"Kyle Rittenhouse - Hero And Martyr"

Kyle Rittenhouse - Hero And Martyr

Via Brother Nathaniel

Make Americans, and Canadians, Free Again

Make Americans, and Canadians, free again: homeschooling.

"Our Memories ARE History"

Via The Thinking Housewife:

-----------------------------------------------------
Allan Wall
On Propaganda and Boredom
August 22, 2020

ALAN writes:

There will be no reunion for my 1964 classmates this year because of propaganda about the alleged virus. It would have been our 56th-year reunion. How many of us will be there for the 57th? We had planned to hold a between-times get-together last April, but the virus propaganda blew that idea out the window.

All of you older readers of The Thinking Housewife: Can’t you just imagine American men in 1942 saying:

Well, folks, we will have to postpone defending our country until Daddy Government gives us permission to go outside without safety masks to protect us against an enemy even worse than the Japs and the Nazis. We must stop working at our jobs. We must stop going to church. We must stay at home and stare at the radio until Daddy Government tells us otherwise.

Could they have been that gullible in 1942? That stupid?

Then try to imagine what they would say about a population who respond to such instructions from Daddy Government like a flock of obedient little lambs.

Of course it is just a coincidence (Isn’t it?) that massive propaganda about an alleged virus is used as an excuse for Americans to surrender so much power over their lives–exactly a hundred years after the founding of the ACLU (American Communist Liars Union), one of whose ultimate goals was to make America into a Communist nation. (How do we know this? We know it because Roger Baldwin, one of its founders, said so. And a Communist wouldn’t tell a fib, would he?)

What better way to commemorate that historic occasion than with a propaganda barrage, Communist-engineered riots and lawlessness, a revolutionary “lockdown” of ordinary, decent, working-class Americans, and a corollary increase in power for the government, the mass communications industry, and the medical and pharmaceutical rackets? It stands to reason that anyone who engineered such a multi-pronged attack would encounter little if any opposition from a population of American men who have been thoroughly feminized.

Never have so many American men agreed so cheerfully to surrender the rights of individuals and the limitations on government power that earlier generations fought wars to create and defend. I learned long ago that false premises are the basis for mythmaking, and modern myths are indeed fodder for thousands of chattering magpies in the mass propaganda industry.

Knowingly or otherwise (mostly otherwise), Americans have now made giant strides toward what Dr. Thomas Szasz called “The Therapeutic State and what Communists have been planning for a hundred years.

I am sick and tired of the do-gooder mush in “We are all in this together” and “Thank you for looking out for each other.” Here’s a news flash for the do-gooders: I am not “looking out for each other”. Not my job. And “each other” are not looking out for me. Not their job.

Recently I had a brief message from classmate Jim. I asked him about classmate Tony, who has had back problems and knee problems. I was glad to receive Jim’s reply: “Tony is doing fine. Just bored like the rest of us.”

Hold on there for a moment. “Bored….”? Allow me to voice my dissent. I am not bored. Angry? Yes. Outraged? Yes. Skeptical? Yes. Confident that we are being lied to repeatedly and on multiple fronts? Absolutely.

Confident that what we have witnessed is not a “lockdown” but a Takedown? Yes. Confident that it is not about health but about power and power-lust? Absolutely. Confident that there are diabolical cultural, political, and philosophical purposes behind the propaganda about the alleged virus? Absolutely. Confident that the Takedown is either a dress rehearsal for the coming Communist World Government (which is now, as the cliché goes, “under construction”) or an exercise to measure the Servility Quotient of Americans (rather high, by all appearances), or both? Absolutely. But “bored”? Never.

We are alive, aren’t we? Since when is it boring to be alive? You can think, see, hear, talk, and remember, can’t you? Or is staring at screens all you care to do nowadays?

Wake up, classmates. Stop scaring at screens and listening to lies. My years are numbered, and maybe yours are, too.

How can anyone be bored with the perspective on life that three score-and-ten years have now my classmates and me? And what of all those memories we have accumulated? If the virus propaganda has given you “time on your hands”, then why not use it to write about what you know best? Our memories ARE history. Don’t take it all with you when you leave. Write it now, or some portion of it, for your descendants or friends or classmates.

Imagine how gratified we would be if our grandparents or great-grandparents had left written memories of their lives in the form of diaries, journals, essays, letters, and cards. Conversations are fine. But they are like meteors: Once they take place, they are gone. Written memories will remain. The printed word remains. Why not share some of them by writing about them? About your life in those years in our parish and neighborhood? About the people and moments you remember best, and why?

Six years ago, I wrote ten two-columned pages of memories we have in common from our school years. Last year I wrote 57 pages of memories of the songs and records we enjoyed in the years 1956-’68. I have written more than fifty additional pages of memories from those years and had intended to share them with classmates at the upcoming reunion…..now rendered null and void by the Communist/Socialist/Globalist Propaganda Barrage…..oops, I mean the deadly virus.

There is no “Dutchtown Historical Society”. We are it. Life as it was in that neighborhood during our school years is what we carry around in our heads. Who will ever know about life as it was there? Who will ever know that Dutchtown was not what it is now but the opposite: A clean, decent, civilized place to live and grow up, if we do not write about it?

“We will take our memories of America’s traditional culture with us to the grave and that will be the end of it,” reader Jane S. wrote to Lawrence Auster ten years ago. [“A Lament for Our Vanishing Culture”, View from the Right, August 20, 2010 ]

She was right. That is, unless those who —like her— remember that traditional American culture write what they remember. Like her, we are the last generation to remember that pre-1960s American culture, and among the last to be able to think and write about it without paying homage to the vocabulary and ideology by which younger generations are now taught to view it through pink- and red-tinted glasses.

Yesterday I was standing at one of the two lakes in Carondelet Park when I saw a young couple with their infant child across the lake. No masks. They were sitting on the grass at water’s edge and encouraging their child’s fascination with a group of ducks and geese who approached them. They were out in the open air in a lush green setting late on a pleasant summer day and encouraging their child’s discovery of the delight and wonder that may be found in making friends with birds.

To observe scenes like that is a good reason to be alive. To create scenes like that is a good way to spend “time on your hands”. To listen to the lies, fallacies, and misrepresentations raining down upon us is a complete waste of your time and your life.

Six years ago, a reader wrote in response to some of my essays:

“I can vouch for Alan’s eloquent description of what it was like. [i.e., Life in south St. Louis in the 1950s-’60s ] It is vital that his testimony and the testimony of his peers appear on the Net. They are historical documents.” [“When Baseball was Baseball”, The Thinking Housewife, July 30, 2014]

Why don’t you add to those historical documents by writing some of your own memories of life in St. Louis as it was before the revolutionary 1960s?

Via The Thinking Housewife:

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

Child Abuse and Zombies in NYC



WE ARE living in a post-human society. These “people” are part of a cult and the children are being openly initiated into it. They are the victims of mental abuse.

Many will be getting sick this fall from the cumulative effects of oxygen deprivation.

Wearing a mask is not just harmful to health, but it is profoundly anti-social and rude. (I realize many good people have been led to believe otherwise and do not intend to be rude.) Those who do not wish to be part of this post-human cult in which the image of God and individuality are eradicated by covering the most communicative part of the body are being punished all over the country, losing their jobs in some cases and in many other cases being publicly bullied.

This pandemic is a scamdemic, a case of criminal fraud so outrageous and obvious it cannot be believed by many innocent bystanders. It’s killing people, and replacing them with zombies.

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

"Better Positioning Addis Ababa"

[Click "See More" for English Translation]

In May 2019, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed hosted the ‘Dine for Sheger’ initiative to mobilise funds for city projects aimed at better positioning Addis Ababa as an urban tourism site. In a short one year period since the activity, both Sheger and Entoto parks are near completion; have created many jobs; are facilitating service economies and changing the look and feel of the city. [Source: Office of the Prime Minister-Ethiopia]

Continuing With The Green Legacy

PM Abiy With an elder in the Amhara region of Bahir Dar,
continuing with his Green Legacy
Source: [PM Abiy's Facebook Page]

More news here: Ethiopia Plants 5bln Tree Seedlings within Two Months

Update: Kidist Foods - Some Background on Implementation

Presentation at the United Nations
NGO Committee on the Status of Women Conference 61, New York, 2017
Kidist Foods Cookbook Presentation for
Economic Self-Sufficiency of Young Ethiopian Women

I presented a paper at the 2017 UN Commission on the Status of Women workshop: "Empowering African Women to Lead with Renewable Energy: Training for Homes and Community-Based Enterprises."

My topic was under the general heading: "Key Terms in the Human Effects of Changing Environments: Fostering Greater Economic Empowerment for Women and Girls." and a sub-theme - "Women's Economic Empowerment in the Changing World of Work."

My presentation centered around Ethiopian urban women. I discussed the potential of these urban, poor, women to engage in cooking enterprises. And I also discussed a small Ethiopian cookbook as part of a means to fund these enterprises.

This all eventually became the Kidist Foods project, which includes the book and other proceed-generating items (an apron, for example).

My presentation simply recounted a "story" of a poor, Ethiopian woman from Addis Ababa, and how through her skills, she could start to become economically self-sufficient for herself and her family. I also presented my ideas on the cookbook project.

As a side note, the workshop was almost cancelled because of an unexpected snow storm, which left many "international" travelers stranded, and the workshop room empty. The audience that grouped together was from the rounds the programmer made to the various rooms, and those waiting for their event to start. We had Afghani and Indian women in our "African" event.

I braved the elements, and didn't cancel my trip from Toronto.

It was interesting that a few young women (one Indian, another if I remember correctly, from Kenya) came up to me after the workshop to ask me some questions.

The room was receptive to my presentation.

Synergy Schools

PM Abiy, with his wife First Lady Zinash, holds a check of over 110 million Ethiopian Birr, which he is donating to build schools.

PM Abiy obtained over 110 million Ethiopian Birr from the sales of his book Medemer (Synergy).

In Medemer

...the prime minister advocates for a fresh, Ethiopian-centric approach to the country's politics, citing the past

From PM Abiy's Facebook page:

Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed handed over a cheque in the amount of one hundred and ten million, six hundred and seventy-one thousand, twenty-five Ethiopian Birr to First Lady Zinash Tayachew, who received the money on behalf of her office for the construction of schools in parts of the country where communities are experiencing a challenge in access to education.

The money is a a first installment amount collected from the book sale of the Amharic and Afaan Oromo versions of Medemer.

Making remarks during the handover ceremony, Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed shared, “we not only make promises but we also execute accordingly and thus feel extremely happy."

Retaining Our Humanness

Lake Shore Clouds
[Photo By: KPA]

Via The Thinking Housewife:

The Good Things About the COVID World

Whatever the science and politics of Covid and of what the World Economic Forum chillingly refers to as “The Great Reset,” whatever you believe and whatever is true, the tremendous good that can come in the aftermath of this worldwide series of events is undeniable and staring us right in the face.

Continue reading.

The Purpose of the Masks

Via The Thinking Housewife:

Flying Free

Flying Free
Port Credit, Ontario
[Photo By: KPA]

Modern Men

Woods Cathedral, Detroit

War Games installation displaying
"Surrealist, Conceptualist and Minimalist works by 12 artists,
including Anders Ruhwald, Hannah Perry, Simon Denny and Yngve Holden." [source]

I've said for a long time that modern men are doubters. They will acknowledge in some civilizational manner the presence of God, or at least the tradition of God, but waiver around their committment to God.

Here is an article at VDare, where James Kirkpatrick discusses Lawrence Auster's recently published book Our Boarders, Our selves.

Of course, it starts with the requisite "Auster was prickly" introduction. Why bother with that? And, in reality, who isn't prickly, some more so than others?

But the crunch of the article is here:

Auster counters that without a “publicly authoritative moral understanding,” individuals have no way to understand their social role. Nations are unable to define, defend, or preserve themselves. Thus, he makes the startling claim that “the grounding of rights in nothing beyond the whim of the individual leads directly to open borders and multiculturalism.”

And a little later on:

Auster argues that, while there may be conceivable “non-Christian ways of rebuilding a normal sense of peoplehood and racial identity among whites,” it can only really happen through the “rediscovery of the classical and Christian understanding that we Westerners have lost.” He argues that a Western worldview, which he attempts to define, gives us a way to “see reality whole,” placing values into their “natural rank and order” instead of destroying ourselves by trying to make “human values into gods.”

In other words, Auster says that without the underlying morality of God, a cohesive Western worldview is not possible.

But James Kirkpatrick, the author of the VDare article, subtly disclaims this by adding other doubters in the mix:

Of course, others like Oswald Spengler have argued Christianity itself inevitably led to the kind of liberalism Auster decries. Tom Holland’s recent book Dominion makes the same case from a more positive perspective. Auster doesn’t really confront this possibility.

No, because Auster has recognized the inherent difficulties Christians have when following the words of Christ, having critiqued the two major bodies of Christianity, Catholicism and Protestanism, as Kirkpatrick himself writes in his article:

Besides attacking liberal Protestantism, Auster accuses the Roman Catholic Church (to which he nevertheless converted shortly before his death) of adopting “the very heresy of modernism” it had once condemned, putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. Instead of recognizing man’s basic sinfulness, it celebrates the “cult of man,” symbolized by the post-Vatican II practice of the priest facing the congregation than the altar when he consecrates the host.

I wrote this as one of my many proposals (and still going) from my book project Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization

Reclaiming Beauty will be the first book on beauty to make a comprehensive, historical, cultural and societal review of beauty. It will describe the moment (or moments) when beauty was not only undermined, but eventually abandoned, as a paradigm of civilized life. Rather than attributing beauty to a Godly goodness, philosophers, writers and artists began to view beauty as their enemy, and as their nemesis. They saw God as a judge who would not let them do as they wished. In order to pursue the image of beauty they desired, they began to look elsewhere. They began to abandon God, and by abandoning God, they began to change their world, filling it with horror and ugliness.

When nations practice true Christianity, they are not at war with God, and will not let the horrors of ugliness fill their world, as I write later in the article, by

...putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. [Auster]

Without God, there is no dignity, and the "dignity of man" crumbles into dust, sooner or later. Man's well-being becomes the be-all of existence. And what does this mean? Gourmet dinners? Vacations to Paris? Extra large popcorn at the movies? Churches converted into museums?

Here is a post I wrote in Larry Auster's VFR, commenting on a discussion on beauty and ugliness:

There is something holy about beauty. We react to it in a reverential manner. We attribute it, at our best, to God. We realize when we see someone beautiful, it is not necessarily what the person did, but some preferred state he is in. A truly beautiful person, or thing, is a little frightening, a little other-worldly. Beautiful works of art are also hard to achieve. It takes time, training, skill, talent and some mysterious spirit to create a beautiful work of art. Not any ordinary person can create something beautiful. An ugly painting is immediately recognized for its slovenly quality. Also artists can create beautifully ugly pieces, but the beauty is a channel to alleviate the ugly story, incident, or place. That is why people have such a hard time with beautifully made horror films, for example. A beautifully made horror film is like the work of the devil (i.e. it is evil), as though the devil is using the tools of beauty to lure us into his world.

Zoma Museum

Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy visits ZOMA last year. This multi-faceted centre, with its emphasis on "harmony with nature" fits the PM's aganda and continued efforts with his #greenlegacy:

#GreenLegacy is beyond aesthetics. The air we breath. The wood we use. Water availability for agricultural activities through catchments. Storehouses for carbon. Maintaining biodiversity. Guaranteeing food security. Enhancing eco-tourism. Preventing soil erosion. Controlling floods. All these are intrinsically linked with trees and forests. Let’s all roll out the green carpet for #Ethiopia by planting our print. [Source]

PM Abiy Ahmed also visited Zoma Museum, expressing his amazement at the effort made to transform a garbage accumulation site to a place of respite. He shared his hope that all Ethiopians would overcome challenges like Zoma founders & work to change their country. #PMOEthiopia pic.twitter.com/uDfnU9k6gm

— Office of the Prime Minister - Ethiopia (@PMEthiopia) May 12, 2019

The Zoma Museum in Addis Ababa describes its institution thus:

Zoma Museum, formerly known as Zoma Contemporary Art Center (ZCAC) is an environmentally conscious art center located in Addis Ababa. The concept was developed by Meskerem Assegued (cultural anthropologist and curator). It is constructed and co-directed by both Meskerem and Elias Sime (artist).

Here is more background on ZOMA (from the organization's web page):

* The concept of ZCAC was first introduced to the public in 2002 during Giziawi #1, an art happening organized by Meskerem with artists from Ethiopia, USA, Italy, Kenya, and France on Meskel Square, one of the largest public venues in Addis Ababa.

* The focus of ZCAC multidisciplinary contemporary art [is] international exchange between artists, and the conception and implementation of sustainable, innovative, and environmentally conscious art projects.

* With its residency programs designed around different themes (architecture, landscape design, art, documentary film, and education), ZCAC provides Ethiopian and international artists the opportunity to live in harmony with nature, develop new forms of artistic expression, experiment with new techniques and materials, and to find alternative, artistic, and creative solutions to current environmental problems.

* Another important component of ZCAC’s activities is the establishment of an ongoing educational program with international partner institutions. Since 2002, the center has been regularly hosting educational events, such as workshops at the School of Fine Arts with renowned artists such as David Hammons from New York and Ernesto Novelo from Mexico. With the support of Alliance éthio-française and the British Council, ZCAC has also collaborated with the International Association of Art Critics.

*In 2009 the New York Times Magazine wrote" Its organic, circular structure, intricately carved walls and woven roof appear
like a voluptuous dream, a swirl of ancient techniques and ecstatic imagination."

I will be writing more about ZOMA, its unique architecture, and the programs and projects it hosts.

Modern Men

Woods Cathedral, Detroit

War Games installation displaying
"Surrealist, Conceptualist and Minimalist works by 12 artists,
including Anders Ruhwald, Hannah Perry, Simon Denny and Yngve Holden." [source]

I've said for a long time that modern men are doubters. They will acknowledge in some civilizational manner the presence of God, or at least the tradition of God, but waiver around their committment to God.

Here is an article at VDare, where James Kirkpatrick discusses Lawrence Auster's recently published book Our Boarders, Our selves.

Of course, it starts with the requisite "Auster was prickly" introduction. Why bother with that? And, in reality, who isn't prickly, some more so than others?

But the crunch of the article is here:

Auster counters that without a “publicly authoritative moral understanding,” individuals have no way to understand their social role. Nations are unable to define, defend, or preserve themselves. Thus, he makes the startling claim that “the grounding of rights in nothing beyond the whim of the individual leads directly to open borders and multiculturalism.”

And a little later on:

Auster argues that, while there may be conceivable “non-Christian ways of rebuilding a normal sense of peoplehood and racial identity among whites,” it can only really happen through the “rediscovery of the classical and Christian understanding that we Westerners have lost.” He argues that a Western worldview, which he attempts to define, gives us a way to “see reality whole,” placing values into their “natural rank and order” instead of destroying ourselves by trying to make “human values into gods.”

In other words, Auster says that without the underlying morality of God, a cohesive Western worldview is not possible.

But James Kirkpatrick, the author of the VDare article, subtly disclaims this by adding other doubters in the mix:

Of course, others like Oswald Spengler have argued Christianity itself inevitably led to the kind of liberalism Auster decries. Tom Holland’s recent book Dominion makes the same case from a more positive perspective. Auster doesn’t really confront this possibility.

No, because Auster has recognized the inherent difficulties Christians have when following the words of Christ, having critiqued the two major bodies of Christianity, Catholicism and Protestanism, as Kirkpatrick himself writes in his article:

Besides attacking liberal Protestantism, Auster accuses the Roman Catholic Church (to which he nevertheless converted shortly before his death) of adopting “the very heresy of modernism” it had once condemned, putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. Instead of recognizing man’s basic sinfulness, it celebrates the “cult of man,” symbolized by the post-Vatican II practice of the priest facing the congregation than the altar when he consecrates the host.

I wrote this as one of my many proposals (and still going) from my book project Reclaiming Beauty: Saving Our Western Civilization

Reclaiming Beauty will be the first book on beauty to make a comprehensive, historical, cultural and societal review of beauty. It will describe the moment (or moments) when beauty was not only undermined, but eventually abandoned, as a paradigm of civilized life. Rather than attributing beauty to a Godly goodness, philosophers, writers and artists began to view beauty as their enemy, and as their nemesis. They saw God as a judge who would not let them do as they wished. In order to pursue the image of beauty they desired, they began to look elsewhere. They began to abandon God, and by abandoning God, they began to change their world, filling it with horror and ugliness.

When nations practice true Christianity, they are not at war with God, and will not let the horrors of ugliness fill their world, as I write later in the article, by

...putting “man’s well-being” and the “dignity of man” at the center of the Faith. [Auster]

Without God, there is no dignity, and the "dignity of man" crumbles into dust, sooner or later. Man's well-being becomes the be-all of existence. And what does this mean? Gourmet dinners? Vacations to Paris? Extra large popcorn at the movies? Churches converted into museums?

Here is a post I wrote in Larry Auster's VFR, commenting on a discussion on beauty and ugliness:

There is something holy about beauty. We react to it in a reverential manner. We attribute it, at our best, to God. We realize when we see someone beautiful, it is not necessarily what the person did, but some preferred state he is in. A truly beautiful person, or thing, is a little frightening, a little other-worldly. Beautiful works of art are also hard to achieve. It takes time, training, skill, talent and some mysterious spirit to create a beautiful work of art. Not any ordinary person can create something beautiful. An ugly painting is immediately recognized for its slovenly quality. Also artists can create beautifully ugly pieces, but the beauty is a channel to alleviate the ugly story, incident, or place. That is why people have such a hard time with beautifully made horror films, for example. A beautifully made horror film is like the work of the devil (i.e. it is evil), as though the devil is using the tools of beauty to lure us into his world.

Image: Screen shot from The Thinking Housewife's Live in Fear video

Laura Wood, at the Thinking Housewife, provided a link and some commentary on her post: WHO article: Asymptomatic Transmission Rare:

“From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, who leads the WHO’s diseases and zoonosis unit, during a press briefing in Geneva, where WHO is headquartered.

Writes Laura:

The belief that healthy people are extremely dangerous and the practice of social isolation are already ingrained in 75 percent of the population. The facts are beside the point now!

Read her whole post, plus the links she references to.

Blasphemy With the Poor

Matthew 26: 6-11

6 Now when Jesus was in Bethany, in the house of Simon the leper,

7 There came unto him a woman having an alabaster box of very precious ointment, and poured it on his head, as he sat at meat.

8 But when his disciples saw it, they had indignation, saying, To what purpose is this waste?

9 For this ointment might have been sold for much, and given to the poor.

10 When Jesus understood it, he said unto them, Why trouble ye the woman? for she hath wrought a good work upon me.

11 For ye have the poor always with you; but me ye have not always.

12 For in that she hath poured this ointment on my body, she did it for my burial.

13 Verily I say unto you, Wheresoever this gospel shall be preached in the whole world, there shall also this, that this woman hath done, be told for a memorial of her.

Zanele Muholi (South Africa)
Miss D’Vine II, 2007
From the series Miss D’vine
Chromogenic print

The image above is from the exhibition The Way She Looks: The Way She Looks: A History of Female Gazes in African Portraiture, a photography exhibit on photographs by and of African women at the Ryerson Image Centre (RIC).

The exhibition's photographs were assembled from the Walther Collection

RIC Facebook page here
RIC web page here

Chinese Aesthetics: Where Harmony and Cohesion Trumps Individuality and Innovation

I came across this statement I made at Camera Lucida in August, 2008, shortly after the Summer Olympics that were held in Beijing, China that year:

...the Chinese are content to maintain the authoritarian, collective culture that has been part of their tradition for eons.

And I wrote an article on the Beijing Olympics with that quote as the guiding idea.

---

From an unpublished article on the 2008 Olympics in Chinese: Zhang Yimou: Spokesman for China
Written by KPA September 12, 2008
------------------------------------------------------------------------

Zhang Yimou: Spokesman for China

The Beijing Olympics opening ceremony was directed by the world-famous, Oscar nominated Chinese film director Zhang Yimou. His exquisitely shot films show young brides, concubines, and peasant women consumed by the monolithic forces that these women (and it is often women) find themselves in.

The films’ storylines are often bewildering to Western viewers. Are we to sympathize with the characters, is Yimou agreeing with the forces of authority, is he so fatalistic that he cannot see any other story? We are led to believe that the unique beauties - of the young girls, of the surrounding scenery, or in the case of Ju Dou, the lusciously dyed textiles - will overcome anything. But they don’t, and these young women, once distinctive in their charms and their quests, can never escape their culture’s expectations, and are forced to sacrifice their individuality and singularity to the collective fabric of their communities in sad and tragic ways. Some go insane, others simply get old, and yet others bitterly, or blithely, try to forget.

Throughout China’s history, there seems to have been an overpowering preference for the individual’s submergence into the collective. Confucius lays out the ground rules for this coexistence, and Communism was the harshest, most inhumane, example of that history. Yimou is simply recording this cultural reality. He further demonstrates this with his direction of the Beijing Olympics opening ceremony. The spectacular ceremony consisted of thousands (15,000 in total) of Chinese performers shifting in huge carpets of precise and united movement.

The world of Chinese human coordination is brought to light when Yimou compares Chinese performers to those of North Korea. He says: “Other than North Koreans, there’s not one other country in the world that can achieve such a high quality of performance.” Yimou didn’t compare his 15,000 synchronized human bodies to American or European artistry, but to an enclosed, isolated extreme dictatorial state like North Korea.

While discussing his experience working with Western actors, Yimou says: “[They] were so troublesome [because] in the middle of rehearsals they take two coffee breaks…[T]here can’t be any discomfort, because of human rights…[T]hey have all kinds [of] organizations and labor union structures. We’re not like that. We work hard; we tolerate bitter exertion.”[] Like the suffering his heroines endure, Yimou confesses that he sees nothing wrong with exerting pressure and discipline on his performers to have them conform to his giant designs.

How different is he and the Chinese, then, from the isolated, dictatorial North Koreans, whose mass parades have garnered his respect? In the name of human collectivity, Yimou acknowledges that Chinese performers are, and should be, willing to tolerate abuses on their bodies, give up their basic human rights, and work under extreme conditions. Yimou’s comparison of neo-Communist, modern Chinese performers with North Koreans is depressingly retrograde. Despite glowing references by the world community, China is still stuck in its past.

Still, one cannot deny the importance of culture and history on a country’s artistic formation. Yimou’s artistic style, both in film and in his latest contribution to the opening ceremonies, is part of Chinese art and artistry, where harmony and cohesion trumps individuality and innovation. This is evident in Chinese watercolor paintings where composition - a concerted effort at harmony – supersedes individual artistic expression. As Yimou’s films themselves show, while his characters go through tremendous suffering and even tragedy, often the best he can come up with is an ambiguous acceptance of the status quo. An outright nihilism or rage would be more understandable, instead of deferment to the collective which in many cases can only be achieved if the individual is sacrificed, like Songlian in Raise the Red Lantern, who goes insane rather than live through her atrocious life.

Olympics which took place in Westernized countries - the US, Australia and Greece to name a few - emphasized more individualized performances and content-rich opening ceremonies, rather than the mastery of synchronized masses. The human presence in these Western performances were a means to a narrative, where one idea leads to another in space and time to tell a story or to reach a point. Most of the Western programs had also a limited in number of performers, since their intention was to use them as actors in a story and not as bodies in giant designs.

Yimou’s primary purpose was to use his human subjects as anonymous forms to make stadium-sized patterns. There was no emphasis on time or space, and the performers were enclosed within their own tightly limited areas. The Western performers, on the other hand, both individuals and groups, often moved from one end of a stadium to another for a particular purpose – to reach a destination, to enter into a building, or as in the young boy in the boat from the Athens show, to reach shore.

Yimou’s shore has now come and gone. The Chinese had their chance to show the world what they were made of. Astute observers will notice that nothing much has really changed in modern China, as exemplified by even their most freest commentator, an artist, who confesses admiration for the artistic endeavors of one of the harshest regime in the world, and admits that he emulates its style.

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

[1] “Zhang Yimou’s 20,000-Word Interview Reveals Secrets of Opening Ceremony,” Nanfang Zhoumou (Guangzhou), August 14, 2008

Dogetiquette: What WOULD Fido say!

Post (below) from Camera Lucida: Just Me and You and Fido, March 29, 2012

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


Just Me and You and Fido

It is for a good reason that I chose Fido as my cell phone plan. Actually, at the time I got it, there were very few cell phone services available in Canada, and this was touted as the best of the few. The many American services were unavailable in Canada at the time, for fear of them out-bidding the Canadian ones (so much for fair trade/free trade). Now that the market is inundated with them, Fido services are better, and more cheaper. I had thought to change plans to something even more cheaper and more better, but I'm glad I stayed loyal to my Fido.

The above photo is from Fido's online ad. These true Canadian canines are enjoying a toboggan ride, as only (Canadian) dogs can, all happily crammed on one long piece of wood.

On a serious note, cell phones have also brought out the worst in people. Every day, I hear one-sided, often very personal, conversations around me. And people hike up their voices when on cell phones. I think it is an ego thing: "Look at me! I'm having a conversation!" I also think that people get lost in their cocoon of them and the person on the other side, and the rest of the world doesn't exist. It is, of course, the continuing crassness of our world, and the gradual loss of civility. "No-one else matters but me!" say these modern narcissists. Sometimes I slow down to listen into these (boring) conversations. Some catch on and actually lower their voices. Others are just relentlessly oblivious.

Posting from Camera Lucida: 2012

Below is a 2012 posting from my Camera Lucida blog, which I've posted in full.

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

Friday, March 23, 2012
How Immigrants are Destroying Toronto (And Canada)


Minister Rona Ambrose (second from left)
surrounded by employees and volunteers from
Changing Together: Centre for Immigrant
Women Association in Edmonton, Alberta
September 2010

From the first two paragraphs of the article with the photo:

Edmonton− The Honourable Rona Ambrose, Minister of Public Works and Government Services and Minister for Status of Women, announced Government of Canada support for a new project that will help end violence against immigrant and refugee women and girls, and held a roundtable with stakeholders involved in the project.

"This is an important collaborative project between Changing Together and the Edmonton Women's Shelter that can truly make a difference in the lives of immigrant and refugee women, who are victims of domestic violence and human trafficking," said Minister Ambrose.

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

The Thinking Housewife has an article on the Violence Against Women Act. She writes on violence between couples:

[M]ore than 200 studies have shown that women and men are equally guilty of verbal and physical aggression in the home. Domestic violence against women is extremely serious and women are injured and murdered by their spouses or intimates more often than men. But conflict is often initiated by women.

Many years ago, I worked for an immigrant agency. My role was a "counsellor" to assist new immigrants with integrating into Canadian life. After several years, I quit, cold turkey. Everyone was surprised. My "clients" as we called the people we gave service to, gave me good reviews. And I seemed to have had a modicum of success.

I quit because I felt that the kinds of immigrants I was seeing, mostly from Latin America (I speak reasonably good Spanish) and at that time many Somali and Ethiopian refugees, were not assimilating, and I didn't see them assimilating, into the Canadian society. Near the end of my post, I openly said that many of these immigrants/refugees should just return to their countries of origin.

During my years in the immigrant agency (early to late 1990s), new "women's issues" agencies started sprouting up to cull the government funds that were being allocated to women immigrants and refugees. Greedy and clever immigrant agencies discovered that there was money to be made on "violence against women" programs from these funds.

Now, a normal society would look at women as part of a unit of a family, either as a wife, a mother, a daughter, a grandmother, etc. But these agencies focused solely and only on women. And since their whole approach was divisive, they only ended up taking care of divisive issues.

What more divisive than "violence against women?"

I would say that most immigrant/refugee marital problems are related to the difficult financial and social problems these families experienced. And added to that, many of the men were not used to having their wives in such prominent roles, and sometimes more superior roles (from learning the language faster to getting jobs sooner, etc.). I would say that the women also behaved less traditionally subservient and possibly more antagonistically, with their new-found confidence (and attention). If violence ensues from these changes (I cannot say from my experience who initiates the violence most of the time), the women have a myriad of agencies and shelters to run to, while the men are left bewildered, angry and of course targeted as criminals.

I've had at a few men (often the situation is to embarrassing to talk about for men) recount their ordeals to me in detail, starting with a psychological blockage that doesn't allow them to continue a normal life, to missing their children. They were also profoundly ashamed that they were now known as wife batterers. I never went into the "violent" situations, but it was clear to me that the men lost the most.

I would start saying to my colleagues that such "violence" is becoming an epidemic. Many of these families wouldn't be experiencing such turbulent family lives back in their countries of origin, where there were a myriad of cultural and familial checkpoints to make sure this didn't happen.

First there was the family as a whole. In Ethiopian families (I cannot speak for other families, although I would think the situations are similar), older relatives, fathers and grandfathers (and uncles) played tremendously important roles in making sure that families were as harmonious as possible. Complaining wives did have a say. And a wife who was battered was the most protected of them all.

But of course, situations wouldn't reach the "battering" level. Through strict religious, Christian, mandates families were regularly reminded of the importance of roles and hierarchies. Only two generations ago (my grandparents' time), wives would call their husbands by the formal "vous" (I cannot think of a better word in English). A rebellious wife had many advisers (female relatives, sisters, mothers-in-law, and her own mother) to help her through whatever she was reacting against. And she may be right, so either she found a way to convince her husband of her correct, and beneficial, revolt, or other sources were found, from and elder male relative to approach the husband to the local priest, who could act as mediators and advisers. If divorce or separation becomes inevitable, again every social and cultural channel was used to prevent this. Separation was often used (with the wife "travelling" to visit relatives until tempers cooled off) to stall and put-off divorce .

In the end, although such societies look like they are full of coerced, unhappy marriages, they actually have unions which develop mutual trust, and even love.

I always said that those percentages of real violence against women were extremely small. The large numbers that are being touted everywhere I think are one of those liberal, anti-marriage, feminist propaganda, where everything and anything can become "battery" or "violence." The more one can show the inherent evil of men, the more the world can run according to women's agenda, including doing away all that claptrap on hierarchy and the outdated "king of his castle" role of men.

And women are more equal than men, in feminist language. This has torn society apart, made children fatherless (often living with the mother and with another male member who is not their father), made single women and their children poorer, and impoverished men, who often have to supply their income to two families if they remarry (alimony always comes from the man, in this equal world of ours), etc.

And it is especially brutal to immigrants, both men and women. There was a spike in immigrant men suicides in the 1990s (amongst Ethiopians to be exact, since I don't know enough about how other cultures responded to this problem). Many of these women receive welfare or some kind of government assistance, and stay it for long periods. Children grow up expecting government "benefits" which must affect what they aspire for as adults. Etc.

So, my opinion (although it counted for more than that at my counsellor job since it was based on my observations and research) was that we should find ways for these families to stay together. In terms of Ethiopian families, it was to restore some kind of traditional, Christian element, of male hierarchy within the family.

This, I think, is becoming more and more difficult in multicultural Canada, so I still say that Ethiopians should start a "return of the diaspora" movement (I said this once with a group of people, and someone told me that many, from young Ethiopians born in the West, to older retirees, are actually going back in large numbers).

Dependency on the liberal set up hasn't helped. And often, the supporters of radical liberal agendas, like those who speak for "abused" women and who support dramatic solutions like breaking apart families, are often white liberal feminist women, who have found ways to keep their own marriages and families intact (well, I wouldn't want to go in with a magnifying glass, since I will most likely find a liberal, wimpy, feminist male), but are ready to sacrifice others as foot soldiers for their cause.

The less political, and often non-white, women working at the front desks of the immigrant women's support agencies often have stable and what look like happy families (I noticed this, and mentioned it several times at my job), but they promote these ideas of family separation often because it is their job, and they have to accept it to keep their their jobs. But at some point, they too begin to believe the propaganda they are spoon fed (not for them, of course - there's always a hierarchy of recipients in the accusations and realities of battered women). But, they are participating in the destruction of a society simply because they don't, and possibly cannot, say otherwise.

For the sake of liberal rearrangement of society, everyone becomes a pawn, or at least a propaganda soldier. Those at the very bottom of that hierarchy, a hierarchy that is clearly and hypocritically present in the liberal set up, often have the most to lose. And in the case of battered women, it is the women who have somehow been convinced to discard their husbands as abusers, and who have to live a life dependent on another hierarchical superior: a cold and faceless government agency.

Email Interaction on Publishing a Book on Mississauga

Spikey Non-Christmas Tree outside of Holts Luxury Department store
at the main entrance of the Square One Mississauga Mall
the hub of activity in Mississauga
[Photo By: KPA, December 4, 2018]

---

On Thursday Nov 29, 2018, at 12:10 PM
To: Ricardo Duchesne
Kidist Paulos Asrat wrote:

Dear Dr. Duchesne,

I frequently read the articles on the website Council of European Canadians, and I have read your book Canada in Decay.

I have been collecting and filing data on Mississauga, Ontario, for about three years now, to publish a book on the city.

I have been living in Mississauga for about five years, having lived in Toronto before that.

My years in Mississauga exposed me to multiculturalism and it steady and nefarious progression into the Canadian life and landscape. Mississauga is conveniently ignored by major cities like Toronto and Ottawa, and is a destination for Third World immigrants who flock here looking for cheaper housing and a safe suburban life, away from the "big city" problems of Toronto. Mississauga now has one of the largest non-white population in all of Canada.

Mississauga's leaders' intentions are starkly displayed at the Art Gallery of Mississauga, where I was a frequent visitor and recorder of the art and artistic activities promoted and programed by the gallery.

About a year ago, I asked one too many controversial question at an AGM gallery event about the lack of Western art on display at the gallery, and subsequently, I received an email from the galley's (still current) director, Mandy Slater, a white woman, to cease my "antagonistic" behavior and not to frequent gallery any more, with my name submitted to the Peel Region Police and the Mississauga Security division, should I not comply. I haven't entered the gallery since then. But the AGM's prolific website provides me with all the information I require on the gallery's exhibitions and programming to follow and monitor their activities. As well, most of the staff post photographs and commentary on their various social media sites.

Since then, the AGM has been making progressive changes in the gallery's structure and organization, and especially so in the past few months. One of the dramatic changes has been the removal of Kendra Ainsworth, its one (of two) white staff. The other is Mandy Salter, the gallery's director, recently hired only about a year ago. All the other administrative and curatorial positions are [KPA edit: since] filled with non-white, mostly Indian (Asian) and Muslim staff. Most are also relatively new to these posts, stretching back about two years for the most senior.

The AGM's purpose of this newly restructured gallery is is to "build a whole new kind of art institution" as I wrote to a correspondent recently. What I mean by this is a gallery that exhibits and promotes works by non-white, non-Western artists.

I have a background in the arts both as a practitioner and as a researcher. I studied photography at Ryerson University, and painting and textile design through various courses and workshops in Toronto, including the Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto.

I started a blog called Camera Lucida in 2005 to "explore and shed light on how art, and culture and society converge."

Several years later in 2013, I started a blog I titled Reclaiming Beauty "to document the contribution that beauty had made toward our Western Civilization," where I still continue to blog.

I believe that the AGM is building an institution that can expand into other regions in the province and the country, as a successful example of an art institution that reflects multicultural and ethnic art, and a gallery which has pushed to the sidelines, and even out of the gallery, works by what now Canadians are being regularly told "racist" white artists, and especially those which reflect a Canada of half a century to a century ago, which of course are almost exclusively white artists.

Mississauga's history originates as a "new city" built around the 1970s, as an ambitious vision by a white Canadian, Bruce McLaughlin, to separate this already existing small town from the influences of Toronto, and to build self-sufficient and independent city. Immigration and non-Canadian residents were far from his, and his colleagues' minds. The AGM itself was established in 1987, as a separate gallery, independent from big-city influences, or even the then encroaching multiculturalism, and its inauguration was celebrated with the visit of the Duke and Duchess of York in July 1987.

I will present this historical material in my book on how a once confident city, with confident citizens, now has devolved into this multicultural outpost, almost forgotten by other regional centres, but which is quietly restructuring society and culture.

At some point it will gain some power and start to promote successful and prosperous multiculturalism as an example for other Canadian cities to follow.

The reality, though, is that Mississauga is far from success and prosperity, with some of the highest poverty rates in Ontario recorded in the city's non-white ethnic neighbourhoods, and a non-existent, true, "mosaic" of mixed multiculturalism, with an increasingly self-segregating population separating itself by race, ethnicity and religion. And the various socio-ethnic groups do not work together, in art or other cultural and social programs, especially where their "identities" are involved, and some are even antagonistic towards each other (Indian Hindu and Muslims, for example).

And the AGM would not exist were it not for the close to the third of a billion of dollars in governmental grants it receives annually to promote this artificial mosaic of integrated multiculturalism through its art exhibitions and art programming.

I propose that we co-author such a book, perhaps as part of a larger subject of the practical realities of multiculturalism in Canada, and use Mississauga as one (perhaps the most important) example of how things really do function when multiculturalism is the Canadian government's policy.

Sincerely,
Kidist Paulos Asrat

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

On Monday, December 3, 2018, 11:11:24 AM
Ricardo Duchesne <...@unb.ca> wrote:

Hello,

Why not turn this into an article for CEC? You already have a good draft, and need to have an introduction, and a few other revisions to make it into an article. This is a topic I am interested in, and would like to see this developed into article.

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

On Monday, December 3, 2018, at 6:09:37 PM
Kidist Paulos Asrat wrote:

Thank you for your suggestion.

KPA
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

On Wednesday, Dec 5 2018, at 6:47 AM
reclaimbeauty@gmail.com
To: Ricardo Duchesne


Dear Dr. Duchesne,

Thanks once again for your helpful comments.

Nonetheless, I will independently write and publish the book on Mississauga rather than produce a very much condensed article.

Mississauga is a unique place. It warrants a full book: a demonstration of how society devovles as rulers and leaders lose confidence in themselves and a government-mandated plan (Multiculturalism) to change society is forced on all policy makers, which they have to comply with if they want to keep their jobs and have some future to look forward to (retirement, children well-educated, mortgages paid off, etc.).

There was something exciting and fresh about Mississauga when it started out as a city built from the ground up - literally.

The saddest part of this bright history is the current demoralized population, both white and nonwhite.

For example, non-white residents and immigrants relate to their ancestral countries much more so now than a decade or two ago. Most of them are bitterly disappointed in Canada, where they have been unable to "integrate," despite tremendous efforts by government officials and policies to assist them to do so. And their children, the Canadian-born second generation, who are experiencing the same lack of integration, are militant in blaming the "racist" white culture that they fervently believe is denying them their "rights." Thus there is no integration, but increasing ethnic and racial self-segregation. And there is also a new (albeit weak) trend of a repatriation and return "home" by some.

But I believe all this is a good thing, a good sign, demonstrating the failures (and cruelty) of multiculturalism, not just to critics like me, but to ordinary people, which is forcing them to search for, and discover, authentic ways of living.

Here is where I can show systematically how we can all salvage what we have. Those who return to their countries of origin can reclaim their ancestry and abandoned homes. And those like me can reclaim the city as it was once envisioned by its pioneers.

I believe that Mississauga, because of its strange "outlier" geographical position, is a perfect blueprint to demonstrate all these points.

Thank you once again for your communication. All the best in your projects.

Sincerely,

Kidist Paulos Asrat