How the Devil Plays the Game

VDare, about whom I've recently written here, has finally decided to put some Christian, spiritual article on its website, other than as a "War on Christmas" tag (without the Christ and the Christian).

In the article Is It Time For Americans To Start Talking About The Devil? Matthew Richer does an extensive expose on the Devil, and why we should acknowledge his presence.

But confronting the Devil becomes the final frontier in saving America, not presenting the grace of God. To my knowledge, and I've searched through the extensive articles written for/by/against VDare, there is no article that is exclusive to the praises of God's excellent hand in this American Nation.

Rather, we now have a full expose on the Devil himself.

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

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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]

January Garden

January Garden
[Photo By: KPA]

"The belief in objective truth is the keystone of traditional Western culture, and the explicit basis of the United States of America. For America's founding generation and their posterity, man's inalienable rights to liberty and self-government proceed, not from from the will and desire of man, but from "nature and nature's God." Man's freedom is ordained, and constrained, by a reality higher than man. It was the shared experience of that truth that formed the American nation."

Lawrence Auster
Our Borders, Ourselves: America in the Age of Multiculturalism
Chapter 4: The Spiritual Effects of Multiculturalism
P.58

Mississauga Council

The Mississauga City Council opens it chamber to the public every two weeks. I attended about 45 minutes of its session yesterday. The councillors discussed issues such as how to manage pedestrian crossings along the very busy (quasi highway) Burnhamthorpe Road, and the various summer festivals taking place on Celebration Square.

It was all very intriguing to me: how protocol is managed, how issues are voted on (or against), how the minutes are recorded. And how in-camera sessions are held.

Civilization requires procedure. The Council provides that.

Here is the agenda for June 20, with an additonal agenda provded here.

Minutes are to follow.

Below are a couple of photos I took when the councillors receded to their in-camera session. It is a grand room where one feels the responsibility of civility, law and order. It was sparsely attended! I was one of four or five.




[Photos By: KPA]

How Multiculturalism Infantilizes design

2017 1967
The winning design for Canada's Sesquicentennial anniversary is a rip off from the winning design for the Centennial Anniversary.

Both represent the Maple Leaf, although the 150th designer does so somewhat reluctantly.

And both are stuck on "multiculturalism."

I've said many times that "multiculturalism" makes for bad design.

Here is an article I posted at Camera Lucida in 2008:

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July 19, 2008
How Multiculturalism Infantilizes design

I haven't yet read Diana West's book The Death of the Grown-up, but here is an interesting insight she makes while answering questions on an interview on National Review Online:

Kathryn Jean Lopez: How are “dhimmi life under Islam” and “PC life in a multicultural world” similar?

Diana West: For me, this pairing was something of a “eureka” moment in the writing of the book.

I would describe PC life in a multiculti world as being marked in part by self-censorship based in fear — fear of professional failure, opprobrium or social ostracism. I would also describe this same self-censorship as a form of childishness. During one lecture on The Death of the Grown-Up, I took a question from a man who wondered, in a rather agitated way, if I were actually saying that multiculturalism is juvenile. I hadn’t phrased things that way, but, on quick reflection, I told him that, yes, that was indeed what I was saying. The fact is, buying into multiculturalism — the outlook that sees all cultures as being of equal value (except the West, which is essentially vile) — requires us to repress our faculties of logic, and this in itself is an infantilizing act. I mean, it’s patently illogical to accept and teach our children the notion that a culture that has brought liberty and penicillin to the masses is of no greater value than others that haven’t. In accepting the multicultural worldview, we deceive ourselves into inhabiting a world of pretend where certain truths are out of bounds and remain unspoken — even verboten.

I remember looking at logos of institutions who stressed diversity either in their title, or in their mission statements, and found this very same infantilizing going on at the design level.

Since there are no standards, that everyone and everything is equal, logo designs stress the equality of all these elements to the detriment of their design.

I've already talked about the COSTI Immigrant Services logo, which went from a lovely clear red line, as though traveling into to the horizon, to me signifying the release of the new immigrant into the bigger and greater society, into a disheveled, hardly stable umbrella which is trying hard to shade all those diverse elements under its inadequate roof. By forfeiting their strong message of "you can make it," they turned it into a half-hearted, insincere, "we'll protect you."

The same with the Ontario logo design which had a solid, identifiable trillium and withstood all the elements for several decades, until diversity entered the vocabulary. The logo devolved into three stick-figure like objects, hardly resembling the strong structure of the original.

Stick figures abound in diversity logos, as well as bright crayola colors. How childish can they be?

So, yes, as Diana West says, multiculturalism does infantalize. And a logo doesn't lie.

I wonder how long before either we change these logos (I hope COSTI comes to its senses), or we abolish these institutions altogether.

Here are a selection of logos I found just by googling: Canada diversity.

Left: COSTI's newest logo
Right: Canada's Best Diversity Employers

Left: Diversity in the workplace
Right: Harmony Movement

Left: Diversity Canada Foundation
Right: Ontario's new logo resembling stick figures

Left: Unity in Diversity
Right: Hamilton's Centre for Civic Inclusion

Even those that seem to show some form of artistic design - for example, some idea of composition etc. - actually show their weaknesses through obvious signs of childishness.

These two from Culturescope.ca look interesting (although there is actually nothing to see, hence another indication of a lack of good design) but also have scribbles of lines going through them.

Culturescope.ca

And there are many more.

Addendum: Culturescope.ca no longer exists. As this website indicates:

As a result of a Strategic Review of Government of Canada, Culturescope.ca has been discontinued since April 1st, 2008 as the original program objectives have been fulfilled. The digital space has evolved tremendously since the Canadian Cultural Observatory was created in 2003 and the website still contains rich resources and documents on diverse thematic areas.

The evolution of culturescope.ca fulfilled these objectives:

The Canadian Cultural Observatory (Observatory) and Culturescope.ca: The Department of Canadian Heritage launched the Observatory in November 2003 to provide statistics and information on cultural and heritage policies, programmes, legislation and regulations. Its objectives are to advance cultural development in Canada by fostering responsive research, encouraging informed decision-making in policy and planning, and stimulating community debate and improved knowledge exchange. Culturescope.ca is the Observatory's collaborative, interactive website developed in partnership with the not-for-profit, private and public sectors...[Source]

But we still keep coming back to those multi-culti stick designs.

Behind the Scenes

These are the hard-working men behind the scenes of Mississauga's revival. And they were all set in place by the city's last mayor, Hazel McCallion.

The question is of course if this is a real revival, which I think it has the makings of, or if it just adding infrastructure to accommodate the unmentionable: increased immigration.

I think it will in some way sort itself out. If the city revives itself in a true sense: higher quality buildings, a "luxury mall" as Square One is being structured, improved landscaping and surroundings with better parks and recreational areas, but above all a with a Canadian perspective, then it will attract for a longer term those that can afford to stay not just for quick real estate flips (buying and selling), but those who would stay to buy good homes for their families.

I am seeing more of the latter, which to my observations looks less Asian (Chinese and Indian) and more white (possibly those attracted from nearby cities, including Toronto).

Let's hope so.


The Jubilee Garden is full of magnolia trees.


The C-Cafe, which is adjacent to the Jubilee Garden, has two industrious chefs, cooking up their appetizing meals on a daily basis. Here is one, barely visible, preparing a dish.


I keep thinking they're brothers. "Cousins?" I asked, but not even that. "Then they must be from the same Welsh town," I joked. They looked Welsh to me.


These are the groundsmen preparing the area for a new addition in the Jubilee Garden: The Hazel Tree, in honor of the former (last) Mayor Hazel McCallion. What an apt recognition. A tough nut to crack! I asked them what they were working on, and it seems they were told only a few days ago the nature of the project. "I got the scoop!" I joked.


And Andrew Wickens, Parks Manager for the City of Mississauga, was in the garden discussing with other officials some details ont he tree, and the surrounding magnolia trees. He was kind enough to stand for a photograph.

He will be responsible for the Hazel Tree.

Hazel McCallion as mayor of Mississauga, sitting in a council session

Hazel McCallion on Mississauga's growth:

Growing up:
Growth is good, says Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion - within limits

Full article at: Toronto Star, Mar 27 2013

Facing pressure under Ontario’s Places to Grow Act to house more of the GTA’s population boom, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion is pushing back.

At city council Wednesday, McCallion said Mississauga has accepted the province’s mandated growth targets but will not accept decisions by the Ontario Municipal Board that allow developers to build beyond those targets. The spurt of highrise construction is hurting the city’s already overstretched infrastructure, she said.
“They can’t be playing around with our land use like they do,” McCallion said of the province and the OMB, which rules on municipal and planning disputes.

Council unanimously passed a motion asking that Ontario’s Planning Act be amended so developers cannot appeal city council decisions to the OMB, if the city’s official plan is in compliance with Ontario’s growth strategy. The strategy sets municipal density targets that aim to encourage cities to build up rather than out.

McCallion and other councillors said developers, seeing profits in building even higher, are simply going to the OMB whenever they want densities for projects increased. The OMB then uses the growth plan as the rationale for ruling in favour of the developers. The end result is often more lucrative for builders, but puts pressure on already overstretched municipal services.

For Mississauga’s motion to take effect, it would have to be endorsed by Queen’s Park.

Councillors cited a number of high-density projects in Mississauga over the past few years that residents and council, adhering to the city’s official plan, opposed. But developers eventually got their way at the OMB [Ontario Municipal Board], they said.

“I am really concerned about the increased densities … our (infrastructure) is not designed to take the climate change and the increased densities,” McCallion said.
She said the increased densities beyond what , Mar 27 2013has been planned will cost Peel Region “at least a billion dollars” to take care of the extra garbage alone.

Mocker in Chief

I think news on Michele Bachmann will continue for a while. She has placed herself in the limelight. She has made her position clear. As I wrote int this post, she said on October 9, 2013:

I want the Tea Party to know they made a profound difference, and what they're fighting for is to see if we're actually going to be a constitutional republic or if we're going to be totally devolved into a dictatorship under somebody like Barack Obama.

Obama knows an adversary when he sees one. And he then starts his attacks. This article shows he has already started:
Obama mocks Michele Bachmann's worry that Obamacare "literally kills women".

Here is what he says:

I mean these are quotes. I am not making this stuff up. And here's one more that I've heard. I like this one. We have to, and I am quoting here. We have to 'repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens.' Now I have to say that that one was from six months ago. I just want to point out that we still have women. We still have children, and we still have senior citizens.

This is distorting what Bachmann said, during a speech on the House floor on March 12, 2013:

The American people, especially vulnerable women, vulnerable children, vulnerable senior citizens, now get to pay more and they get less. That’s why we’re here, because we’re saying let’s repeal this failure before it literally kills women, kills children, kills senior citizens. Let’s not do that. Let’s love people. Let’s care about people.

I took the above photograph of Obama from the site which posted the article that I quote. The article is "pro-Obama" yet it's publishers seem to note the unflattering body language and facial expression that I've also noted.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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"A Dictatorship Under Somebody Like Barack Obama..."

I wrote yesterday about Obama:

In 2012, I posted in Obama's fascistic, arrogant character that he displayed during his Democratic National Convention speech in Charlotte, N.C. on September 6 2012, where he tells us:

"I am no longer the candidate. I'm the President."

Well, Michele Bachmann says something very similar during an interview with talk show host Rusty Humphries (the interview took place before October 9, 2013, according to a post on the Tea Party website):

This fight that we’re in right now is so much bigger than just Obamacare. It’s bigger than the out-of-control debt. What this is about is whether or not we will hold on to our constitutional republic. Because Barack Obama has decided that he is going to arrogate power to himself, and that we don't count with our voices in the House. It doesn't matter that Republicans control. It doesn't matter that conservatives dominate. Everything has to be his way. That's what his position is no negotiation. Well, that is not going to happen. We're going to insist that we are the two branches in the House, in the Senate and the Congress and the president and we have a voice too. Because let me say this, otherwise that means people will only take one vote, and that's for president, and then congress will be rendered meaningless. And we'll go on, and we'll talk about more things, but I want the Tea Party to know they made a profound difference, and what they're fighting for is to see if we're actually going to be a constitutional republic or if we're going to be totally devolved into a dictatorship under somebody like Barack Obama.

Below is the full interview. The bold section above starts around the 3:30 minute point.


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Michele Bachmann Votes No for the American People: Barack Obama Resolves to Fight the American People

Here, Bachmann looks like a girl about to play some practical joke.
But, it is the usual depiction of her as a non-serious person
that photographers have been taking of her since
she entered the national political scene.
The photo is, not suprisingly, from the leftist
Minnesota Public Radio website.



Above, Bachmann is participating in a Fox News interview with Democrat Henry Cuellar from Texas (who has a Spanish accent), looking serious and attentive. Nothing ditzy about her here.

Although I wonder about the masculine attire? I think she's trying to get away from the feminine look that has resulted with so much mockery. I don't think she should have capitulated, at least in these images. But, we'll wait and see. It could be that she's just trying to wear comfortable clothes for these long and arduous "meetings."

An article follows the photograph: Most of Minnesota congressional delegation votes for budget deal.

Here is what Bachmann says in the article:

What he did is count on the fact that Republicans would be the adults in the room and at the end of the day we would be unwilling to see not only our credit rating hurt but also see the United States default on the debt. We wouldn’t do that, we’re responsible people, it wouldn’t happen,” Bachmann said.

What she means by Obama counting on the Republicans being "the adults int he room" is that Republicans wouldn't disrupt the meeting. Her second statement is closer to her first: Being adult means being responsible, even if the action causes antagonisms and frictions. Her words are fighting words, but more subtle and sophisticated (and responsible) than Obama's words during his speech.

In 2012, I posted in Obama's fascistic, arrogant character that he displayed during his Democratic National Convention speech in Charlotte, N.C. on September 6 2012, where he tells us:

"I am no longer the candidate. I'm the President."

Below is a clip of his statement.



Below is the image I copied from the video where he tells us "I am the President," with his strange vacant, but antagonistic expression. It is as though he is trying to connect with the audience, but cannot. And has to resort to some sort of instinctive "fight" (as opposed to flight) mode. I don't think any American president has given us such an array of strange and hostile expressions as has Obama.


Barack Obama tells us "I am the President,"
with his strange vacant, but antagonistic expression.
He gets a prolonged applause and cheer after this statement.
But, he doesn't seem to know what to do with it,
and surveys the crowd as the cheers proceed.

Now, in 2013, Obama is no longer in "flight" mode. He is someone who is going to fight the fight, to the end. His confidence and his arrogance have grown over the years.


Obama "thumb-ups" as he enters the Brady Press Briefing Room at the White House
On October 17, 2013 to deliver his post-government shutdown speech.
[Image source: National Review Online Photo File]

The photo below shows him making his post-shutdown speech, or more precisely his post-shutdown announcement, on October 17, 2013. He still has that vacant expression, but his manner is more aggressive. He is in no flight mode.


Obama speaking in the State Dining Room of the
White House in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 17, 2013

His post-shutdown speech was vindictive and aggressive. I would even call it vicious.

Below are excerpts from the speech. It is peppered with antagonistic words and phrases. It is sophisticated and subtle. It is clearly a speech about the "Good Guys" and the "Bad Guys." The Bad Guys, of course being the "extremes" from the Republican party, which of course includes Michele Bachmann.

Even conservative news analysts don't know what to make of it, other than to begrudgingly praise it. Here is a writer at the conservative Town Hall, who titles his article: Six Thoughts on Obama's Post-Shutdown Speech. His first "thought" is: "As far as this president's speeches go, this one was relatively conciliatory and productive."

Wishful thinking, or sloppy journalism? I wonder if he read the speech after listening to it? I always read speeches, to analyse statements and to review points I have missed. And I'm just a blogger.

Here are excerpts from the speech. I have highlighted in bold some significant words or phrases. The full transcript of the speech is here.

We hear some members who pushed for the shutdown say they were doing it to save the American economy. But nothing has done more to undermine our economy these past three years than the kind of tactics that create these manufactured crises.

[...]

Some of the same folks who pushed for the shutdown and threatened default claim their actions were needed to get America back on the right track, to make sure we're strong.

[...]

And now that the government has reopened and this threat to our economy is removed, all of us need to stop focusing on the lobbyists, and the bloggers, and the talking heads on radio and the professional activists who profit from conflict, and focus on what the majority of Americans sent us here to do...

[...]

Now, that won't be easy. We all know that we have divided government right now. There's a lot of noise out there, and the pressure from the extremes affect how lot of members of Congress see the day-to-day work that's supposed to be done here.

[...]

And had one side not decided to pursue a strategy of brinksmanship, each side could have gotten together and figured out how do we shape a budget

[...]

But probably nothing has done more damage to America's credibility in the world, our standing with other countries, than the spectacle that we've seen these past several weeks.

[...]

But that should not hold back our efforts in areas where we do agree. We shouldn't fail to act on areas that we do agree or could agree just because we don't think it's good politics, just because the extremes in our party don't like the word "compromise." I will look for willing partners wherever I can to get important work done. And there's no good reason why we can't govern responsibly, despite our differences, without lurching from manufactured crisis to manufactured crisis.

[...]

So let's work together to make government work better instead of treating it like an enemy or purposely making it work worse. That's not what the founders of this nation envisioned when they gave us the gift of self-government. You don't like a particular policy or a particular president? Then argue for your position. Go out there and win an election. Push to change it. But don't break it. Don't break what our predecessors spent over two centuries building. That's not being faithful to what this country's about.

And had one side not decided to pursue a strategy of brinksmanship, each side could have gotten together and figured out how do we shape a budget...

This is what Bachmann is fighting against. Below is her statement posted on her Facebook page, where she "could not vote for this bill as it does nothing to give relief to the countless Americans hurting under Obamacare, nor does it address our out of control spending and $17 trillion national debt."

President Obama’s position of no negotiation took us to the brink of government default to advance his political agenda over the best interests of the American people. Republicans were the adults in the room, offering compromise after compromise and urging the President to come to the table and do what’s right for our country.

President Obama may have won an immediate political battle for his radical agenda but it comes at a great cost to the economy, to our health care system, and to the American people. It means we will continue on the same trajectory towards economic decline, skyrocketing national debt, and greater government intrusion in our health care.

After an embarrassing two weeks of Obamacare failures, I hope President Obama will soon realize that forcing every American to purchase a health insurance policy that they don’t want at a price they can’t afford from a website that doesn’t work is not a sustainable course of action.

I could not vote for this bill as it does nothing to give relief to the countless Americans hurting under Obamacare, nor does it address our out of control spending and $17 trillion national debt.

Bachmann at the SpaceX facility on August 30, 2013.
Comfortable and approachable, but also serious.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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