"Rabbinic Wisdom"

"The homogeneity of the European nation is fundamentally against the interests of the Jewish people. We are at a critical turning point in history. The West is becoming more and more diverse, and soon the White race wll be forced into submission. The future of the west is that of an ethnically diverse melting pot, where the evil divisions of race and white supremacy no longer regn. This is all thanks to the tremendous power of our social movements and institutions. This great change wll be catalyzed by Moslem settlement. From the land of Israel, Jews wll forever be a light unto the new monoracial world as guaranteed by G-d."

Rabbi Abarron Haviv, at the World Jewish Congress Summit, 2011

Via the Thinking Housewife

"Dual Citizens, Dual Loyalties?”

What should Canadians make of dual citizenship?
Draft written in April 2009

After an episode on Television Ontario's The Agenda with Steve Paikin as host: "Dual Citizens, Dual Loyalties?"
On TVO, only a blog entry exists of the episode.

---

Immigration lawyer Ravi Jain, who is a first generation immigrant of Indian background, was recently on Steve Paikin's The Agenda panel on dual citizenship titled: "Dual Citizens, Dual Loyalties?” He was behaving in a manner typical of immigrants. He has an automatic, knee-jerk, expectation that the whole world (or more precisely, the non-Western world) is entitled to immigrate to U.S. and Canada, and once there, to obtain an uncontested guarantee of citizenship. I don't know why immigrants such as Jain (that is 99.9% of immigrants) never question the logic of their argument. Still, Jain is an immigration lawyer, so part of the answer lies in his professional background. He has to accept and support the concept of immigration to win his clients' cases. And if I were a little more cynical, I would have to say that it is a lucrative business being an immigration lawyer.

But this arrogant sense of entitlement goes deeper than career opportunism. I've thought long and hard about it, and I think that non-Westerners come to Canada or the U.S. (and to European countries as well) with a "they owe us" dig. Of course, this hails back to all the perceived insults and oppressions of the colonial period, and the American influence around the world since then.

The contradiction is that Jain's India is one of the more prosperous countries in the world, and I would say that it is thanks to the institutions the British left behind, and the economic benefits Indians reap from American businesses.

And the fact that many immigrants are opting for dual citizenship shows that their countries are no longer the dismal, economically non-viable back waters which they presumably left never to return to again.

The phenomenon of dual citizenship has been brewing for the past twenty years or so, with about 150 countries (including Canada and the U.S.) now accepting such a status compared to only a handful in the early 1990s.

I would like to say that claiming dual citizenship is a good thing. After all, if more Indians return to India, they will find much to attract them there, including living happy Indian lives with their relatives, their traditions, their cultures and the many beautiful things that are part of their Indianness. And then they will remain in India.

But what the modern non-Western immigrant does is keep all his options open. For Indians, it would be to live and enjoy their Indian life, but keep the other foot firmly planted in Canada, including encouraging (coercing) more, ever-increasing Indian immigration to Canada. And going through impossible hoops to change Canada into their version of a Nordic India (if ever possible).

The objectives of non-Westerners like Jain is not Canadian nation building, but the acquisition of the rights and privileges of living in a prosperous nation and to glean as much as they can from it. Such “Canadians” will never publicly admit this, but their hearts and minds, all the way down to their second and third generation offspring, are back in their ancestral lands. The “We Love Canada” mantra of many non-Western Canadians is easily dismantled when asked what their affiliations to their non-Western lands are, and more succinctly, if they have, or agree with dual citizenship.

This is the tidy(!) quagmire the thoughtless wielders of our immigration policies have come up with. A set-up for people like Jain, whose loyalties, despite his family living in Canada for multiple generations [Update 2018: Probably Jain is a "first generation" immigrant. There is no information on his family background anywhere], will always be as an Indian first (a non-Westerner), and when push comes to shove, a Canadian next. When pressed, "Why Canadian" his reply will eventually reveal that what he wants are the gains, and let’s face it, it is mostly economic gains, he will get from Canada. In the mean time, he will be busy working under the radar to make sure that this prosperous Canada will continue to be a temporary haven (or a displaced haven) for people like him, and for thousands more whose entrance to Canada he will facilitate.

This is the stark reality of non-Western "Canadians." Don’t listen to what they say, look at what they do.

"Consider the Lilies"

[Photo By: KPA]

Luke 12:22-31

22 And he said unto his disciples, Therefore I say unto you, Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat; neither for the body, what ye shall put on.
23 The life is more than meat, and the body is more than raiment.
24 Consider the ravens: for they neither sow nor reap; which neither have storehouse nor barn; and God feedeth them: how much more are ye better than the fowls?
25 And which of you with taking thought can add to his stature one cubit?
26 If ye then be not able to do that thing which is least, why take ye thought for the rest?
27 Consider the lilies how they grow: they toil not, they spin not; and yet I say unto you, that Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.
28 If then God so clothe the grass, which is to day in the field, and to morrow is cast into the oven; how much more will he clothe you, O ye of little faith?
29 And seek not ye what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink, neither be ye of doubtful mind.
30 For all these things do the nations of the world seek after: and your Father knoweth that ye have need of these things.
31 But rather seek ye the kingdom of God; and all these things shall be added unto you.

The Warfare Against a Homeland

Driving through Upstate New York
July 2009
[Photo By: KPA]

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"People want a homeland despite all the psychological warfare against it, and the world can provide it."
Laura Wood
The Thinking Housewife

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"I love thy rocks and rills,
Thy woods and templed hills;
My heart with rapture thrills,
Like that above."

Excerpt from "My Country, 'Tis of Thee"
(Also known as "America")
Written by Samuel Francis Smith, 1832
Via The Orthosphere, July 24, 2018
From the Article "The Shabbiest Gospel"
By: J. M. Smith

At Urban Decay We're Made Involuntary Accomplices

The Urban Decay cosmetics store poster on its main window
At the "Luxury Wing" in the Square One Mall
[Photo By: KPA - July 2018]

This poster is in full view of shoppers and strollers, including families and young children, in the Square One, Mississauga, Shopping Centre.

What is a young girl (or boy) to make of this image of a white face (full face not visible) and a black face in such close proximity?

A Multicultural friendship?

Adults should realize that this is a sexualized image with the women's lips half open, which are, of course, "publicizing" Urban Decay's lip products.

And the ad makes us, the shoppers, involuntary accomplices in this behaviour, with the black model pointedly looking out at us.



Product Description:
Lips from the Lo-Fi lip mousse collection

Ready for modern matte lipstick that’s as chill as an afternoon record-shopping sesh? Whipped to airy perfection, Lo-Fi Lip Mousse is a weightless, buildable, waterproof lip color.

This matte lisptick provides high-impact waterproof lip color with a velvety soft finish that feels like you’re wearing nothing...[Source: Urban Decay Website]

Product Description:
Eyes from the Naked 4Some limited edition



From the Urban Decay website:

If you missed out on Naked: The Perfect 3Some Vault, you’re in luck. Naked 4Some ups the ante with FOUR of our coveted neutral palettes.

With a range of shades and finishes this huge, you’ll never run out of options. Go bronze with Naked (the palette that started it all). Channel a more taupe vibe with Naked2...[T]urn up the heat with the scorched neutrals in our newest Naked palette, Naked Heat...so you can get Naked whenever the urge strikes.

"And I will make of thee a great nation"

Genesis 12:2

And I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great; and thou shalt be a blessing

A Rescue Dog and A Smart Phone Explained

Later on that day, I walked by a couple of men (one white and the other "brown"). The white man had a hand-held SmartPhone™ which had music playing (loud enough to hear a couple of blocks away). It was a song in English (nothing unusual there, you might say).

But right across from where we were at the City Hall's Celebration Square, one of the many summer's "festivals," advertised as "Bollywood Monster Mashup," was in progress.

"Wrong song!" I chimed.

"You're listening to the wrong song," I explained to the curious white man. "You should be singing an Indian song like they're doing at Celebration Square!"

"Oh yes!" laughed the man (nothing from his companion).

"It's Bollywood Mashup today" he explains to the uninterested friend, who barely acknowledged my presence. I surmise that he must be yet another nationality from that so very diverse subcontinent.

I walk on not waiting for any conversation or interaction. "Have a good day!"

"Have a good day to you!" say the white man.

Nothing from his sidekick.

Here's yet another hidden behaviour. As brown-skinned people view each other with suspicion, they will always prefer the presence (or acquaintances if not friendships - as close as they can allow - of white people.

White Canadians built this country, they formed the culture, they have contacts and connections that go back generations. THEY are useful. Anyone else, well that depends...



Above, the Indian Flag Flying at the Bollywood Monster Mashup on Celebration Square, Mississauga, ,2018. The photo is from across the giant stage set for the week-end's events...

the LARGEST South Asian Festival in Canada, #BollywoodMonster Mashup, an event that shares the elegant yet ecstatic Bollywood culture with everyone. An event that helps bring cultures together. [Source: Bollywood Monster Mashup website - About]

That must be the attraction for Niko and his busy master. Perhaps he is involved in this cultural unifier, although real life is more demanding.

Multi-culti Mssssaugans continues to make hypocrites out of its citizens.

A Rescue Dog and A Smart Phone And the Myth of The Happy Multicultural

Niko's Long Lost Brother

The roads near my apartment building are under construction. My understanding is that they're restructuring the internal pipe and water systems. In any case, the wait for the traffic lights to change from green to red is much longer than usual (red to green is much shorter than usual).

The trick is to remain patient. I've now found a ledge where I can sit and wait.

Yesterday, I got to the crossing just as the lights changed to green. A long wait. As I got there a man came along with a dog. I am a big fan of dogs and know most of the ones near or around my building. This one was a stranger. It looked like a mix between a golden retriever and a husky. It has lovely green eyes.

The owner was an Asian man (South Asian). He had the dog on a leash and had his head down on his hand-held SmartPhone™ throughout. I don't even know how he realized the lights had changed. Probably because cars were stopping rather than rolling through (the sound changes).

"Can I stroke him?" I said. I partly speak to people to see their reactions. In multi-culti Mississauga, conversation is rare. People stick to themselves, and their own, and especially the Asians/Africans/Arab/Hispanics.

I think this is partly a genuine problem with communication. Many adults speak English "as a second language" and thus have problems expressing precisely what they wish to communicate. Partly it is also suspicion (perhaps this s a larger part of the problem). Many immigrants are now shoulder to shoulder with people they have little or no knowledge about. Some may even be adversaries (or even enemies) in their countries of origin. And at times such animosities travel across the oceans to this land of happy multiculturalism.

Most immigrants DO NOT have faith in multiculturalism. They know first had it doesn't work "back home." Why should it work here?

Thus Canada (Mississauga) is a land of enclaves: Portuguese; Sri Lankans; Ethiopians; Egyptians. And even enclaves within enclaves some based on ethnicity like the Ethiopian Amhara, Oromo and Tigre, and some religious like the Egyptian Copts and Muslims.

Back to my cross-roads encounter.

There was a brief pause as the man registered that the question was directed at him.

"Oh. Sure. He's friendly."

Back on his SmartPhone™ .

And the dog really was friendly, and happily grinning to have someone stroke his head.

"What's his name?"

No correction there, so the dog is male.

"Niko."

"Hi Niko!" And Niko continues to grin.

"How old is he?"

"Mmmm [flicking through pressing information]. About 4 years old."

"Oh! He's a rescue!" ALL dog-owners know the exact age of their pooch.

The light changes and the man drags the dog across as he answers "Yes."

I was actually waiting for the light for the perpendicular road to change.

Niko waddles along looking back at me. It was more than his master could muster, who couldn't get across quick enough!

I just laughed and watched them walk on. "Where COULD they be going?" I asked myself. All there was in that direction was more of the busy and noisy Hurontario throughway, although there are now high rise buildings scattered along the way.

"Oh. He must live in one of those!! And he's just coming from the more green areas around the City Hall, taking his "rescue dog" for a walk."


View of the Square One are in Mississauga
The City Hall (City Centre) and its clock tower is in the background
And the MiWay Bus Terminal in the foreground
[Photo By: KPA - 2017]

As I waited for MY green light, I looked into the line of cars waiting patiently for the light to change, holding brown faces and yellow faces, Chinese and Filipino and Arab faces. And and some which looked Eastern European. No WASPs - of the blonde and blue type.

I realized then that the man must have thought I was Arab (or Middle Eastern). Indians and Arabs are not the best of friends. Perhaps he was Hindu. Mississauga has one of the largest "Indian" which means "Hindu-Indian" population in Ontario. And they are touted as professionals and with some wealth. My understanding is that they work within the computer and digital industry in the region.

And the man did look relatively well-off. He had on a white polo shirt (maybe Lacoste?) and navy blue, slim-cut track pants (none of that baggy running/gym gear people wear these days) - maybe Ralph Lauren? His shoes were tan (Mocassin?) loafers, NOT sneakers or flip-flops which less wealthy Indians seem to prefer.

I wonder why (how) he called his dog Niko?

I googled "Niko" and here's what came up in Wikipedia:


In arts and entertainment: Fictional characters

Niko (animated), on the television series The Adventures of the Galaxy Rangers
Niko, a character played by Orestes Matacena in the 1994 film The Mask
Niko Bellic, the main character of the game Grand Theft Auto IV
Niklaren Goldeye, a character in Tamora Pierce's Emelan books
Niko, a pirate in The Legend of Zelda video games
Niko, a character played by Steven Seagal in the 1988 film Above the Law
Niko Yazawa, one of the main characters of media franchise Love Live!
Niko, the playable character of the video game Oneshot
Nikko Halloran, a character played by Remy Ryan in the 1993 film, RoboCop 3

In arts and entertainment: Performers

Niko (musician), a musician currently signed to ATIC Records
Niko Etxart, Basque singer and musician
Maurizio De Jorio, Italian Eurobeat artist using the stage name Niko

Other uses in arts and entertainment

Niko & The Way to the Stars (The Flight Before Christmas in North America), an animated film
Niko, the Japanese name for the erhu, or Chinese fiddle

Other uses

Minbu Nikō, a Buddhist disciple of Nichiren
Nikō (company), a Japanese manufacturer of photographic cameras later renamed Cosina
Niko Kovač, a Croatian soccer player
Niko Kranjčar, a Croatian soccer player
Niko Resources, a Canadian oil and gas company

I doubt Niko is named after "Minbu Nikō, a Buddhist disciple of Nichiren," with his pointy husky face (if his golden retriever had dominated, then maybe).

The Starving Artist Myth

On Sun, Jul 8, 2018 at 7:48 AM, eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

To whom it may concern;

Please can you inform me where I can purchase the Ink Movement's Mississauga Youth Anthology VI online or through your website.

Thank you,

Kay A.

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On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 8:45 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hello Kay!

We are very sorry for the late response - we are flooded by emails during this time of the year and accidentally missed this one! Also, the anthology does have a cost ($20) unless you're published, in which case you can get a free copy. This is why we do not have an online document. Hope that helps!

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused. Let us know if you have any questions and/or concerns.

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

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On Wed, Jul 18, 2018 at 11:35 PM, eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

It is surprising that you took 10 days to respond to my email. Also that you have no way to purchase the document online, or to download it if has no cost.

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On Wed, Jul 18, 2018, at 11:45 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hello Kay!

We are very sorry for the late response - we are flooded by emails during this time of the year and accidentally missed this one! Also, the anthology does have a cost ($20) unless you're published, in which case you can get a free copy. This is why we do not have an online document. Hope that helps!

Again, we apologize for any inconvenience we may have caused. Let us know if you have any questions and/or concerns.

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Thu, Jul 19, 2018 at 12:16 AM, eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

Thanks for your reply. It is a trek for me to get to the Art Gallery. Can I send a $20 check to your organization and have you send me a copy?

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, Jul 20, 2018 at 9:15 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Kay!

We will get back to you soon on that one!

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Fri, July 20, 2018 at 9:29 PM, ink.movement@gmail.com wrote:

Hi Kay!

Unfortunately, we are unable to ship you a copy - you would have to come to the AGM to get one. You can call them in advance and ask them if they have copies left as there are a limited number of them.

Let us know if you were able to get a copy or if you have any questions and/or concerns!

Regards,
Ink Movement Mississauga

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On Fri, July 27, 2018 at 7:46 AM eightypictures@gmail.com wrote:

Cc:reclaimbeauty@gmail.com

Thanks for your reply.

There is really nothing further for me to ask you since you were unable to assist me with a simple request: That you mail me a copy of you latest anthology (or find me an online point of sales) for a copy.

I would only add that artists are also salesmen. A gallery that doesn't even promote your book to your benefit is not assisting you.

To further your cause, which is to distribute Massasauga writers' talents across the country (and beyond) you need to take your own actions. For example:
- Self publish and have Amazon distribute your book
- Self publish and distribute your book on your own website
- Have a business contract with agencies like the Art Gallery of Mississauga where you books can be obtained both in the gallery and through online purchase.

I wish you all the best. The starving artist image (and ideal) went out a couple of centuries. It has made a come-back in our era of "government funds" promises. But promises come with strings attached. And your independence, and your words, will eventually be required to fall in line with these agencies' mandates in order that their "promises" to you get to be fulfilled.

If you disagree with their mandates, then you will be well on the way toward the unpleasant life of a "starving artist." Ask Van Gogh what that's like.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat
Artist, Designer, Writer
Email: reclaimbeauty@gmail.com
At: Reclaiming Beauty

Davids Tea and A Summer Filled with Delicious Teas

To whom it may concern,

I am a frequent shopper (and visitor) at the Square One, Mississauga Davids Tea.

I am an avid coffee drinker but Davids Tea's delicious and abundant teas have made me into a tea-convert.

I have introduced DT to friends near and far.

And recently I informed sales people in Square One (Walmart and Whole Foods) of DT's promotions and sales items when they commented on the lovely blue DT bag with my Alpine Punch Tea.

I will always remain a loyal and eager customer. But it is with regret that I have to report a saleswoman who consistently behaves contrary to DT's first class employees that provide me with great service.

The saleswoman is at the Square One Davids Tea. Her Employee Number is 10006670, which I obtained from a receipt of our latest interaction, which was today, 7/20/2018, around 10:25 am (Transaction: #0000364983, Store: #00097, Terminal: #00097-R1). This is the third unpleasant incident I have had with her, which all boil down to her unwillingness to provide me with proper service and attention as I shop in your store.

I was planning to buy an ice tea pitcher on a 1/3 off sale ($28 to $19). I had seen it yesterday and stopped by to pick it up today.

I walked to the front of the store to look for it. But couldn't find it. While I was searching, 10006670 called out "Good morning" from the back. I wasn't paying attention and continued looking. The employee then shouted out in a more aggressive manner as though demanding my attention "Good morning!" I smiled, turned around and replied "Good morning," and continued searching.

Then I went to the back of the store where the employee was located. She was going through some kind of book which looked like she was doing inventory or bookkeeping. I waited a while, then asked her if there was any tea to sample for today. She gave me a cold tea but I asked what was the hot tea. Again she reluctantly looked up from her task and said something like "What can I do for you?"

By this time, I was angry and said that I have been repeating myself all this time.

We went back and forth for a while. Then I said "Are you going to keep this up? Is this customer service?"

"Employee are people too!" she said rudely and nonchalantly.

"I don't know about that," I rebutted.

At which point the woman has tears in her eyes and says: " I take offence at that!"

Another saleswoman had come in by that time, perhaps hearing our interaction and to relieve the woman now in tears. This second woman is Asian, who I am sorry to say had provided me with a similar distracted service just the day before and had in fact misinformed me about the pitcher sales until I put some pressure on her for more concrete information.

By then I had paid for my pitcher, and as the first saleswoman handed me my receipt, I simply walked out of the store.

Davids Tea is a great place. I am reporting these two incidents because I believe they are isolated. I hope the company can resolve them if indeed I have made the correct assessment and that there was some deficiency in customer service, at least towards me.

Thank you for your attention. And I look forward to a summer filled with your delicious teas.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

I Love This Land
by Chief R. Stacey LaForme of the Mississaugas of New Credit First Nation



You were and always shall be my brother
We were all the same color wrapped in the flag of this nation
My blood flowed as freely as yours, mixed in the fields one could not be distinguished from the other
Yet when we came home, when the nation’s colours were removed
Difference became apparent, not between you and me, God willing never
But in the eyes of those for whom we laid down our lives.

Oh, we still stood shoulder to shoulder in the parades, but the government thought that your life was more
valuable than mine
So you were given land, property, while I waited and I waited,
I know what you were given was not enough for what we endured
Still it was much more than I.

I am not envious of you brother, I believe you deserve even more than you received
But it hurt me very badly, I am not ashamed to say I cried and why not
I bled, I died, I killed, why does my country think I am unworthy
The enemy I fought could never be as cruel as the people I came back to embrace.

I gave so much, lived through so much and then you,
you who I would give all for, you pushed me aside as if I was inconsequential
I feel as if I have been spit upon by one I honored.

Do I feel good, having to ask you for what should have been given long ago, no?
In fact, I am a little ashamed to ask for justice in this
For I never went to war for money, for glory, for reward, I went because it was the right thing to do and God forgive me, I would go again.

This may seem an old wound to you but it is a wound that never heals
For it is a wound to my people’s heart and soul and insult to our pride
And we deserve so much better, especially from you.

The gods of Mississauga

From the Art Gallery of Mississauga webpage for the June 28, 2018 Summer Exhibition opening reception:

Opening Reception: Thursday, June 28, 6 - 9 PM

Chief Stacey LaForme will open the exhibition with a prayer and a poem honouring our waterways at 6:45 PM, followed by a performance by percussionist and composer Germaine Liu at 7 PM.

Screenshot from agmengage, the Art Gallery of Mississauga's Instagram post (click on the arrow of the first image showing a group of people to get this this embedded image - one of five mages):


"Chief Stacey LaForme opened our summer shows with
a prayer and a poem honouring #waterways."

About Chief Stacey LaForme:

Stacey Laforme is the elected Chief of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation (MNCFN). Born and raised on MNCFN, Chief Laforme has served his community for over fifteen years, being first elected to council in 1999.

Chief Laforme is committed to increasing involvement and communication between Elected Council and both on and off-reserve membership. He is very active throughout MNCFN’s traditional territory which encompasses 3.9 million acres of Southern Ontario, not only as a Chief, but as a notable storyteller and poet. His dedication to the land, history, language and culture of the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation are helping to guide his First Nation towards a prosperous future.
[Source]

At the Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation (MNCFN) Picnic, 2017
[Image source]

How to Clean a White Straw Hat

Trade cards (Cigarette cards)

From the New York Public Library Digital Collections
The George Arents Collection

The Fate of the Queer

When I started to write this post, I misspelled "faith." The title should have read "The Faith of the Queer," instead of The Fath of the Queer." Although technically it wasn't my spelling error but the (now) limited functions of my keyboard.

Disclosure: my "i" and "k" on my keyboard don't work so I have to rely on my spellcheck to catch the errors. My spellcheck has filed as correct certain words like "wth" (perhaps because of frequent use and misspelling), and there's no red squiggly line to show that I've made a mistake.

Fortunately, I have a "screen keyboard" where I can just click in the missing letters. But when I rush through proofreading, I tend to pass over "wth" (and other words).

So.

When I titled this blog post as "The Fath of the Queer," meaning to write "The Faith of the Queer" I got of course a red squiggly line under "Fath." And when I resorted to spellcheck, I got "Fate."

And that makes for a perfect title for this post!

---

The Fate of the Queer

The Art Gallery of Mississauga is co-hosting an event in a neighborhood cafe. Here is what they have publicized on their "Facebook Events" page:

You’re Invited! Join us for a Critical Conversation on the intersections of faith and sexual and gender identities on Saturday, July 21st from 6:30-9:00pm at Studio.89, a barrier-free space with all-gendered washrooms. We’re proud to co-host this month’s Critical Conversation night with the Art Gallery of Misssauga and Queer, Trans, Black, Indigenous, People of Colour (QTBIPOC) Sauga. Our moderator will be no other than Anu Radha Verma.

[Note: the misspelling of "Mississauga" (highlighted in red above) was NOT my computer's error. The AGM with close to 1/2 a million in various (1, 2, 3) government government funds still cannot get its information up to par. I have a budget of ... ZERO]

Critical Conversations is one of Studio 89's FREE monthly events that engages the community and raises consciousness about critical issues that affect us locally and globally. We invite a panel of super knowledgeable folks to offer insight and facilitate our discussion. We want to celebrate Pride for our July Critical Conversation.

We’ve invited Panelists to share their stories about their religious, sexual, and gender identities. We can’t wait to see you! Please don't hesitate to email beawesome@studio89.org if you have any questions.

QUEERS of Fate: Christian, Muslim, Hindu, Buddhist, Pagan - COME ON OVER!

The ever-accommodating AGM, with its Barrier-Free Space | All Gender Washroom is inviting you all to come to a discussion on your FATE.

NOT TO BE MISSED!!!!

Of Zombie Witches and Desolate Forests

J. S. Smith at The Orthosphere writes:

As a sixteenth-century witch hunter put it, when hags convene to invoke evil spirits, the place

“to be chosen [is] melancholy, doleful, dark and lonely; either in woods or deserts, or in a place where three ways meet, or among ruins of castles, abbeys, monasteries, or upon the seashore when the moon shines clear” (Reginald Scott, The Discovery of Witchcraft [1584]).

I wrote about this here: The Covert (is there any other way?) Satanic Imagery in the New Art Gallery of Mississauga Exhibit.

An excerpt from my article:

Here, a zombie witch (whose gender is nonetheless not clear) sits in a forest as she (it) genuflects its arms around its grey hair (casting spells?). Later in the video, this zombie witch joins other creatures as they run through the forest, two which are horned, and another a more "conventional" witch with a haggard grey face and decayed teeth.

Video still from Supernature (Preview 2 min)
Director: Lotte Meret Effinger
Camera: Melanie Jilg
Editor: Thomas Kühn
Music Composer: Florian Meyer
Poster 3D rendering: Marco Buetikofer

The Many Faces of Vijaya: A Little Bit Canadian, A Whole Lot Indian: The Inner Struggles of A Multi-Culti™ Life

Vijaya: Modern Dualties

Vijaya Selvaraju is the go-to chef(ess) for the Marilyn Denis Show, a popular day-time show for the female viewers (one would think that females were now part of the masculine work-force and shouldn't be sitting at home watching day-time television, albeit to help them run better homes - which in itself is hypocritical since all those men can now apparently run circles around their wives when it comes to housework - but such is the hypocrisy of our modern era).

Vijay (as she's undoubtedly known in familiar circles) is a chef (although she'd love "chefess" even more). She travels the world, and of course our more constricted Canadian (and Ontorian) landscape, to partake of her recipes and culinary advice. She is also very adept at culling food information from wherever she goes. One could say, in a less generous spotlight, that she is very clever at using recipes she has found in her vagabond ways that she reproduces at her chefess appearances. Copyright pressures her to name her sources, but she is the one on the Marilyn Denis Show! And she wouldn't even link to her "Japanese Cheesecake" inspiration source on any of her "social media' sites.

Her multi-culti ethos forces her to "blend" her recipes. But if she had her way, she would be doing Indian Fusion ALL the time. But that doesn't pay. What Somali fan of Marilyn (or Hispanic, or Polish, or ....) would want an adulterated Indian Fusion recipe? "GIVE US THAT GLOBAL CANADIAN FARE" they would demand, their request coming in ALL CAPS. What they really mean is "Give me MY dish."

Marilyn has her on frequently. And since Vijay is a professional, she will come up with the right answers to Marilyn's untutored foodie questions. But she ALWAYS slips in her favorite spices: her cumin and coriander and cloves and turmeric.

Vijay is modern. She as comfortable in a mini-skirt as she is in a sari. But make not mistake about her loyalties. Her Facebook and Instagram posts are full of her travels to her "homeland," where she pays tribute to her gods and goddesses.

"It's only a matter of time" she would proclaim her fervent belief that Canada become an uncomplicated haven of Hindu celestials. "We can accommodate you, including your Allah and your Jesus. We are the true multiculturals. We are the real Canadians."

Oatmeal Upma
From: The Canadian Family

Vijaya, an adventurous and dynamic self-taught cook, loves to put a twist on traditional meals. One of her favourite warm breakfast recipes is her Oatmeal Upma. Check it out below! Or click here to watch Vijaya’s cooking demonstration.

Ingredients
3, 28g Sachets Quaker® Regular Instant Oatmeal (approx. 1 cup)
1 tsp, Ghee
1 small Onion, finely chopped
2 Thai Chilis, split lengthwise
1/4 cup, finely cubed Carrots
1/4 cup, Frozen Peas
1/4 cup, Fried/Roasted Cashews
1.5 cups, Water
Salt to Taste
Chopped fresh Coriander to garnish
Directions
In a small frying pan on medium-high heat, toast Quaker® Regular Instant Oatmeal for 2-3 minutes until slightly golden with a nutty aroma. Transfer to a bowl and set aside.In the same pan, add Ghee. Add Onion, Ginger and Chilis and sauté until softened. Then add Carrots and Peas, and sauté for 2 minutes to make vegetables tender. Add Roasted Cashews, Water, and Salt to Taste. Increase heat to high, and bring mixture to a rolling boil.Once boiling, drop heat to medium, and stir in toasted Oatmeal. Continue stirring mixture for 6-7 minutes, until almost all the water has been absorbed and the mixture takes on the texture of a thick porridge.Remove from heat and garnish with fresh chopped Coriander. Serve immediately. Enjoy! :)

And of course Vijaya's mom is an infrequent (but prominent) guest and co-chef: Vijaya and her adorable mom whip up delicious dosas

Le Quatorze Juillet

Claude Monet (1840-1926)
La rue Montorgueil à Paris. Fête du 30 juin 1878
[The Rue Montorgueil in Paris. Celebration of June 30, 1878]
Oil on canvas
H. 81; W. 50 cm
Musée d'Orsay

Rue Montorgueil is not far from the city's historic center: Place de la Bastille, and closer still to Place de la Republique.

"Les Anglais"

The contemporary thinking about foreigners turns them into moral, cultural or social issues, but downplays the most important one: actual logistics.

Foreigners are people who travel to lands which are not their own, with cultures and social structures different from theirs, with languages they don't speak or speak without the fluency of their own languages.

In less progressive eras, when a foreigner came to a country other than his own, he had to understand the country he came to and subjugate himself to these different circumstances, and behave accordingly. He would always remain a foreigner, however many years he has lived there, and however many obstacle tests he has passed (and with distinction even).

There was an intriguing and endearing time in my life in Paris.

When we just arrived, our apartment was in a neighborhood which had its own boulangerie, patisserie, cafe, tabac and all the other accoutrements of French neighborhood life. It was like a mini-village within the large city, as all Parisian residential neighborhoods are (our next neighbourhood was slightly more cosmopolitan being near the Tour Eiffel and the shopkeepers were friendly but too busy to ask for details, although they always greeted us familiarly).

I went to a French bilingual school for the first six months and later we went to the first of two boarding schools in England, in Kent.

We had always been English speakers, having had our elementary education in Addis Ababa at what was then called The English School. I was fluent in English at a very early age.

As is always the case, neighborhood merchants, especially those one frequents regularly and with a Mom & Pop management style, make an effort to know their clientele, and even their names.

This particular French boulanger and his wife would greet us in a familiar way and I'm sure, when we (the kids) no longer came accompanied by their mother, asked: "Ou sont les enfant?"

By then my mother knew some French and no doubt told them as best she could that we were at school in England.

This was an instinctive association by country. If this Arab-looking family sent their children to a pensionat in England, then they must be of the English cultural persuasion and therefore they are English. Most Arabs in France have a French - colonial - association, and they would have kept their children within the French culture.

On a side note, this was the argument - the debate - used to say that North Africans (Moroccans and Algerians mostly) were French because of this colonial past, and that the huge numbers of immigrant North Africans can live in France as Frenchmen. Of course Arabs feel differently: they ARE NOT Frenchmen!!! They would always be Arab.

Back to my Parisian neighbourhood. We became known as "Les Anglais!" The patriotic neighbourhood baker and his wife (his wife mostly because she was the one who ran the storefront and communicated with the customers) associated us with their perennial and historical antagonists, the English, those most foreign of foreigners!

But she loved us! Who wouldn't! This cute threesome, with their coats and hoods in the winter rushing to school early in the morning, or coming in for their favorite "Kim-Cone" ice cream in the summer which they bought with long-saved pennies, now going across the seas to learn things! How brave they are!

"Quand viennent-ils, les enfant?" she would ask my mother those long months when we were away.

But we always remained "Les Anglais."

What the Gastronomic Nose Remembers

Mais Bien Sûr!

Allan at Laura Wood's The Thinking Housewife writes about the memories as a young boy with his father:

I remember the screen door, the sink in the corner, the radio on the kitchen table, and a picture he kept on a wall showing his brother with his teammates on an amateur baseball team in 1930. I remember the nights we sat there with a glass of orange juice and a plate of chocolate chip cookies.

Americans will pass by this paragraph which mentions in passing the ever-prominent Chocolate Chip Cookie. It is a given that chocolate chip cookies are part of the American culinary tradition.

But ask a Frenchman what kind of chocolate sweets he likes and he may say: "Mais bien sûr, but of course, mousse au chocolat" or perhaps go on a long tirade on the many many kinds of delicious and superior French chocolate sweets, but he will never mention the chocolate chip cookie, and may even turn his pointy narrow nose as it, if pressed for a culinary critique, and even more so at the thought that it may have influenced his childhood palette.

Ask a Brit and his best response would be "chocolate pudding, of course!" But the Brits are never modest, especially when on a gastronomic war with a pointy-nosed Frenchman.

But baking a chocolate chip cookie is a labor of love. I know, I've tried it. You cannot get it too soft, nor too hard. The chips should stay in place and not spread out into a melted frenzy. The inside of the cookie should be soft while the outside has a crunch that lets your teeth sink into it.

And above all kids MUST like the final product. If they leave the dozen or so baked goodies on the plate placed specifically meant for them at the the kitchen counter, then you know something's not right.

Chocolate chip cookies are an art form. Whoever says "not so" - "pas du tout," and with a clothespin pinching in his nose - needs to have his taste buds checked.

Two Elevator Encounters

Celebration Square on Canada Day, July 1 2018
(Sprinklers and shallow pool in the background)
[Photo By: KPA]

1. Walmart Elevator:

A woman and a small, blonde-haired boy rush to enter the elevator as the door was closing. "Sorry!" chirps the woman, for the extra wait as the elevator doors opened again.

"That's O.K." I replied. "It's nice that the store is so empty. People are afraid of the heatwave!"

"Oh we love it," said the woman, looking at the boy. "We just came from the sprinklers at Celebration Square."

The young boy just looked up at me. I get that reaction from young children because of my big orange summer hat.

"I think he likes my orange summer hat!"

"Yes. And he likes orange!"

I held the elevator door open as they went out.

"Thank you," said the mother and I got a faint smile from the boy.

---

2. Elevator in our apartment building:

Once again, I was the first one in and held the door for a woman and her young son to come in.

The boy was looking at me intently and I was pretty sure it was because of my big orange hat. He also looked grumpy.

"Hot isn't it!" I said to the mother.

"Yes," she replied

The elevator stopped and a couple of people, two black men who looked like they were contract maintenance workers, walked in. They were cheerful and communicative.

The young boy started to speak to his mother in a whiny voice, in Spanish.

One of the men said: "Oh sorry! We shouldn't have stopped the elevator."

"I think he's just hot," I said.

"Yes. We just came from the sprinklers," said the mother.

"Aha," said the man, by which time they had reached their floor. "Bye now," one of them said as they left. "Bye," I replied." The woman didn't say anything.

I was left in the elevator with the young boy and his mother, and it seemed strange to keep silent after our brief introductory conversation.

"He looks tired," I said.

"I think he getting sick," she replied.

I laughed and said: "Kids still want to play even if they're sick."

"Yes."

By this time, I realized that all that was happening was my initiation of a conversation and a brief reply by the woman. She had no desire to communicate with me.

The woman reached her floor and left without saying goodbye. I wasn't surprised.

She was from Latin America, I but couldn't place her Spanish. She wasn't Mexican.

This now prevalent mistrust of peoples towards each other is becoming a way of life in multicultural Mississauga. Neighbors don't say "hello" to each other; elevator conversations are avoided; any attempt at communication is viewed with suspicion.

And there is also the important factor of language. Most people speak a language other than English, and find it difficult to talk conversationally in English. Communication is thus left to the basics, if at all.

But the woman's behaviour is the suspicion that immigrants and non-Whites have toward each other. She probably couldn't figure out where I was from. Perhaps I am Arab (most people think so). In any case, I am not familiar.

Everyone becomes a stranger. And those who appear too friendly are viewed with suspicion.

"Why do they want to talk? What are they trying to find out?" becomes the underlying thought.

Neighbors are no longer neighbors.

The Egocentric Western World View

What sophisticated Third Worlders really think of the West.

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"Welt" by "Eric Gaba"

[Note: The original of the image above, as posted on the article website is very faint. At first I thought it was a spam/ad. I increased the contrast to make it clearer. I suppose the "meaning" is a world split up by Western powers that is also disappearing world because of Western greed: West-induced climate change/global warming and post-post-post Western colonialism.]

Deepa Narayan
Band-Aid Politics
From: The European Magazine: Rethinking the Western World View
December 11, 2013

The egocentric Western world view has boosted poverty and inequality. Instead of reshaping the system, the centers of power still support the “colonization of the mind”.

Our world today is a reflection of a world view and consciousness – including values, beliefs, habits, routines, rules and organizations – shaped particularly by the ‘Western world’. The leaders and the educated of the so-called developing countries have absorbed this worldview and it is reflected in the economic, political and social structures. As a result, despite the spread of formal democracy and mass education, inequality continues to grow – including in India and China.

The wealth and power of the world has been privatized and consolidated within a few hands. Corporations like Wal-Mart and Royal Dutch Shell manage revenues greater than the GDP of 171 countries, while 3.5 billion people – half the world’s population – live on less than $2.50 a day, less than the cost of a cup of coffee.

“The poor man is the head of the burial ground”

The world has adopted an economic model of market capitalism that ignores inequality and environmental destruction. Power inequalities exist even within households. The WHO estimates that globally, 30% of all women have been assaulted by an intimate partner and as much as 35% if outsiders are included. We are in this world and in this mess together.

The Western world view is centered on the individual: I, me, and the supremacy of the individual by maximizing exploitation of others and the environment. This focus on the individual is reflected in economic theory, political theory, educational theory and psychological theory. It is drummed into the collective consciousness through laws, images, metaphors, folklore, stories and songs in popular culture. For a few centuries, the driving force has been an economic vision based on self-interest.

There are cracks in this world view, but for the centers of power the conversation is about band aids rather than questioning and reinventing systems based on a new world view, on a new consciousness, and a new morality that is not premised on the individual, on superiority and exploitation.

In contrast to the centers of power, poor people have a more sophisticated understanding of reality as I have documented in several books. They are aware that they have not caused poverty. They understand power inequalities, systemic violence, and their systematic exclusion from lives of dignity. A discussion group of poor men and women in Kagera, Tanzania pointed out to a community official: “you see this young man, this executive officer. He is tiny. If I push him, he will fall. He cannot even carry a jerry can of water. But touch him and see what he will do. They have powers hidden in the rules they design. Their power is hidden in papers.” Another group said, “when you have no power, stop dreaming; you will have no freedom, no equality and democracy will remain a story to you.”

Poor men in Andhra Pradesh, India summarized power differences as “the rich man in the village is the head of the village; the poor man is the head of the burial ground.” Women described their limited life choices, as “there is a ditch in front of us and a well behind us”. Poor people differentiated between classical sociological definitions of power over, power to, and power with others. They added a fourth one: power within. Yet poor people remain largely optimistic, they keep trying, and want to remain rooted in communities. Migration is their last resort.

If poor people understand and ‘see’ systemic power differences that limit their life chances, why can’t we? We, the educated, were effectively colonized long after the institutions of colonization disappeared. The values of western culture remain deeply embedded in our current institutions – in the East and the West. The biggest impoverishment by the “West” was the colonization of the mind.

The British in India, for example, did not create the state to benefit Indians. The state was created to extract resources efficiently in order to ship them back to the UK, to collect oppressive land taxes, and to keep control over the ignorant and inferior masses. At independence these same state structures were handed over to natives, who drafted their own constitutions, but failed to dismantle the underlying structure and culture of superiority, control, and violence. The systems of control continue to be propped up by inherited colonial educational systems that cut off local imagination. Over the years the state has been effectively privatized for individual benefit, and corruption is the norm.

A “we” world view

What we now need is a moral vision that guides us to reinvent and re-imagine systems of power relating to the state, society, politics and business. These new systems must be based on a world view of “we” and respect, economy and trade based on sharing and enough, a society based on small interconnected communities imbued with equality and compassion, states based on respect for all people, and educational systems that let imaginations soar.

We as planet earth are collectively challenged to re-imagine a different future, use a new vocabulary, metaphors, images and stories. This will not emerge from our current political or business leaders, but from ordinary citizens, who engage in a new and deep conversation about change, organize themselves and let their voices be heard. And that is not enough. We then need to act inspired by our collective vision.

$23 Million For Anointed Grievance Groups

Justin Trudeau and Isqra Khalid: Funding the Ideology of White Genocide
by Tim Murray
Friday, 6 July 2018
Council of European Canadians


Isqra Khalid, Liberal MP, with Justin Trudeau

News item: Isqra Khalid announces that 23 million dollars of our money will go to support "diverse communities" to promote "anti-racism" education and fight "systemic" racism and "religious discrimination."

So Isqra Khalid, the Liberal MP who put forward Motion 103, proudly announced the dispensation of $23 million or money to anointed grievance groups. Repeat. $23 million. Chump change, right? Wrong.

Let's put that $23 million in context.

As many of us will recall, when candidate Justin Trudeau promised that a Liberal government under his leadership would spend $13 billion of borrowed money on infrastructure projects, he was reminded of the huge scale of our federal debt, and asked if instead he should not endeavour to balance the budget. He dismissed those concerns with one pat answer. "Budgets balance themselves". Really? What a relief. I guess I shouldn't worry about my negative cash flow or my growing line of credit debt. It will all work out in the end. Interest rates will remain at historic lows and my income steady. Sure my debt levels are worrisome but, as Mr. Micawber in said in Dickens' David Copperfield, "something will turn up." Especially in Canada where, as Justin said in his victory speech, "Anything is possible."

Let's get real.

Trudeau needs to know that it is Canadian taxpayers — ordinary working Canadians and small business entrepreneurs — who service the debt. The debt does not service itself. Even if the government's optimistic projections prove true, these servicing charges will increase 35% by 2022, or $33 billion. This is $9 billion more than taxpayers already pay. Trudeau assures us that the size of the debt doesn't matter. It the size of the debt in relation to the size of the economy that we should focus on. The "debt to GDP ratio". So relax and go back to sleep.

But this contention is premised on continuing economic growth, fairly robust growth at that, considering the circumstances. Trudeau’s flip answer assumes that the economy will grow as he expects it will. Trudeau has not factored in the spectre of rising interest rates (which are creeping up) and the very real possibility of losing American customers thanks to the collapse or unfavourable renegotiation of NAFTA. We have a 2 trillion dollar economy, but American customers are responsible for 20% of our business ($400 billion). Moreover, as interest rates on American government bonds go up, Canada must raise its interest rates to match it, or the bond buyers who pay for our debt won't buy our bonds. It's called market competition, or shopping around. Simple stuff.

One question though. Who buys our bonds? Not the poor. Not the working poor. Not ordinary working Canadians or small businessmen. For the most part, it is the relatively WEALTHY who buy bonds. In fact, big banks and financiers encourage their clients to buy bonds, and are very happy that governments like Trudeau's continue to borrow and issue T-bills as if they are going out of style. Quite ironic, when you think about. A Leftist government grows the debt, which is serviced by working and small business class Canadians so that rich people can reap the dividends from government treasury bills. In effect, the champions of wealth and income redistribution pursue a fiscal policy that amounts to a massive transfer of wealth from the people they claim to represent to the people they vow to heavily tax. Go figure.

Social democrats who claim to be the advocates of the downtrodden should think about that. Runaway deficit financing is a rich man's dream and a working man's long term nightmare. Wanton over-spending now will result in savage cut-backs down the line, with reduced incomes, higher classroom sizes, longer surgical wait lists, high government fees, higher public transportation fares — you name it. One wonders how many socialist governments have to fall before that lesson sinks in. How many Leftist administrations, elected on the promise of more social services and public works projects, have to bite the bullet of austerity after the hangover of irresponsible spending wears off?

It's 2018 Justin, but you still cling to an obsolete 80 year old failed paradigm that usually fails politicians like you choose to ignore the other half of the Keynesian formula. Yes, it might be advisable to borrow and spend your way out of a recession, but in good times, a government needs to CUT back spending to pay off the debt. Somehow, that seldom happens. I wonder why. Could it be anything to do with the fact you need the revenue to pay back friends, reward apparatchiks and expand an already bloated bureaucracy? After all, the burgeoning immigration and multi-cult propaganda industry needs its grants.

The Liberals (NDP and Greens) believe in a government-directed economy. They believe that government is more competent to spend our money than we taxpayers are. So instead of leaving us with enough disposable income to hire the local mechanic to fix our car, or the local gutter cleaner to clean our gutters, or the local electrician to wire our house, for example, a Leftist government takes the money we would otherwise use to pay local businesses to do these things or provide services that we actually value and instead gives it to political and cultural groups who spread their ideology and reward them at the ballot box. (Consider the mutual back scratching arrangement that Liberal governments have had with the CBC). While businesses in a market economy make money by making products or providing services that we want, business (and organizations) in a government-directed economy they get their money by lobbying politicians. And since businesses go where the money is, more and more businesses are hiring and funding lobbyists. Just what our economy needs, right? Jusk ask Bombardier.

Thomas Jefferson once remarked that "To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical". By that measure then, there is nothing more morally repugnant than the Trudeau government. Thanks to extortion, ordinary taxpayers are forced to pay for the propagation of other people's ideologies. In Canada we are forced to pay for CBC Pravda, Indoctrination University, the inquisitors of Canada's kangaroo courts, political parties, partisan environmental groups, ethno-cultural organizations, pro-immigration lobbyists dozens and dozens of "anti-racism" and pro 'diversity' projects, and grievance mongers who feed off the white guilt inculcated by propagandists in the guise of high school and college teachers....for an endless parade of parasites. Together they constitute a vastly expensive stratum of uselessness that weighs down on hard working Canadians who struggle to pay the rent or service their mortgage and simply put food on the table.


"This is My Future and My Canada, and I will Fight White Racists who Oppose Islamization!"

The most galling thing about this caste system is that the beneficiaries fancy themselves as moral paragons, as warriors in a noble cause, the cause of treason. The agents of an ongoing agenda of downgrading the contribution of "old stock" Canadians and their ancestors to this once great nation, and characterizing their legacy as one of racism, oppression and 'privilege'. When you think about it, these hypocrites owe their station in life not to what they know, but who they know in Ottawa or countless other epicentres of cronyism across the land. The city councils and provincial governments who use our money to float the careers and hobbies of people we wouldn't hire to mow our lawn. Their only job skill is their ability to sing the government's tune. You know the lyrics. "Diversity is our strength." Say that a thousand times and you might believe it. That is, if you are blind man with the IQ of a grasshopper.

Our country is in trouble. Never mind the government debt to GDP ratio. The household income to debt ratio is worse. Put together with the federal debt — which all of us are responsible for — our debt represents 300% of our entire economy. The worst in OECD. Worse than Greece! Then along comes Isqra Khalid and her $23 million of political funding. Think about $23 million could have done. Think about how many extra beds it would provide for a seniors care facility? Think about how many visual imaging machines it could provide for your local hospital. Think about how what ordinary taxpayers could do with even a fraction of that $23 million. Think of how far they could make it go. It almost makes you cry.

I am crying all right, but my tears are tears of rage.

The Third World Liberal: A Conservative at Heart

The basic characteristics of all liberals and liberalism are the same. But there is an added nefariousness to the foreigner, Third World, liberal.

An American (or a Canadian) liberal is after civil disruption and maybe even civil war. But he is an American or a Canadian first, and has that legacy of the history, culture, ancestry, heritage etc. of the country, and might at some point be convinced to conserve his country, especially as he sees it being destroyed and transformed by immigration and Third World foreigners.

A Third World foreigner "liberal" comes to invade. He has no regard for the country's history, culture, ancestry or heritage.

The Third World foreigner "liberal" comes to destroy, although his initial approach is parasitical by living off the host country's riches.

He hates his host country (eventually, if not at his arrival) for a variety of reasons: envy, inferiority complex, inability to live at the same level as the host's cultural sophistication.

His ire translates to destroying what is before him, which he then replaces with what he knows: his own culture, his own religion, his own way of life.

He is a conservative at heart.

But this replacement has no cultural anchor or cohesiveness within the national context of his "new" country. Somali immigrants are VERY different from Ethiopian immigrants.

I don't think this was the case between say German and Irish immigrants. There is some unified European culture. This is not the case with Africa or Asia (or even Latin America, despite the language).

Wherever Third World foreigners congregate in large enough numbers, there is a sense of emptiness. There is no attempt to develop their neighbourhoods, with flowers and gardens, trees on the sidewalks, etc. An Indian restaurant next to an Ethiopian coffee house does not add diversity and interest, but rather a hodgepodge of unrelated elements with no aesthetic cohesiveness.

A Third World foreigner, although he comes to stay, is always referring to his native country. His activities, his choices, his lifestyle, deeply reflect this native country. He may have come to find better shores but his heart and his imagination are with the homeland he left behind. He has no desire to reconstruct and to rebuild a new home, and instead lives in perpetual upheaval with his suitcase, metaphorically, left unpacked even after decades and generations of habitation.

This temporality continues down the generations. Immigrants' children and grandchildren have a nostalgia for the country their families left. This manifests itself with their persistent references and adhesions to this far-away land: through their cultural choices, their earnest attempts to meld their cultural and personal lives with the country left behind, and eventually with their loyalties in politics and other social ties given to those which best represent this homeland.

They have never really left home.

And they have a latent anger, unfocused and diffused, at this difficult life of divided loyalties they are forced to live. And when made to chose a culprit for target, instead of directing their wrath at their families, which pulled them across nations to this land of apparent opportunity, they glare at the country itself, calling it "racist" and "discriminatory" and "hateful."

But they are the ones who hate, or learn to hate, this land which they believe only pretends to give them everything as it curtails all their potentials.

They lose hope and optimism. They become grudgeful and dangerous citizens. Rather than generic liberals, they become far-left leftists who hold their fists up in revolutionary fury.

"Me Too!" they cry out with raging anguish.

Give Thanks for our Founding Fathers

Give thanks for our Founding Fathers
Our Annual Independence Day Message
On the Contrary: Revisionist Review Blog
By Michael Hoffman
July 4, 2018

242 years after our Declaration of Independence, the Left insists that “America was never great.” They allege that our nation was always a hellhole of evil compared with benevolent colored nations (oops, I meant to say “nations of color”), that are supposedly "compassionate and caring, with human rights and dignity for all.” Uh-huh.

In the black slavery reparations' debate the heartless Africans who captured their fellow blacks and sold them on an industrial scale for centuries to (mostly) Judaic slave-traders, are almost never held responsible, or exposed as criminal sadists produced by ghoulish cultures.

Furthermore, why have China, India and Africa never produced a Bill of Rights that has the force of law, recognizing that every human being has divinely endowed rights that no government can remove? Because only a Christian nation, however flawed, bases its laws on the premise that every human being is the imago Dei — Almighty God’s image-bearing creature.

Awareness of this truth epitomizes the heart and soul of our nation at its founding, which Third World barbarians, latter-day Stalinists and Talmudists cannot fathom or embrace.

The Supreme Court recently upheld the privacy rights of cell phone users, something which the government of China or that of almost any other Asian, Latin American or African nation violates (or would violate if they possessed the technical means), every nano-second.

The spoiled-rotten Leftist punks infecting our universities, media and body politic, are fundamentally self-hating ingrates, having no gratitude to the dead white men (and women) who bequeathed Constitutional rights unequaled by all but a handful of nations on this planet.

Our (imperfect) Founders bequeathed to us liberty. It can be preserved against the Deep State and its controlled street mobs, only if we are eternally vigilant against the entropy that inevitably decays over time that which was once fresh and new. It is our perpetual duty as Americans, with each successive generation, to guard and renew the liberty born on July 4, 1776.

Let us give thanks for America’s Independence Day and our Founding Fathers!

— Michael Hoffman
Revisionist History®

Walk Away From Mendacity

Below is an article from The Orthosphere written by J. M. Smith on July 4

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Walk Away From Mendacity
By: J. M. Smith
July 4, 2018
The Orthosphere

We have returned to the sultry swelter of Texas, retracing the route by which we had, but a week before, escaped over the dusty rolling plains. Traveling in the homeward direction, I was not so impressed by visible signs of Christian faith (although the many white crosses in the town of Memphis were something to ponder). I was impressed by visible signs of mendacity.

Mendacity is not the simple act of lying, or even lying habitually. It is living a lie because one believes in “the salutary nature of falsehoods.” The phrase is from the last of Carlyle’s Latter Day Pamphlets, in which the great man also describes mendacity as “the universe of cant.” What he means is not only that lies are so common as to be virtually universal, but that, in “the universe of cant,” reality is conceived to be of so indefinite, elastic and manipulable a nature as to conform to anything we might say that it is. As Carlyle explains, the spiritual ground and first cause of “the universe of cant” is a conviction that

“the universe makes no immediate objection to be conceived

in any way.”

In the mouth of a modern savant, this principle would be expressed by the line,

“Reality is a social construct.”

When a liar lies, he knows his words are not true. The mendacious man does not care if words are true because truth has for him no value. If he has had the benefit of a university education, the mendacious man will say

“Everything is an interpretation.”

Because a liar knows that his falsehoods are untrue, he “lives by his lies” only insofar as he must to maintain his deception. But the mendacious man goes beyond this “voluntary spoken divergence from the fact as it stands” and assumes a voluntary “divergence in thought from what is the fact.” As Carlyle goes on to say,

“Alas, the palpable liar with his tongue does at least know that he is lying, and has or might have some faint vestige of remorse and chance of amendment; but the impalpable liar, whose tongue articulates mere accepted commonplaces, cants and babblement, which means only ‘Admire me . . .’ of him what hope is there?”

* * * * *

There are official signs along U.S. Highway 287 north of Amarillo indicating that this stretch of road is part of something called the “Plains to Ports Highway.” Reading these signs, an ingenuous motorist might form the belief that the enormous, thundering truck by which he is being crowded off the road is, at least, conveying the bounty of the plains to a saltwater port, from whence that bounty will be shipped across the sea. But in this belief the ingenuous motorist would be wrong, for, as you can see on this map, the “Plains to Ports Highway” is, in fact, a highway to Mexico.



Do not be deceived by the coastal town of Mazatlan, away down south by the mouth of the Gulf of California. Mazatlan is a tourist resort and port of call for cruise ships. If the farmers of the high plains actually wished to export their beefcakes to Australia or the Galapagos Islands, they would do so through, Manzanillo, the real port farther south.

The absence of any real ports on the “Plains to Ports Highway” may be a small thing in itself, but this false and misleading name is part of the pervasive mendacity that runs through all of our dealings Mexico.

We are not told the truth about Mexico and we do not wish to be told the truth.

* * * * *

If the “Plains to Ports Highway” was, in truth, a highway from the Plains to some Ports, it might have continued to follow Highway 287 southeast from Amarillo to its terminus, which happens to be a city called Port Arthur on the Gulf of Mexico. But as it is, the “Plains to Ports Highway” leaves Highway 287 at Amarillo and makes a beeline for the border.

Southeast of Amarillo, Highway 287 might be called the Colorado Trail, for it is by this route that thousands upon thousands of Texans make their annual hegira to the Rocky Mountains. Nowadays it might also be called the Cannabis Trail, for it is by this route that thousands upon thousands of pounds of marijuana are transported from the happy highlands to the great, sweltering, unhappy cities of Texas.

That this is so was evident in at least fifty large billboards along that highway, all hawking the services of lawyers who specialize in the defense of marijuana smugglers. “Got Pot?” read more than one of these.

Assuming that these lawyers know their market, quite a few of the drivers on that stretch of road nod their heads and answer, “you bet your sweet ass I do!”

Obviously, Colorado’s legalization of marijuana made Highway 287 into the Pot to Potheads Highway, but only lawyers specializing in the defense of marijuana smugglers act as if this is so. That the services of such lawyers are required suggests that the state occasionally manages to nab a car loaded with cannabis candy bars, but I nowhere saw evidence of any serious effort to curtail the Colorado cannabis trade.

Just as with our dealings with Mexico, our dealings with illegal drugs are shot through with mendacity. We are not told the truth about marijuana and we do not wish to be told the truth.

* * * * *

We left the Pot to Potheads Highway at Fort Worth, where the newspaper headlines blazoned the news that my employer is squirming in the face of awkward questions about its handling of sexual assaults by and of its students. I’ve written several posts about this problem, which is hardly unique to Texas A&M, and is probably insoluble without rolling back much of the sexual revolution.

The essential problem is how a university can prevent bad sex between its students without inconveniencing the students who wish to take a shot at good sex. That university students have a right to conveniently take a shot at good sex is never questioned. That the university has a responsibility to prevent this from going bad is, likewise, a foregone conclusion. Thus separation of good sex from bad sex is the Gordian knot that our president hopes to unravel with the help of a task force, panel of experts, firm of outside consultants, and, perhaps, Ouija board.

The big brains are being asked to furrow their brows and discover a way that Chad and Susie can lock themselves in Susie’s room, with no questions asked, notwithstanding that Chad and Susie are drunk and do not know each other’s names, and yet emerge the next morning with smiles on their faces and love in their hearts.

Furrow away, say I, because this is a puzzler that cannot be solved. And it cannot be solved because it drips with mendacity.

It cannot be solved because we are not told the truth about sex and we do not wish to be told the truth.

* * * * *

Mendacity is a resolution to permanently reside in a false and fictional world, in a pretend world of make-believe. It is a decision to take the plunge and really “live the lie.” We are, for instance, living the lie that Mexico is just a normal neighbor, and that our relations with that strange and unhappy country are not fundamentally different than our relations with, say, Canada or Italy.

We are living the lie that contraband will not cross an unregulated border, and that Colorado is not, therefore, supplying marijuana to all of the western states that are too uptight to supply themselves.

We are living the lie that Chad and Susie can always come out of Susie’s room smiling, if only Chad is sufficiently schooled, beforehand, in the precise protocols of prophylaxis and feminist sex, not to mention the fearsome penalties for sex crimes.

Or we could refuse to live by these lies and face the fact that countries, contraband, and young couples do have an “immediate objection to be conceived in any way.” We could accept the fact that they demand that we conceive them in just one way–and that is their way, not ours.

Because otherwise there will be pain!

* * * * *

In 1974 Alexander Solzhenitsyn wrote a short and powerful essay called “Live Not By Lies.” He wrote the essay just before leaving the Soviet Union, and was, of course, writing in protest against the lies of the Soviet authorities and the mendacity of the Soviet citizens who lived by those lies (excusing themselves with the words, “It is all the same to me so long as I’m fed and warm”).

The dishonest authorities cared enough about the truth to suppress it. The mendacious citizens cared so little about the truth that they would not trouble themselves to demand it. And it was by their “daily participation in lies” that these mendacious citizens lost their souls.

At the heart of Solzhenitsyn’s great essay, there is a litany of the mendacities to which every one of us is prone, and of which almost every one of us is guilty. I suggest that this litany may make more suitable reading for Americans on this Independence Day than, say, the Declaration of Independence. And while you are at it, why not accept Solzhenitsyn’s challenge and commit yourself to “personal non-participation in lies.”

“Walk away,” he says, “from the gangrenous boundary.”

"There is something creepy - ugly and secretive - about a lesbian woman"

I blogged a couple of days ago about dresses teaching young girls to become feminine, heterosexual women. Normal, in other words.

Well here is what I saw the other day at my local Walmart.

A slim, tallish woman, with very short hair, was squatting in the furniture section looking at something on a shelf close to the ground. She was kind of hidden by all the merchandise around her, but she still was visible for someone coming around the corner.

Which is where I came from.

And there she was, legs spread out, with her long summer dress, which despite its length was designed with long splits that easily fall open. I presume this would be to let in some of the summer breeze in heatwaves like what we have now.

But I'm sure the dress isn't that modest even when she's standing, and the slits are deliberately designed to expose legs. But crouching the way she was, the dress flew open, exposing all her privates.

Perhaps she is a dancer and she's used to squatting like this. Her underwear was black and sturdy, not some flimsy lingerie-type thong. She looked kind of athletic.

Or she is a lesbian and is just waiting for some female to walk by and recognize her advances for some lesbian adventure in Walmart's basement, without being overtly pornographic about it. If someone confronted her, all she would have to say was that she was looking for something low down.

In any case, it was rather shocking. Imagine if a young girl (teen-aged and vulnerable) HAD seen her? The prowlers of iniquity are everywhere now. And they have the full support of the media: advertisements, commercials, news, sitcoms, movies, magazines, books, libraries. The world is now a smorgasbord of lesbian sex. Take your pick.

But still she has to be cautious. Parents still (always) want their children to grow up to be heterosexual. The real percentage of "out" homosexuals is still minuscule. Films and sitcoms present gay characters as though they are battling some societal taboo: that they are not normal.

So lesbians who prowl in mall basements need to cover their moves with pretend shelf browsing.

Also, she probably saw me and was posing for my benefit. I am old enough to know better.

It was disconcerting for a minute. I went back again to make sure I saw what I saw, which was indeed what I saw.

I walked slowly away. A little further on, I made the sign of the cross: "Protect me, Lord, from the evil around me."

I have strength from prayer and the protection of God. What will that young girl, full of the glossed-over imagery of lesbian sex, have to protect her?


Glamming Up Lesbianism at the Urban Decay cosmetics store
Square One Shopping Centre
[Photo By: KPA]

I've labeled this post "Reclaiming Beauty." Beauty is in the definition of the sexes, their specific roles and their behaviour following God's command.

There is something creepy - ugly and secretive - about a lesbian woman. This particular one's furtive behaviour shows that she is following Satan's command to disrupt and dismantle our world: to destroy the feminine and replace it with some undefinable creature instead.