Henry Chao: Remember that Name

I wrote about a high-level Asian in the Obamacare design in Todd Park: Remember That Name. I said:

[I]t is much later on that we hear that Obamacare's "main architect" is an Asian - Todd Park. And his involvement in Obamacare and dishonesty about it is far greater than any of these three representatives [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Marilyn Tavenner, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney].

Well, we're learning now that there is another high level official who is an Asian: Henry Chao.

Fox News reports today that:

...Henry Chao, Deputy Chief Information Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, testified at a House subcommittee on Energy and Commerce hearing that the site will be “greatly improved” by the end of the month -- not fixed.

Chao said Tuesday [November 19, 2013] that up to 40 percent of the technical systems supporting the federal health insurance marketplaces have not yet been built, including a system to issue payments to insurance companies, The Washington Post reported.

[...]

At Tuesday's hearing by a subcommittee of the House Energy and Oversight Committee, Chao, who is widely seen as the operational official most knowledgeable about ObamaCare's online system, said he never saw the McKinsey report.(Read more at Foxnews.com: Sebelius says ObamaCare website will remain a work in progress after key deadline

Here's a video from S-Span with Chao testifying yesterday at The House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with questions presented by Rep. Cory Gardner.


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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Rob Ford: Mayor of Vicious Toronto

Mayor Rob Ford in City Hall, lunging at Councillor Pam McConnell



Pam McConnell
No wonder Ford lunged at her. Who would want her around?

Pam McConnell is a limousine-lefty city counsellor (of the New Democratic Party). No wonder Ford wanted her out of his way. She is at the top of the "spending" bracket for Toronto's politicians. Ford is at the bottom.

The mayor of Toronto has become known to Americans mainly through CNN's obsessive reporting, and now through a Saturday Night Live spoof.

Basically, the mayor was caught in a crack cocaine bust, because of a video that the bunch of crack-smoking hoodlums with whom Ford was associated sold to a US blogger. Ford is not shown smoking crack.

Ford admitted to smoking crack once, although it is not clear if he did so during this up-for-sale photo shoot.



I should add that Ford used to coach inner-city black boys soccer. This photo could very well be one of his moments with his "gang."

In any case, Ford has been coming out in public denying allegations, and even weeping a little. Finally, Ford cleared the air and admitted that he smoked crack once, and that he is not an addict nor a repeat user.

His other folly is that he drinks a lot, and has been caught drunk on a couple of occasions. He also has a tendency to use swear words in some of his colorful retaliations.

Still, despite all this, he managed to turn around Toronto's economics, by actually saving the city money and leading it down a prosperous road. In fact, Toronto looks really good these days, with interesting restaurants sprouting up, a revamped shopping center at the Eaton Center, clean roads, and flower baskets on lamp posts along the main (and even side) streets.

For whatever reason, Ford is reacting very viscerally to all this. When he is not half-weeping in front of the camera, he is throwing fists at his adversaries.

And the media - left, right and center - is loving this.

I say, leave the guy alone. When left to his smarts, he does good things. Perhaps it is his home life that is in turmoil (although his wife is now dutifully appearing beside her man), or some other issue. But, Ford, although he admits he needs some counselling (for his temper, his alcohol drinking, for giving it to the media and his left-wing City Hall colleagues?), has said that he is not resigning, and will in fact run again at the next municipal elections.

Good for him.

There is a viciousness in Toronto politics, and generally Toronto life, where anyone remotely associated with a "right-wing" politics is deemed the anti-Christ. This leaves two options for the condemned: sit quietly and take it, or fight back as viciously as the adversaries. Ford decided to take the second route.

I think he'll be alright. He used to be a football player at one time, and he knows what fighting, and competition, is all about. I also think he will win in the next elections. The municipal elections will bring a large roster of candidates, and votes will be splintered between them. And I think Ford will amass enough votes to win. People like what he's doing for the city.

There was a time also when politicians were admired for any whisky drinking and cursing tendencies. A little red-blooded rowdiness never hurt anyone.
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The Handsome Kennedy Brothers

John, Robert and Edward Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts,
in July 1960 after John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination for president.
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum

Chris Wallace, anchor of Fox News Sunday, presented John F. Kennedy's legacy on the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination in a panel discussion. Below is Wallace's interaction with Brit Hume, who was on the panel:

Chris Wallace: ...I think a fair reading of history would be that President Kennedy's promise exceeded his accomplishments, and perhaps, the most resonant thing was in fact his death. Why do people 50 years later care so much?

Brit Hume: I think he was the coolest president we ever had. He was just a cool guy and therefore, appealing [Note: I like Brit Hume, but he seems cursed with the adolescent vocabulary of our era. Why does he say "cool?" He could have stuck with "appealing" and made a more convincing point. Who wants a "cool" president?]

Chris Wallace: If you look at the pictures of him that we're running, he’s impossibly glamorous.

Brit Hume: Yes. No question. I think, however, that despite the thinness of the record that you just mentioned, that George mentioned, he has been the subject of the most successful public relations campaign in political history. The notion that he was a great president, indeed, perhaps, in some surveys he’s been listed the greatest president, is really a remarkable testament to the ability of those who have so admired him and others to have built this man's legend, and it is a legend bordering, I think, on myth.

Here is the video clip:



But, who doesn't want a handsome president running the country. All the Kennedy brothers were handsome, even the odd member, Edward Kennedy.

The Kennedy aesthetic gene went even further with JFK's son. Camille Paglia, the cultural critic, wrote several articles on the Kennedys, and especially Jackie Kennedy. About JFK Jr. she says:

In a certain way, John Kennedy Jr.'s beauty was a kind of narcissism. His physical perfection came from entrapment in a youthful persona.

John F. Kennedy Jr. in the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997,
two years before his death

Perhaps these Kennedys' potentials were cut short with assassinations and careless accidents. Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated, five years after his brother. And death followed another Kennedy brother, Ted Kennedy. A young woman who was with him in his car, died after he drove the car off a bridge, and this only a year after his brother Bobby was assassinated.

How could these Princes of Camelot disappoint us?
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Share Joy with a Starbucks Holiday Coffee

The gradual move away from Christmas is subtle and clever.

Starbucks has a new "holiday" logo out, which seems to be celebrating Christmas. But it doesn't quite do that.

The main, written message of the logo, instead of saying "share the joy" of Christ's birth, simply tells us to "share joy." What could this joy mean? One million things. Something different for each person. The unified joy that we are to feel around the Christmas season has splintered into the joy each of us feels for whatever reason.

That is one way Starbucks is shifting us away from Christams.

Another way it is relaying its message of a Christmas Holiday without Christmas is through the design of its products, which either distort Christmas symbols, or leave them out all together.

Here is the Starbucks paper cup for this "holiday season":



1. What looks like a star on the left cup could just be a sparkly tree decoration shaped in a flower design.

2. The triangular star shapes in the octagons (dispersed around the cup) are too uniform, and there are two of each star ray, making a total of eight. The rays are all the same length.

The star that shines in many renditions of Christmas paintings and illustrations has four rays. And the top and bottom rays are longer, with the bottom the longest. This elongated ray is to show a star that is connecting with the earth below, to show the spot where Jesus' manger lay. It is often called "The Star of Bethlehem."




Elihu Vedder (American, 1836–1923)
Star of Bethlehem, 1879–80
Oil on canvas: 36 3/16 x 44 3/4 in
Milwaukee Art Museum

The frantic holiday scene I’ve described is starkly in contrast to the peaceful one we find in Star of Bethlehem created by American painter Elihu Vedder in 1879-80. This painting, currently housed in Milwaukee Art Museum storage, depicts a serene moment in the muted, golden desert. Three figures on camels overlook the path before them, while three shepherd/guides ahead and three behind also survey what lies ahead. Color can be seen in the distance in the green of trees. Above them the sky contrasts what is seen below with a bright light that illuminates the sky. There is a sense of anticipation created by figures that can be seen in the clouds, standing there, backs slightly hunched as they look down upon the earth. [Source: The Milwaukee Art Museum]

Here's Rembrandt's (or what is attributed to be a pupil of his) Adoration of the Shepherds, where Jesus is bathed in what is most likely the light from the Star of Bethlehem.


Pupil of Rembrandt, 1606–1669
‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’, 1646
Oil on canvas

Painters and art of various centuries and cultures show the importance of the star as a guiding light, and especially its pointed direction toward the earth to indicate where the infant Jesus lay.

Even popular illustrations, often for cards and hanging pictures, depict the bottom ray of the star pointing downwards. In the image below, the star shows the Three Kings where the manger lies.



3. Back to the Starbucks cup. The illustrations on the cup are sloppy. They look like they're preliminary sketches, rather than decorations ready for display. Especially irritating is the cone-shaped decoration, which is drawn as an amorphous blob.





4. The leaf at the bottom of the smaller cup is not that of a pine tree, nor does it look like a holly, the traditional leaf for most Christmas decorations.



It is a coffee plant leaf, and the nut-like shape, a coffee bean. Starbucks' marketing strategy, is to commemorate this "holiday" season through coffee rather than through Christmas.

The Starbucks Christmas cup is all about the coffee and very little about Christmas.

5. Shapes are scattered around the cups, as though to fill in gaps. What are the spikey triangular shapes - rays from a star? And the white dots - snow flakes? Why not have sketch of snow flakes, with some of the beautiful shapes?





6. The homes we see on the package illustration could be homes on any product cover. They have no Christmas distinction: there is no Christmas tree near the homes; there are no decorations around the houses; there is no angel or star above.



Below is a promotional image from the Starbucks website, showing the homes and their surroundings. There is no Christmas tree. The odd, leafless trees are dotted with what could be lights, but it could just be any kind of graphic embellishment. The homes have what look like lights framing the roofs, but it isn't enough to indicate Christmas lights. And the diamond-shaped objects in the sky could be stars, but there is no unique, distinct Star of Bethlehem to show that this is a Christmas scene, and not just any winter scene.

And we are invited to "create wonder," as though we have supernatural powers. What kind of wonder do we create? Again, whatever strikes our fancy, creators that we are. Like the message "Share Joy," what we create, and the joy that we share, are not related to the Christmas story, but rather, our very own individual fancies.



And finally, here is the description of the Christmas Blend mixture, from the Starbucks website:

A time to create wonder. An invitation to share joy.

Three decades ago, we created something wonderful - a coffee special enough for your celebrations big and small. Christmas Blend brings bright, lively Latin American coffees together with smooth, mellow Indonesian coffees, including rare aged beans from Sumatra. The aged coffee dramatically balances the overall flavor to create luscious, sweet, spice notes. Crafting this coffee embodies the best of everything we do - sourcing, roasting, blending, exploring, perfecting and sharing. It’s one of our most cherished traditions - made for you to savor season after season.

Of course, coffee is a Third World export. But, the description above tells us that it is part of Starbucks' "sourcing" strategy.

Dictionary.com defines "sourcing" as:

...the buying of components of a product from an outside supplier, often one located abroad

And Starbucks tells us how it does this "ethically":

Ethical Sourcing
We've always believed in buying and serving the best coffee possible.

And it's our goal for all of our coffee to be grown under the highest standards of quality, using ethical trading and responsible growing practices. We think it's a better cup of coffee that also helps create a better future for farmers and a more stable climate for the planet.
With the help of Conservation International, we’ve developed ethical sourcing guidelines that help us purchase coffee that is responsibly grown and ethically traded.

We’re working directly with farmers to develop responsible growing methods and investing in their communities to ensure a sustainable supply of quality coffee.

This sounds too much like the "Banana Republics" that developed through vast farmlands being allocated for big business plantations, while local farmers had to do with inferior land.

In this Starbucks produced video, Carlos Mario (no last name), who is clearly an intermediary between Starbucks (the corporation) and the local Costa Rican farmer, talks about the farmer and coffee production. This Third World company man says:

We are helping farmers, teaching them how to improve production, improve the quality, and reduce the use of pesticides. We are taking care of the environment and the pretty country that we have. Helping farmers is really good, and I feel really proud of that. I think Starbucks is working with agronomists because they know that if they don't care about the environment, they will not have good quality coffee in the future."

All Hail King Coffee

I like coffee, and I especially like Starbucks' blends. There is no doubt that its the "King of Coffee." I wish its leader would just say that they're in the business of making great coffee, and that they work in Third World countries. Let those countries make the necessary steps to help the farmers, while Starbucks provides the coffee for us through a true market and competitive manner.

And, I wish Starbucks wouldn't tell us to "Share Joy," or to "Create Wonder" if it cannot come right out with "Share the Joy of Christmas." I would rather just have a warm cup of coffee without being pulled into a false sense of the Christmas holiday. It is just coffee, after all.
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Fighting for Christmas

Sarah Palin was on Fox News on Monday (November 11), being interviewed by Sean Hannity. I expected her to talk about Obamacare, the government shutdown, and other political news. I even expected her to suggest that she might run for President in 2016. She did talk about current news, but she was also there to promote her new book: Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of America.

Here are the book's chapters:

Dedication
Epigraph

Introduction
1. Angry Atheists with Lawyers
2. Knowing the End from the Beginning
3. The Real Thing
4. True Grit
5. Bad News, Good News
6. Seeing Double.......Standards
7. Who'd Make up a Story Like That?

Recipes
Acknowledgements

She writes here in the first chapter:

But while our worked hard to hold tight to our Christmas traditions, I wonder just how easy it will be in the future to joyfully and openly celebrate. Christmas has come under attack in recent years, and it's not just some figment of the religious right's imagination. I think about this every time I see a news story about an ACLU letter warning a school district not to sing "Silent Night," or when a college group isn't permitted to advertise a Christmas tree sale, or when "Merry Christmas" is replaced by the more politically correct "Happy Holidays" - all to avoid giving offense. I'm concerned that the years of relentless attacks against the holiday will eventually drain the joy from our public spaces as well as from our minds and hearts.

[...]

[Our cultural elites] send us the message that "Christmas" is something best practiced at home, as if it's a shameful and potentially exclusionary personal lifestyle choice.

[...]

The pundits like to pretend that anyone who belongs to the "Christmas with Christ" version is picking a fight over a non-existent problem. They trivialize the topic by reducing the whole issue to whether the cashier at the grocery store wishes customers "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." They say it's about the kids' two weeks off in December is called Winter Break...They claim the whole conversation is the result of hypersensitivity, intolerance, or - their favorite criticism for us "bitter clingers" - ignorance and fear of change...

But let me tell you what this conversation is important.

This book is not about isolated trivialities. It's not really about gingerbread cookies, or stockings hung by the fireplace with care, or the big fat man with big white beard. It's not about a holiday at all. It's about a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, who arrived long before hope and change became political manipulations. It's about Christ and our ability to worship Him freely. It's about America, and what liberty truly means in our day-to-day lives.

Hannity summarizes the book by saying:

"The book is great. Great Tidings, Great Joy [he gets this a little wrong - it's Good Tidings and Great Joy], Protecting the Heart of Christmas..."

And Sarah Palin jumps in and says:

"Which is protecting the heart of America."

The only serious criticism I have of this book, from listening to interviews with Palin, reading reviews on the book, and from Palin's own comments, is that Palin is trying to be "multicultural" about worship.

She says in the interview:

It is unquestionable that there is an attack on Christmas, which is again the tip of the sphere [why doesn't she say iceberg?! And is "the tip of the sphere" an actual phrase?] when it comes to an even greater battle brewing, and that is an attack on our freedom of religion, where we can exercise our faith - whatever that faith may be.

Palin is parroting the main stream American idea of "freedom of religion." In the next sentence she says:

There are double standards being applied to those who wish to celebrate Christmas, for instance, in a traditional way. Those who would - I refer to them as Scrooges - they are usually angry atheists armed with an attorney, and they want to tell us, they want to tell patriots, the want to tell traditional Americans that no longer can you acknowledge that Jesus is the Reason for the Season [I admit, I laughed at the last Palinesque phrase].

When Palin gets talking "from the heart," she says sensible and reasonable things. Despite her "freedom of religion" mantra, she believes that Christianity trumps all other religions, and that American tradition is not based on a multi-faith amalgam but on Christianity. I think probably her internal litmus test for these other non-Christian faiths is Islam, and how radically and violently different it is from Christianity, and how it is endangering this American tradition, as well as the American nation.

Also, Palin understands that these angry atheists are angry at Christianity, and at the Christian roots of Western society. They want to destroy Christianity, and consequently a West based on Christianity, which according to them has oppressed and marginalized the non-Western, and non-Christian world. And these oppressed religions and cultures deserve acceptance and respect by the West's whites (which is also what these angry atheists almost exclusively are). These atheists are even willing to fight for these oppressed peoples. And alongside them, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, and a slew of other "oppressed" people can then unite to rid the world of whites.

At some point, Palin will be able to decipher (if she hasn't done so already) that this ideological, and opportunistic, alliance the non-West has given these angry white atheists a formidable, but volatile, ally: Islam. Muslims can fight Christianity and the West through a variety of strategies including violent attacks on Christian societies and communities; immigration of Muslims into Western societies to dilute Christian populations; and internal violence (suicide bombs, killings) once in these societies. But Muslims will not stop there. There are no atheists in Muslim societies, as there are no other religions besides Islam. It is Allah or nothing. At some point, when they have enough force and presence, Muslims will attack these very benefactors who fought to let them into these societies: the angry (white) atheists.

Palin is lucid and intelligent in the interview. She has matured politically and intellectually since her last public appearances running for Vice President with McCain. She has a trace of her colloquial accent, but that makes her more authentic, compared to the uniformly accented talking heads we hear in the media. I could see her making another run at politics, perhaps taking on Hillary Clinton in 2016.

She looks thinner, though, and little strained. Perhaps one never really recovers from politics. And I'm not so sure about that glittering halter-neck top she has on (probably for the glitter of Christmas, along with the Christmas red cardigan). And the pendant around her neck is the American flag, but it looks undecipherable from the distance of a television screen. She used to wear crucifixes. I would have preferred that.



Below is the full interview. The section on her book starts around the 6 minute point.



I will find, and read this book.
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Todd Park: Remember That Name (On Remembrance Day)

This Remembrance Day, I think it is apt that I also posted on an internal enemy of sorts, ready and willing to dismantle our civilization.

I have posted In Flanders Field in the previous post, but read also my post: Todd Park: Remember That Name which I posted earlier the same day.

As I wrote here in Todd Park: Remember That Name:

[I]t is much later on that we hear that Obamacare's "main architect" is an Asian - Todd Park. And his involvement in Obamacare and dishonesty about it is far greater than any of these three [Obamacare] representatives.

This enemy is more difficult to find, and thus fight. It comes to us through a cultural and societal angle, making use of the multicultural laws and beliefs. It comes in the guise of "equality," but its real aim is to take from whites and give to non-whites. It opens up the door for other kinds of forced equalities, such as equality of religion, which let in floods of Muslims into Western countries like Canada and America. Muslims have now set up their separate, and at times violent, enclaves in these accommodating Western countries. Other cultural groups are less obviously taking on this "separatism," but they get bolder as their numbers grow. The source that gives them life, and lets them proliferate, is the very Western society that they reject.

I think Park is part of the Asian group that appears to participate and assimilate with the traditional white, Western culture, but is in fact progressively living as a distinct and separate group. At the same time, it expects entitlements as it falls behind in "equalities," as though these inequalities were caused by society, rather than the inherent make-up of its group.

The full post Todd Park: Remember That Name describes the Asian involvement in politics, and hence in American (and Canadian) culture, and its gravitation towards entitlements rather than independent achievements. I write in the post:

Asian-Americans happen to be the highest-earning group in the U.S., out-earning whites, and they generally place enormous emphasis on family. A perfect fit for Republicans, no? No. Asians voted for Obama by 73-26 [in the 2012 elections]; they were more Democratic than Hispanics.
[Source: Asian Voters Send a Message to Republicans]

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In Flanders Fields

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae, MD
(November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918)

In Flanders Fields
By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, (1872-1918)

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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Todd Park: Remember That Name

Todd Park with Tim O'Reilyat Gov 2.0 Summit 2010 in Washington DC.

Tim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media "an influential book publishing empire...which has snagged a significant share of the computer book market with series such as "The Missing Manual" and "Hacks."

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Obamacare is a self-devouring organism, so it really isn't worth saying much about it. But, it's deviousness and insidiousness are fascinating to observe.

Of course, there is Obama's apology. People shouldn't (ever) underestimate Obama. He may look contrite and worried, but he has pushed as far as he probably never imagined a program on the American people that they never expected. He is clever, and devious.

Here's another interesting point. At the risk of sounding "racist," liberals' favorite sin, Obama sent his white representatives, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Marilyn Tavenner, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, to do his dirty work for him of reporting to the House Ways and Means Committee for Tavener, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for Sibelius, and to the public and the media for Carney, about the debacles of Obamacare. Jay Carney just appeared periodically to issue apologies, non-apologies, explanations, non-explanations, while standing in front of a blood thirsty media. All went through grueling and humiliating appearances.

Yet, it is much later on that we hear that Obamacare's "main architect" is an Asian - Todd Park. And his involvement in Obamacare and dishonesty about it is far greater than any of these three representatives.

Fox News interviewed Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversite Committee, on November 7. This is what he had to say about Park:

Issa: ...Todd Park and other people, who knew the facts, had to know the facts, and the facts were from documents we received form lead contractors, that they slowed down to an unacceptable lever at 1,100 users. Well in fact Todd Park was telling us that at 16,000 was the target, and at 250,000 they just couldn't handle it. The truth that their goal, according to documents, wasn't even 16,000. Their goal was 10,000. They reached 1,100. So of course, at 250,000 they were never going to work. Which means that this was a still-born site. This was a failure to launch that they new about on September 30th, and went ahead anyway.

Gretchen Carleson: You know, it's interesting that you bring up Todd Park, the US chief technology officer. On October 6th, that would have been five days after the launch, he said what you just said, and I'll add this to it: "Take away the volume, and it works." Was that also a lie?

Issa: Well it certainly was false statement. And since he was working closely with the lead contractors, and documents show that these contractors were in a sense optimistically saying: "Well we're at 1,100, but we're working toward the goal of 10,000." But that that was on September 30th. Clearly the President had an opportunity with his lead contractors and his technology people to take the time out that Congress was asking them to take, to delay the launch at least until security and speed concerns and so on could be addressed, they didn't do it. And Gretchen, as you and I talk here today, we don't have all the facts, but we certainly have indication that there are security bugs in this software, and yet they're not willing to take the site down to make it secure. They're going forward and hoping for the best that the hackers don't get there before they do.

Carleson:...Are you going to make news here and say that there are other hearings coming up next week?

Issa: We are. On Wednesday we're going to have Todd Parks and a number of other political appointees who were part of this pattern of interference and false statements related to this site. And we're going to try to get to the bottom of why politics went ahead of best practices and good technology, something the American people expect, that didn't happen in this case. And it's the tip of the iceberg that we're worried about is if they're willing to put politics into a website, what will they put into your health care.[Video Source: Huffington Post]

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued a subpoena to top Obama administration technology official Todd Park late Friday requiring him to testify at a hearing on the bumpy Obamacare rollout on Wednesday.

In a letter to Park, Issa wrote:

Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance and are rapidly approaching a point where they must prepare for the possibility of having no health insurance on Jan.1, 2014. They deserve your sworn testimony before their elected representatives about what went wrong — not simply the media outlets that White House officials have deemed an appropriate use of your time away from working on the website project.

Given your [continued] unwillingness to appear voluntarily next week, I am left with no choice but to compel your appearance. [Source: From Politico: Darrell Issa subpoenas W.H. tech official for Obamacare hearing.]

According to Politico:

The hearing is expected to focus on the technological problems that have snarled the federal Obamacare enrollment website ever since it launched in October.

One final point: The image that pops up the most frequently when googling Obamacare, or Affordable Care Act, is the following:



It makes me wonder if Park had anything to do with it. I don't understand the juxtaposition of the young Asian woman with the older one, which clearly shows a mother and a daughter. Why not the father as well, or a husband for the younger woman? Why two generatios of Asian womenr? Still, this shows that Asians have become a strong participants in government-initiated programs. This deflates the myth of the financially secure, independent minded Asian, and exposes them as entitlement seekers.

Asian-Americans happen to be the highest-earning group in the U.S., out-earning whites, and they generally place enormous emphasis on family. A perfect fit for Republicans, no? No. Asians voted for Obama by 73-26 [in the 2012 elections]; they were more Democratic than Hispanics. [Source: Asian Voters Send a Message to Republicans]

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Obamacare by Mornin'

The country folk, and their musical representatives, give us their rendition of Obamacare, at the Country Music Awards, held last Wednesday.



Here's Carrie Underwood and Brad Pailsy, with a guitar, singing: Obamacare by Mornin':



Obamacare by morning.
Why’s this taking so long?
I’m going to wind up with hemorrhoids
If I sit here till dawn.
We'll have cataracts and dementia.
Oh, this is gettin' on my last nerve.
Obamacare by morning
Over six people served."


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The Great War and a World Shattered

A World, Shattered
By: Sage McLaughlin
Posted at What's Wrong With the World

The spiritual crisis engulfing the West entails not only revisionist academics’ skepticism concerning the Resurrection as an historical fact, or of the doctrine of the Trinity. So decadent and thoroughgoing is the skepticism of modern man that a willful embrace of ugliness, a worship of personal power for its own sake, and an unrestrained exaltation of the self are the most obvious features of our culture and our public life. A rejection of form as such is implicated here. There is a calamitous discordancy in all our public rituals. Our national anthem is seldom performed with reverence and beauty, being reduced to wild and extravagant displays of “range” on the part of the performer. The confused Novus Ordo Catholic liturgy celebrated in virtually every contemporary parish lurches from the sudden, crashing onset of noise, to awkward silence, is afflicted by incessant contradiction in the movement of the unconsecrated to and from the altar, and suffers from a near-complete absence of coherent form that is the necessary picture frame of ritual. Disorientation is our preferred orientation.

The last hundred years would seem to bear out Fr. Seraphim Rose’s contention in Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age that Western man, having once received and accepted the truth of Christian revelation, could not but descend into nihilism and madness if ever he rejected it. I will not bother trying to defend that proposition, though of course there are many people who would dismiss it or find it offensive. Still, what in economics has been referred to as a hermeneutics of “revealed preferences” might be worth something here; that is, the truth about people can be discerned not by asking them what they think about a subject, as in a public opinion poll, but by watching what they say and do under relevant conditions. And we can say that the disintegration of the Christian consensus, the embrace of a thousand heresies that put man and his politics in place of God and His divine Law, and the rejection of the “Old Order” of the European monarchies ultimately manifested itself in the mechanization of mass murder known as the First World War. Thus when the German Expressionist painter Otto Dix (1891-1969) went to fight in the trenches on behalf of the Kaiser, he said that he carried with him two texts: the Holy Bible, and Frederich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra.

The Great War was, in one sense, the end of the world. Dix’s often grotesque, desolating works in the years during and after that war (which I do not recommend beyond their interest as objects of analysis) do not so much portray the visible destruction of the European cities, which were left largely unmolested by the shells; indeed, one could have toured Munich, Paris, London, Budapest, or Prague in those days without detecting that there even was a war. Instead, the images Dix crafted are of a world shattered, and it is striking to me just how closely the artistic style of the period resembles nothing so much in aspect as a broken mirror, a lugubrious expression of angst by a civilization that no longer knew what it was, but was haunted by the terrible knowledge that all things were now twisted and misshapen. His self-portraits vividly show us the transmogrification of the Western man, beginning with the scowling 21-year-old Dix’s Self-Portrait with Carnation (1912):

Self-Portrait with Carnation (1912)

By the end of his first few months during the “Phony War” of late 1914, we see the piercing, knowing eyes recede into anxious blots of doubt, lurking beneath the prominent golden sun of the gunner’s insignia, the bright baubles of state obscuring the increasingly faceless and uncertain man:

Self-portrait with Gunner's Helmet (1914)

By the time of Self-portrait as Mars (1915), the human being is annihilated, having been reduced to the raw material of the apocalypse, a metallic figure with a wheel in place of his heart, the self now scattered as shards in a maelstrom:

Self Portrait as Mars, 1915

The Western art world, influenced by cubism and led by Expressionists like Dix, was belching forth an endless stream of content that was evocative of cataclysm, of a world broken and devoid of beauty. This visual style, replicated in thousands of similar images from the interwar period, was perhaps most famously delivered to a mass audience by the classic Robert Wiene film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Robert Wiene (1873–1938)
Scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920

It is a remarkable point that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is sometimes credited with introducing the concept of the “twist” ending in cinema, and that the particular twist envisaged here is the now-shopworn script in which the main characters are revealed to be the inhabitants of an insane asylum, the entire story a homicidal delusion. Such was the logic of the cosmic cul-de-sac of post-Kantian modernism, which promised a morality that was both universal and a product of the human mind.

Robert Wiene (1873–1938)
Scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920

All of this was brought into focus for me by a piece of architecture that was not, surprisingly, the work of a corrupt American Cardinal of the Catholic Church. Nor was it the work of Daniel Libeskind, whose original concept for the post-9/11 reconstitution of Ground Zero was an adolescent expression of avante garde contempt for ordinary standards of beauty and form (his colleague Jeffery Kipnis probably said more than he intended about the contemporary art world when he remarked of Libeskind, “There’s only one Daniel in the world of architecture. I’m glad there’s Daniel, and I’m glad there’s no other.”) No, I am myself a modern man, so of course what actually got me thinking about this particular continuity in our art and architecture was the new football stadium for the Atlanta Falcons. Though long an enthusiast of organized sports, I just cannot imagine what would attract a person whose only knowledge of the subject was this artist’s rendering to take part in anything that happened in that building.

The incessant braying of our loud, vain, ugly public rituals signifies terminal decay. Now having been inured to it, there is next to no offense against beauty and dignified public order that will not find its defenders, all the more if it is packaged as entertainment. Spectacles of apocalyptic violence and destruction are more popular than ever. They are no longer even expressions of introspective horror, but of positive delight at the cleansing of a world devoid of meaning and coherence, and a return to something simpler--the void. Incredibly, this was the “promise” of the First World War which, many people do not realize, was in its beginnings very popular and a cause of exhilaration and even optimism across Europe.

It occurs to me that what all this imagery prefigures for the human race is indeed a cleansing fire, but not one of our own making. In contrast to that unhappy thought, in my next post I will take a glimpse back at the beauty and the order that still was, even amid so much turmoil and confusion, and still might be, if only in our own little gardens. But now, to bed.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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From Error to Truth

St. Thomas of Aquinas
Detail from The Demidoff Altarpiece, 1476
By Carlo Crivelli (1430-1494)
The National Gallery of Art, London

Laura Wood, from The Thinking Housewife, writes:

“The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.”
— St. Thomas Aquinas

Contemporary depictions of saints, and other biblical personalities, including Jesus, render them in soft light with benign faces. I think that couldn't be farther from the truth. The guidance from error to truth is a tall order, but also requires the greatest of humility. Those who undertake this, with the saints and Jesus as their guides, must realize the enormity of their task. Jesus knew this. And Saint Thomas of Aquinas shows this burden in his portrait above.

Below, on the left, is Diogo Morgado as the 21st century rendition of Jesus, from The History Channel series The Bible. Even if this Jesus were to get angry (in front of the temple, for example), or he suffers on the cross, he would end up looking like a Ken doll. (Would Mary then be a Barbie? I should work out this "artitist" project and make myself famous at the next Venice Biennial). A feature film is planned for February 2014, "inspired by the success of The Bible," as this site tells us. What epic can a Diogo Morgado, the actor slotted to play Jesus, inspire?

Ken Doll and G.Q. Jesus
The tattoo and the stigma are interchangeable.

Jesus from Cecil B. DeMille's 1927 The King of Kings
Played by H. B. Warner

Hollywood directors and actors of the 1920s and 1930s, and perhaps as late as the early 1960s, who produced the majority of Biblical films (worth watching), gave us the best filmic renditions of Jesus and other Old and New Testament forces. H. B. Warner played Jesus at age fifty-two. Granted that Jesus was a young man of thirty-three in the scriptures, but what contemporary actor that age can convince us of the path from error to truth? Perhaps the serious Leonardo DiCaprio might do so,


But not him, or him, or him, etc., etc.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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From Error to Truth

http://i181.photobucket.com/albums/x267/BlogPhotos_2007/BlogPhotos_2007037/CarloCrivelliThomasOfAquinas_zpsb0a9aeac.jpg


Laura writes:

“The greatest kindness one can render to any man consists in leading him from error to truth.”

— St. Thomas Aquinas

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Crass Culture

The lovely Richtree Natural Market Restaurant

A couple of days ago, I went to the nearby food court in the mall (I rarely go there since the atmosphere is unpleasant, with people chewing loudly, talking loudly, and generally looking unpleasant).

I went to the "hot meal" section, and ordered a dish of meetballs. The server put it on a nice, white (restaurant-style) plate. As she placed the food, some sauce dripped on the side. She ignored this (or didn't "see" this), and proceeded to give me the plate. I asked her for something to clean the side with. I didn't want the dripping to dirty my sweater as I carried the tray. Another "server" handed me a wad of paper towel. I cleaned the plate, and looked for someone to hand the dirty paper to. Both had left. The original server was further back, chatting with other servers. I called out "Excuse me," but there was no response.

I then threw the dirty paper across the glass counter. I don't even know if it landed on some food. At this point, the server comes rushing along, to pick it up. I don't know what she said as I left.

This server is Chinese, or possibly Philipino. My rough reaction was due to my repeated encounters with "Asians" and a certain sub-par level of behavior.

I was vindicated in the check-out line a little later on. A Chinese couple skipped in front of a white woman who was standing in line before me. I'm not sure if it was deliberate aggression, although I think it was more a lack of realization of what is going on. The woman politely asked them that there were others there before them (including me). They moved to the back, which was behind me.

I turned around to look at this couple. They looked like they newly arrived from China. They were wearing the cheap, synthetic coats that are always marked "Made in China." The woman had very short hair, and it was difficult to distinguish her from the man she was with.

I turned back to pay for my meal.

I am curious at how so many "new" Chinese are in Toronto these days. Immigration seems to have been curtailed, according to the new regulations. Although, the various immigration determiners have been saying that they are accepting "skilled" Chinese. We are in a recession, so how do these leaders expect the situation to improve if more people are added to the job stream?

I think they are thinking "ahead." There is talk of natural gas reservoirs around Canada; the recession getting better. In this scenario, fired or laid-off workers will need to be accessed. But, cheap labor is quite possibly part of the answer. And who better than Chinese workers, who already work in slave conditions in their country's factories, to fill in these gaps left by laid off workers? They won't complain (they could get their immigration papers stalled); they will work long hours; they will "listen" to the boss; and they are better workers than Somali refugees.

Such is, I believe, the evil scheme of these leaders.

A family member said regarding my interaction: "Don't underestimate people."

I'm not sure what that means other than it was in reference to an earlier conversation where I said: "Don't underestimate Western civilization."

I also think it means that one of these people I confront will turn around and start a fight.

I said something to the effect: "It is better to fight for what you have than let some crass culture come and take it over. That is exactly what Muslims are doing. The Chinese appear to be better, but ultimately, all they can give us is more of what they left behind. I don't want that, nor will I accept it."
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Classic Pumpkin Pie

I've made apple pies, lemon meringue pies, and various cakes, but I've never made a pumpkin pie.

I will turn to Master Chef Martha Stewart for her recipe:

INGREDIENTS

- 1 sugar pumpkin, (about 4 pounds), halved, or 3 cups solid-pack canned pumpkin
- 1 1/2 recipes Pate Brisee
- All-purpose flour, for work surface
- 7 large eggs
- 1 tablespoon heavy cream
- 1 1/2 cups plus 2 tablespoons packed light-brown sugar
- 2 tablespoon cornstarch
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground cinnamon
- 1 1/2 teaspoons ground ginger
- 1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 3 cups evaporated milk

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DIRECTIONS

STEP 1
Preheat oven to 425 degrees. If using fresh pumpkin, roast pumpkin, cut sides down, on a rimmed baking sheet until soft, 50 to 60 minutes. Let cool completely. Roasted pumpkin can be refrigerated in an airtight container overnight.

STEP 2
Reserve 1/4 of the dough for making leaf decorations. Turn out the remaining dough onto a lightly floured work surface; divide in half. Roll out each half into a 14-inch round. Fit rounds into two 10-inch pie plates; crimp edges as desired. Freeze until firm, about 15 minutes.

STEP 3
Roll out reserved dough to 1/8 inch thick. Transfer to a baking sheet, and freeze until firm, about 15 minutes. Using a leaf-shape cookie cutter or a paring knife, cut leaves from dough. Freeze until cold, about 10 minutes.

STEP 4
Reduce the oven temperature to 375 degrees. Whisk 1 egg and heavy cream in a small bowl; set aside. Brush edges of pie shells with a wet pastry brush; arrange leaves around edges, pressing to adhere. Brush leaves with egg wash. Cut 2 large circles of parchment; fit into pie shells, extending above edges. Fill with pie weights. Freeze until cold, about 10 minutes.

STEP 5
Bake pie shells 10 minutes. Remove weights and parchment; bake 5 minutes more. Let cool completely on a wire rack.

STEP 6
If using fresh pumpkin, discard seeds. Scoop out flesh using a large spoon; transfer to a food processor. Process until smooth, about 1 minute. Transfer pumpkin to a large bowl. Add brown sugar, cornstarch, salt, cinnamon, ginger, vanilla, nutmeg, remaining 6 eggs, and evaporated milk; whisk until combined.

STEP 7
Reduce oven temperature to 350 degrees. Place pies on a rimmed baking sheet. Divide pumpkin mixture evenly between shells. Bake until all but centers are set, 35 to 40 minutes. Let pies cool completely on a wire rack. Cut into wedges, and serve with whipped cream.

After the eternal words of another grand chef: "Bon Appétit!"



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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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What is Writing?

"What is Writing?

Half, maybe most, of writing is finding faults in one’s own writing, and fixing them, until one finds nothing more to fix. It is an immersion in one’s own flaws, and a constant, unyielding effort to ameliorate them."
Lawrence Auster: March 18, 2013

This is the same with all art. Artists will say that once an idea has emerged, one has to fix it until there is nothing more (humanely) possible to fix.

That is the joy, and agony, of art. It is a ruthless companion. It doesn't suffer laziness. Yet, that is how beauty is born.

I wrote to a correspondent about a critic of sorts of Larry's writing in response to his passing away. The writer wrote:

I'm damned if I'm going to wait to the end to note in "appreciation" Larry's deep and challenging, provocative and exacting, disturbing, irascible and trenchant commentary, all crafted in his compulsively writerly way to search not only for the truth, I would venture, but for a way out of the cultural abyss we find ourselves in. His means? The sharpest, starkest expression of the facts and phenomena he is able to convey, as unadulterated, as unjumbled, certainly as unvarnished as humanly possible. Whether in agreement or in opposition, a reader of Larry's work is on his mettle, keenly aware of the laser at work.

I write:

[The writer] makes [Larry] sound to be a difficult and slightly detached/unapproachable person. I wonder if she ever met him? Yes, Larry was not part of this era's "diplomatic" journalism. But why not write of his achievements, rather than pepper her comments with these criticisms, which diminish his achievements? I think Larry's writing has coherence and beauty, and a perseverance with ideas that few writers these days attempt, or bother with.

[The writer] writes interesting articles. But, there always seems to be a reticence about her. I suppose she has to be like that to keep her journalistic positions at various main stream publications.

She knows Larry, and his work. He has written very important works regarding conservatism. It would be nice if...she would be a supporter.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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