Episode 19 Politics and Literature in Wales

The Celtic World

Dr Jennifer Paxton (2018)

Film Review

Prior to English conquest (1283), Wales was divided into warring kingdoms owing to mountainous terrain that made unification and centralized government difficult. In the 11th century, Wales was divided into Dyfed and Givent in the South, Powys in the Northeast and Gwynedd in the Northwest. The latter was the most powerful, holding sway over the other three.

The 1066 Norman Conquest pushed numerous Anglo-Norman settlers into Wales, resulting in the formation of Pembrokeshire in the Southwest. It’s from Penbrokeshire, the English launched their 12th century invasion of Ireland.

As kings of Gwynedd, Llywelyn ap Iorwerth (1173-1240)* and his grandson Llywelyn ap Gruffyadd both made concerted efforts to unify Wales.  The former negotiated a peace treaty with the King John of  England in 1200 by offering his illegitimate daughter Joean in marriage. In spite of the treaty, John eventually invaded Gwynedd with the support of the other Welsh kings. Llywelyn senior, in turn, supported the rebellious English barons who forced the Magna Carta on John in 1215. This historic document specifically called on John to release Welsh hostages he had seized.

When John’s son King Henry III faced a second baronial revolt in 1263, Llywelyn’s grandson (Llywelyn ap Guffyadd) again allied with Henry’s opponents. In 1277, Henry’s son Edward I also clashed with the Llywelyn junior over the terms of the 1267 Treaty of Montgomery (in which Henry acknowledged him as prince of both Gwynedd and Wales), joining forces with Llywelyn’s brother to overthrow his rule.

After the former died in battle in 1282, Edward conquered all of Wales. His son, Edward II, born in Wales in 1284, would be declared the first English Prince of Wales.

The only serious challenge to the English colonization would occur in 1400, when Robert of Ouain would enter into a failed conspiracy with the Earl of March Sir Edmond Mortimer and the Earl of Northumberland Sir Henry Percy to overthrow Henry IV and divide England and Wales between the three of them.**

Despite it’s amalgamation with England, Wales remained underdeveloped. In fact, it was common for criminals (debtors especially) to disappear into the Welsh wilderness (the origin of the expression “welching” on a debt).

Welsh remains the most successful surviving Celtic language, in part owing to the following its medieval literature enjoyed in continental Europe.  Especially important were Welsh poems from the early Middle Ages, the Epic of Goddodin (about Britain’s northern Celtic speakers) and four anonymous tales preserving Celtic mythology known as the Mabinogi. Dafydd ap Gwilym is regarded as one of the greatest European poets of the Middle Ages.

*Aka Llywelyn Fawr (Llywelyn the great)

**Shakespeare recounts this conspiracy in his play Henry IV.

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/5701024/5701062

Margaret is 92 years old and has just come in from the winter cold, but no warmth awaits her at home. She fears her own home more than the icy streets. Next to her are four thick blankets, and on the shelf above the fireplace, which she can no longer afford to buy wood for, is a meter showing the daily cost of electricity (inset). It shows £1.03. When it reaches £3, she is forced to turn off the little heat she has to afford it. Still image: ITV News

Free West Media

Food prices are rising at a furious pace, fastest in Scotland in almost half a century. At the same time, energy prices are at record highs. People are forced to choose between freezing or going hungry, and a majority of Scots are forced to live in cold and darkness to cope with bills. Old generations’ tricks for saving and keeping warm are returning. Nevertheless, it is feared that 10,000 Brits will die of cold homes this winter. We present the Swedish Public Health Agency’s guidelines on indoor temperature. Governments in Europe are introducing rationing and monitoring of food purchases. Net-zero emissions are a lie that, in practice, de-industrializes the West and dramatically lowers our standard of living.

On March 10, the Scottish trade magazine Scottish Housing News published a frightening report from Scotland’s largest builder, Barratt Developments Scotland. It shows that 51 percent, a majority of Scots, could not afford to heat or light their homes. They were forced to live in chilly homes with the lights off, as they otherwise could not afford to pay for electricity.

Gas and electricity bills have risen even more in recent months, and the UK government’s support system for energy bills will end at the end of March, further putting pressure on already strained British households. Those who suffer the most are the elderly and sick, not least those with lung disease and asthma. This is exacerbated by disease-causing mold that comes with cold and damp indoor climates. Reported cases of mold-damaged homes in Scotland have increased by 25 percent since 2021. Tens of thousands of Scots are already affected.

[…]

Thousands are feared to die as a result of these conditions. Already last winter, over 7,400 Brits died as a result of cold homes. But since last winter, electricity prices have doubled, so the figure is believed to be significantly higher this winter. In December 2022 alone, 1,047 Brits, mostly elderly, died as a result of cold and damp air in their homes. This is 36 percent more than in December 2021, indicating that over 10,000 Brits are likely to die this winter due to cold in their homes… or rather, poverty, not being able to afford electricity.

Grandfather’s long johns are back

The survey shows that many are now forced to resort to tricks that their grandparents once used to keep warm during the winter with simple means, such as wearing long johns or sealing door gaps. It emerged that 58 percent, again a majority of respondents, now routinely wear thermal underwear at home to cope with the cold in their homes. 40 percent cover gaps under doors and 41 percent have hung up thick curtains over both doors and windows. People warm themselves under blankets and with tea lights. A quarter use electric heated blankets in bed, instead of heating the bedroom. 57 percent of respondents have turned off radiators in rooms they rarely or never use, and it appears they are forced to live in a smaller part of their homes.

Those hardest hit are, as usual, families with children and the elderly, but another age group also stands out. It is the so-called Generation Z, those born between 1997 and 2013. In this age group, there are young adults up to 26 years old, many of whom work online from home. The survey shows that nearly two-thirds in this age category are forced to turn off lights and lower the temperature so much that they often become ill. It is especially serious when it affects a group that largely works from home, as they are forced to breathe the raw and disease-causing air created in too cold homes around the clock.

This is happening in the once-rich and powerful United Kingdom, which only a hundred years ago was the largest empire in world history.

[…]

Food shortages and rationing

EMPTY FOOD SHELVES in the UK in February and March have further aggravated the situation for an already severely tested population. Here is the vegetable section in one of the supermarket chain Waitrose’s stores. There is also a shortage of many other food items, including eggs. Still image: Sky News

The situation is further aggravated by soaring inflation, with rapidly rising food prices and increasing interest rates. The survey shows that 55 percent of respondents were very concerned about rising interest rates. This not only affects homeowners with loans but also tenants, as landlords are often in debt themselves. Overall, it is a witch’s brew of rising costs for interest, electricity, fuel, food, and other necessities. Rising interest rates and energy costs affect virtually everything. For example, grocery stores are forced to pay more in rent, electricity, and transportation. Their increased costs, in addition to already high purchasing costs from distributors, are then added to already high product prices.

There is also a lesser-known reason for rising food prices, which is declining harvests, reducing supply while demand remains the same or increases. The lower harvests are mainly due to the cooler climate that Nya Tider has been at the forefront of reporting since 2019. For Europe, for example, Spain and countries in North Africa, from which we import, have been affected by poor harvests.

This is also due to higher energy prices, which have largely wiped out the production of artificial fertilizers outside of Russia and a few other countries that continue to have cheap energy. Europe has seen a large part of its chemical industry and artificial fertilizer production shut down. Without artificial fertilizers, almost half of the world’s population would be without food. The sharply reduced production globally will, therefore, have a devastating impact on global food security.

Europe is also affected by greenhouse farming closures, which supply the continent with a large portion of its fruits and vegetables, being forced to shut down during the winter months due to the high costs of heating. This not only creates shortages but further drives up prices. In the United Kingdom, this has been evident in grocery stores, where shelves have been empty during February and March. The situation has occasionally been so severe that rationing has been introduced, which is the first time since World War II. Customers are only allowed to buy three types of vegetables and a maximum of two of each. An example of this is the supermarket chain Morrison.

[…]

Net zero – a lie

It is worth remembering that Scotland has boasted about being the best in the UK at transitioning its energy production to “green energy,” especially with numerous wind turbines. In 2019, mainstream media had headlines such as “Why is Scotland leading in renewable energy?” (ITV News). Now, reality has caught up. Wind turbines notoriously perform poorly during winter, so poorly that they often consume energy instead of producing it. This is because they need to be heated to prevent freezing during the winter, using energy from the regular power grid or diesel generators. Advocates of “green energy” and power companies are silent about this.

This winter was exceptionally cold in Scotland, and the strain on the power grid that supplies the wind turbines was so great that the Scottish power company was forced to heat its wind turbines using large quantities of diesel generators. They tried to keep this a secret, but it leaked out (see NyT v.10/2023). This is an important reason why the Scots suffered the most in the UK this winter.

[…]

The green agenda does not involve a gradual and proven transition with preserved energy security but enforces closures of not only fossil-fueled power plants but also, for example, hydroelectric plants that are claimed to threaten or destroy wildlife (see NyT v.27-28/2022).

[…]

Via https://freewestmedia.com/2023/04/29/brits-forced-to-live-in-darkness-and-cold/

Jeffrey Epstein and Noam Chomsky. Rick Friedman/Corbis via Getty Images. Ulf Andersen/Getty Images.

Insider

Renowned academic Noam Chomsky tells The Wall Street Journal that his meetings with Jeffrey Epstein are “none of your business”

• Noam Chomsky, the famed academic and activist, held multiple meetings with Jeffrey Epstein, according to The Wall Street Journal.
• Chomsky’s meetings with Epstein took place long after the disgraced financier had registered as a sex offender, the Journal reported.
• When the Journal asked Chomsky about the meetings, the linguist had some choice words.

When asked about their connections with Jeffrey Epstein, many business leaders and bureaucrats have offered tight-lipped regrets and apologies.

Not Noam Chomsky.

The Wall Street Journal, in an exclusive published Sunday, said it had obtained Epstein’s private calendar, which outlined numerous meetings with high-profile people, including Chomsky, the famed academic and political activist. When the Journal reached out to Chomsky for comment, the linguist had some choice words.

“First response is that it is none of your business. Or anyone’s. Second is that I knew him and we met occasionally,” Chomsky, 94, told the Journal in an email.

[…]

Via https://www.insider.com/noam-chomsky-mit-wsj-wall-street-journal-jeffrey-epstein-2023-4

Episode 14 Medieval Irish Literature

The Celtic World

Dr Jennifer Paxton (2018)

Film Review

Ireland had the largest body of medieval vernacular literature in Europe. There were hundreds of Irish stories published before 1000 AD. This was in addition to medieval Ireland’s massive Latin literature.

Poets had the same honor* price as kings or bishops. They were also allowed to freely move between warring kingdoms. Some families raised children to become poets as they could earn a good living singing the praises of clan chiefs. The training could take as long as 20 years due to the extensive oral history that had to be memorized.

Some poets were satirists (some of whom were women) used by clan chiefs to make enemies look bad.

Irish stories weren’t plot driven. They tended to be full of digressions relating to place names and family trees. Often tied to geography and landscape, they took the place of maps.

Medieval Irish stories fell into three main categories:

1. The mythological cycle – concerned the founding of the Ireland and pre-Christian mythology and includes the Book of Invasions.

2. The Ulster cycle – concerned the battle between the warring princes of Ulster and Conough over the theft of the Brown Bull of Cooley.**

3. King Tales – followed Ireland’s conversion to Christianity and Included the myth of the Irish goddess of sovereignty. All Irish monarchs needed her approval to serve as king.

*The honor price was the penalty a murderer paid for killing someone.

**Paxton refers to this legend as the Irish Iliad. See https://www.thelastleprechaunsofireland.com/stories/the-brown-bull-of-cooley/

Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/video/5701024/5701052

By Amy Kelly, Program, Director of the War Room/DailyClout Pfizer Documents Analysis Project

The batch of Pfizer clinical trial documents released in April 2023 by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) under court order contains a shocking, eight-page document titled, “Pregnancy and Lactation Cumulative Review.” The data in the Cumulative Review span “…from the time of drug product development to 28-FEB-2021.” A Pfizer employee, Robert T. Maroko, approved the Review on April 20, 2021. (p. 8)

This document is among the most horrifying yet to emerge into public view. It reveals that both Pfizer and the FDA knew by early 2021 that Pfizer’s mRNA COVID vaccine, BNT162b2, resulted in horrible damage to fetuses and babies. Pfizer tabulated:

• Adverse events in over 54% of cases of “maternal exposure” to vaccine (248 out of 458). “Maternal exposure” is defined on pp. 1-2 as: “PTs Maternal exposure timing unspecified, Maternal exposure during pregnancy, Maternal exposure before pregnancy, Exposure during pregnancy.” These definitions imply that Pfizer may have been looking at damage to women and babies that could result from intercourse, inhalation, and skin contact prior to pregnancy, as Pfizer defines “exposure” including all three in its protocol (Protocol Amendment 14, https://www.phmpt.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/125742_S1_M5_5351_c4591001-interim-mth6-protocol.pdf, pp. 213, 246, 398, 431, 575, 607, 751, 783, 918, 948, 1073, 1103, 1226, 1255, 1378, 1406, 1522, 1549, 1663, 1688, 1813, 1836, 1949, 1969, 2081, 2100, 2211, 2228, and 2337.)
• Pfizer’s tally of damages to fetuses and babies includes:
  • “53 reports [or 21% – 53/248] of spontaneous abortion (51)/ abortion (1)/ abortion missed (1) following BNT162b2 vaccination.” (p. 4). A “missed abortion” is “an empty gestational sac, blighted ovum, or a fetus or fetal pole without a heartbeat prior to completion of 20 weeks 0 days gestation.” (https://www.acog.org/practice-management/coding/coding-library/billing-for-interruption-of-early-pregnancy-loss)
  • Fetal tachycardia (irregular heart rate faster than 180 beats per minute) that required early delivery and hospitalization of the affected newborn for five days. “The clinical outcome of fetal tachycardia was unknown.” (p. 2)
  • Six premature labor and delivery cases (p. 3) resulting in:
    • Two newborn deaths. Cause of death for one baby “was cited as extreme prematurity with severe respiratory distress and pneumothorax.” Pfizer stated the other death was due to “premature baby less than 26 weeks and severe respiratory distress and pneumothorax.” Note that newborn pneumothorax is a condition where air leaks out of the lung and collects between the lung and the chest wall.
    • Newborn severe respiratory distress. (Note: California midwife, Ellen Jasmer, has described exactly this phenomena happening in her practice in a recent DailyClout interview.)

It is not just fetuses and newborn babies that Pfizer calmly noted were being damaged in the company’s internal records. Pfizer also recorded multiple harms to babies through the milk of vaccinated mothers. According to Pfizer in the Cumulative Review, 19% (41/215) of babies in Pfizer’s records exposed to the company’s COVID mRNA vaccine via their mothers’ breast milk were recorded as suffering from 48 different categories of adverse events* (pp. 6-7). These included:

*From Table 2 - Number of Adverse Events Reported
in Infants with ‘Exposure via Lactation’ (pp. 6-7)

Some of the babies’ suffering was serious: there were ten “Serious Adverse Events” (SAEs) from “Exposure via Lactation.” The Review outlines six of them (p. 7):

1. “A 15-month old infant with medical history of vomiting experienced skin exfoliation and infant irritability while being breastfed (latency <7 days). The outcome of the event ‘skin exfoliation’ was not recovered and outcome of event ‘infant irritability’ was unknown. No causality was reported by the physician.”

2. “A 9-month old infant with a medical history of meningococcal vaccine and no history of allergies, asthma, eczema or anaphylaxis experienced rash and urticaria a day after exposure via lactation. The outcome of the events was ‘resolved’ and event did not happen after the second day. No causality assessment was provided.”

3. “A day after the mother received vaccination, a baby developed a rash after breastfeeding. At the time of the report, the event was ‘not recovered. [Sic] A causality assessment was not provided.”

4. “An 8-month old infant experienced angioedema [an area of swelling of the lower layer of skin and tissue just under the skin or mucous membranes] one day after his mother received vaccination. The event was considered non-serious by health authority and the outcome at the time of the report was unknown. No causality was provided.”
5. “There were 2 cases reporting ‘illness’ after exposure via breast milk’. In the first case, a 6-month old infant developed an unspecified sickness 2 days post mother’s vaccination. The outcome of the event sickness was recovered, and no causality assessment was provided. The second case, a 3-month old infant developed an unspecified illness and required hospitalization for 6 days post exposure via breast milk (>7 days latency). The event outcome was reported as ‘recovering’ and no causality assessment was provided.”

Pfizer’s Summary and Conclusion section of the Cumulative Review states, “The cases reviewed above are indicative of what is in the Pfizer safety database as of 28 February 2021. The sponsor (Pfizer/BioNTech) will continue to monitor and report on all pregnancy exposure and lactation cases. It is important to note that the spontaneous safety database is intended for hypothesis generation and not hypothesis testing.” (p. 7)

Despite Pfizer and the FDA knowing by April 20, 2021, the extent of damage to fetuses and babies, including the fact that fetuses and newborns had died, on April 23, 2021, inexplicably Dr. Rochelle Walensky held a White House press briefing where she recommended pregnant women get vaccinated. (https://www.verywellhealth.com/pregnant-women-covid-vaccine-5092509)

Please read this damning “Pregnancy and Lactation Cumulative Review” below.

[…]

Via https://dailyclout.io/bombshell-pfizer-and-the-fda-knew-in-early-2021-that-the-pfizer-mrna-covid-vaccine-caused-dire-fetal-and-infant-risks-they-began-an-aggressive-campaign-to-vaccinate-pregnant-women-anyway/