Dr. Jeff Koloze

Cogently argued; offers irrefutable reasons why African Americans should vote only for Republicans.

Candace Owens shocks leftists by being an African-American conservative Trump supporter.  The rest of us know she’s simply another sane person.  Reading her book, therefore, will infuriate politicians in the useless and lawless Democratic Party which uses Antifa domestic terrorists to try to suppress the Republican vote.  However, it will reaffirm the commonsense beliefs of the rest of us Americans.  For example (page numbers provided for those students who will use her book in research papers):

Owens argues how, after President Johnson’s Great Society catastrophe, blacks descended into poverty (6-7).

She writes about the “domestic terrorism of Democrat KKK Klansmen” (16).

She blasts “media talking points to further a political agenda” (30).

She describes how she rejected the “victim mentality” (34).

She offers a passionate defense of the “right to life” (37).

She notes that, “although leftists dominate the TV market, conservatives are winning the internet” (42).

She discusses the statistic of 75% of black families being without fathers (46).

She notes that Margaret Sanger, founder of the abortion business Planned Parenthood, was a eugenicist (59).

She calls “Mississippi appendectomies” what they really were, forced sterilizations of black women (61).

She comments on the high black abortion rate (61).

She determines that Black Lives Matter supports abortion and does not care about the black abortion rate (63).

She criticizes modern feminism, now repackaged as “intersectional feminism”, as nothing like the feminism of the Founding Mothers (66).

She argues that “modern feminists are drawing upon the most ancient of southern racist tactics[;] ’Believe women’ vs. ‘black men’” (74).

She criticizes blacks who choose segregation (89).

She comments on liberals’ false charity (103).

She identifies abortion as an indicator of the liberal distortion of reality (108).

She demonstrates the disastrous effects of FDR’s New Deal on black wages (111).

She trenchantly observes, “Black America will never become prosperous via welfare and government handouts; if it were possible, it would have already happened” (126).

She argues that “Conservatives believe neither in white power nor black inferiority” (132).

She shows how affirmative action causes discrimination (134).

She claims that Democrats fear when blacks are educated (147).

She comments on black and white disparities in education (151).

She discusses Bill Clinton, Epstein, and pedophiles (154).

She destroys the distortion that blacks are killed by police (168).

She suggests that “Leftists need to believe that success is evil” (184).

She praises Tyler Perry’s success (189).

She shares her shame over an episode of fornication (190).

She writes the uncomfortable truth that blacks “commit a disproportionate number of crimes” (192).

She praises black faith (219-20).

She bemoans how black culture has devolved (223).

She discusses Biden’s “you ain’t black” fiasco (225).

She claims that Democrats think blacks are stupid (227).

She contrasts the criminal George Floyd against the hero David Dorn (233).

She discusses social media and youth (242).

She identifies the horrors of Aztec cannibalism and how European whites stopped it (247).

She comments on the Back to Africa movement (250).

She states that “Black victimhood is profitable” (253).

She excoriates left-wing journalism (265).

She documents how Chris Cuomo defended Antifa domestic terrorism (267).

She claims that no one else but Trump could work as president (273).

She concludes by affirming that she is a fighter (283-4).

What do all these one-line notes of the above huge litany indicate?  Two things.  First, not only adult voters, but also high school and college students will appreciate Owens’ wide range of commentary on current topics.  Second, since Owens offers such excellent content and commentary, instead of writing down notes or trying to transcribe them into one’s computer as I did, just buy the book.  You know your money will go to a solid pro-life conservative activist.

Forget the gay parts; focus on the abortion and how the novel supports heterosexual normativity.

Tim Murphy’s novel is supposed to be about the AIDS pandemic and how it affected specific lives in New York since the 1980s.  It does that, but much more interesting are the abortion and heterosexual normativity themes.

The abortion which Milly keeps from her husband, Jared, the father of the aborted child, is an example of what happens in a marriage when a mother aborts the child she has created with her husband and tries to keep the killing secret.  Eventually, the secret is disclosed, so the breakup of the marriage and the disastrous effects it has on her life become obvious consequences.

The second much more interesting theme is the heterosexual normativity which another major character displays.  Adopted by Milly and Jared after she aborted their child, Mateo knows that his birth mother died from AIDS, but he does not know who his father was.  His anguished journey from his teenaged years to adulthood illustrates well in fiction what thinkers like Jordan Peterson have discussed in their nonfictional works: gender theorists are foolish in thinking that they can eliminate the heterosexual normativity which has been ingrained in human beings for millions of years.  Not even a lifelong exposure to gay and lesbian ideology and practices can stifle Mateo’s urgent need to learn about his real parents.

Oh, yeah.  If you want to read how gay and lesbian activists behaved in the AIDS era, then the rest of the novel may be interesting, too.

As with most other passages in contemporary literature, the sex scenes (whether heterosexual or that genital activity involving gay men or lesbians) are often laughable.  Although they are probably meant to keep the reader’s interest if it flags, such ridiculous sex scenes are howlingly funny and can help husbands and wives who are faithful to each other understand why so many charterers who are godless, amoral, or immoral act like animals instead of human beings gifted by God with rationality.

One problem with the narration is that the complicated chronological style shifts too much, moving from something in the 1980s, to the twenty-first century, then to the 1990s, then back to the 1980s, etc.  Such shifting chronology makes the entire novel unstable.  That may be the point of such a style, but jerking the reader chronologically like this could make it difficult for him or her to understand which character was doing what when.

Finally, the repetition of many ideas and interior monologues makes the reading tedious.  Cutting at least 150 pages would have helped.

Dead white lesbian novel has distorted male friendships, race, and teen sex all in a day’s read.

Since students are smart enough to see teachers’ and professors’ leftist leanings, high school and college faculty can recommend this novel for a variety of reasons, consistent with major literary theories dominant in academic circles, even though those theories often are anti-Jewish, anti-Christian, anti-American, and anti-Western values.

McCullers’ novel can be read through the lenses of many literary theories.  A biographical critic can easily see how the main character, Mick Kelly, is McCullers herself: tom-boy, vows never to marry (“I never will marry with any boy”; 236, emphasis added), late to coming to her female sexuality, etc.  A Marxist critic can delight in the numerous passages where political ideas babble their way through the narrative.  Marxist ideas are uttered by the African-American Doctor Copeland, who espouses the birth control programs (what he euphemistically calls “Eugenic Parenthood for the Negro Race”), which come from racist groups like Planned Parenthood (63) and the white Jake Blount, who admits he is a “Red”, a Communist (134ff and 243).  A feminist or queer gender studies critic will find the usual oppression of women by heteropatriarchy blah blah blah in the depiction of the female characters, especially Portia, Doctor Copeland’s daughter.  A disabilities studies critic would delight in reading the passages where Mr. Singer, the deaf mute, reigns supreme as a stalwart and honest character.  Why he commits suicide at novel’s end would create a delightful term paper for any student.  Finally, a critical race theory (blackness studies, whiteness studies, and so on) critic could point to this novel as evidence of that hated satan, America, always having been a racist country and thus argue that Antifa and Black Lives Matter are justified in promoting their brand of domestic terrorism, racial bigotry, destruction of property, killing of police, blah blah blah.  (No wonder hardworking Democrats are rejecting their party and voting for the law and order candidate, President Trump!)

What I find most compelling, though, is that this novel (which is more character depiction than action) admirably illustrates how the five questions of right-to-life literary theory can be used to better appreciate the novel.

1. Does the literary work support the perspective that human life is, in the philosophical sense, a good, some “thing” which is priceless?

There is no evidence that any character thinks this about their own lives or the lives of others. While such a respect for human life need not be explicitly stated, it should be evident.  I do not see these characters manifesting this philosophical good at all; they just live from hour to hour, day by day, month by month, in their feeble existences of racial segregation and declining financial conditions.  What a drab existence!

2. Does the literary work respect the individual as a being with inherent rights, the paramount one being the right to life?

If the characters do not perceive that the existence of humanity is itself good, then how can they love the individual persons who constitute humanity?  With the possible exceptions of Mr. Singer and Biff Brannon, I see no evidence of respect for individual human beings throughout the novel.  Instead, characters use each other for their own selfish needs, as though a fellow human being is one’s property instead of a coworker in God’s creation.

3. If the literary work covers the actions of a family, does it do so respecting heterosexual normativity and the integrity of the family?

It is interesting that McCullers, who was involved in many lesbian relationships, depicted faulty heterosexual marriages well—faulty, because the couples obviously did not understand the purposes of marriage as involving a husband who loves his wife and a wife who loves her husband, both of them being open to new life and nurturing children.  Furthermore, the word “queer” itself is repeated frequently in the novel and is used often in connection with the male friendships of Mr. Singer and Spiros Antonapoulos (184ff and 276ff) and Mr. Brannon and Jake (294ff).  Maybe these same-sex friendships were McCullers’ way to presage a future gay literary work as a means to resolve her own sexual confusion—more evidence that the novel (or McCullers herself) does not respect heterosexual normativity.

4. Does the literary work comport with the view that unborn, newborn, and mature human life has an inherent right to exist?

There are no abortion and infanticide episodes in the novel, but the sex scene between Harry and Mick suggests that, if Mick were to become pregnant by their one act of intercourse, he thinks they should marry, itself a faulty reason to enter into the sacrament of matrimony.  Specifically, if she did not send him an “OK” message a month after their fornication (he demands that she “write and tell me for sure whether you’re all right”; 236), the presumption, of course, is that being pregnant would not be “all right.”  (A contemporary reader might exclaim in exasperation, “Duh!  How stupid can Harry be?  A man has sex with a woman.  What do you think could result, fool?”)  Also, throughout this racially-classified novel, the persons who are most disrespected, of course, are the “Negroes”, both professionals like Doctor Copeland and servants like his daughter Portia.  Contemporary readers would find the passage where the terms “Negro”, “colored”, and “nigger” are discussed most interesting since it has implications for today’s rap music (66).

5. When they are faced with their mortality, do the characters come to a realization that there is a divine presence in the world which justifies a life-affirming perspective?

Want to read how ignorant some people can be about Jews and Catholics?  Read pages 138-39 to laugh at their bigotry or sheer ignorance.  I guess their words must be taken with a proverbial grain of salt since the people uttering these stupidities are children in the Deep South circa the late 1930s.  It is unfortunate that such bigoted opinions still exist today.  Moreover, to the point of this last question of right-to-life literary theory, no character has an extensive religious purpose for his or her own life.  Even Doctor Copeland, who constantly refers to a “strong true purpose” (for example, page 119), rejects religious truth.

If you want a good read, try this blast from the past, which surprisingly addresses current political issues well.  You won’t find any answers to those issues, but the characters will make you appreciate people (pro-lifers and Republicans) who reject racism and the distortion of male friendships into sexualized alliances and who live the philosophy that people are to be respected and not used for selfish gratification.

Required reading for every abortion supporter.

McElhinney and McAleer’s biography of the now imprisoned abortionist Gosnell should be read by everyone who supports abortion.  The work is an impressive exposé of an arrogant, deluded, and evil (the authors’ appropriate word) abortionist.

This eminently readable (can be accomplished in one day) biography illustrates several lies promoted by pro-abortion, anti-life fanatics in the media and in government.  Specifically:

Anti-lifers care about women.  Wrong.  If anti-lifers cared about women, then groups like the National Abortion Federation and the abortion business Planned Parenthood would have stopped Gosnell from fatally harming mothers aborting their children at his clinic.

Anti-lifers perform abortions in sanitary medical facilities.  Wrong again.  Anyone who reads about the horrific conditions at Gosnell’s abortion clinic cannot twist the fact that Gosnell’s facility was an unsanitary set of rooms, seemingly suitable only for the cats, defecating and urinating all over the place.

Anti-lifers perform abortions to “ensure fetal demise” (page 216; translation: guarantee the unborn child is killed) as painlessly as possible.  Wrong yet again.  Gosnell cared for the money the mothers paid him to have the babies killed.  Stabbing newborns in the back of their necks with scissors to kill those moving, breathing infants—no longer fetuses since they were born—is barbaric and worthy of, as the authors point out, Nazi experimentation.

Several questions remain after reading this book.  Here are only three.

First, how is it possible that anyone, let alone an African American who wanted to raise the status of fellow African Americans, can think that killing someone’s unborn child is the best way to raise someone out of poverty?  Does that make sense?  How does killing a poor person help him or her to be rich?

Second, how can some people distort Bible passages like Gosnell did in his “poetry” (so-called) wherein he contorted scriptural passages to prove that God approves of abortion?  That’s like saying that Jesus’ command to “let the children come to me” can be interpreted as “Stab these newborns in the backs of their necks with scissors so that they can more quickly come to me through their deaths.  Better yet, just cut them to pieces in their mothers’ wombs.  Even better, all you humans, just kill yourselves.”  Huh?

Third, Gosnell is only one abortionist, and, as the authors suggest, there must be others like him throughout the country.  Where are they?  Who is stopping them from killing other mothers who seek to abort their children?  The first civil right, the right to life, must be restored to stop abortionists like Gosnell killing other mothers, killing their unborn children, and killing the opportunity that fathers should have to love both the mothers of their children and the children themselves.

Besides questions, though, reading this book should make us thankful for many good things that have emerged from this tragic episode of abortion history.

First, we have to thank McElhinney and McAleer for their perseverance in working through the gruesome details of Gosnell’s murder of one aborted mother and the killing of several newborn infants.

Second, we have to thank Detective Jim Wood and Mollie Hemingway for their perseverance in investigating Gosnell’s murders and the media blackout of his horrors—a blackout which ended with Kirsten Powers’ exposé of media bias.

A side bar: we must thank Al Gore for inventing the internet.  (Ha-ha-ha!  That’s like saying that the Democratic Party is a proud supporter of the pro-life movement!).  Seriously, though, if it were not for the new social media on the internet, the murders that Gosnell committed would not have been reported since the American media is so beholden to abortion wrongs (not rights, but wrongs) groups like the abortion business Planned Parenthood, the Democratic Party, and assorted (and sordid) so-called feminist groups.

Third, we must be thankful that the new generation of pro-life activists cannot be frustrated by institutions (the government, the old-fashioned and now utterly useless print and television media, and political parties) that have a vested financial interest in keeping abortion legal throughout the nine months of pregnancy for any reason whatsoever.

McElhinney and McAleer’s biography of the abortionist Gosnell and their upcoming film about him (https://www.facebook.com/gosnellmovie/) is further evidence that pro-life activism is reaching critical mass.  Pro-lifers have argued since 1973 that abortion is gruesome, wrong, and a violation of human rights.  Reading McElhinney and McAleer’s book will give anti-life Americans and those ambivalent about abortion not only a significant opportunity to fight abortion horrors like those perpetrated by Gosnell, but also to reevaluate their attitudes about the first civil right, the right to life.

Hillary Jordan’s fantasy fiction When She Woke is a wonderful example of how paranoid anti-life thinking can get.  I mean, who in his or her right mind thinks that pro-lifers want to “melachrome” aborted mothers?  Answer: an anti-life author who praises the abortionist Marc Heller in typical anti-life terms (see page 344).

The novel is based on Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter; the characters’ names follow those in Hawthorne’s classic (the life-affirming Hester Prynne is rewritten as the aborted mother Hannah Payne; the weak-spirited Rev. Arthur Dimmesdale has an even paler counterpart in Rev. Aiden Dale).  Unfortunately, the novel’s premise is more modern anti-life paranoia than satiric reality based on a classic of American literature.  When the Human Life Amendment is eventually passed, pro-lifers will not seek to have mothers who have aborted melachromed, which is a process whereby their skin is changed to red, similar to Hester Prynne’s being punished by wearing the scarlet letter A for her adultery.  What will happen when the amendment is ratified, of course, is that mothers will once again have the reproductive right to give birth to the unborn whom they carry; fathers will once again have the reproductive right to “man up” and care not only for their lovers or wives, but also for the unborn babies whom they helped to create; finally, society will not suffer the consequences of millions of abortions performed every year on mothers who think they have no help in carrying the unborn to term.

The novel, does, however, have two redeeming values.  First, Hannah discovers through her sojourn that her fundamentalist faith is a distortion of Christianity; the novel is thus a warning for our Protestant brothers and sisters who rely excessively on scripture and often fall into tortured interpretations of “what the Bible says.”  That they should balance their interpretations with tradition is obvious, but that would make them Catholics.  Many fundamentalists would find returning to the 2,000 year old faith abhorrent since they are bigoted against Catholics, and such an opportunity to correct their mistakes is not likely in the foreseeable future.  Second, the novel reinforces the literary tradition that Canada (in this case, Québec) is a safe haven for Americans who want to escape an autocratic government.

Thank you, Hillary Jordan, for writing such a paranoid novel that all of us—anti-lifers and pro-lifers—can enjoy!

Striking episode of passive euthanasia in a classic tale of American vs. European culture

Instead of watching a debate by useless and criminal Democrats, I chose to read, from the perspective of useless and criminal Democrats, a work of dead white male literature.  Alternatively, in the words of educated people (pro-life Catholic Republicans, for example, who will vote for President Trump), I chose to read a masterpiece from the nineteenth century.

Henry James may have written this novel in 1877, but the narrative is as captivating today as it was then.  Moreover, contemporary readers can apply some aspects of this nineteenth-century novel to their lives today.

The passive euthanasia episode in chapter 22 is certainly one of those aspects.  Admittedly, today’s euthanasia supporters would not care about the act of killing the patriarch of the Bellegarde family.  Today’s pro-lifers, in contrast, will see this episode as one of the earliest fictional accounts of a family eager to see one of its members die, especially if that family member is no longer considered a human being but an obstacle to progress within aristocratic society.

Christopher Newman (as James calls him, the “hero” of the novel) is himself a second “aspect” which would captivate contemporary, especially male, readers.  Newman is a typical guy: secure in having worked hard in his commercial interests, basking in his millions, and quiet.  Newman is not a European chatterbox, which is to say, an effete male character.  He takes time before he utters something.  He is comfortable with his body as the numerous references to “his legs outstretched” testify (a significant characteristic identified on the first page and throughout the novel).  More importantly, even though he plots revenge against the Bellegarde family for frustrating his goal to marry one of their own, Newman displays his genuine manhood by being able to forgive them and renounce his vengeance—all this done without overt religious principles.

Twenty-first century men will like Christopher.  He’s what every man wants to be: rich, a man of virtue, a person of integrity, and faithful to his fiancée.

In fact, Newman’s struggle to overcome his hatred of the Bellegarde family without reference to Christian principles of forgiveness shames the Bellegarde family, who are ostensibly Roman Catholic.  Since the novel is set in late nineteenth-century Paris, the reader becomes aware very quickly that these are not practicing Catholics, but people who pretend to have faith because that is what is expected of them to maintain their positions in French society.

Kinda like Nancy Pelosi, who purports to be Catholic, yet is leader of the meanest people on Capitol Hill.

But I digress.

Since this is a Henry James novel, be prepared to read and re-read sentences.  This style of nineteenth-century writing is complex with high register diction.  How, for example, does a contemporary reader used to dashing off usually mindless tweets of no more than 280 characters handle something like this?

“Gallant, expansive, amusing, more pleased himself with the effect he produced than those (even when they were well pleased) for whom he produced it; a master of all the distinctively social virtues and a votary of all agreeable sensations; a devotee of something mysterious and sacred to which he occasionally alluded in terms more ecstatic even than those in which he spoke of the last pretty woman, and which was simply the beautiful though somewhat superannuated image of honour; he was irresistibly entertaining and enlivening; and he formed a character to which Newman was as capable of doing justice when he had once been placed in contact with it, as he was unlikely, in musing upon the possible mixtures of our human ingredients, mentally to have foreshadowed it.” (128; italics in original)

This one sentence of 128 words could frustrate any contemporary reader; it could also yield linguistic delights for those who dare to get beyond their usually mindless tweets of no more than 280 characters.

Fortunately, since James is a master writer, we can rely on his innate respect for syntax to guide us to the deep meanings behind difficult phrases and clauses such as the above.

In short, reading this novel is much more fruitful than wasting hours watching useless and criminal Democrats vying to be the candidate of a party which consists of losers as arrogant as the Bellegarde family.

Who would have “thunk” dead white male literature could teach us so much?

A delightful novel of a pregnant lesbian who chose life.

Wait…what?  A lesbian becoming pregnant by sex, which is reserved for heterosexual, married love?  And then choosing to give birth instead of aborting the child?  Doesn’t the main character know, if one is gay or lesbian, that he or she must support the anti-life positions of the aggressive gay and lesbian agenda, illustrated by the extreme abortion platform of the Democratic Party?

Angela Morales, the lesbian main character, does not follow the political nonsense which presumes that giving birth is a manifestation of, as one of the “rules of the lesbian Mafia” reads, “white supremacist heteropatriarchy” blah blah blah [19].  While Angela cannot account for her attraction to the eminently masculine (and, by definition, heterosexual) Ryan, she has sex with him enough to become pregnant.  Reminiscent of Hemingway’s famous short story about abortion, Angela moves from calling the unborn child an “it” to the more personal “you” (187).  When she realizes the humanity of the unborn child, the choice is obvious: the child deserves to live.

While the novel could have ended after this life-affirming choice, doing so would have deprived readers of a lesbian perspective on the nature of heterosexual normativity.  Angela retains her lesbian lifestyle and, apparently, does not care to use her same-sex attraction in a nongenital way.  Her character is, after all, a fallen away Catholic, so readers know just how ignorant she chooses to be about her sexuality.

The author may have wanted to demonstrate the normalcy of lesbian relationships.  That she has failed to do so cannot be held against her.  After all, as deconstructionist critics claim, whatever an author says should not and cannot necessarily be trusted since words are inherently unstable.  Besides that, even though the author may have wanted to illustrate the propriety of lesbian genital activity, other readers can see that the lesbian component of the novel reinforces heterosexual normativity much more.

Thus, whatever Johnson intended to convey in this novel, the heterosexual normativity of the characters’ lives is inescapable.  While the first half of the novel concerns whether Angela should engage in sex with Ryan and then, when she is pregnant, choose life or abort Lucia, the second half of the novel revolves around a standard and stereotypical element of broken heterosexual families: her daughter, Lucia, nearing age ten, wants to meet her father. That the novel ends with Lucia playing innocently with Ryan’s cat, her mother in tow, testifies to something which gay and lesbian authors miss: the natural, heterosexual instincts of the human family cannot be denied, despite whatever censorship, neglect, or distortions gay and lesbian activists want to impose on them.

However, I would not want to destroy the lesbian structure of the novel that much because there are some episodes which invite commentary, especially since they have political overtones.

Ryan’s abandonment of Angela and the unborn child should disgust every man.  Ryan is a typical lost boy who thinks that his masculinity is equivalent with his sexuality.  One can argue that no one should be harsh with Ryan.  He was raised by his mother, and he is not a man of faith, so he has no male role model either in the form of a living man or in the form of a heavenly influence like Saint Joseph.  However, I argue the opposite.  As students know, all literature serves to entertain and to teach.  Ryan’s character indeed entertains, but it also teaches a young man not to view his sexuality as just another thing to do when the bars close, or when the opportunity presents itself, even if that “opportunity” is a lesbian who finds him attractive.

Political messages aside, Johnson has written some good comedy.  One of the funniest passages in the novel is Angela’s disclosure to her lesbian friends that she is pregnant (177-187).  The gaggle of women who gossip and manage successfully to force Angela to disclose her pregnancy is a stereotypical “women gossiping” passage that is utterly comedic.

I can see how this novel would be censored by the more aggressive elements of the gay and lesbian agenda.  Why would any lesbian choose to give birth instead of abort an “it” resulting from mere genital activity with a heterosexual man?  The character of Angela proves that even someone with same-sex attraction who is unwilling to redirect her sexuality in morally acceptable ways does not have to follow the gay and lesbian agenda which supports abortion.

Suspenseful mystery with infanticide, romance, and a happy ending…except for the killer who swings.

Tessa Harris has transformed the horrible facts of a Victorian infanticide killer into a page-turning murder mystery.  She writes masterly prose, depicting for twenty-first century readers the ambiance of London in the late Victorian period.  The chapters read quickly because Harris knows how to create suspense.  Moreover, her descriptive powers are fine; see, for example, chapter 38, especially pages 270-271, wherein the bodies of the killed infants are discovered, buried in a garden.

Best of all, unlike some modern writers who justify abortion, infanticide, and euthanasia, Harris’ novel rightfully disdains the murders of infants at the hands of the “baby farmer” Mother Delaney.  Thus, like a good Cops or The First 48 television episode, readers will enjoy the denouement, where a sense of justice prevails.

And, yeah, even guys will appreciate the light romance (no stupid sex scenes here, thank God) between Detective Constable Hawkins and Constance Piper, especially as depicted on pages 84-5.  Male readers will want to scream, “Just ask her out already”; female readers will sniffle and mutter, “Aw, how cute!”  Nothing saccharine, though; Harris uses the light romance between these characters to illustrate the rigid social structure of late Victorian Britain.

There are many other heartwarming, life-affirming episodes in the novel.  Louisa Fortune, a governess, becomes pregnant out of wedlock, but, instead of aborting the child, she chooses adoption.  This same unborn child saves Louisa from committing suicide; she is wise enough to understand that it is not right to kill the innocent unborn child because of her own mental and moral anguish.  Constance’s sister, who also becomes pregnant out of wedlock, eventually accepts the unborn child, even after trying to self-abort and without the father’s support.

I read many life-denying novels from authors who are themselves pro-abortion, pro-infanticide, or pro-euthanasia.  While I don’t know her political views on the life issues, Tessa Harris is one of those gifted writers who not only entertain us with a fictionalized account of a horrible episode in British crime history, but also renew in us the sense that we must protect the lives of newborn babies.

Hirsi Ali’s two main ideas are simple and ones which most Americans thought for years but probably never expressed in these politically-correct and Muslim-friendly Obama years: first, that “Islam is not a religion of peace” (3, emphasized by being written in italics) and, second, that five precepts of Islam need to be reformed or eradicated completely (such as jihad).  This second idea is so noteworthy that the five precepts are repeated on pages 24, 74, and 235—thus framing her entire argument.

Other ideas in Hirsi Ali’s work include the following.  “Multiculturalism should not mean that we tolerate another culture’s intolerance” (28) is an idea which supports those in the Christian West who are verbally assaulted by Islamic extremists who argue that Muslims should be allowed to live separately from others.  How Westerners don’t understand that such “separation” is “segregation” as our African-American brothers and sisters have demonstrated to the world and thus invalid in democratic societies is beyond me.

Hirsi Ali’s term “Christophobia” (192) is useful to counter those who argue that any criticism of Islam is necessarily Islamophobic.  Christians in the West should not be fearful of criticizing the murderous instincts of Islamic jihadists for fear of “offending” them; after all, such extremists are killing fellow Christians.

Hirsi Ali’s most significant idea is that a Reformation like the Protestant one which affected Christianity in the sixteenth century is already underway in Islam and needs the urgent support of the West.  What the printing press was to Protestantism, the Internet is to Islamic reformers.  Even the most technologically astute Islamic extremist cannot stop hundreds of millions of people living under Islamic regimes from accessing Western ideas through cyberspace.

Hirsi Ali’s book is a cogent read that can be finished in one day if annotations are made, half a day if one is able to read without necessarily taking notes.  This book is crucial to read to prepare for the explosion of activism reforming Islam from within which will occur once Obama leaves the White House.

Timely, thorough research on Facebook, Google, Twitter, & YouTube censorship; a must-read for 2020.

Facebook’s and Twitter’s most recent violation of First Amendment free speech rights is only one episode in Big Tech’s decades-long censorship.  Hasson provides a remarkable account of how social media companies (which were supposed to be bastions of free speech) became the monopolies and dictators that they are.

Of course, conservatives, pro-lifers, and Republicans always knew that social media companies opposed Judeo-Christian values such as free speech, heterosexual normativity, etc.  Now, the larger American public knows that no one is safe from these companies’ suppression of free speech.

The people whom Big Tech targets are champions of conservative and pro-life causes, including the following.  Facebook censored Franklin Graham for expressing Christian values (40).  Twitter censored Ray Blanchard’s research on transgenderism as a “mental disorder” (95).  Twitter exerted extreme bias against pro-life activist Lila Rose of Live Action (115ff).  Big Tech used the leftist Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) to slander human rights activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali as anti-Muslim (126).  The SPLC attacked Dr. Ben Carson as “an extremist for simply stating the traditional Christian belief that marriage is the sacramental union of a man and a woman” (128).

Hasson discusses a wide variety of topics on Big Tech’s oppression and suppression of free speech and identifies its numerous bad actors.  Ninety-nine per cent of Silicon Valley employees’ political donations went to Hillary (15).  Facebook manipulates “trending topics” on behalf of the racist organization Black Lives Matter (24).  Big Tech supports the abortion business Planned Parenthood, which worked with anti-Semitic elements in the Women’s March (112).  Hasson also explores in depth Facebook’s and Google’s huge profits and their collaboration with Communist China (173).

Although most of the book raises one’s blood pressure, at least two items are utterly laughable.  A Google employee “who identifies as both ‘a yellow-scaled wingless dragonkin’ and ‘an expansive ornate building’” complained that the word “family” suggested a heterosexual couple with children (55)!  Wha-what?  Such an employee needs psychological help.

The second example of Big Tech’s idiocy involves Snopes and its “fact-checking” of a Babylon Bee satire: “CNN Purchases Industrial-Sized Washing Machine to Spin News before Publication” (133).  What idiot would believe that this had to be “fact-checked”?

Two chapters should be required reading for all Journalism students (especially at leftist academic institutions) and for all pro-life activists: chapter five “Twitter’s Free Speech Farce” (79-107) and chapter 6 “Purging Pro-Lifers” (109-22).

Faculty and student researchers will greatly appreciate Hasson’s “Notes” (APA and MLA style references), which run 39 pages (185-224).  The hard work has already been done for you.

Some lines from the book are eminently quotable and could inspire high school and college students to write some masterly essays.  For example:

“Donald Trump’s election in 2016 sent a shockwave through the liberal political and media establishment” (3).

“Social media represents a real threat to the political monoculture enforced by elite institutions” (5).

“At Google, diversity doesn’t apply to diversity of thought, and inclusion doesn’t apply to orthodox Christians or social conservatives” (51).

“It’s important to keep in mind: the people offended by the word ‘family’ are the same ones whose product you trust for accurate answers when you type in ‘what is a family?’” (56).

“Most people searching for ‘abortion’ on YouTube [are] looking for information and viewpoints that CNN won’t show, which is why pro-life content outperforms pro-abortion content when the playing field is neutral” (71).

“Google is: an ideologically left-leaning company staffed by people who resent the right’s success on its massive video platform and are actively working to counter it” (77).

[Quoting an abortion wrongs activist] “People on Facebook engage with anti-abortion [sic] content more than abortion-rights [sic] content at a ‘disproportionate rate’” (114).

“The rise of populist movements around the world and Big Tech’s all-encompassing censorship regime are on a collision course” (169).

Fortunately, despite the billions of dollars that Big Tech’s dictators have, Hasson’s book is eminently encouraging.  Under the “Make It Hurt” heading in the final chapter, Hasson offers this advice: “What conservatives should not do is abandon Big Tech platforms.  That is simply surrendering—and conservatives do that far too often” (181; italics in original).  He even offers his email to encourage people to report “cases of unfair digital censorship”: PeterJHasson@protonmail.com (181-2).