaries,’ performing a sassy vogue parody of The Last Supper … the kind of phoney rebellion that was already embarrassing on stage at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern in 1994, but at least was confined safely to bad gay pubs,” the grotesquerie at the Conciergerie was intentionally off-putting. It was also a significant breach of decorum, and a diplomatic faux pas, given that two of the royals in attendance, Juan Carlos of Spain and Grand Duke Henri of Luxembourg, are direct descendants of the Bourbons. I am sure that some hear the opening lines of the sadistic sans-culotte version of “Ça ira” — Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira les aristocrates à la lanterne! Ah! ça ira, ça ira, ça ira les aristocrates on les pendra!   [Oh, it’ll be fine,  it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine Aristocrats to the lamp-post! Oh, it’ll be fine,  it’ll be fine, it’ll be fine Aristocrats, we’ll be hanging them!] — and find it all very stirring. These are presumably the sorts of people, their mindsets the products either of leftist indoctrination or stunted amygdalas, who think that the coldblooded murders of the grand duchesses Olga, Tatiana, Maria, and Anastasia Nikolaevna Romanova in the basement of Ipatiev House in 1918 were just a bit of sporting fun. For my part, when I hear “Ça ira” I think of the tens of thousands of innocents killed, often without trial, during the Reign of Terror, at the hands of literal freaks like Robespierre, Danton, and Marat. I think of the 1793 James Gillray satirical print The Zenith of French Glory; The Pinnacle of Liberty. Religion, Justice, Loyalty, & All the Bugbears of Unenlightened Minds, Farewell! with its unforgettable image of a sans-culotte posing near a trio of murdered priests and fiddling while Parisian cathedrals burn (as they still do these days, mind you). I think of the anti-Catholic campaign of genocide in the Vendée, as described by the Republican general and notorious war criminal François Joseph Westermann: Il n’y a plus de Vendée, citoyens républicains. Elle est morte sous notre sabre libre, avec ses femmes et ses enfants, je viens de l’enterrer dans les marais et les bois de Savenay, suivant les ordres que vous m’aviez donnés. J’ai écrasé les enfants sous les pieds des chevaux, massacrés les femmes qui, au moins pour celles-là, n’enfanteront plus de brigands…nous ne faisons pas de prisonniers, il faudrait leur donner le pain de la liberté et la pitié n’est pas révolutionnaire. [There is no longer a Vendée, my fellow Republican citizens. She died under our free sword, with her wives and children, I just buried her in the marshes and woods of Savenay, pursuant to the orders you gave me. I crushed the children under the feet of the horses, massacred the women who, for their part, will no longer give birth to brigands … we do not take prisoners, for we would have to give them the bread of freedom, and pity is not revolutionary.] Little of the material legacy of the French Revolution remains. We do not wear Phrygian caps, or dance around the Tree of Liberty, or read the deranged scribblings of Anacharsis Cloots, or observe the calendrier révolutionnaire français with its ridiculous 10-hour days and 10-day weeks. Yet its ideological legacy of blood remains, seemingly ineradicable, reminding us of the truth of Nicolás Gómez Dávila’s maxim that “revolutions bequeath to literature only the laments of their victims and the invectives of their enemies.” Year Zeros Are Predicate by Blood and Barbarism The grande débâcle of the Parisian Olympics Opening Ceremony has been roundly criticized, in these pages by Messrs. Aguilar, McGee, and others, and elsewhere, with the French public intellectual Alain Finkielkraut disgusted by the “conformist” and “decadent” nature of the proceedings, so devoid of those typically Gallic qualities of “taste, grace, lightness, delicacy, elegance, beauty.” Eric Zemmour, the journalist and leader of the nationalist Reconquête party, focused less on the aesthetic and more on the political nature of the event: Un spectacle politique jusqu’au bout des ongles fluorescents des drag queens. Un spectacle de mauvais goût, jusqu’à la tête coupée de Marie-Antoinette qui chante le «ça ira». Un spectacle faussement subversif jusqu’à Philippe Katerine qui danse nu au milieu d’une bien laide parodie de la Cène. Le vrai subversif risque sa peau : en 2024, Philippe Katerine ne risque rien à se mettre à poil en blasphémant le Christ. Bref des «mutins de Panurge», qui respectent le nouvel ordre moral, le doigt sur la couture. [A political spectacle down to the very tip of the fluorescent nails of the drag queens. A spectacle of bad taste, down to the decapitated head of Marie-Antoinette singing “Ça ira.” A falsely subversive show leading up to Philippe Katerine dancing naked in the middle of a very ugly parody of the Last Supper. The true subversive risks his skin: in 2024, Philippe Katerine risks nothing by getting naked and blaspheming Christ. In short, “Panurge’s Sheep [i.e. a fashionable rebel],” respecting the new moral order, standing at attention.] There are many ways to respond to anti-religious chauvinism and that frenzied antagonism towards normality that is sometimes described as Bio-Leninism, whether in the public square, at the ballot box, as a participant in the market, or just living out a normal, decent existence. Sacrilege is a perverse sort of compliment, a tacit acknowledgment of the power of the target’s faith and values, and the deficiencies of those of the provocateur. As such it can all usually be laughed off. There was something particularly disturbing, nevertheless, about the overtly political spectacle at the Conciergerie, which went beyond mere poor taste. Those who positively revel in the death of an innocent woman, in the slaughter of ideological enemies, in a political movement predicated on wholesale human sacrifice, in the prospect of an entire nation converted into a gore-flecked hecatomb, deep down are capable of most anything. Hatred of beauty, hatred of faith, and hatred of history invariably produce the worst crimes modernity has to offer. Year Zeros can only be inaugurated amidst a welter of blood and barbarism. Bear in mind that the very idea of “the Left” came into existence when the Jacobins, together with the even more extreme Montagnards, sat to the left of the president’s chair in the National Convention, and that it was under the Jacobin Dictatorship, with its unholy Reign of Terror, that Marie Antoinette and so many others lost their lives. An unapologetic celebration of revolutionary bloodletting, broadcast to every corner of the globe, speaks to a myriad of lessons unlearned and surely presages new episodes of violence to come. It is to be hoped that those of faith, good conscience, and basic human decency retain the capacity to feel the stain of the Opening Ceremony “like a wound,” and redouble their efforts on behalf of the beleaguered “grace of life” Edmund Burke described so eloquently in his Reflections on the Revolution in France. The post <i>Ça ira!</i>: Opening Ceremony at the Concierge Was More Than Just Bad Taste appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

The gender wars are alive and well in American politics. The political gender gap between men and women continues to widen, creating a “new fault line” among American voters. The divide is particularly pronounced among voters under the age of 30. Where young men favor President Donald Trump and other Republican politicians, young women firmly support Democrat lawmakers. In particular, young women have grown increasingly liberal in recent decades.  Democrats Adopt Longhouse Tactics The leftward drift among young women mirrors the gradual feminization of politics. Though the “girl boss” motif of the career-focused woman who has it all peaked several years ago, Democrats can’t stop leaning in. In the analysis of Jonathan Keeperman, who posts under the pseudonym “Lomez,” politics has been subsumed into the “longhouse.” Keeperman defines the longhouse thus:  “It refers at once to our increasingly degraded mode of technocratic governance; but also to wokeness, to the “progressive,” “liberal,” and “secular” values that pervade all major institutions. More fundamentally, the Longhouse is a metonym for the disequilibrium afflicting the contemporary social imaginary.” The disequilibrium Keeperman identifies is gendered. The longhouse results from the “remarkable overcorrection of the last two generations towards social norms centering feminine needs and feminine methods for controlling, directing, and modeling behavior.” (RELATED: The Longhouse Comes for Lomez) Last week, the longhouse was in full effect during the “White Women for Kamala” call. TikTok star Arielle Fodor — an elementary teacher who makes videos explaining political headlines in a sing-song baby talk voice reminiscent of Dolores Umbridge — spoke during the event.  “Take a beat and instead we can put our listening ears on,” Fodor instructed adult women who might find themselves “talking over or speaking for BIPOC [Black, Indigenous, and other people of color] individuals or, God forbid, correcting them.” Caught in a political environment where this style of passive aggression has replaced direct confrontation, it’s no surprise that young men feel increasingly alienated. Kamala Wants to Be the It-Girl  But Kamala’s female supporters aren’t the only ones buying into the longhouse. The vice president herself has leaned into immature, girlish tactics on the campaign trail, too. Harris debuted her campaign’s “Kamala HQ” rapid response page with bright green branding in the style of “brat,” the trend defined by English pop star Charli XCX’s most recent album.  Eager to fit in with TikTok’s it-girls, Kamala embraced the blurry, neon aesthetics of brat and its accompanying social connotations. As Charli XCX eloquently explained: “You’re just like that girl who is a little messy and likes to party and maybe says some dumb things sometimes. Who feels herself but maybe also has a breakdown. But kind of like, parties through it, is very honest, very blunt. A little bit volatile. Like, does dumb things. But it’s brat. You’re brat. That’s brat.”   Since announcing her campaign, Kamala has basked in the brat-hued glow of friendly media focused on providing positive press rather than substantive engagement with her still-nebulous policy platform. In the meantime, the longhouse has closed rank, attacking Sen. JD Vance as “weird.” Even rank-and-file Democrats have noticed a change, with Feminist Fight Club author Jessica Bennett celebrating the shift in the New York Times: “Finally, the Democrats start name-calling.” (READ MORE: Vance Is Right. Our Society Is Plagued by Childless Cat Ladies.) Perhaps it’s strategic, perhaps it’s long overdue, but Kamala’s campaign is definitely tapping into the immaturity of middle school girlhood. One user on Twitter/X commented earlier this week, “I hope Kamala doesn’t start a real campaign and instead just keeps her girl campaign where they talk about pop music and call boys weird.” I hope Kamala doesn’t start a real campaign and instead just keeps her girl campaign where they talk about pop music and call boys weird — John Doyle (@ComradeDoyIe) July 30, 2024 The Gender Gap Grows Based on Kamala’s campaign thus far, it’s no wonder that young men have swung towards the right. But this kind of political divide doesn’t just fuel the gender war — it also heightens the stakes of division among women and men themselves.  In spite of — or perhaps because of — the polarization among women, battling archetypes of the “girl boss” and “trad wife” have percolated online in recent years. Women who embrace a more traditional view of gender, family, and marriage face a culture and a media environment eager to tear them down. The longhouse might be a result of cultural feminization, but it’s particularly cruel to the women who don’t just parrot progressive talking points.  The gap among men is moderate: 50 percent of men support Trump compared to 36 percent who supported Biden (and now, presumably, support Harris). Conversely, a sizable majority of young women — about 2 to 1 — support Democrats over Republicans. David French may take to the New York Times to assure insecure male readers that Hulk Hogan doesn’t need to be their measure of masculinity, but no mainstream media outlet would dare publish a corresponding article for women. The political gender gap, it seems, is here to stay. Mary Frances Myler is a contributing editor at The American Spectator. She graduated from the University of Notre Dame in 2022.  READ MORE by Mary Frances Myler:  Young Believers Are Fueling a Renaissance of Catholic Culture Kamala Supports a Radical Climate Agenda — But Will Her VP? Want to Be a Rebel? Be a Conservative. The post The Real Gender Gap Is Political appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

Woke gender ideology claims yet another victim as Italy’s Angela Carini withdrew from her Olympic boxing match after being pummeled for 46 seconds by Imane Khelif of Algeria, who is an alleged male. (READ MORE: Imane Khelif, Alleged Biological Male, Wins Olympic Fight in Women’s Division) Paul Kengor and Grace Reilly discuss the problems of gender ideology here in the United States and discuss Kamala Harris, the newly appointed Democratic nominee, and her radical positions. As highlighted in The American Spectator over the past week, there are a variety of candidates being considered on Harris’ roster for vice president. Paul and Grace provide analysis and predictions for the announcement that may be just days away. Paul Kengor and Grace Reilly release new episodes every Saturday. Read: Who Is Josh Shapiro? Watch the full episode: READ Paul and Grace’s work here and here. Read More: The Weekend Spectator Ep. 3: Trump the Fighter Talking God, Evil, and Jordan Peterson In My Hometown — Trump the Fighter. The post <i>The Weekend Spectator</i> Ep. 5: The Woke Olympics and Radical Kamala Harris appeared first on The American Spectator | USA News and Politics.

from Arcadia Economics: TRUTH LIVES on at https://sgtreport.tv/

by Eric Zuesse, The Duran: This is a collage extracted from the best critical articles I’ve seen about Kamala Harris. It’s 9,500 words from articles boiled down to 2,400 words. All of these articles concern only domestic affairs — specifically the criminal-justice system, which is the field that Harris has specialized in. On international affairs, […]

  Following the death of President Kennedy, there was a policy change in how the Vietnam War was conducted. Operations were expanded to encompass a more conventional form of war that demanded a larger ground force and an increased zone of operation.   In March 1969, the United States started bombing Cambodia, widening the war to include neighboring countries. In December, the US government introduced the draft. And while American forces fought overseas, a different war was being fought at home.   Protests gripped the nation. The police forces were spread thin, and the National Guard often had to be deployed. It was only a matter of time before a disaster occurred.   At Kent State University, the National Guard opened fire.   Escalation in Vietnam A wounded American soldier in Vietnam, 1967. Source: needpix.com   Between 1963 and 1968, the number of US troops in Vietnam was raised from 16,000 to 500,000. Despite the massive increase in troop numbers, very little progress was made in defeating the Vietcong and the Viet Minh.   Those in America who opposed the war were hopeful when Nixon became president in 1968, as he claimed he would end US involvement in Vietnam. Contrary to his promises, he expanded the war, bombing Cambodia and introducing the draft lottery, forcing American civilians into the ranks of the military fighting in Vietnam.   With incidents like the Mỹ Lai Massacre adding fuel to the fire of dissent, people around America took to the streets in protest. In 130 universities across the country, students marched.   Kent State University in Ohio had long been a hub of anti-war sentiment and was one of those universities.   The Unrest Begins The ROTC building on fire. Source: Paul Tople/Akron Beacon Journal   After the announcement of the expansion of the war into Cambodia, the protests spiked. The public protests at Kent State started on May 1 when students symbolically buried a copy of the Constitution. At around midnight that evening, unrest gripped the city of Kent. A group of people leaving a bar started throwing bottles at police cars. Several shop windows were smashed as tensions escalated. The entire Kent police force was called to duty and confronted the crowd, which had a large core of students and bikers.   The unrest continued throughout the night, and on Saturday, May 2, the mayor of Kent, Leroy Satrom, asked Ohio Governor James Rhodes to give the green light for the deployment of National Guard troops to the streets of Kent and the university. The crowd was eventually dispersed with the use of tear gas.   Saturday was a day defined by fear and rumor.   Reports told of merchants that had been threatened with violence unless they displayed anti-war slogans, and wild speculation, believed by some, envisioned that the students had hidden caches of weapons and had built tunnels under the city in order to blow up the main store and spike the water supply with LSD.   At 5:00 pm, the decision was made to deploy the National Guard, and by 10:00 pm, their boots were on the ground at Kent State University. When they arrived, a demonstration was in full swing, and the Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) building on the campus had been set on fire.   Governor James A. Rhodes. Source: Toledo Blade   The following day, Governor Rhodes made a public announcement in which he shared no sympathy for the protestors at all. He regarded the protestors with absolute contempt.   “…They only have one thing in mind and that is to destroy higher education in Ohio. they’re worse than the Brown Shirts and the communist element and also the Night Riders and the Vigilantes, the worst kind of people that we harbor in America.”   By declaring the protestors a “well-trained, militant, revolutionary group,” he showed a deep misunderstanding of the protestors and set the stage for a clash that would result in fatalities. This label was in contrast to the students who arrived in the streets in the morning to help with cleanup efforts after the rioting the night before. Meanwhile, on campus, 1,000 guardsmen had been deployed, and the atmosphere between the students and the soldiers was of a friendly nature.   At 8:00 pm, students held a campus rally, which was dispersed with tear gas. After they were dispersed, another crowd formed in the streets of Kent. This time, the crowd was dispersed with the aid of bayonets. At the same time, an 11:00 pm curfew was put into place.   May 4 A protester throwing a gas canister back at the National Guard. Source: Don Roese/Akron Beacon Journal   Despite efforts by campus authorities to have the event canceled, a scheduled protest on May 4 began to take shape. Roughly 2,000 people gathered on the campus commons. A short speech was made, and the protestors carried signs in what was essentially a peaceful protest.   Under the command of Brigadier General Robert Canterbury, two companies of National Guardsmen assembled to confront the protestors and ordered them to disperse. A bullhorn was used, but was too faint for the chanting crowd to hear. As a jeep drove nearer to the crowd, the protesters threw a few rocks, one of which struck the jeep and another which struck a guardsman, although without causing injury.   Teargas was then used, but the wind made this effort ineffective, and several canisters were lobbed back at the soldiers while the crowd began chanting “pigs off campus!” The National Guard responded by advancing with bayonets fixed and guns loaded. An order was given to fire only into the air, but it is unknown whether this order was received clearly by all the guardsmen present.   Governor James A. Rhodes. Source: Wikimedia Commons   As the soldiers advanced, the protesters threw stones. It has been suggested that several protesters deliberately brought stones with them to the protest in anticipation of a violent confrontation. The crowd moved back over a steep hill known as Blanket Hill and onto a parking lot on the other side. The soldiers followed and found themselves on a football training field surrounded on all sides by a fence. In a difficult location, they huddled together and survived the storm of rocks being thrown at them for about ten minutes as they made their way back to the top of the hill.   When they reached the top of the hill, many of the soldiers, for reasons unknown, turned round, kneeled, raised their rifles, and opened fire. Most of them shot into the air or the ground, but a few shot straight into the crowd, killing and injuring protesters. Some of the protesters ran, while others assumed that they were being shot at with blanks. It was only after they saw their fellow students on the ground that they realized the enormity of the situation.   14-year-old Mary Ann Vecchio kneeling over the body of Jeffrey Miller. Source: Photographs: Kent State University, by Stoklas,” Kent State University Libraries. Special Collections and Archives   Four students were killed:   Jeffrey Glenn Miller, Allison B. Krause, William Knox Schroeder, and Sandra Lee Scheuer.   Sandra was not even part of the demonstration and was walking to class when she was shot in the neck.   Nine others were injured.   Sandra Scheuer, Allison B. Krause, Jeffrey Glenn Miller, William Knox Schroeder. Sources: May 4 Collection, Kent State University Libraries, Special Collections and Archives   The protesters dispersed, running for cover, while others dragged their wounded comrades to safety. Even after the crowd was dispersing, the guardsmen continued to fire at the backs of their fleeing targets.   After the shooting stopped, the students, now dispersed around the campus, reformed in groups. They were in shock and were trying to speak to each other in an attempt to find out why the guards had opened fire. Several groups of students reported that they were approached by police and told to leave or they would be shot at again.   National Guard troops at Kent State University. Source: Photographs: Kent State University, by Coon,” Kent State University Libraries. Special Collections and Archives.   Some students even planned to attack the guards, but after pleading with them, Professor Glenn Frank managed to get the students to vacate the area. For the next two decades, Glenn Frank devoted his life to researching the incident and wrote a book entitled Anatomy of a Tragedy.   Kent State Shootings: Aftermath President Richard Nixon. Source: Wikimedia Commons   In total, 28 guardsmen had opened fire, and 67 rounds were spent over a period of around 13 seconds, although this latter statistic has been subject to varying reports and could have been as much as half a minute or more.   Testimonies from guardsmen involved were contrary and full of inconsistencies. Some soldiers claimed that they thought they had been given an order to open fire. Some claimed they felt their lives were in danger despite the protesters being over 300 feet away. Eleven soldiers claimed that they were under attack from sniper fire. Still others claimed that the sky was filled with rocks being thrown by students.   Investigations concluded that most of these claims were fabricated. Nevertheless, the cases brought against the National Guard yielded little results. Federal criminal and civil trials turned out in favor of the guardsmen.   Ohio single by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. Source: Americana UK   In the legal action that followed, both guardsmen and student protesters were put on trial. One non-student protester was convicted of arson for burning the ROTC building, while another two pleaded guilty. Five guards were indicted on felony charges, but there were no convictions.   A financial settlement provided for a total of $675,000 to be paid out to the victims’ families. It was not paid by the guardsmen of the National Guard but by the State of Ohio.   In the days and months that followed, sentiment against the Vietnam War increased even further. What happened at Kent State added fuel to the fire of this movement, and 450 state campuses had to be shut down because of protests. Kent State was closed for six weeks following the shooting.   Five days after the shootings, 100,000 people marched in Washington DC. Nixon’s response to this and the shootings was perceived as being indifferent.   There was a huge public outcry over the incident, which, in part, took the forms of documentaries, music, building of memorials, books, including graphic novels, and plays, amongst many other forms. Perhaps the most famous song to refer to the incident was “Ohio,” performed by Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young.   Kent State University. Source: Bob Christy/Kent State University   From a historical perspective, the Kent State Massacre was not an isolated event. It was a symptom of a deeply divided nation and was born out of a desire to resist what was happening in America and Vietnam, as well as Cambodia. The result of the shooting generated an even bigger backlash against the government, and for many protesters, it vindicated their belief that their endeavor was one of justice.   Today, their beliefs are clearly echoed by a population strongly opposed to violent interventionism and brutal police action.

  An iconic form of visual advertisement popularized in the early 20th century, the yuefenpai bore heavy influences from the West. These were typically printed in glowing color lithography. Best remembered as portraits of fashionable women with a particular product, these posters were an effective way for companies to advertise their offerings as they were often given away as free gifts or loyalty rewards for customers. The posters were hung in homes and shops, functioning both as a calendar and as decorations. Here are 8 things to know about the iconic yuefenpai.   1. Yuefenpai Originate From New Year’s Pictures or Nianhua A woodblock print of a Nianhua featuring the Kitchen God and his wife, 1873. Source: The British Museum, London   The roots of the yuefenpai could be traced to the printed calendars that had been popular since the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.–220 A.D.). Instead of scantily dressed ladies, these posters typically featured personalities from Chinese folklore or divine figures such as Kitchen God or Door God. Known as Nianhua or New Year’s pictures, these posters were often plastered on doors or walls as a form of protection for the household. Another form of printed calendar was the Spring Ox Calendar which featured illustrated scenes of the Spring ploughing ceremony, a tradition still upheld in rural parts of China today. The printed calendars in imperial China mostly featured religious or cultural motifs, instead of serving a commercial function.   2. The First Known Yuefenpai Was Created in 1884  The first known true Chinese advertisement calendar poster, created in 1884 by A.S. Watsons for the year 1885. Source: Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the ROC   While it had existed previously in the form of printed calendars or pictures of divine figures, the yuefenpai that serves a commercial purpose as we know it today was created in 1884 by A.S. Watson & Co. Today, the A.S. Watson Group prides itself on being the largest health and beauty retailer in the world. But some 180 years ago, it was but a humble dispensary in British Hong Kong. As its business expanded, A.S. Watson & Co. would play a leading role in introducing a wide variety of affordable, high-quality cosmetic and pharmaceutical products to the Chinese populace. It would also be pivotal in popularizing the yuefenpai, being the first to create a poster that mixed elements of advertising with Chinese motifs.   Chinese Horlick’s malted milk advertising calendar poster featuring Guan Yu and Cao Cao from the Three Kingdoms period, 1917. Source: Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the ROC   Created for the year 1885, the poster featured calendars in English and Mandarin, with the firm’s logo taking center stage alongside some descriptions of A.S. Watson’s products. The borders which were adorned with floral motifs and animals such as deer, cranes, roosters, and monkeys were the most captivating part. The aesthetically pleasing poster took the advertising world by storm as followers soon emulated this formula, laying the foundations for the endearing legacy of the commercially viable yuefenpai.   3. Yuefenpai of the Early 20th Century Often Featured Chinese Ladies   Advertisement poster of Kwong Sang Hong’s “Two Girls” Brand, 1910s. Source: National Museum of Singapore   The yuefenpai is synonymous with beautiful ladies dressed in the traditional figure-hugging dress known as the Qipao. In these posters, products such as cosmetics and household items were often relegated to the borders, while the ladies took center stage. A far cry from the overt product placement tools of today, the yuefenpai opted for a more subtle advertising strategy where the ladies were the main stars. With their slim silhouettes and fair skin, these ladies reflected what was commonly associated with Chinese beauty. Floral and natural motifs were also popular embellishments in these posters, accentuating the elements of femininity and poise.   Kwong Sang Hong, one of the first local cosmetics brands in British Hong Kong, was best known for employing this advertising strategy. Its iconic Two Girls series was illustrated by Chinese artist Kwan Wai Nung, who had been dubbed Hong Kong’s Calendar King in the 1920s. Kwan’s works featured heavy traditional Chinese cultural motifs intertwined with the popular Art Deco style of the time. So iconic were these posters that they ingrained the Two Girls brand into the popular consciousness of Hong Kong. Rooted in the cultural heritage of Hong Kong, Two Girls still exists to this day and is lauded as an affordable local brand.   4. The Ladies of the Yuefenpai Became Modern Girls A yuefenpai for Pond’s Vanishing Cream featuring a Modern Girl by Zhang Dihan, 1929. Source: Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the ROC   Although the ladies in the yuefenpai were initially dressed in a modest manner, this traditional style soon gave way to more liberal tastes going into the late 1920s. This was a reflection of the almost universal rise of the Modern Girl or modeng xiaojie (literally Miss Modern), as they were called in China. The Modern Girl represented a generation of free-spirited women with liberal interpretations of gender roles who were eager to shake off the shackles of tradition.   Representing new feminist discourses, they began to emerge in different societies in the early 20th century and championed similar ideals of freedom and individualism. Modeling Western fashion styles, beliefs, and behaviors, these modeng xiaojie adored the latest cosmetics and participated actively in social activities such as dancing and partying. As a result, these attributes unique to the modeng xiaojie found their way onto the yuefenpai of this period. Donning clothing with shorter hemlines and showing more skin soon became the norm both on the streets and in print.   5. The Yuefenpai Sometimes Featured Nudity or Semi-Nudity  A yuefenpai featuring a woman who is depicted showing off her legs and wearing a see-through dress, 1920s. Source: National Museum of Singapore   Beyond shorter hemlines and exposed legs, some yuefenpai artists went as far as to present the ladies in nude or semi-nude manners. Sometimes the artists illustrated the ladies in see-through clothing to tease the audience, even if the product advertised had absolutely nothing to do with nudity or anything sensual for the matter. There were also numerous examples of yuefenpai where women with bare breasts were illustrated. Clearly, the art of using provocative imagery seemed to be an age-old, foolproof formula to capture popular attention. In line with the liberalizing social norms of the 1920s and 1930s, yuefenpai featuring nudity was tolerated. This also coincided with a time when local magazines were publishing other nude imagery, be it Western-style nude paintings or photographs of scantily dressed celebrities.   6. Yuefenpai Invited Criticism From Local Chinese Artists Chinese consumers admiring the calendar posters plastered on the streets, 1920s–1940s. Source: Little Museum of Foreign Brand Advertising in the ROC   While the masses were putting up the yuefenpai as decoration in their homes and shops, members of the cultural sphere expressed vehement dismay and disapproval of these works. Many of these critics belonged to the revolutionary camp with nationalistic sentiments. They believed that the trend of learning about Western art resulted in these advertisements being regarded as works of art created by so-called artists.   These posters were attacked for having subjects with limbs and bodies that were drawn out of proportion and deviated from human anatomy, portraying unrealistic beauty standards. Some criticized the lack of artistic value and lamented the suggestive nature of these posters, going as far as to label them as vulgar. For instance, prolific Chinese writer and literary critic Lu Xun allegedly condemned these posters in a public lecture, lambasting them as examples of decadent art with subjects that were disgusting and depraved.   7. Yuefenpai Was Filled With Art Deco Influences  Two Beauties in the Garden by Xie Zhiguang, which features art-deco fonts and motifs, 1930. Source: South China Morning Post   As Western artistic influences permeated Chinese society in the 1920s and 1930s, the Art Deco style gained widespread popularity, especially in cosmopolitan cities such as Shanghai. Many of the towering infrastructures that lined The Bund in Shanghai were built in this style. Within these buildings, theatres, foyers, and rooms bore heavy geometric patterns and were furnished with chairs and tables of similar styles. The yuefenpai of this period quickly reflected these emerging preferences. The beautiful ladies in the advertisement posters were wearing Qipao with Art Deco prints and were often depicted sitting on lush chairs. Frames and fonts of Art Deco were also heavily employed by yuefenpai artists of the time. These posters enjoyed increasing popularity throughout the 1920s and 1930s, to the extent that scholars have argued that they played a crucial role in helping the everyday Chinese become acclimatized to the abstract nature of modern art.   8. Yuefenpai Went Into Decline After Communist Rule Swept China Warmly Love Chairman Mao by Xie Zhi Guang, 1955. Source: Chinese Posters   As China turned red after 1949, art took on a new form. It no longer imitated life but instead became subservient to the socialist ideology. Under Mao Zedong’s iron-fisted rule, artistic production and activities were subjected to rigid guidelines and only existed to serve the political interests of the Chinese Communist Party. In place of the exploding consumerist culture of the 1920s and 1930s, posters now had to reflect patriotism and socialist ideals.   Instead of beautifully dressed women celebrating the inexhaustible variety of life, yuefenpai artists now illustrated scenes of female peasants in the farmland. Some of the most prolific yuefenpai artists adapted their techniques to illustrate state-sanctioned propaganda posters of the time. Shanghai-based artist, Xie Zhi Guang, was one of them. Although these propaganda posters retained the same vibrant colors as the yuefenpai, they conveyed an entirely different message and served a political rather than a commercial purpose.   Numerous religious scriptures and religious texts are engulfed in flame near Jokhang Temple, Lhasa, as part of the movement to eradicate the Four Olds, 1960s. Source: Tibet Museum   During the Cultural Revolution in the 1960s, culture underwent a violent overhaul. Galvanizing the public with heavy-handed propaganda, the Chinese Communist Party encouraged anti-capitalistic sentiments and sought to purge traditional elements. The yuefenpai was declared to be one of the hated Four Olds which referred to Old Ideas, Old Culture, Old Customs, and Old Habits. Subjected to torture and house arrest, numerous talented artists from the Shanghai Chinese Painting Academy were forced to halt production of the yuefenpai. In such a coercive socio-political climate, the yuefenpai would see the end of its day until nostalgia for a bygone time revived it in the 21st century.