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Henry David Thoreau
Disobedience is the true foundation of liberty. The obedient must be slaves.
Henry David Thoreau, Journals (1847).
Ireland, Canada, United Kingdom, United States and other nations celebrate Halloween on October 31.
The word Halloween or Hallowe’en dates to about 1745 and is of Christian origin, meaning “hallowed evening” or “holy evening.” It comes from a Scottish term for All Hallows’ Eve (the evening before All Hallows’ Day). In Scots, the word “eve” is “even,” and this is contracted to “e’en” or “een.” Over time, (All) Hallow(s) E(v)en shortened into Halloween.
It is one of those darker-themed celebrations, often conjuring up images of death and horror. As if in keeping with this theme, Josef Stalin’s body was removed from Lenin’s Tomb on October 31, 1961.
N.B. The carving of pumpkins into mock-horrific faces is an old tradition. This Jack-o’-Lantern photo is taken from Dose of Funny.
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Watch: London, Punjab & Taiwan
Paul Jacob is on something like a diplomatic mission in London. He explains all, and covers the biggest story of last week in this latest episode of This Week in Common Sense.
We are presenting the video first — on Rumble, of course — because of, well, technical difficulties. (Most weekends the audio precedes the video.) Here we go:
Écrasez l’infâme!
Make War on Injustice!
Voltaire’s rallying cry, launched in his Philosophical Dictionary (1764) — literally, ‘Crush the infamous!’, but more idiomatically translated as ‘Make War on Injustice!’ or ‘Destroy Bigotry!’
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Martha and Rose
Martha Wayles Skelton Jefferson, Thomas Jefferson’s wife, was born on October 30, 1748.
On the same date two hundred twenty years later, American journalist, novelist and author Rose Wilder Lane died. Lane is perhaps best known, today, for her editorial work — some say “ghost writing” — of her mother’s Little House on the Prairie books for children. Her non-fiction The Discovery of Freedom was published in 1943, the same year as a similarly themed book, The God of the Machine, was published by her friend Isabel Paterson.
The In-N-Out Burger restaurant won’t kick out customers who fail to display a “vaccine passport” proving they’ve been vaccinated against COVID-19.
In-N-Out has restaurants in California and the Southwest. And it has one in San Francisco, where Mayor London Breed has ordered restaurants to enforce the city’s vaccine mandate.
Arnie Wensinger, an attorney for the chain, has explained the company’s defiance.
“We refuse to become the vaccination police for any government,” he said on KPIX-TV. “It is unreasonable, invasive, and unsafe to force our restaurant associates to segregate customers into those who may be served and those who may not, whether based on the documentation they carry, or any other reason. [This is] intrusive, improper, and offensive.”
In an age of weasel words and abject apologies for non-wrongdoing, In-N-Out Burger is forthright in defense of itself and its customers.
Not without cost. The health department closed the restaurant for mandate violations, and it was able to partially reopen only for takeout and drive-through orders.
Indoor dining is verboten.
The San Francisco health department says that the restaurant was informed “multiple times about the proof of vaccination requirement,” as if the mere repetition of such an order were enough to justify it. The “outreach team provided information so the restaurant could comply. . . .”
Of course, the folks at In-N-Out Burger know that they “could comply.” And the San Francisco government has also been provided with information on why they should leave In-N-Out alone. Would repetition help?
Leave In-N-Out alone.
This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.
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Stephen Covey
Remember, to learn and not to do is really not to learn. To know and not to do is really not to know.
Stephen Covey, The Seven Habits of Highly Effective People (1989), p. 12.
On October 29, 539 BC, Cyrus the Great entered the city of Babylon as conqueror. His general policy of religious toleration would be extended to the exiled Hebrews, who were, not long after, allowed to return to their homeland.
On the same date in 1923 AD, the Ottomon Empire’s dissolution marked the start of the Turkish Republic.
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James Branch Cabell
Whatever pretended pessimists in search of notoriety may say, most people are naturally kind, at heart.
James Branch Cabell, The Cream of the Jest: A Comedy of Evasion (1917).