Books That Belong in Public Libraries Not School Libraries

"The book removals and also the comments create this pervasively hostile environment."

"Both send a message to the entire community that LGBTQ identities are inherently obscene, worthy of stigmatization -- and the book removals uniquely deprive LGBTQ students of the opportunity to read books that reflect their own experiences."

Chloe Kempf, lawyer, American Civil Liberties Union of Texas

"This isn't the sort of civil rights issue that requires federal intervention."

"It's a question about books in schools, not about individual rights being violated."

Will Flanders, research director, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty

"I think it's gonna hold."

"I wouldn't be surprised if this ends up at the Supreme Court eventually."

John Doherty, School Liability Expert Group

The superintendent of the Granbury Independent School District, Jeremy Glenn, second from right, at a school board meeting in March. He was secretly recorded ordering librarians to remove LGBTQ-themed library books. Credit: Shelby Tauber for ProPublica/The Texas Tribune/NBC News

A Texas school district has allegedly removed books featuring LGBTQ characters from school libraries, leading the U.S. government to open an investigation. The situation marks the first test of a new legal argument that holds the failure to represent students in school books can constitute discrimination.

 

The Granbury Independent School District is now being investigated by the Education Department's Office for Civil Rights, the initiative based on a complaint of discrimination that the American Civil Liberties Union of Texas lodged last summer.

 

Should the government find in favour of the ACLU, what follows could have further implications for schools nationwide. Experts foresee that forcing libraries to stock books featuring LGBTQ individuals and requiring administrators to develop procedures ensuring student access to books some Americans feel to be unacceptable will not go down well with conservative parents. Particularly within a rising tide of book challenges and bans, expressing parental dissatisfaction with what is becoming the status quo, swiftly upturning social tradition.

 

Books focusing on themes of sexual and racial identity with all that implies in all their complexities are those books most often targeted. According to the Texas ACLU complaint, Granbury school officials directed removal of all LGBTQ books from school libraries, citing statements by superintendent Jeremy Glenn a year ago. The Texas Tribune published Mr. Glenn as having informed his staff would be "pulling out ... the transgender, LGBTQ, and the sex -- sexuality -- in books". 

An estimated 130 books representing three-quarters that featured LGBTQ characters or themes were those removed from library shelves. Attorneys for the Texas ACLU argue that those actions violate Title IX -- the federal law that prohibits discrimination in public schools on the basis of sex. The law was recently interpreted by the Biden administration as forbidding discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity; key to the ACLU's argument.

Governmental intervention in the Granbury case, in the opinion of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty's Will Flanders, could set a worrying precedent of federal overreach. Such decisions on availability and appropiriateness in school libraries of texts should remain with local school boards reflecting the status quo of the public school system from its inception.

ProPublica

John Doherty of the School Liability Expert Group that provides expert witness testimony and legal consultations to schools predicted  it would take one to two years for the federal probe to proceed and might eventually generate penalties for the school district ranging from a reduction in federal funding to government-mandated training on inclusivity -- or nothing at all.

The Texas ACLU contends the removal of books featuring specific values may represent discrimination at a time when school book bans and challenges are surging to historic levels nationally and school officials clandestinely remove texts from shelves to avoid such controversy. The vast majority of books drawing complaints according to analyses from PEN America and the American Library Association, are written by or about people of colour and LGBTQ individuals.

John Chrastka who heads the national political action committee EveryLibrary is exultant over the scope and implications of the ACLU's argument that banning books may violate federal anti-discrimination laws. He expects, if the efforts of the ACLU prove successful. that an explosion will result in the availability of texts devoted to LGBTQ voices and subjects in school libraries.

However, as Rick Hess, director of education policy studies at the American Enterprise Institutes points out, most cases of school book challenges and removals cannot clearly be traced to animus against a particular protected class of people like LGBTQ individuals. Parents in school systems nationwide are filing complaints against books for their sexual or otherwise age-inappropriate content.

 Some of these books are among those banned by school districts in Texas.

Ted Shaffrey/AP

"If school districts everywhere really are systematically removing every book which contains a gay or trans character, that would be problematic, but I find that unlikely."

"But to ask whether something is appropriate for a six- or ten-year-old?"

"That strikes me as eminently reasonable."

Rick Hess, director of education policy studies, American Enterprise Institute think tank

In Point of Actual Fact : Be Careful What You Wish For

"The average female army recruit is 5.8 inches shorter, 31.7 pounds lighter, has 37.4 fewer pounds of muscle and 5.7 more pounds of fat than the average male recruit."

"She has only 55 percent of the upper-body strength and 72 percent of the lower-body strength."

"The average 20-to30 year-old woman has the same aerobic capacity as a 50-year-old man."

1992 Presidential commission on the Assignment of Women in the U.S. Armed Forces

"Currently, women have higher rates of discharge for medical disability that prevents them from finishing their enlistment, or re-enlistment. Stress and muscular deterioration in women comes on faster and harder due to the heavy gear and physical duress in the field environment. Muscle atrophy, hip displacement, and arthritis in knees and joints are common ailments. Spinal compression occurs from long periods of heavy combat loads."  Retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant Jessie Jane Duff

So, is it not beyond puzzling, stretching common sense to its limits, that a natal male assigning himself a female role in life is able legally to compete with women in various sport categories with that level of unequal advantage. Claiming oneself to be female, not the gender identified and assigned at birth allows men who identify as women to enter women's public washrooms, be incarcerated in women's sections of prisons, compete in women's sports because the inconvenient facts of unfair advantage are held to be prejudicial to the welfare of the trans community.

Decades ago, during the early years of women's liberation, when women insisted there should be no male-dominated professions that women too could not enter and become proficient at, from elite corporate offices to conducting an orchestra, opportunities opened. The gates guarding male dominance in culture, competitive sport, engineering, medicine, science, exploration, fire-fighting and police services and finally national defence came down one after another. Where women traditionally in Western societies did not serve in combat roles, they could enter the military in less 'forward' roles.

 

Marines with the Lioness Program refill their rifle magazines during the live-fire portion of their training at Camp Korean Village, Iraq. (Photo By: Sgt. Jennifer Jones)

 

Their goal partially accomplished, women strove to convince that no positions in the military should be closed to them, and they eventually won that, too. And something odd happened to the confidence that women could be deployed in active combat roles, despite their gendered physical differences from men in sheer brawn. When the U.S. military began integrating men and women in combat roles in 2012, Capt. Katie Petronio published an essay that stirred controversy.

 

She was an elite college athlete, an obvious candidate scoring "far above average in all female-based physical fitness tests" when she was undergoing Marine Corps training. The essay she wrote that was published in the Marine Corps Gazette advised: "We are not all created equal, and attempting to place females in the infantry will not improve the Marine Corps as the nation's force-in-readiness or improve our national security".

 

Well, what might have happened to produce that sentiment? Capt. Patronio had been deployed in a variety of combat hot spots. In Afghanistan the stress of ongoing combat operations over several months saw her legs atrophy and buckle, her mobility declining as the deployment took its unexpected toll on her fit body. She lost 17 pounds, and developed polycystic ovarian syndrome, the outcome of which was to render her sterile.

 

Capt. Katie Petronio

"I understand that everyone is affected differently  [But] I can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just emotion that we haven't even begun to analyze and comprehend the gender-specific medical issues and overall physical toll continuous combat operations will have on females."

"...some of these [female] Marines may feel qualified for the chance of taking on the role of 0302 [Infantry Officer]. In the end, my main concern is not whether women are capable of conducting combat operations, as we have already proven that we can hold our own in some very difficult combat situations; instead, my main concern is a question of longevity. Can women endure the physical and physiological rigors of sustained combat operations, and are we willing to accept the attrition and medical issues that go along with integration?"

 

Former U.S. infantry officer Brian Mitchell who wrote Women in the Military: Flirting with Disaster, pointed out in 1997 that shortfalls in recruit are insufficient reason to recruit women; in fact recruiting women is the cause of shortfalls: "The more attractive you make the military look to women, the less attractive  you make it look to men".

To Salt Or Not To Salt: That is The Question

"We thought, 'That's peculiar'. Then we sat on that data for two years. We did everything we could to make it go away and we couldn't make it go away no matter how you analyze the data."

"The bottom line is, if low sodium is not helpful and may even increase the risk, it's better to focus on the overall quality of the diet."

"Reduce processed foods and focus on eating more fruits and vegetables and more potassium-containing foods -- an all-around wellness diet."

Professor Andrew Mente, epidemiology professor, McMaster University, Hamilton

Crystals of table, kosher, and pickling salt   (AP / Nati Harnik)

 

In reflection of conventional wisdom respecting the place of salt in a diet therapy meant for people with high blood pressure, the World Health Organization recommends consumption of less than two grams of sodium (five grams of salt) daily. The Mayo Clinic and Health Canada along with other health bodies suggest no more than 2.3 grams (about a teaspoon of salt) daily. In Canada, a report issued in 2017 by Health Canada assessed the average intake per person of salt in the country to be 2.8 grams.

Studies like the Harvard University-led TOHP trial in the United States in late 1980s and early 1990s underpin such recommendations from within the international health community. In that study some 4,500 people were divided into groups receiving either general healthy lifestyle advice or alternately weekly group and individual counselling in reducing sodium intake. Leading to the conclusion that those who received salt-reduction assistance were 25 percent less likely to suffer strokes, heart attacks and other cardiovascular events in years to follow.

Other controlled studies reached like conclusions; that as people absorb less sodium, a reduction in hypertension resulted, according to a recent paper. And then in 2009 Dr.Salim Yusuf of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences published research and commentaries that suggested heart health did not improve with sharp salt reduction intake. To state that consternation, condemnation and confusion and controversy resulted is to understate the impact of this reversal of popular medical wisdom.

Dr.Yusuf and his team of researchers made the decision to study the issue relating to two studies they ran focused on testing blood pressure drugs. A sidebar sodium study enrolled about 28,000 people from 40 countries. The participants, all at risk of cardiovascular disease, had their intake of sodium measured through interpreting secretions of the mineral in urine samples. What this study revealed shocked the scientists when they found that as sodium levels fell the rate of heart-and-stroke-related illness did initially fall, then rose again, with sodium intake amounts lower than three grams daily.

 

High blood pressure leads to heart attacks, strokes and death. Hypertension is considered the world's leading cause of mortality, and sodium considered the culprit in up to 30 percent of cases. The greater the sodium intake, the greater the retention of water in the body, to wash it away. This increases the pressure of blood being pushed through arteries and veins. Not only did cutting sodium below a certain point not lead to improved cardiovascular health, lower levels it turned out, might in fact increase risk of disease.

After the results were published in some of the world's foremost medical journals, and the McMaster University research team led by Dr.Yusuf, a highly respected researcher, were castigated for their unacceptable findings, they followed up with a parallel study of 102,000 subjects from 17 countries in another McMaster-led international research project called PURE. Published in the high profile New England Journal of Medicine, the results for the second study were similar to the earlier ones.

Their conclusion led them to argue the earlier evidence, like the TOHP trials, did not indicate that the standard sodium diet-reduction to the recommended level had any effect on improving health outcomes. Their critics focused on what they found to be a flaw in the methodology of the study where the gold-standard method is to collect all urine someone produces in a 24-hour period to test for secreted sodium and repeat it on non-consecutive days, whereas the McMaster-led trial performed a single fasting (spot sample) of urine early morning.

"It's tough and it's tedious so people try to cut a lot of corners (24-hour sampling). With a single-spot sample] stuies are much easier to do, much less complex -- and give you the wrong answers", pointed out Dr.Norman Campbell of University of Calgary. "They're making inaccurate and false statements and misleading statements and misinterpretations and they're not correcting things that are obviously flawed. this is a global aggravation for people who are trying to improve the health of their populations."

 

Dr.Mente, on the other hand, speaks of the advice to maintain sodium intake no higher than four or five grams daily, and not to be concerned about cutting it much below three grams. He also pointed out that their sodium studies were subjected to intense peer review pre-publication, where prominent journals assign vetting to half a dozen scientist-reviewers and two statisticians to vouch for accuracy. 

 

Dr.Yusuf comments that the science is in flux and the research he and his team conducted has aided in altering the sodium-hypertension paradigm; that their critics are unwilling to consider that health and research understandings have undergone an alteration. He and his colleagues' study results have come under scrutiny with charges of bias resulting from study funders such as health charities and drug companies.

"[Campbell's] enthusiasm for this as a crusader, you have to admire it."

"But at the same time, all scientific debate has to be based on respect, it has to be based on openness."

"It has to be based on entertaining different viewpoints."

Dr.Martin O'Donnell, professor of medicine, National University of Ireland, Galway, McMaster group collaborator

Relying on the conventional scientific wisdom, the World Health Organization recommends consuming less than two grams of sodium — five grams of salt — a day. Health Canada, the Mayo Clinic and other health bodies suggest no more each day than 2.3 grams, about a teaspoon of salt. Photo by Getty

 

"A new controversial study claims that in most cases, consuming salt will not increase health risks. The study published on August 9 in The Lancet, a scientific journal, followed 94 000 people between the ages of 35 and 70 across 18 countries to determine whether salt intake truly does increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and stroke (1), an accepted belief. Monitoring subjects over an average span of eight years,  interestingly, it was found that the risk only increases if the average sodium intake is greater than 5 g per day ― the equivalents of 2.5 teaspoons of salt."

"The research was led by Prof Salim Yusuf of the Population Health Research Institute (PHRI) of McMaster University and Hamilton Health Sciences in collaboration with colleagues from 21 different countries, including Canada, Argentina, Bangladesh, Brazil, Chile, China, Columbia, India, Iran, Malaysia, occupied Palestinian territory, Pakistan, Philippines, Poland, Saudi Arabia, South Africa, Sweden, Tanzania, Turkey, United Arab Emirates, and Zimbabwe."

"Salt-reduction enthusiasts argue that campaigns in the UK, Japan, and elsewhere over the past several years have led to a reduction in salt intake and consequently, a reduction in overall average blood pressure of the population. However, our bodies require essential nutrients like sodium to function, therefore, completely removing salt from our diets may be just as damaging as too much. But the question remains, how much is too much?"

European Scientist

Settling Suspions Once And For All

"It's not that it was boring, but it was a regular lab that worked in the same way as any other high-containment lab. What people are saying is just not how it is."

"If people were sick, I assume that I would have been sick -- and I wasn't."

"There was no chatter. Scientists are gossipy and excited. There was nothing strange from my point of view going on at that point that would make you think something is going on here."

"[I] could foresee how things could maybe happen. I'm not naive enough to say I absolutely write this off."

Danielle Anderson, Australian scientist, expert in bat-borne viruses

Anderson in Wuhan in 2019.   Source: Danielle Anderson

The 42-yar-old Australian scientist has had ample experience working out of laboratories all over the world. Her reputation as an expert virologist made her, as a scientist, welcome to work at any international laboratory as an adjunct to any work in her field being studied. And she just happens to be the sole foreign scientist to ever have been privileged to undertake research at the Wuhan Institute of Virology at their BSL-4 Lab, a highly secure laboratory, the first in China to come equipped to handle the deadliest pathogens in the world.

She was there until November 2019, when the strange new pneumonia-like virus was just beginning to emerge in the city of 15-million people. By the most peculiar of circumstances the coronavirus emerged in the very same city where scientists in highly protective gear, were studying the very family of viruses that caused a century-pandemic that has killed millions of people around the world. A fierce controversy has arisen, at first unsupported by scientists studying the virus but gaining adherents the more Beijing denies any such possibility.

The speculation persists, however, that the virus could have escaped from the lab, with scenarios as simple as an infected staffer or a contaminated object leaving the lab for the outside world. That Beijing chose to obscure the situation while denying that any suspicion could fall on it and at the same time refusing to permit investigators access to critical documents and the laboratory itself, suspicion simply grew.

 

Thomas Peter/Reuters

When Dr.Anderson received the invitation to work out of the Wuhan Virology Laboratory she was enormously pleased that she would be working alongside a friend and colleague, Shi Zhengli,, the lab's director. The scientific probe and anxiety to find the source of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19 has a purpose; to inform and enable scientists to fully understand how best to be prepared for future such outbreaks of new and perhaps even deadlier pathogens. China's lack of transparency on the matter does itself no favours and certainly does no favour for science and the scientific community.

The laboratory's work remains shrouded in controversy and mystery with the U.S. administration questioning the lab's safety record, alleging its scientists may have been involved in 'gain of function' research, manipulating viruses in such a manner that could produce more dangerous outcomes. Dr.Anderson began her collaboration in 2015 with the Wuhan researchers as scientific director of the biosafety lab at Duke-NUS Medical School in Singapore.

 

Shi Zhengli in the BSL-4 lab at the Wuhan Institute in 2017. Source: Feature China/Barcroft Media/Getty Images

Dr.Anderson describes strict protocols to contain the studied pathogens in the maximum biocontainment lab, a concrete, bunker-type building holding the highest biosafety designation requiring air, water and waste be filtered and sterilized prior to leaving the facility. To be certified to work independently in the lab, researchers must undergo 45 hours of specialized training. Scientists must demonstrate their knowledge of containment procedures and competency in the use of air-pressured suits: "It's very, very extensive", Anderson said of the induction process.

Now, a growing number of virologists and other related scientists have adopted the belief that something had gone seriously amiss at the institute specializing in virology, viral pathology and virus technology of twenty biological and biomedical research institutes of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. Despite that from within the SARS-CoV2 genome, no clear evidence exists it had been artificially manipulated, suspicion of the origins of the virus grows.

Beijing prevaricated for a year over permitting investigators from the World Health Organization to gain access to critical sites such as the Wuhan live market where the virus was first presumed to have emerged, and the laboratory itself, and its personnel. Finally, when the WHO investigation report was issued -- a report vetted by Chinese researchers, and written in collaboration with those researchers, guided by Chinese authorities -- it made little of the possibility of a lab leak but stated the virus had likely spread with a bat vector contaminating another animal that passed it to humans.

It was when the Wall Street Journal made the claim that three researchers from the lab had been hospitalized in November 2019 with flu-like symptoms, that attention was drawn back to the lab-escape theory. No one she knew, said Dr.Anderson, was ill toward the end of 2019 at the Wuhan Institute of Virology. An earlier coronavirus that had emerged from a lab in 2002 in Asia, killed over 700 people as it made its way out of secure facilities on a handful of occasions, she acknowledged. But the names of such employees as were claimed to have been hospitalized have not been released, nor proof of the contention.

As for knowing everything that was taking place in the great sprawling complex, that just didn't happen. There was published research from the lab involving the testing of viral components for their ability to infect human cells, but Dr.Anderson is convinced that no virus was intentionally created to infect people and then deliberately released; yet another disturbing theory about the origins of the pandemic. She does agree, in the face of the controversy, that a full investigation  is required to finally discover the origin of the virus even as she is appalled by charges against China by some media along with uninformed attacks on the scientists working there.

The BSL-4 lab, center, at the Wuhan Institute of Virology in May 2020.

Photographer: Hector Retamal/AFP/Getty Images

Canadian Liberal Scruples

"It's just easier not to rock the boat when the crowd is all going one way. It's hard to be the only one going the other direction. But standing alone on behalf of American interests and values is not something to be embarrassed by."
"Standing alone for freedom and human dignity is something to be proud of. In America we don't celebrate the mob. We celebrate the person who has the courage and conviction to stand up to the mob."
"Now we're seeing an example of this cultural corruption playing out in real time."
"...Canada is now seeking one of the rotating two-year seats on the Security Council. It faces a vote in the General Assembly. Two weeks ago, Canada surprised Israel's friends by voting for a North Korean resolution that challenges the legitimacy of Israel. This is a resolution that Canadian governments for years have voted against."
"One observer said Canada is making a 'Faustian bargain', trading its integrity for a seat on the Security Council."
"I speak from experience when I say the United Nations presents many such opportunities to strike a deal with the devil."
Nikki Haley, former American Ambassador to the United Nations

Former U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, author of the new book 'With All Due Respect: Defending America with Grit and Grace'

Speaking as a special guest of U.N.Watch in New York at a gala event, Nikki Haley was as frank as usual, emphasizing loyalty and principles. Her performance as the American representative to the United Nations was both principled and loyal to democratic values which recognized the State of Israel as a democratic ally in the Middle East, one whose right to exist is unqualified, yet which must be ever on alert to forestall deadly attacks against its citizens. Its neighbours, Palestinians and the leadership of the Palestinian Authority have never stopped contesting Israel's legitimacy and inciting violent attacks against Israeli citizens.

Israel, long isolated and threatened in the Middle East, surrounded by hostile Islamic countries ruled by despots, royalty and oil sheikdoms had never had the luxury of relaxing its vigilance against an unending series of conflicts, both state-sponsored all-out wars and ongoing militant attacks by those non-state militias recognized by civilized nations as terrorist groups. Making it all the more vital to Israel that sister-democracies of the Western world in North America and Europe support her right to exist as a normal country whose legitimacy goes unchallenged.

Until recently, until the advent of the Liberal-led government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau so wedded to his Lib-left 'progressive' values, Canada has for the most part been one of the stalwart supporters of Israel; never more so than under the previous Conservative-led administration of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper. Last month the Liberal government leading Canada into its second term performed a radical about-face.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper speaks at the UN Security Council September 24, 2014. Minister of Foreign Affairs John Baird listens in at left. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

That government saw fit to vote 'yes' for a resolution named "The right of the Palestinian people to self-determination", which had been sponsored by North Korea, Egypt Nicaragua, Zimbabwe and the "State of Palestine". This nascent state has done all it possibly could within the United Nations and internationally by a massive public relations campaign aided and abetted by expatriate Palestinians to infiltrate its corridors beyond observer status, leveraging itself as a 'state-in-waiting' to be given full accreditation.

This is the Palestinian Authority agenda, to marginalize Israel wherever it can, through casting doubt on its legitimacy, through claiming that Israel's military 'occupies' the West Bank and Gaza, victimizing Palestinians, while Palestinian Arabs are enjoined to 'resist' the 'occupation' by launching violent attacks against Israeli civilians, and are paid handsomely to respond to that incitement. Dedicated to declaring themselves 'victims' and 'refugees', the PA exists on foreign handouts making no effort to become self-reliant and self-supporting.

Through a campaign of global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, the PA has portrayed itself and its citizens as suffering under the heel of a repressive, violent neighbour, when in fact Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank can thank their leaders for the repressed, violent and oppressive states they live under which blame Israel. In the United Nations the non-aligned nations and the voting bloc of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation can be relied upon to support the 'State of Palestine' and to slander and isolate Israel.

Hillel Neuer ✔ @HillelNeuer

Trudeau is trading Canada's bedrock principles of fairness & equality for a UN Security Council seat. By voting for a resolution co-sponsored by North Korea & Zimbabwe, he has entered a Faustian bargain with dictatorships that does not bode well for a free & democratic society.

It is these groups with their detestation of Western values that the government of Justin Trudeau on behalf of Canada has chosen to ally itself with, all in the hope of receiving votes to elect Canada to the rotating arm of the Security Council. Justin Trudeau made the decision to abandon its support for Israel which under his administration has had little depth to begin with, to vote for the resolution sponsored by some of the world's most corrupt and notorious human-rights offenders.

Flags at the United Nations headquarters in New York. Damzou, Wikipedia

In so doing, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau felt entitled to call for an end "to the Israeli occupation" and once again assaulted Canada's southern neighbour by defending the statement's description of the United States, Canada's neighbour, trading partner and reliable defender as "the occupying Power". Anyone else would feel shame, be contrite, apologize and explain it was all an error in judgement of which he is notoriously guilty at the best of times.

Not Justin Trudeau, for he is infallible and no criticism can ever come his way, over the many instances of his lavish displays of contempt for others he considers his lessers, of negligence in decision-making that borders on the illegal, despite a number of formal disciplinary actions holding him to account, and not for the countless instances of misjudgement where his theatrical, juvenile stunts have embarrassed the Canadian community.

"If we want to talk about security in the Middle East, we should talk about Iran or Syria or Hezbollah or Hamas or ISIS or the famine in Yemen."
"There are about ten major problems facing the Middle East, and Israel doesn’t have anything to do with any of them."
Nikki Haley

Waiting ... Waiting ... Waiting

"The group has certainly been decimated in terms of territorial ownership, but the ideology is ... thriving."
"The Islamic State affiliates, wannabes, inspired, are still around and they're going to do what they can, whenever they can."
"We have a tendency to think that current events dictate future events. But I see nothing to suggest this is the new normal."
Phil Gurski, former senior strategic analyst, Canadian spy agency CSIS

"[The Easter Sunday Sri Lanka attacks represented one added manifestation of ISIL's opportunism to spread terror to] whatever venues are available."
"The fact of the matter is that [ISIL] suffered grievous setbacks in Western Iraq and Syria. But severely damaging a terrorist group is not the same as undermining its ideology or destroying its raison d'etre."
Revenge and retaliation for the lost caliphate has now infused [ISIL] with newfound purpose and energy."
Bruce Hoffman, terrorism analyst, Georgetown University

"I think that what our security systems have to really get on top of is that, if you have small groups ... they can mobilize quickly nowadays."
"It's such an interconnected world, and once they believe this poison, it's very virulent."
Anne Speckhard, head, International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism

"[Extremists inspired by terror groups such as ISIL and al-Qaeda remain the No.1 national security danger to public safety in this country."
"[ISIL] has lost significant amounts of territory due to the military actions of an international coalition which includes Canada. It has now shifted away from a focus on statehood to rebuilding its capacity and influence, and conducting insurgencies in both Syria and Iraq, and CSIS assesses that [ISIL] will continue its efforts to inspire and encourage operations abroad."
"The phenomenon of radicalization to violence, both offline and online, remains a great concern to Canada and its allies."
John Townsend, CSIS spokesman

A statue is pictured next to shrapnel marks at St. Sebastian's Church in Negombo on April 22, a day after the building was hit as part of a series of bomb blasts targeting churches and luxury hotels in Sri Lanka. Ishara S. Kodikara/AFP/Getty Images

According to Kamran Bokhari, director of the Center for Global Policy in Washington, sole focus on ideology and radicalization diverts from an equally vital issues eluding intelligence analysts and law enforcement: tradecraft. An entire "middle management layer" and funding stream that operates behind the scenes has not yet been fully comprehended, much less explored. "We haven't mapped out the ISIL creature, this entity."

"We don't have a good map of who's who. We don't know how this thing operates", he insists. Perhaps he could direct them to re-read Dore Gold's Hatred's Kingdom for starters, and then peruse the Koran, go to the Hadiths, sit on on Friday prayers at any local mosque....

What terrorism analysts are saying is that the central command of ISIL is taking credit for at the very least, inspiring the Sri Lankan Islamist group that carried out the massive co-ordinated bombings at three mosques and three hotels on Easter Week Sunday, killing up to 250 people and injuring another 500, as yet another victory in their jihad against Christianity and the West. More to come. Wherever opportunity leads.

Islamic State is, in essence, celebrating its new, re-energized brand, its virally lethal repudiation of all that is not strictly in adherence to an original Islamic code of exclusion, domination and conquest. Sleeper cells, loyal to and dedicated to the martyrdom ideology are everywhere. Just as the Muslim Brotherhood and arms loyal to Hamas and Hezbollah have infiltrated civilized societies manifesting their presence during occasional 'protests' where their flags are seen, ISIL's influence is also present.

"I think it's fundamentally true we will be encountering much more than lone wolf attacks in the coming years in Canada and beyond", cautioned Amarnath Amarasingam, senior research fellow at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. For just as Islamic State succeeded in drawing thousands of recruits from abroad to their caliphate sites in Syria and Iraq to its front lines, additional thousands absorbed by their strident militarism remain in situ to eventually disclose their presence through terrorist attacks.

Captured ISIS wives in Syria. What will become of the radicalized children? (Photo: DELIL SOULEIMAN/AFP/Getty Images)

Its propaganda machine will not be silenced. Defying the success of the international military coalition that managed to erase its regional geography, its ideological attraction has no boundaries and many receptors. According to a November report issued by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, as many as 230,000 Salafi-jihadist and allied fighters around the world are in place, in 2018 figures representing an 270 percent increase from 2001.

That's an impressive number of the ideological faithful favouring martyrdom and mass slaughter. Those numbers representing broad constituencies linked to the Islamic State, al-Qaeda and affiliates, assorted other Salafi-jihadist and allied groups, their inspired networks and loyal individuals. But not to be too concerned; most of the bloody damage is being done within countries of the non-West where global intelligence levels are low as is intelligence-sharing.

"We have to be worried about those who have come back", cautions Kyle Matthews, executive director of the Montreal Institute for Genocide and Human Rights Studies at Concordia University. "Are they prepping the next generation of young Canadians to their cause? Have they given up their world views? I'm not too sure". CSIS figures have it that about 190 "extremist travellers" from Canada travelled abroad.

The 2018 Public Report on the Terrorism Threat to Canada stated that close to 60 of that greater number had returned. And how to "contain" them? "The real battlefront is on the ideological level", states Matthews, with Canada and its allies urgently required to be more aggressive in the prosecution of ISIL fighters, domestically and through an international tribunal.

And . good . luck . to . that.

An American citizen and former college student, Hoda Muthana, left the US four years ago to join ISIS. She is currently being held in a refugee camp in northeastern Syria. President Donald Trump has tweeted that he had directed Mike Pompeo “not to allow Hoda Muthana back into the Country!” Hoda Muthana’s story is not unique – it reflects a widespread issue around the world, as democratic nations try to figure out how to deal with hundreds  of returning ISIS fighters