Halloween Miscellany

Content remaining after some disappeared:

One of the greatest ironies of the COVID era, for me, was watching people whose self-concept revolved around championing multiculturalism, Indigenous wisdom, and respect for non-Western traditions suddenly demand absolute conformity to a single Western biomedical approach to health.

Traditional Chinese medicine, Ayurveda, and countless Indigenous healing traditions around the world emphasize the health of the whole organism, its environment, and the cultivation of balance and resilience over fighting a particular pathogen.

Yet during COVID, discussions of these perspectives—overall health, fitness, mental health, nutrition, and internal balance—were met with ridicule and even censorship, while people who refused the novel allopathic pharmaceutical intervention were excluded from most aspects of society.

It was so dark that it was hard to appreciate the parody. People whose entire cultural narrative revolved around multiculturalism were insisting that everyone conform to the dominant Western biomedical establishment—a system consolidated through Rockefeller-era reforms, backed by oil wealth, that marginalized traditional approaches to medicine.

Anyone who refused to conform to the system during the Covid era was treated as an ignorant savage, too stupid or dangerous to participate in society.

And anyone who practiced holistic medicine and rejected the novel allopathic intervention was labeled "hesitant"—someone who needed to be "educated." The colonial irony was breathtaking. Here were the self-appointed champions of Indigenous wisdom, assuming the familiar role of the enlightened colonizer, arriving to educate the ignorant savages out of their supposedly primitive beliefs.

The Poet Laureate of Halloween

POETRY

The Poet Laureate of Halloween

Edgar Allen Poe turned his terrors into art, revealing a darker truth about the American dream. His nightmares are ours, too.

It looks like Hitler’s Eagle’s Nest (Kehlsteinhaus) has been gutted, perhaps beyond repair. It’s an important historical site & lasting monument to the Führer’s monomania.

I wrote about a visit there for @LawLiberty in 2023: https://t.co/9L3ZiCSQGT

Yours truly in the lift. 1/2 https://t.co/vCZcIbI8Xi

— Helen Dale (not on your team, but always fair) (@_HelenDale) October 24, 2026

The Founding

October 31, A Daily Dose of the American Rev

On this day in 1780 General Nathanael Greene wrote George Washington, expressing his great concern over the condition of the army in the Southern Department (of which he was about to assume command) and describing his pleas for arms and provisions. “I shall have the satisfaction of having done all in my power,” he concludes, “and if there is not public spirit enough in the people to defend their liberties, they will well deserve to be slaves.” The entire letter is a good read and a very interesting look at how desperate the situation was as the fateful year 1781 approached.

Philadelphia October 31st 1780

Sir,

On my arrival at this place I laid your Excellency’s letter before Congress and addressed them on the business of the Southern department. I am happy to inform you that my appointment is perfectly agreeable to their views and wishes. But I am sorry to acquaint you that from the best account I can get of the state and condition of the troops in that quarter, nothing is to be expected from them, unless large supplies can be forwarded from the Northward. They are altogether without clothing and blankets, and totally unfit for any kind of service. To carry them into the field in this condition will only fill the hospitals and sacrifice the lives of a great many valuable men. Arms are not less wanting than Clothing, and Waggons as much as either. Men I believe may be had if it was in our power to equip them for the field. But how we shall do this is difficult for me to imagine. Congress can furnish no money, and the Board of War neither clothing or other necessaries. Indeed the prospect is dismal, and truly distressing.

I beg your Excellency to urge unceasingly the necessity of forwarding supplies for the southern Army, as it will be impossible to carry on a winters campaign without clothing.

I have laid before Congress an estimate of our wants; but there is not the shadow of a prospect of their being furnished unless constant attention is paid to the business. And I am apprehensive as soon as I am gone, and no one left to urge our wants they will soon be forgotten.

The late success of the Militia against Col. Ferguson, I am in hopes will be attended with good consequences. It will give a severe check to the Tories and spirit and confidence to the Whigs. A report prevails this day that Lord Cornwallis has retreated precipitately from Charlotte, towards Camden.

The detachments of the Enemy that sailed lately from New York are landed at Portsmouth in Virginia; and it is said the shipping are pushing up the rivers. The troops have taken possession of the great bridge, by which I am told they command all the lower Counties.

How to employ our little force if we are attacked both in Virginia and N. Carolina at the same time is difficult to determine. My first object will be to equip a flying Army to consist of about eight hundred horse and one thousand Infantry. This force with the occasional aid of the Militia will serve to confine the enemy in their limits and render it difficult for them to subsist in the interior country.

I see but little prospect of getting a force to contend with the enemy upon equal grounds and therefore must make the most of a kind of partizan war until we levy and equip a larger force.

Such was the difficulty of getting provisions and providing the means of transportation that Genl Gates writes in his last letter that the Army was in the utmost danger of disbanding.

Congress have invested me with the same powers they gave to Genl Gates, and annexed Maryland and Delaware to the Southern department.
The arrangement of the Army has taken place, and I hope upon a footing which will render it more respectable than it has been, provided the business of Finance can be got into some regular order: but that is our weak side; and I wish our distresses may be painted in their true colours to the Minister of France, as he intimated to Baron Steuben that your Excellency did not appear to be apprehensive of any difficulty from the state of our affairs.

I have made application to the Merchants of this city for clothing for the Southern army; but they excused themselves as having engaged more already than they can perform. I intend to try to put subscriptions on foot in Maryland and Virginia for the purpose of supplying clothing. Whether it will produce any good or not time only can determine. At any rate I shall have the satisfaction of having done all in my power; and if there is not public spirit enough in the people to defend their liberties, they will well deserve to be slaves.

General Knox promised to send forward a company of Artillery if your Excellency approved thereof I wish they may come forward without loss of time. This State have promised to lend me one thousand stand of Arms upon a promise of their being replaced which I beg your Excellency to give an order for, as this was the only footing they could be obtained upon. I have the honor to be With every sentiment of respect and esteem Your Excellency’s Most Obedient Humble Servant.

Nath. Greene M. General

WEEKEND

The Week In Pictures: Trick Or Treat Edition

The conjunction of Halloween and the midterms could be considered ominous, but it’s good for meme-makers. Otherwise, this week’s news was mostly last week’s news–riots in France and Ilhan Omar, still unsure about whom, exactly, she has been married to.

Hope you have some fun this weekend.

This is the Thread before the Gardening Thread.

Last week's thread, Thread before the Gardening Thread, Oct. 24

Comments are closed on the thread above so you won't ban yourself by trying to comment on a week-old thread. But don't try it anyway.

FRANCE: For a carefully-worded piece which might help someone who is not too far gone over to the left understand that the problem with immigration in France is not just about recent immigration, consider sharing this piece on Mere Anarchy by Theodore Dalrymple.