Glib Stuff: The World According to Ilana Mercer

One commentor makes a (clever) observation on Ilana Mercer's article Coronavirus and Conspiracy: Don’t be A ‘Covidiot’ [KPA: Why in scare quotes? Is Merecer trying to soften her blow?] posted on April 16, 2020, at the UNZ Review:

Ilana Mercer is a little too glib here … stylish see-thru top in the video, tho

The image is a screenshot from her video discussing the ways to be or not to be a covidiot.

And how about the stylish background now that "everyone" is "working" from home? I especially like the ethnic throw pillow effect.

The article and the video are also cross-posted at her website.

Mercer writes in her usual condescending, journalistic attack-dog "style," with her clever "Who's the covidiot?" But who needs clever when your bank account is zero?

The article not being enough, Mercer launches into a 2 1/2 minute Youtube video, just in case you are the usual covidiot suspect who doesn't understand written script.

Please read the piece and try and decipher: Is Mercer pro or con - any of it? Mercer has a knack for luminous muddiness.

Here is her book The Cannibal's Pot. I presume the cannibals are the black south Africans who killed, boiled and ate, the whites during those terrible post-Apartheid years.

It must have been a difficult, and exhausting, book to write. None dare to write a "con" for this book. I may do so one day.

Below is the image for the book cover she decided (accepted, Mercer states that she wasn't involved in the choice of image, but she could have refused the editors such a choice).

The cover art, of course, is the publisher’s purview, not that of the author.
Mercer

I guess all those hands are those of the black men who raped that white woman - metaphorically.

She should have called her book, more honestly perhaps, The Rape of South Africa.

But then, Cannibals, Savages, and sub-par black Africans make for a better title with their grubby gorilla hands plastered on a crouching white lady victim.



Writing with style is a talent. Which (style) Mercer doesn't have.

Magnolias

The Magnolias at Mississauga's Jubilee Garden
[Photo By: KPA]

These magnolias are closer now to full bloom.

"You Said it, Faith"

Here is the wonderful Faith Goldy, who vouches to be a Catholic, (but I wonder if she is a converted Jew?), talk about the WHO-World Order:

You said it, Faith. https://t.co/GV8rMtgPWE

— Roger Kimball (@rogerkimball) April 29, 2020

Beautiful. Goldy and her VDare crowd insist on playing the race card to present their agenda. Close the border!

Well, news flash, the majority of Mexicans would rather close their border, and shut out the pervasive, persistent, Gringo influence. I know, I lived in Mexico for two years.

Who exactly is it that is pushing for the American influence? Who exactly is luring Mexican villagers to abandon their homes in search of menial jobs that "no American would do?" Maybe VDare and their crew should look behind their closets.

So, how about a white communist, such as, well, Bill Gates? This "black" communist, to whom Goldy refers, is the Eritrean Tedros Gebreyesus, about whom I wrote here. He hardly qualifies the "black" that Goldy is fetishizing. But then "race realists" are hardly in tune with the fine tunes.

And this White Communist now runs the world, including those ineffectual countries in the depths of Africa, which the world largely ignores until some "worthy" news occurs.

A Licence to "Do No Harm"

A post from my Camera Lucida blog. Camera Lucida evolved into Reclaiming Beauty.

My understanding is that Brimelow is a libertarian. Libertarians' overriding motto seems to be "don't harm anyone" which gives them license to do whatever they desire, as long as it doesn't violet their sacrosanct motto. I write here [1, 2] about my email interactions with another libertarian, Ilana Mercer, and her sly revelations (they never come out with it directly, do they?) that I had to glean from her abusive emails to me that absolution through the miraculous grace of "not harming anyone" seems to be the way out for libertarians to allow the supreme individual to triumph.

The Civilian Intelligence Network

I received notification that a group/organization called the Civilian Intelligence Network (a clever play on the CIA - Central Intelligence Agency) has published an article on Theresa Tam on their website. The article is titled: Dr. Theresa Tam: Queen of the Vaccine.

I looked up the author, Molly Chan, and there is very little on her. I wrote to my correspondent:

As for Molly Chan, she (he?) has left no trace on her background online. "Investigative" journalism requires no hiding these days, unless she fears getting fired from some job. Yet the title of her website Civilian Intelligence Network implies a large connection of people, and there's a lot of articles there.

But then it looks like it is being run by her and some guy called Shawn Paul Melville, and who ran a website Shawnpaulmelville.com before he (they) renamed it to...CivilianIntelligenceNetwork.ca. Chan's twitter page has a Japanese/Chinese anime personality handle, and a weird evangelical "Jesus First" title. I google image searched the anime, and it is some Corona Chan, who seems to be a character in an "adult only" animation website.

Maybe she's simply doing this to detract us. But given the number of articles she's written/co-written at the CIN website, that seems strange.

Here is Molly Chan's twitter page with the Corona Chan "handler," another clever play, this time on the Coronavirus, but again, misplaced. Corona Chan, besides referring to some x-rated online character, also has a skeletal hand gripping her breast, which has the Red China flag on it.



I wrote Chan an email.

Dear Ms. Chan,

I read the great post you did on Theresa Tam. It is amazing that there is even more to dig up, although I think I covered most of it in Who is Theresa Tam? posted at the Council of European Canadians.

I am, naturally, curious about your background, as I expected people would be about mine, which is why I gave the CEC editors a link to my long-running website/blog Reclaiming Beauty. I have written for other online journals, and always link to my bio. People get curious!

As I state in my bio, I was born in Ethiopia, (I speak Amharic), grew up in France and England, and went to undergrad and grad school in the US. I became the perfect immigrant candidate for Canada, being fluent in French and English, from the "neighbor" down south, as well as part of a multicultural group from North Africa.

I wonder if you have the same background? Your bio doesn't say much about your background, your education, your area of residence, and how you got into journalism, or at least writing for this important, investigative, Civilian Investigative [KPA Correction: Intelligence] Network.

Perhaps your name is a pseudonym?

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

Chan replied with this:

Hello,

Thank you very much for your kind words! I read your article and even have it linked in the "further reading" section of mine. I really enjoyed reading it and was happy I came across it.

That is a fascinating bio! I have never left Canada. I don't really say much about myself because I write about Islam and that does not make me very popular with some groups. Some people actually want to kill me. There is no need for such anger!

I met a small group of researchers online over a year ago now and we decided to start a blog. The political articles starting getting a lot of attention. We decided to upgrade to the current site at the end of last year, and we try to release at least one article a week.

I am really enjoying your blog! I'll keep reading it.

Thanks again for your compliments and interest!

Molly

Hit jobs by Muslim radicals is actually not an issue anymore. What is of concern is media controlled by Jewish financiers, including those controlling President Trump. The whole Middle East "war" history will be re-written.

Perhaps that is who is funding Chan's "Intelligence Network." A few of Chan's articles deal with Islamic influence in Canada, although I covered that over many years at my blog, when I realized that it really wasn't the issue!

And Chan said very little, albeit effusively. She is clearly practiced at what she does.

Chan put the Tam article under "Eugenics" because of the vaccine. Maybe she's one of those libertarians who doesn't want "the government" in anything. And she does sound like some kind of "Christian," perhaps evangelical. But that hardly makes her an ally. Evangelicals have been especially influenced by (in cahoots with) Israel.

By the way, I too noted the vaccine link in Tam's draconian moves.

It is telling that the Council of European Canadians group hasn't picked up on the article, despite it clearly making the rounds. And she's not on the CEC authors' list.

Spring is Around the Corner

[Photo By: KPA]

The persistent rains we've had, and the empty parking lots because of the COVID have brought out the fauna from their hiding places (namely by the lake shore).

Ducks are flying in and out, waddling through empty garages, enjoying the disappearance of their human foe.

I think they think I'm not a foe. I wear a white parka, and may resemble a giant seagull.

VDare Has't Posted a Single Coherent Piece on the Spectacular "Lockdown"

VDare, rather than post, persistently, on the COVID-SCAM, have re-invigorated their resident Brit-Married-to-A-Chinese-From-China John Derbyshire to write hit-pieces on Africa (here are my posts on Derbyshire: 1, 2, 3).

If this isn't racist, what isn't.

I wrote to VDare editor, Peter Brimelow, about a recent article of mine that got published at The Council of European Canadians, which makes preliminary attempts to show that CVOD is indeed a scam, and that the Canadian government's China-born Chief Officer of Public Heahth Theresa Tam is responsible for this false news dissemination. I got no response to the letter to Brimelow:

Dear Mr. Brimelow,

VDare may be interested in my perspectives on the Covid Lock-down, as experienced here in Canada.

Please find my article published at the Council of European Canadians, focusing on Dr. Theresa Tam, the Chief Public Health Officer of Canada: Who is Dr. Theresa Tam?

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat

Soon after, John Derbyshire, (possibly getting the email from Brimelow?) wrote a hit piece on VDare on Ethiopia. I sent a letter to VDare letters editor Fulford, with the following.

Again, no response.

Forget the ugly hit piece that Derbyshire wrote, I can handle that.

What is disconcerting is that VDare has not posted a single coherent piece on the spectacular "lockdown" (a prison term, by the way) on Americans and Canadians, and actually the whole world, on a fake pandemic for a virus that has killed less than flu virus (and viruses), which originated from an outdoor market in China.

Rather, the latest piece related to the "lockdown" is a piece titled:

SAID IN SPANISH: (5 ITEMS) WuFlu Still Slow To Hit Mexico; Shutdown Doesn’t Slow Mexican Violence; Drug Cartel Robin Hoods; Mexican Doctors, Nurses Keep Getting Assaulted In Street; ETC.

by Mexico expert Allan Wall, married to a Mexican woman.

American citizen Allan Wall moved back to the U.S.A. in 2008 after many years residing in Mexico. Allan's wife is Mexican, and their two sons are bilingual.

I lived in Mexico for two years. I became fluent in Spanish. I traveled through central Mexican provinces, Morelia and Michoacan. And further south in Oaxaca and Guerrero. I visited the coastal province of Vera Cruz with its beautiful city of Jalapa. And the southern provinces of Merida and Chiapas. I visited the cities surrounding Mexico City: Puebla, Cuernavaca, Toluca. I became an expert on Mexico City.

Certainly, there is poverty. There are gangs. There is violence. I was often warned not to go to certain areas. But, I was cautious if I did end up in these areas, and "behaved" like the Mexicans, who have a quiet, unobtrusive, way of interacting in public, which doesn't draw attention.

And people live their lives. Good citizens by far outnumber criminals and gangsters. And Mexico's Catholic ethic makes honest people out of the majority. I made good friends, and families who would invite me to their homes during the holidays.

And most Mexicans would rather be Mexicans. They would rather live in their own towns, with their families.

The out-migration of Mexicans into the United States must be viewed in the "global" context. What is driving them out? Who is luring them in? Who are the ones leaving? Etc.

Once again, VDare's insistence on hit pieces on Mexicans (yes, even those "gang members" are Mexican), without the necessary social/political/cultural background information and analyses makes Mexico into a hell-hole of axe murderers.

So what's new at VDare?

Clean Water

Ezekiel 36:25-27

25 Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you.

26 A new heart also will I give you, and a new spirit will I put within you: and I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh, and I will give you an heart of flesh.

27 And I will put my spirit within you, and cause you to walk in my statutes, and ye shall keep my judgments, and do them.

Photo By: KPA
Lake Ontario Robin

Lake Ontario Spring Splash

Lake Ontario Spring Splash
Photo By: KPA

Libertarian Aesthetics

I wonder if Ilana Mercer had botox/cosmetic surgery!

LOL

Lake Ontario Reflections

Lake Ontario Reflections
Photo By: KPA

Earth Day: The COVID-Coincidence?

Spring Landscape Study, Ontario, Canada, April 2020
Edward Burtynsky

(Photograph on Globe and Mail article by Burtynsky, April 22, 2020: "On Earth Day, we must reflect on our duty as stewards of nature."

This photograph is from a new body of work Edward Burtynsky is creating while in isolation, focused on natural landscapes, with proceeds going to support the arts in Canada)

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

The global call to action against COVID-19 is a test run for our inevitable fight with climate change – and that time is looming.
Edward Burtynsky

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This is a slightly edited version, for privacy and grammar, of an email I sent a friend after I attended a program organized by the Ryerson Image Centre in April 2019:

That's when I saw the other Ryerson affiliate Ed Burtynsky, sitting quietly in the back row, who takes disaster photographs "aesthetically," now more recently in African countries in order to, I'm sure, destabilize leaders with "Climate Change" and "The Environment" from doing reasonable large scale programs.

Burtynksy is must be very wealthy, and has projects/books/tv documentaries/lectureships all over the place, all the time. (I've attached a photo from his facebook/instagram page on his visit to a school: "So fun engaging with aspiring artists and sharing stories...What a special opportunity letting them play with some of the things they're working on an avara media [Burtynsky is part of this also] and hearing their unique, intelligent perspectives..." Comment: valeriedurantvancouver: Shaping young minds for the future. So important...)

Catch them while they're young.

I continue

He [Burtynsky] is very impressive. But my admiration was short-lived. He is part of the elite global leftist artists whose mandate is to show how terrible the world is: Global Warming/Climate Change/Environmental Destruction. Of course they are not incorrect, where our civilizational responsibility is to use the world in a Godly manner, but we USE the world and its resources, not let them stew useless in their quarries.

And

[T]hese elitist Western photographers and professional artists dictate the course of "global" culture through their disaster imagery.

COVID must be a godsend for the likes of Burtynsky, especially since it coincides with Earth Day (which was April 22, by the way).

It feels a little surreal to be commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the middle of this unprecedented global crisis...

writes Burtynsky, in an April 22 article for the Globe and Mail, which is also available here, and which I've posted below.

He continues:

My first trip to China in 2002 took me to Wuhan en route to photograph along the Yangtze River, where entire cities and landscapes were being commandeered and flattened to make way for the building of the Three Gorges Dam. So, when the pictures first emerged of the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan months ago, never did I imagine seeing cities being shut down in this new and devastating way – or that we would soon experience this contagion all over the world.

Finally, his China disaster photographs and world apocalypse have conjoined, and given him a re-invigorated mission, where

...isolated at home, with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc...[m]y hope is that during this time in isolation I am able to create a suite of images looking at nature, with proceeds going directly to support the arts sector in Canada.

The government is tanking because of a fake emergency, people are set to lose everything, home, job, savings, and his contribution is to print a few prints and sell them for the proceeds for those "starving" artists.

One has to conclude that even these elites realize that the COVID is a big scam. A couple of prints from Ed, and all will be well! What's wrong with that picture?

The future of life on this planet rests in our hands...

doom talks Burtynsky. What a lofty ordeal!

Below is the article, which Burtynsky wrote for the Globe and Mail (available here, and a version of it here), on COVID-19, and for Earth Day. He writes, and prints his charity photographs, from the comfort of his "cottage," his rural home by a lake and in the woods, somewhere in northern Ontario, far away from the urban apocalypse that ordinary folk are experiencing.

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

On Earth Day, we must reflect on our duty as stewards of nature

It feels a little surreal to be commemorating the 50th anniversary of Earth Day in the middle of this unprecedented global crisis. Admittedly, I had envisioned this day much differently, yet with COVID-19 forcing us all into isolation, the message of Earth Day seems more urgent than ever.

My 40-year career as an artist has taken me on a journey around our planet in search of the largest examples of human systems expressed upon the land and sea. I have been to many places that very few of us have any reason to go – the places where we wrest out the things we need from nature to propel our human destiny. My first trip to China in 2002 took me to Wuhan en route to photograph along the Yangtze River, where entire cities and landscapes were being commandeered and flattened to make way for the building of the Three Gorges Dam. So, when the pictures first emerged of the coronavirus lockdown in Wuhan months ago, never did I imagine seeing cities being shut down in this new and devastating way – or that we would soon experience this contagion all over the world.

There’s no doubt that the ravenous human appetite to conquer nature has compelled us to encroach on natural habitats and biodiversity in an ever-expanding way, and that this has led us to where we are today – isolated at home, with a new pathogen determined to wreak global havoc. It seems the paradigm has shifted: Where humans once had our collective boot on nature’s neck, we now find ourselves with nature’s boot firmly pressed against ours.

On this 50th anniversary of Earth Day, I find myself in northern Ontario. This familiar landscape has become hugely important to my career. It’s the place where I recalibrate and consider nature, and where I first came to understand that we do not own this land – we merely serve as its steward, taking care of it and passing it on to the next generation. It has become an inflection point for me, a stark reference for when I’m able to go out into the world and see humanity shaping nature at scale through industry, urban sprawl and the sheer impact of the nearly eight-billion-large human population dominating our planet.



Rural Canada has taught me many things, and as I reflect on humanity’s impact on the planet, the most profound lesson now is that our reach into nature has gone too far. The global call to action against this virus is a test run for our inevitable fight against climate change. And that time is looming.

Over the past few weeks, I have been inspired to go back to my origins of photographing in these natural landscapes – viewing nature as a kind of painting. Looking at abstract expressionism and trying to find that place through photography. Going back to the shrubs and bushes of the forest. Going back to my home, nature.

My hope is that during this time in isolation I am able to create a suite of images looking at nature, with proceeds going directly to support the arts sector in Canada. The arts have taken an oversized hit during these times and will continue to suffer enormously because of this crisis. And yet, it is the artists, musicians, filmmakers and performers to whom we are all turning for catharsis, relaxation, distraction, entertainment and, perhaps most importantly, hope. As the great artist Gerhard Richter once said, “Art is the highest form of hope.” Artists now need our support as much as we need theirs.

There will be a lot of pain felt out there over the next months, as we regroup, as we try to gather in spaces and share them together again. I don’t know what those next few months will bring, but in this time of isolation and contemplation, I can be assured of one very important thing: The future of life on this planet rests in our hands. There might one day soon be a vaccine for this virus, but there’s no vaccine for climate change.


Landscape Study #4, Ontario, Canada, 1981
Edward Burtynsky
(Photograph on Globe and Mail article by Burtynsky, April 22, 2020: On Earth Day, we must reflect on our duty as stewards of nature)

Invocation of the Spirits

Firstly, a correction.

I wrote earlier that textile artists Chung-Im Kim is married to potter Steven Heinemann. It appears not so. A recent profile states him acknowledging: "...my remarkable partner and fellow artist Chung-Im Kim, my profound gratitude." [Source: Steven Heinemann Culture and Nature catalog for his exhibition at the Gardiner Museum, in Toronto]. Married folk don't call each other "partners."

In the same reference as above, during an interview for his retrospective exhibition at the Gardiner Museum, Heinemann discuses his pottery:

In 1979, the start of my last year at Sheridan College, we were all asked to make work for a fundraising mug and bowl sale...it was like I sat down at the wheel to work, and never looked up. This humble and almost inconsequential form became utterly absorbing, and I literally spent the rest of that year making bowls. And uncannily, the more I narrowed down the more it would open up in possibility. Inadvertently and unconsciously, I had found my life’s work.

[...]

Out of that early obsession came an abiding interest in volume and contained space, which has informed everything
I’ve done.

[...]

It’s also connected to my interest in “the meditative image,” which you find in things like Tantric art [Link by KPA]. And like those paintings, they have a function: to gather and transform the attention of the viewer...

Transform the attention of the viewer to what? Clearly to the invocation of spirits and gods.

Heinemann works from a rural region in central/northern Ontario, near Cookstown, where he has converted a barn into his studio.



This gives him ample space and time to meditate the image, to transform the attention of the viewer.



And assist in ancestral bowing with his Korean "partner" Kim.


Chung-Im Kim
Bow
2005
8" x 9.5"
Ramie, Hemp, Natural Dyes, Silkscreen Printing, Machine & Hand Stitching
[Source]

On a related note: Where do such artists acquire enough funds to live in such places, and practice "meditative imaging," i.e. looking out into space, by selling their works at $8-10,000 apiece? A converted barn?! How much did that cost? And how much does it cost to heat, ventilate, etc, especially during those cold, frozen, Ontario winters?

The only conclusion I could come up with is the art's welfare, otherwise known as The Canada Council for the Arts, and The Ontario Arts Council. This information is not readily available (I found two resources under the Canada Council for the Arts from 2006-2007 and 2002-2003, for $500 and $2500 for Heinemann), but more searching showed nothing more. But those are early days. 2020 must be much more lucrative, with numerous shows, including a recent, 2018, retrospective under his belt. Heinemann doesn't teach, at least according to his CV, but his partner, Kim, is associate professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design. That should add to the couple's finances.


From: Watching the Invocation


Lot with house and barn for sale:

$689,000
Listed Since: March 20th 2020
Great Opportunity. Many Uses Allowed For Present Zoning On This 2 Acre Lot Located Minutes To Cookstown. The Area Is Experiencing Rapid Development Which Will Provide Many Amenities For The Future Residents. Present Amenities Include Close Proximity To Hwy, Shopping Centre, Grocers, Schools, Parks And More As The Area Continues To Grow. Property Boasts Clear Views, Level Terrain. The Property Has A Two Storey Bank Barn And An Oversized Drive Shed.**** EXTRAS **** Newer Septic System (Large Capacity), Newer Drilled Well (Exceptional Flow Rate). Natural Gas At The Roadside. Topographical Map And Architectural Drawings Available. Build A Custom Home, Start Your Business, Hold For Future Investment. (id:23309)

Address: 4630 HWY 89
Location: INNISFIL
Ownership: FREEHOLD
MLS: N4727745
This land is located in Cookstown Ontario.

Watching the Invocation

Social Distancing

I finished taking a series of photographs of this man doing his spiritual thing in front of Lake Ontario, walked around and took some photographs of geese and seagulls, and was walking off, when he followed me as I left the park into the parking area.

I said "Hello" and asked him if he was doing yoga.

"No. Shi Gong." he replied pleasantly.

"Is that Korean?"

"No it is a form of Chinese meditation."

"Great. Have a good day."

He was in his element. Social Distancing gives him all the time in the world (now that he's most likely not working) to spiritualize before nature, with foreign gods as his reference.

I typed "Shi Gong" as phonetically as I could, and I got Qiqong, and here is what I found (I've separated the paragraph into points for easier reading):

- Qigong (/ˈtʃiːˈɡɒŋ/),[1] qi gong, chi kung, or chi gung (simplified Chinese: 气功; traditional Chinese: 氣功; pinyin: qìgōng; Wade–Giles: ch‘i kung; literally: 'life-energy cultivation') is a centuries-old system of coordinated body-posture and movement, breathing, and meditation used for the purposes of health, spirituality, and martial-arts training.

- With roots in Chinese medicine, philosophy, and martial arts, qigong is traditionally viewed by the Chinese and throughout Asia as a practice to cultivate and balance qi (pronounced approximately as "chi"), translated as "life energy".

- Qigong practice typically involves moving meditation, coordinating slow-flowing movement, deep rhythmic breathing, and a calm meditative state of mind.

- People practice qigong throughout China and worldwide for recreation, exercise, relaxation, preventive medicine, self-healing, alternative medicine, meditation, self-cultivation, and training for martial arts.

- Because clinical research on qigong for its potential benefit in treating various diseases – such as hypertension, pain, and cancer – has been inconclusive due to poor quality, there remains no evidence that qigong has any therapeutic effect, as of 2016.

Here's another source:

- Qi means "breath" or "air" and is considered the "vital-life-force" or "life-force energy."

- Qigong practitioners believe that this vital-life-force penetrates and permeates everything in the universe.

- It corresponds to the Greek "pneuma," the Sanskrit "prana," or the Western medical conception of "bioelectricity."

- Gong means "work" or "effort" and is the commitment an individual puts into any practice or skill that requires time, patience, and repetition to perfect.

- Through study, the individual aims to develop the ability to manipulate Qi in order to promote self-healing, prevent disease, and increase longevity.

Fantastic, I can promote "self-heling, prevent disease and increase longevity" in this time of the COVID simply by breathing strategically. COVID, at this rate, will be gone in no time!

Now that churches have been closed, what better way to invoke those spiritual forces than with a "calm meditative state of mind," to "promote self-healing, prevent disease, and increase longevity."

The COVID-SCARE is doing a great job of alienating people from God. And it is doing a fantastic job of exposing those that work towards that alienation. This particular man, in his skull cap and dark gear, standing before the beautiful Lake Ontario, is one such.

Our task, our mission, is to absolutely refuse this removal of God, internally and spiritually. We cannot let God be separated from us. We must watch, observe and understand what the greater objective is, besides impoverishing us materially. It is the far more important, and deadly, one of impoverishing us spiritually.

John Derbyshire's: VDare's Contract Man

When Danny comes marching home

Danny shipped off to Fort Benning, Ga. at the end of July
to train as an infantryman in the U.S. Army (2013) [source: Derbyshire's homepage]

[Source: John Derbyshire's homepage and VDare]

I wrote about John Derbyshire's article on Tedros Ghebreyesus, the World Health Organization's Director-General, here, and some background on Derbyshire here, and his half-Chinese children, here.

Why is VDare using Derbyshire, a white British man (naturalized American), married to a woman he met in China, as their white representative to "save" America from immigrants and multiculturalism?

I believe VDare's underlying principle is IQ. People with high intelligence, on par with the intelligence of whites, make better Americans than all the others - Hispanics, Arabs, Africans,etc.

Therefore Derbyhsire's Chinese wife is of no concern, since she comes from a country which purports to have high IQ population groups.

Of course, the high Asian IQ theory has its problems, which I've discussed here.

And a high IQ is not a guarantor that anyone, or any nation, will be successful. There are other factors, what I would call the Aesthetic IQ, which determines how one views beauty, the Spiritual IQ, how one lives in accordance with higher principles, and finally the God IQ, how nations and their people figure the Biblical God in the formation of their civilizations.

I presume that Derbyshire has a high "traditional" IQ, which he uses exclusively, and which led him to discard his God IQ, publicly proclaiming his atheism. I also think he is deficient in the Aesthetic IQ, but I won't go into that.

Derbyshire's two children, a half-Chinese son and a half-Chinese daughter, appear in many of his posts, where he has documented their birth to early twenties life in his family album posts. But there is no report on their current situations. Both Danny and Nellie Derbyshire are now nearing their 30s. What are they doing?

Perhaps nothing so impressive as to live up to the subtle IQ hype Derbyshire proudly presented in their earlier years.


My daughter and I had a very instructive morning yesterday

A friend at NYMEX...got us visitor passes,
with a view to Nellie possibly getting an internship
at the exchange in her summer vacation.
[Source: John Derbyshire's posts at The National Review's The Corner, 2010]

My end-2012 puzzle was a splendid 2,000-piecer of van Gogh's The Starry Night

I summon Danny and intone the ritual words:
"Help me out here, please, son. I've almost finished; but there's
this one pesky last piece left, and I can't figure out where it goes."

I then hand the piece to Danny and he completes the puzzle.

[source: Derbyhsire's hompage]

Derbyshire writes about his high IQ son here:

Danny took the AFQT (basically an IQ test: the cutoff for the Army is IQ 92) and the ASVAB
(a vocational test to see which military specialty suits you).
A smart kid - it’s genetic - Danny aced both tests and is in A-1 physical condition,
so they basically told him he could pick his own specialty.
He picked Airborne Rangers, the most dangerous specialty on the list.
They jump out of planes to do Navy-SEAL-type super-hazardous missions.

Standing Guard

Standing (Sitting) Guard
Photo By: KPA

Canada Goose, by Lake Ontario in Port Credit.

Where do Derbyshire's Expertise Lie?

From
Ici Radio Canada: Des habitants de Markham ont manifesté contre l'immigration plus tôt cet été August 2018

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

I wonder why VDare allows John Derbyshire to write his articles on blacks? I would think his multi-culti expertise would lie more with the Chinese, to one of whom Mr. Derbyshire is married.

Derbyshire has a fascinatingly public "personal" page, where he posts photographs of his English "coal mine" family along with his wife's "Chinese peasants," and his daughter's Hispano/Arab boyfriend called "Mike." So, Derb's progeny continue with his multi-culti example, after all.


"The family Christmas picture, with Nellie's guy Mike at left." [Image and text source]

Merry X-Mas from the atheist and his family

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

I'm not the only one to notice this BF. Here's a photo from the Hapa & Eurasian Community: Asian Pacific Halfies, who comment:

noblemagistrate
...maybe his buddy Jared Taylor will excuse him for letting his daughter date a Jewish guy.

By the way, why do his kids look 1000% Asian? They don't look mixed at all. I know that WMAF typically look more Asian than white but they look more Asian than their mother, lol.

Here is one fascinating article where Derbyshire discusses Chinese immigrants in Markham, Ontario, Canada(!).

Derbyshire's point in this article is how LEGAL Chinese immigrants organized protests on ILLEGAL refugees being shipped into Markham:

More encouraging is news from Markham, Ontario, a suburb of Toronto with a big concentration of Chinese immigrants.

This started when Toronto found they had more illegal aliens than they could find accommodation for. Numbers coming across the border from the U.S.A. have been swelling the past couple of years, and of course they are all claiming to be refugees from something or other.

[...]

The rumor started that Scarpitti had agreed with the mayor of Toronto to take and house five thousand of these illegals.

Once that got around, a demonstration was organized. To judge from videos and press accounts, the demonstrators were all Chinese. There were big signs on display in English, Chinese, and Chinglish. Samples:

MARKHAM SAY NO TO ILLEGAL BORDER CROSSERS

SAY "NO" TO MAYOR FRANK!

ILLEGAL FREE RIDER NOT INVITED

PROTECT OUR CITY, PROTECT OUR HOME!

[...]

It was a good spirited gathering, though. There was a counter-protest on behalf of the illegals, carrying signs of their own: REFUGEES WELCOME, NOBODY IS ILLEGAL, and so on. A lot of them were Chinese, too, but there were also round-eyes in evidence on that side.

Inevitably there were fisticuffs, but no-one was seriously hurt. I would like to have seen some Chinese martial arts on display, but the most fearsome participant was a young Dragon Lady type with an ear-splitting voice out of Chinese opera, who chased some of the counter-protestors right off the field.

Chinese immigrants, and their several-generations-down inheritors STILL refer to their Chinese, from China, background, and intrinsically search for that reference, and assurance.

Even, Derb's daughter, rather than go for the Whites of her father's background, chose instead an undecipherable (at least in presentation) of a brown man as her mate. What good is having a white father if even he cannot convince you of the goodness of his race?

Derbyshire forfeited that wisdom, and authority, when he traveled across the oceans and married a Chinese woman. His British adventurous fore-fathers never did that, at least not officially, and publicly. The reason colonization worked is because they kept the natives, the inhabitants, of those countries in their countries. They didn't make a bargain through "love and marriage" and opened up the Pandora's box of multiculturalism through multi-racial offspring. Derbyshire is now having to maneuver through that conundrum, with a boyfriend (future son-in-law?) his daughter brought home, with a foreboding face, who might not really like him.

Then what?

For He is Risen

For He is risen
Matthew 28:6

A Happy Easter.

The Atheists Saving Western Civilization

John Derbyshire, with his son Danny in Beijing, 2001 ("visiting relatives and sightseeing"), in time for July 4th

We left New York July 1st, arrived in Pei-p'ing Peking Beijing July 2nd. This is the following day, July 3rd — Danny's 6th birthday. As usual, he'd prefer to be elsewhere.

Derbyshire's Confessions:

I take the minimal definition of a Christian to be a person who is sure that Jesus of Nazareth was divine, or part-divine, and that the Resurrection was a real event. I don't believe either of those things.

John Debryshire, columnist at VDare.

I wrote a short article on Derbyshire here, commenting on his condescending article on an "Ethiop."

Western Civilization will be saved one atheist at a time.

Daffodil

Daffodil Bud
Photo By: KPA

Steven Heinemann and Scorched Earth

Steven Heinemann
Ceramics
Terra Ruba, 2004
Boijmans Museum, Rotterdam
69cmX42X34

For a potter working with pots, Steven Heinemann seems obsessed with closing them off. No flower will adorn his creations, nor will water pour from his jugs. Heinemann is not interested in function, but

prioritizes process, material, and the non-functionalobject to create autonomous sculpture

writes Rachel Gotlieb in Steven Heinemann: Culture and Nature, an exhibition he held in 2017 at the Gardiner Museum of Ceramic Art in Toronto. And a footnote to this phrase, Gotlieb directs us:

For discussions on the autonomy of the art object within the realm of craft see Theodor Adorno, Aesthetic Theory, trans. and ed. Robert Hullot-Kentor (London: Athlone Press, 1997); Glenn Adamson, Thinking Through Craft (Oxford: Berg, 2007); and Bruce Metcalf, “Replacing the Myth of Modernism,” First published in American Craft, February/
March 1993, 53, no. 1, accessed March 1, 2017, http://lib.znate.ru/docs/ index-53911.html.

I discuss Adolf Loos, the anti-ornament modernist here in Throwing Out Ornament, asking (rhetorically) if

architecture hadn't regressed. "Think about the medieval cathedrals, or the renaissance palaces. All we do now is glass boxes. Lego for grown ups. We're back to simple squares and circle, just a little above the line in the sand drawn with a piece of stick."

I could add for pottery: simple curved shapes.

And simple curved shapes is what Heinemann produces, however asymmetrical, and therefore (falsely) complex shapes they may be. Although asymmetry is a more natural, inartistic, tendency, and a circle far harder to reproduce. Heinemann thus desires to work with asymmetry, imperfection, and ultimately, the non-aesthetic.

And this leads to my final point. Heinemann's vessels. An article on Heinemann at the Canadian Encyclopedia describes one of Heinemann's techniques as:

"controlled crazing" (fine cracks on the surface of a glaze layer) during firing as his primary method to investigate issues of containment, volume and decoration.

Thermal stress weathering, in nature,

...results from the expansion and contraction of rock, caused by temperature changes. For example, heating of rocks by sunlight or fires can cause expansion of their constituent minerals. As some minerals expand more than others, temperature changes set up differential stresses that eventually cause the rock to crack apart.

This is the impression I got when viewing his ceramic objects, with their cracked interiors, and which clearly will not be vessels for water. The first word that came to mind was "scorched." And indeed they are scorched, resembling the barren, empty, and lifeless desert regions which bear this description.

For an art form which has functionality as its primary goal, these objects close themselves off to any form of human use, and instead become aesthetic objects. And they don't succeed even in that goal, their aesthetics having been compromised by Heinemann's relentless pursuit of the anti-aesthetic.

Heinemann's intent all along is to give us a dystopian scorched earth, where we will live in the extremes of "Climate Change" as we are destined to according to our postmodern spiritual guides - our scientists, activists, and artists - as we struggle with pots that wont even carry the droplets of water we may find.

Heinemaan, who lives in this current world, and who needs to pay his bills (ask Van Gogh how living for "art" alone worked out for him), sells his pieces ranging from $7,000 to the $11,000. And people are ready to buy dystopia and hang it in their living rooms. Wealthy art collectors, that is. And his works are available in museum collections across the globe, who purchase his scorched clay, and as no acts of charity.

Art and dytopia generate money!

Heinemann is the husband of textile designer, Chung-Im Kim, about whom I wrote here:

Here are her fungal-like growths which she designs with felt, and which she sells for over $6,000 each. She categorizes them on her website as: Living Geometry.

Crawling fungi might be the only vegetation that grows on scorched earth.

Magnolia Buds

Magnolia Buds
[Photo By: KPA]

E. Frank Leavers: Duty for the Ontario Community

Here is a memorial bench at the Ben Machree Drive, in Port Credt, near Mississauga (I've written about Port Credit here).


Bench donated by Frank E. Leavers
[Photo: By KPA]

There is only brief information on Frank E. Leavers. His obituary says that he was:

Retired Justice of the Peace for the Province of Ontario, last Reeve of Port Credit, past President of the Mississauga Real Estate Board.

What is a reeve?

What was a Reeve?...Toronto Township was the name of everything from Lake Ontario to Steeles Avenue, bounded by Winston Churchill Blvd. on the west to the Etobicoke River on the east (minus the Incorporated villages of Streetsville and Port Credit). It was mostly agricultural land.

Port Credit, Streetsville, and Toronto Township each had Reeves to represent them on the County of Peel's council. Their equivalent today would be Regional councillors.

View of Lake Ontario
[Photo: By KPA]


Photograph of members from the 1977-1978 Mississauga City Council

Standing from left to right back row: Councillor Harold E. Kennedy, Councillor Frank Leavers, Councillor Frank J. McKechnie, Councillor Frank H. S. Hooper, Councillor Frank Bean, Councillor Terence W. Butt, Councillor Larry Taylor;

Standing from left to right front row: Councillor Mary Helen Spence, Mayor Ron Searle and Councillor Hazel McCallion

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

Ceremonial Inaugural Meeting of the 1977-78 Council of the City of Mississauga took place on January 4, 1977.

Photograph taken at the ceremonial inaugural meeting of the 1977-1978 Council of Mississauga on January 4th, 1977

This was the first term as Mayor for Ronald Searle. During this short time council approved an official plan to create a downtown core for Mississauga and make it separate from Toronto. Council was also looking into reports on how much money it would save if the City quit itself from Peel Region. [Source]

Blue Flowers

Scilla
By Lake Ontario,
Ben Machree Park

"The beautiful blue flowers of Scilla are welcome in any lawn or field after a long winter"

[Photo By: KPA]

Chung-Im Kim and Her Textile Designs' Korean Ancestral Loyalties

Here are the most current designs from Chung-Im Kim, textile designer, and associate professor at the Ontario College of Art and Design.

I believe that Kim has nothing to emulate, nothing to draw inspiration from, in the Canadian landscape, but rather looks back thousands of miles, and cultures, away to her Korean background.

As I wrote in my August 2018 article:

Kim's designs are a combination of..."deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

Kim writes about her textiles and her inspirations:

...the familiar Korean textile never fail to encourage my search --- perhaps it is a consolation that I look for unconsciously living so far away from Korea.

Chung-Im Kim
Bow
2005
8" x 9.5"
Ramie, Hemp, Natural Dyes, Silkscreen Printing, Machine & Hand Stitching
[Source]

About her felt work, she writes:

Searching for a personal vocabulary of images that can speak as a universal language was my core concern when I resumed my art career in Canada after a long break since arrival. This often took the form of a repetition of a few basic essential shapes, adding interest through the use of relief, appliqué, inherent dyed colour and many related techniques. At the same time, I continued to be inspired by traditional Korean textiles --- in both a technical and spiritual sense.

Here are her fungal-like growths which she designs with felt, and which she sells for over $6,000 each. She categorizes them on her website as: Living Geometry


Chung-Im Kim
Mutation III
From the Living Geometry series: No. 5
2015
23.5" x 12" x 3"
Industrial felt, thread, dyed with (Natural Dye) lac, hand stitched
David Kaye Gallery

Post-modern, abstract textile design is a lucrative business, along with associate professorship in leading universities.

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

Below is my post, from August 2018 on Kim, her designs, and her loyalties:

At the end of the article, I write;

Their ethnic references are too far away, and they are too alienated from their current country, and all that is left is the "structure" of the image: its shape, its empty outline.

I should add to that:

...its empty outline, ready to fill up with foreign, alien forces.

After all, Kim's fungal protrusions are titled" Mutations."

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

I've always, since my Ontario College of Art Design days, tried to master textile art and design. My instructor was a Korean woman. It was then that I intuitively realized that "Asians" had an inherent dislike of whites. I went to "night school" and took only one course for four consecutive sessions. This course was open to the public and not just OCAD students. It became an issue for her after the second course, but I was paying the $200/course fee. If she had any sympathy for me and my ideas, I would have told her that I was there to use the equipment.

By the third session I had developed many of my ideas. I had briefly started doing the geometric border patterns found in Ethiopian dress, but my models for my work were the historical textiles of the Western World up to the early 20th century. Anything beyond that took on the modernists' "destruction of the image" ideology.

The textile instructor, Chung-Im Kim, who I believe didn't have the rigorous "image-making" background required of textile design - including drawing and painting - vociferously pushed me to "design something Ethiopian." Eventually I came to the course randomly and spent my time - evenings and weekends - in the textile workroom, mixing paints, cutting cloth and printing. I did the blueprints at home on a makeshift IKEA work table.

I wondered later why she never introduced us to the endless list of "white" designers. All artists, however limited their education, at some point come across some textiles which are too breathtaking to ignore. I don't think she was intellectually limited. Nor can she use the "excuse" that she is an immigrant. She had lived in Canada by then too many years to not even have casually wandered across some of these works.

I believe it was (is) this inherent dislike of whites. Perhaps not individual whites, and certainly not the leftist whites which now make up Canada and America who hate "whites" or white civilization themselves, but the white people as a collective, the white civilization, the white mind.

Kim's designs are a combination of these "deconstructed-reconstructed" works of postmodern art and works that reference her Korean/Asian background.

ALL non-whites at some point begin to refer to their ancestral lands for inspiration, artistic or otherwise. And the constant, daily reminder that art created by whites has always been SUPERIOR to their art, from their specific non-European or North American region or country (Asia, South America, Africa, the Caribbeans) must ignite their fury.

I believe, though, that I am the exception.

As I write in an unpublished article:

My family and I left Ethiopia in 1973, a year before the “Ethiopian Revolution” which occurred in 1974, when Emperor Haile Selassie was deposed and a communist regime ran the country for almost two decades. I was ten years old. My father secured a post in UNESCO in Paris. My brothers and I initially attended school in Paris, but our parents sent us to England to boarding school a year later.

That dramatic, but fortuitous exit sent me across the globe from France to England and America to Canada. Our first landing point in Paris separated us from the usual flow of Ethiopian emigrants and refugees who set sail for America (and fewer to Canada). We were alone in our havens. My eleven years in France and as a student in boarding schools in England gave me the unique vantage point of discovering the West without the biases and interpretations of other Ethiopians and Africans. I was able to discover them on my own terms. I learned to love the West through the beautiful city of Paris and the paradisaical countryside of southern Kent.

My informal education had taken a Western orientation, but...I eventually obtained Bachelor and Masters degrees in the Biological and Health sciences in the United States. While pursuing my PhD, I lived in Mexico for two years working on my research work in clinical nutrition. The results of my PhD research eventually produced a unique testing method which was published in various academic science and medical journals.

By the end of my doctoral studies [we] obtained residency...in Canada [where] I was finally stable and able to make decisions about my activities without affecting my residency status. In Toronto, I obtained various certificates and qualifications in film and photography. I also studied textile design, and painting and drawing. I was determined to become an artist.

My constant displacement, my rigorous science education, and my artistic training allows me to ask: What is art? What is beauty? And why is Western beauty and art so singular? I have tried to answer these questions over the years.

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


Trillium and Queen Anne's Lace
Textile Design
Kidist Paulos Asrat

Mississauga: A Blue-collar to White-collar Canadian Suburb

I have posted below an email correspondence along with an introduction, from December 2016, originally posted here: The Great No-Longer-So-White North.
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Below (with an introduction) is an email letter I received from a blog correspondent which I left as a draft when I first thought of publishing it in June 2015.

Now it is more relevant than ever. Note the reader's contempt for the "Trudeau Liberals" by which he meant Trudeau Sr., not the Justin cavorting around as a politician now.

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The Great no-longer-so-White North

This letter below is from a correspondent, who describes the Toronto of the 1970s (and into the early 80s).

The history of the Loyalists shows how different Canada and the United States are, which is how it should be despite all this Free Trade lingo, which puts us together with Third World Mexico! The anti-Americanism which the Canadian media (aka CBC), the stooge of the liberals and the Liberal Party, loves to spout is taken on in a healthy way by the ordinary Canadians, who love their flag, their foods (however few there are that are different from the Americans'), their holidays (next week is Canada Day, yes a reaction to Fourth of July, but still celebrated with gusto), and so on.

But, there is a unity with the US when it comes to the European heritage. And I strongly believe that this multicultural fetish is a "white guilt" thing.

He [the correspondent] very astutely observes that this "hate" or rather this identification of difference is projected into Quebec, and the endless wrangles we have with that Province. And I am actually a proponent of "freeing" Quebec. Let them deal with NAFTA, terrorism, the vacillating currency, maintaining a First World way of life, WITHOUT dipping into the Canadian coffers. Let them do it alone. Cut off ALL the strings. VIVE LE QUEBEC LIBRE!

One more thing.

Question: Who are the HABS?!! (Confession: Sin of all Canadian Sins. I don't watch hockey!!)

Answer: Habs is an abbreviation of "les habitants," the informal name given to the original settlers of New France, dating back to the 17th Century. So it's a natural fit for the The Montreal Canadiens, established in 1909 and marketed as a French-Canadian hockey team.

Yep, even in hockey, there is the Quebec Narrative. So, my correspondent is insightful to view these hockey games as war-like rivalry to release those ancestral tensions.

Here is the email/letter:

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Dear Kidist,

Good luck with the Hildebrand project [link]. This is some text!You're doing good work, even (especially) if the thought-police don't approve!

Mississauga really has changed. My father spent the last 10+ years of his career in Toronto (living in the City of Toronto itself from 1972 to 1983), and -- as a landed immigrant, not an illegal alien --- I worked a lot of temp jobs in Toronto during school and university days. I got to know greater Toronto pretty well.

At the time Mississauga was a blue-collar to white-collar Canadian suburb, which is [to] say the inhabitants were Canadians. Friends of ours who lived there had been in Ontario from its beginnings: United Empire Loyalists who went north from New York after the American Revolution made New York an uncomfortable place for loyalists to live. We haven't been in touch with them for many years, but I suspect they have long since white-flown Mississauga for somewhere much farther out.

Toronto proper at that time had immigrant pockets, some (European; I remember particularly a Portuguese enclave) of fairly long standing, but was still preeminently a Canadian city, united by belief in the Leafs and hatred of the Habs. There was, however, a growing West Indian area which, perhaps coincidentally, was considered the most sketchy part of town.

I hope the Canadians wake up in time to salvage some Canadian Canada. But when I look at what Americans are accepting, and remember it was a Canadian government (Trudeau's Liberals from 1968 through the early '80s; not that Mulroney's Tories did anything to undo Liberal sabotage when they got in) that introduced the world to official multiculturalism and mandated racial and sexual diversity, it's hard to be too hopeful. So far, from what I see, Canadians have swallowed almost all of it without a peep, and tell themselves it's all a Good Thing. The only outlet English Canadians allow themselves is to be annoyed at the Quebecois - to go any further would be racist...

Please keep up your good work in the Great no-longer-so-White North!

Best regards.

Swan on the Lake (Ontario)

Swan on the Lake (Ontario)
Photo By: KPA

I took this yesterday during a drive into the lovely town of Port Credit, which is by Lake Ontario.

Have a Happy Keeping Clean

Here is how the Art Gallery of Ontario wishes its readers (now that there there is a COVID-Shutdown) a Happy Easter:

As we all come together as a community, doing our part to #flattenthecurve, it's nice to look back and remember other things that have brought us together - like art! #AGOfromHome

https://ago.ca/agoinsider/retroago-crowdfunded-masterpiece-0

Jacopo Tintoretto. Christ Washing His Disciples' Feet, c. 1545-1555. Oil on canvas, 154.9 × 407.7 cm. Gift by general subscription, 1959. © Art Gallery of Ontario 58/51
Image may contain: one or more people and people sitting

I guess you have to read between the lines to find the Easter wishes, but in reality, there is none.

Simply a painting that depicts a religious scene, which is not related to the Easter Day itself, but of a previous event.

Have a Happy Keeping Clean, Everyone!

Have a Wiggle

Here is how the Mississauga Central Library wishes its readers (now that there there is a COVID-Shutdown) a Happy Easter: with a wiggle.

And, as usual, my instincts were prescient.

Have a Happy Wiggle, everyone!

Have a Nothing

Here is how the Art Gallery of Mississauga wishes its readers (now that there is a COVID-Shutdown) a Happy Easter: with nothing.

Here is my proposal for Picturing My Landscape, the title of the project, which I sent to the AGM several months ago. I withdrew my proposal project, after I realized that: 1). They were going to stall, and eventually decline my proposal, and 2). Do I really want to be associated with such an organization anyway?

And, as usual, my instincts were prescient.

Have a Nothing, everyone!

Have a Sweet

Here is a post at the Ryerson Image Centre Facebook page. I recently sent a proposal to have my works exhibited at the RIC, and which I withdrew after I realized that: 1). They were going to stall, and eventually decline my proposal, and 2). Do I really want to be associated with such an organization anyway?

Here is my proposal, including images.

And, as usual, my instincts were prescient. Above is how the RIC sends out wishes for Easter on their Facebook page.

Have a Sweet, everyone!

Palm Sunday

Title: Palmesel
Date: 15th century
Geography: Made in Franconia, Germany
Medium: Limewood with paint
Dimensions:O verall (w/ base): 61 1/2 x 23 3/4 x 54 1/2 in., 182lb.
Classification:Sculpture-Wood
Location: The Cloisters Collection, New York

[Photo By: KPA]

Letter to VDare

Detail of a 17th century painting of St. Mercurius,
from a church in Lalibela, northern Ethiopia,
now in the Addis Ababa National Museum

Below is a letter I wrote to VDare regarding a post by one of their authors, John Derbyshire, who wrote about WHO's COVID mastermind, Tedros Ghebreyesus, in his April 4 article: Globalization Meant Sinification—Until China Virus Intervened.

VDare is:

[A] non-profit journalistic enterprise, the main project of the VDARE Foundation. We publish data, analysis, and editorial commentary in a variety of formats. We inform the fight to keep America American.

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

Dear Mr. Fulford,

VDare recently published a post which discusses Tedros Ghebreyesus, the Director-General of the WHO, by John Derbyshire.

I understand the concerns that Mr. Derbyshire expresses, but I wish to correct him on one point (well another, too).

Firstly, Derbyshire makes reference to Ghebreyesus' background as Ethiopian, well, "Ethiop," to use his wording. More precisely, Ghebreyesus is Eritrean-born. His loyalties are for Eritrea. That is a fine line perhaps, like saying the Scottish and English are British, and both have their loyalties. But Ghebreyesus' loyalties to Eritrea go beyond ethnic association, and are also political.

As I write here:

He worked for the Ethiopian government during the Derg Marxist era of the 1908s in the Ministry of Health

And here:

His PhD dissertation was on malaria transmission in the Tigray region, a province in northern Ethiopia, which further distance him from the "Ethiopia" label, since the Tigray people have fiercely contested the historical leaders of Ethiopia, the Amhara, and often would not recognize the historical Ethiopia in defiance of the Amhara tradition and history as rulers of Ethiopia.

Most non-Amhara would wish to identify with the Amhara, as evidenced by their large numbers inter-marrying with the Amhara group, while openly associating with their various ethnic groups. I see this regularly within my own family circle (I am an Amhara).

And most Amhara will identify themselves as Ethiopians first.

The current politics in Ethiopia is a much larger and complex story. Yes, the Chinese have gained a foot-hold in Ethiopia for about a decade now, but the astute leader, Abiy Ahmed, a southern Muslim married to an Amhara woman, went to those who could help him in his time of "nation building" when America was too busy with wars in the Middle East, and unable (or unwilling?) to become the ally he needed.

Abiy, now, has enlarged his scope of allies, with Canada, Europe, and hopefully America, slowly replacing the Chinese and their many limitations. COVID-19 is now most likely the deal breaker.

Ghebreyesus' Chinese link in Ethiopia's politics may have been a reality at some point, but it is a weak one now.

The other point I would like to make is Derbyshire's condescending use of "Ethiop" to describe Ghebreyesus' (contested) origins.

Perhaps Derbyshire is using Shakespeare's "A rich jewel in an Ethiop's ear," although even Shakespeare got it wrong, since in his time (late 16th - early 17th century), those wearing such rich jewels, and often crosses, would be the lighter skinned Ethiopians, who consolidated themselves centuries earlier, through their various kings and emperors, as the Christian Amhara. They were leading that distant country then, as evidenced by paintings, mostly religious and Christian. Shakespeare perhaps associated this far off Christian civilization with the dark African (slaves?) whom he might have witnessed arriving within England's shores.

I have attached a detail of a 17th century painting of St. Mercurius, from a church in Lalibela, northern Ethiopia, now in the Addis Ababa National Museum, to give an idea of the Ethiopians prominent in that century.

Note, though, that Ghebreyesus has the Orthodox Christian background of his native Eritrea, which is of course the traditional religion of Ethiopia, which the Amhara developed and intertwined intricately with their culture, society, language, and their leadership (as kings, emperors and governors).

His first name Tedros comes from the Greek Theodore, later Christianized, with St. Theodore as an important namesake. It is also the name of two Ethiopian Emperors named Twedoros, one of the 15th century and another the 19th century. Perhaps Ghebreyesus intentionally changed his name's spelling from the traditional Twedoros (and which is phonetically more correct) to Tedros in order to weaken this association.

Ghebreyesus means servant of Jesus, with Ghebre being a common prefix for other "servants," such as Ghebremariam, Gherbreselassie (servant of the Trinity), etc. But Ghebreyesus' years as a Marxist would have annihilated his Christian spiritual references.

Ghebreyesus, through his WHO post (as Director-General), surely has close links with Canada's Chief Public Health Officer, the Hong Kong born, British educated Theresa Tam, who is the mastermind behind the COVID-Lockdown here in Canada. I have written on her and her links with the WHO. My article is published on the website of the Council of European Canadians.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat
Reclaiming Beauty