Lakeside Lilies

Lakeside Lilies
Port Credit, ON
[Photo By: KPA]

Felician Sisters, Mississauga

Felician Sisters, Mississauga
Image Source: Mississauga.ca

We drive by a long, slightly winding driveway. The last time we drove by it, I managed to write down the nearest number to the road: 2185 Mississauga Road.

On Google Map, the Felician Sisters is located near this area, and looking them up, they are at 2165 Mississauga Rd.

Most of these side roads show homes on either side, but this one has an intriguing absence of anything but the trail and tall trees on either side.

Here is a little background on this convent (text below from mississauga.ca, and images screenshots from google map):

2165 Mississauga Road North. Range 3, CIR, pt. Lot 10.

This is a two-and-a-half storey structure built as an English country estate in English Tudor Manor style. It was designed by architects George and Moorhouse in 1938 and originally known as the William George Dean residence. (William George Dean was a director of Eaton's.) The building later became a convent for the Felician Sisters of St. Francis Canada. It is not visible from the road. There is a carriage house attached to the east side and a modern addition to the west. There was a small cemetery on the property where about seven of the sisters were buried. Sometime before 2004 six of the sisters' bodies were moved, without the knowledge of the Registrar of Cemeteries, and reinterred in Assumption Cemetery. It is possible that there are still some burials on the property. The property is listed on the Heritage Register. Description as of July 2018.

Agency: Mississauga Library System

And more here:

Felician Sisters of St. Francis Canada Convent & Cemetery, Erindale
Date Built: 1938
Subject: Historic buildings - Ontario - Erindale (Mississauga)
Location: 2165 Mississauga Road North, pt. Lot 10, Range 3 CIR

A God-Given Earth

I recently posted on VDare's (via Steve Sailer) cut-and-paste post on the rebel protests in Ethiopia.

There is something ugly about race-antagonism, even when it comes from the "victims," which is how Americans see themselves in this world of spiraling protests.

Of course, I don't think Americans, and American whites, are necessarily victims, rather victims of their own doing. They are (partially) to blame.

Regardless of politics, Americans allowed entry into their country people from distant shores and continents, for many decades now.

The question is why.

I believe this is a question best answered with a religious lens.

Americans, and especially American leaders, abandoned their faith in God, their commitment to God's words, and decided that they can make a land of their own making, imagination, and desires.

Since the biggest crime for American thought is "racism," they couldn't use the logical and true argument of race to close off their borders to all these aliens.

Why not (to continue with the "why" question)?

To become a racist is to be evil, to deny the humanity of another human being. So believe contemporary Americans, of all faith, political, social and cultural nuances.

But, God's Bible is replete with stories of race, of families of races, the most important and significant being the Jewish race of the Old Testament, those chosen people.

Through these Jewish ancestors, came Jesus Christ, a Jew himself, who opened up the Bible, and the people of the world, to be equally deserving of the Grace of God, through their acceptance of the Grace of God.

But nations were never annihilated. Families were never cast aside.

We learn our lessons through both the Old and the New.

If Jews, as generations of families, lived such a long and God-blessed existence, then so can we, with our own families, in our own corners of the world.

If America's leaders cannot openly and proudly submit to bowing their heads to the grace and power of God, then they are hurtling their country, and their people, to doom.

I believe this is where VDare, with its erudite, intelligent and clever leaders, have failed. They have decided to make America, perhaps some without realizing so, "a land of their own making, imagination, and desires."

That is why their immigrant stories resonate as horror stories. Ugly and fighting words, without the Grace of God, the humility before God, simply become horror stories.

Those immigrant rabble-rouser leaders will hook on to these words, and convince their communities that American whites are racist and evil. And so continue the headlines with news of bombs of words and steel, with no end in sight.

But through humility and grace, America's leaders, by leaning on the word of God, could convince that Mexican family (with its ostracized bomb-throwing unemployed son), which is making as honest a living as possible with a paycheck that barely covers rent and food, that its members (including those born "American," and that son) have another place, a God-given place, created by their own ancestors. And that they are better off there, even as their lives might change dramatically at first. That they can start to plan for generations into the future, rather than for the end of the month, each month.

How enlightened they could be. And how thankful they would be to realize their Catholic God has forgiven them, with their trail, and trial, of an infinity of burnt candles.

Mexicans, especially those in the rural areas, and more the seniors than the youth, have a beautiful way of describing their place. "Mi tierra" they would tell me: "My land, my earth." This visceral expression is more real and more tangible than "my country," "mi pais."

VDare's sin came in increments. Their immigration influencing capabilities are now basically nil. No-one listens to them. Even President Trump has put on hold his "close the borders" mantra on which he got elected.

As I explain in this post discussing a recent VDare article Is It Time For Americans To Start Talking About The Devil?, the Devil lurks around finding devious, clever ways to derail good works.

...there is no article [on VDare] 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.

And those who refuse and abandon the protection and wisdom of God are easy prey. And their missions will never be accomplished.

Red Door Canopy

Red Door Canopy
Port Credit, ON
[Photo By: KPA]

Ethiopia's Independence and Strength

Excellent summary by "Merema" who takes on the usual VDare hastily constucted posts on Ethiopia. "Merema" is responding to the VDare cut-and-paste post "Minnesota Is Turning Into A Front In The Ethiopian Civil War."

Here is an excerpt from the comment by "Merema," who intelligently links Ethiopia's dam construction (the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam - GERD) with the Minnesota protests:

...there are not too many Amharas in Minnesota. Minnesota is an Oromo stronghold because that’s where Oromo refugees were settled. The Amhara stronghold is Washington DC.

The good folks in Minnesota are being inconvenienced because of a conflict that is thousands of years old over the control of the Nile waters. Remember in the Bible when Pharaoh sent an army led by Moses to Nubia because Black people (Nubians) threatened to cut off the Nile’s water supply?

Jawar Mohammed, an Oromo living in Minnesota single-handedly founded the Oromo Media Network with money provided by EGYPT. Egypt is a a key player in all this because they are trying to destabilize Ethiopia. Egypt is panicking because they are loosing control of the Nile- their ONLY source of water. Most of the Nile water originates in the Amhara highlands and Ethiopia is building a HUGE dam. No Nile, no Egypt.

VDare links to a site called: The Unz Review, an Alternative Media Selection for comments, which is where Merema posted hers. The Unz Review seems to be the online home of regular VDare contributor Steve Sailer, who also penned the Ethiopia article. All comments are posted at the Unz Review.

Perhaps VDare should just stop their antagonism towards Ethiopia.

It makes me wonder if VDare's big funders are from the US Jewish community. There is no indication who recently "donated" the hundreds of dollars to VDare. Anonymity must be wonderful! Often, donors are happy to display their name, and their generosity, especially for such noble causes as "patriotism."

What is happening in Ethiopia is not an "emerging civil war" but a repeated cycle of unrest instigated by southern Oromo activists who want to destabilize Ethiopia. It was more of riots by discontent youth goaded by Oromo leaders, such as Jawar Mohamed, who are using them as fighting fronts. Such leaders are willing to have their young men killed in the name of political grievances.

This has been thwarted in part by the jailing of said leaders, the shutdown of the rebel-inciting Oromo Media Network (OMN) broadcast from Minnesota, and other short term measures taken by the Ethiopian government.

Life is basically back to normal in Addis Ababa, and the rest of the country.

One of which is to continue with the Grand Ethiopia Renaissance Dam (link is to a recent article on the politics behind the GERD), which "Memera" also discusses (see above).

My theory about the GERD project is that the Egyptians are being aided (even funded) by the Israeli to start conflict and confrontation in the Middle East. Although Ethiopia doesn't qualify as a Middle Eastern country, and is geographically aligned to the Horn of Africa, Ethiopia is pretty much an independent region. Hence its dangers to the region. And the Oromo leaders, with their Egyptian counterparts, are trying to destabilize this region, Ethiopia.

The GERD that Ethiopia is constructing is not only a natural, water, resource, but will make Ethiopia a strong regional and political force.

It is not just water that is the question, it is Ethiopia's independence and strength.

Ethiopian Priest in Lalibela

Ethiopian Priest in Lalibela

Psalm 40: And He Hath Put a New Song in My Mouth

Robin Song
[Photo By: KPA]

Psalm 40

1 I waited patiently for the Lord; and he inclined unto me, and heard my cry.

2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.

3 And he hath put a new song in my mouth, even praise unto our God: many shall see it, and fear, and shall trust in the Lord.

4 Blessed is that man that maketh the Lord his trust, and respecteth not the proud, nor such as turn aside to lies.

5 Many, O Lord my God, are thy wonderful works which thou hast done, and thy thoughts which are to us-ward: they cannot be reckoned up in order unto thee: if I would declare and speak of them, they are more than can be numbered.

6 Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; mine ears hast thou opened: burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.

7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me,

8 I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea, thy law is within my heart.

9 I have preached righteousness in the great congregation: lo, I have not refrained my lips, O Lord, thou knowest.

10 I have not hid thy righteousness within my heart; I have declared thy faithfulness and thy salvation: I have not concealed thy lovingkindness and thy truth from the great congregation.

11 Withhold not thou thy tender mercies from me, O Lord: let thy lovingkindness and thy truth continually preserve me.

12 For innumerable evils have compassed me about: mine iniquities have taken hold upon me, so that I am not able to look up; they are more than the hairs of mine head: therefore my heart faileth me.

13 Be pleased, O Lord, to deliver me: O Lord, make haste to help me.

14 Let them be ashamed and confounded together that seek after my soul to destroy it; let them be driven backward and put to shame that wish me evil.

15 Let them be desolate for a reward of their shame that say unto me, Aha, aha.

16 Let all those that seek thee rejoice and be glad in thee: let such as love thy salvation say continually, The Lord be magnified.

17 But I am poor and needy; yet the Lord thinketh upon me: thou art my help and my deliverer; make no tarrying, O my God.

Rooftop with Chimney

Rooftop with Chimney
Port Credit, ON
[Photo By: KPA]

Lazy Summer on the Lake

Lazy Summer on the Lake
Port Credit
[Photo By: KPA]

The sailboat has removed it sails, and is floating lazily on the lake in the welcome breeze.

The Multi-Culti Mississauga Art Establishment Implodes

Below is a Facebook post from a (now former) staff, Sharada Eswar, at the Art Gallery of Mississauga (posted in full after the dotted lines). This multicultural, Indian woman, writes this article on her Facebook page.

Who knew!

For more on my views, and the anti-west, anti-Canada, AGM, see my posts here.

The AGM is imploding, and that's a good thing!

I wrote about Eswar here, in a post I titled White Out at the AGM:

Eswar talks about her childhood with her grandmother in India.

More information on Eswar here, a 2019 post at Reclaiming Beauty I titled: White Out at the AGM

"...In her Brampton [Ontario] living room, a Ganesha statue sits on a side table...Now, Eswar is bringing her grandmother's ancient stories, and some contemporary South Asian tales, to life in the GTA [The Greater Toronto Area, which includes Mississauga]."

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

Eswar's Facebook post on June 22, 2020:

This is a fairly long post, so thank you for your time.

Until December 2019, I was leading a community engaged arts project at the Art Gallery of Mississauga (AGM). A project that I conceived and birthed, and was nurtured lovingly by the racialized and marginalized communities of Mississauga. A project that received funding from the Ontario Trillium Foundation (a grant that I wrote) to the tune of over $420,000. A project that used stories as a common denominator, to bring together the diverse cultural groups and the racialized communities in Mississauga and beyond, engaging with ideas of self-representation to question colonial narratives. A place to share stories, laughs and the heartbreaks associated with them. There were plenty of laughs alright, and heartbreaks a plenty. A project that consumed my very being, every single day for over three years. A project that I had to abandon because the then Treasurer (and I believe, currently the Chair) decided that he had the right to be a bully, an obnoxious and aggressive force that undermined this initiative. An aggression so toxic that to this day, I fear going to Mississauga, lest I see him again.

It began as a pilot project in 2017. It was a runaway success. The community wanted their voices heard, their stories told and I decided to expand the project. In 2018, things began to change. A number of events dramatically transformed the working environment at the AGM. We were told that the Gallery was financially unhealthy and the very existence of the Gallery was at risk. The one silver lining was receiving the Trillium funding for my project. However, things escalated in 2019. I witnessed, along with my colleagues and many members of the arts community, an alarming deficit of clear communication, leadership and respect from the board and the directorship of the AGM. But all of this paled in the face of patriarchy and white supremacy that was rampant in the Board. The then Director was asked to leave and the predominantly white governance Board decided to become an operating board (there was no public announcement about this shift, nor was the membership informed). A Board that had no clue on how the arts world functioned, let alone how community engagement and relationships are built and nurtured. With no Director to act as buffer, the staff were at the mercy of the Board. Staff were constantly micro-managed and belittled. Things came to a head when the last remaining full-time staff’s position was suddenly and mysteriously dissolved. I say suddenly because despite the position being part of the new 5-year strategic plan approved by the Board and the then Chair & Interim ED, it was dissolved soon after.

At first it seemed as if I would be spared but how wrong I was! Within weeks I was subject to aggressive emails demanding why the artists I had contracted for the project were paid so high (mind you this was a funder approved budget and were being paid as per industry standards); why are there no European voices in this project (one of the main objectives of border crossings was to make room for communities and voices that were until now absent); and then some questions that were beyond the scope of my job description and expertise, though I tried to the best of my ability to answer them all. Emails, so aggressive that I began to dread logging into my computer. I was made to feel incompetent, incapable of doing minor tasks correctly and peppered with questions that felt more like inquisitions. Then there was the gaslighting behaviour. On one occasion I was asked about a missing camera that had “supposedly been bought” for the project – in spite of me insisting that there was no camera bought, I was repeatedly interrogated, making me feel like a criminal. Finally, I was told that if the camera couldn’t be traced, it was my job to lodge a complaint with the police for insurance purposes. It reached a point where I began to question my own sanity, my memory, my actions, my thoughts. After much heart wrench and soul searching, I resigned. I left the project and everything that I had worked towards to that point behind.

Until today I have chosen not to make a broader public statement of the toxicity that my colleagues and I walked into every single day. So why am I speaking now? I, like several others, left space for the funders (specifically the City) and the community members to voice their concerns about the organization. But I realize that to remain silent out of respect for our community may be taken as complicity in an erasure of agency, which was in no way my intention.

Two things happened that galvanized me into action -- the first of the two was on June 3, 2020. There was a post from AGM as part of the #BlackOutTuesday in support of the Black Lives Matter movement. I saw the post and laughed. The hypocrisy I thought! A “leadership” that treats its BIPOC staff with utmost disregard and disrespect now expressing solidarity! I was tempted to comment something nasty but desisted. Then there was a post on Twitter that for me was the tipping point. A podcast (a podcast I had produced and hosted) with the Treasurer as guest. I haven’t been able to bring myself to listen to it. It has brought back all the toxicity to the fore, everything I thought I had under control, the fears, the anxiety, the shame, the rage, the guilt at abandoning the community members, who had time and again made themselves vulnerable, trusting me with their stories. The fact that I had to let go of my project, my creation that was second only to my own child, and this bully is still about exuding power!

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.

Wisdom

Proverbs 4:7

Wisdom is the principal thing; therefore get wisdom: and with all thy getting get understanding.

Swan Under the Leaves
Lake Ontario, Port Credit
[Photo By: KPA]

Via The Thinking Housewife:



“CASES” are climbing. That’s because more people are being tested as they go back to work. But there is no significant increase in deaths.

Heather Mac Donald reports at The Spectator:

Since April 24, the daily case count started declining, then began rising again after around June 9. What virtually every fear-mongering story on America’s allegedly precarious situation leaves out, however, is the steadily dropping daily death numbers — from a high of 2,693 on April 21 to 808 on June 24. That April high was driven by New York City and its environs; those New York death numbers have declined, but they have not been replaced by deaths in the rest of the country. This should be good news. Instead, it is no news.

[…]

There are no crises in hospital capacity anywhere in the country. Nursing homes, meat-packing plants, and prisons remain the main sources of new infections. Half the states are seeing cases decline or hold steady. Case counts are affected by more testing; the positive infection rate captured by testing is declining. The current caseload is younger, which is a good thing. The more people who have been infected and who recover, the more herd immunity is created. Meanwhile, daily deaths from heart disease and cancer — about 3,400 a day combined — go ignored in the press.

The situation is likely identical in Canada.

Swan Under the Leaves

Swan Under the Leaves
Lake Ontario, Port Credit
[Photo By: KPA]

The Sandpiper

Spotted Sandpiper
By Lake Ontario,
Port Credit
[Photo By: KPA]

My little bird looks like it might be floating on water. It barely stayed five minutes on the rock, and I was hoping it would move, maybe jump on from the lower ledge to the top. It looked around, and flew off, skimming the water.


John James Audubon (American, 1785–1851)
Spotted sandpiper...View on Bayou Sarah, Louisiana, pl.CCCX , 1827–1838
(Caption at bottom of illustration:
Spotted Sandpiper
Totanus Macularius
1 Adult Male, 2 Adult Female
View on Bayou Sarah, Louisiana)

The Spotted Sandpiper has a wonderfully extensive range, for I have met with it not only in most parts of the United States, but also on the shores of Labrador, where, on the 17th of June, 1833, I found it breeding. On the 29th of July, the young were fully fledged, and scampering over the rocks about us, amid the putrid and drying cod-fish. In that country it breeds later by three months than in Texas.

- Illustration and caption from John J. Audubon’s Birds of America.

Audubon's "In that country" of course refers to Canada, where he studied the birds in the province of Labrador.

He might have saved a long trip "north" by just coming across the New York border to southern Ontario. He'd find the bird mid-June in the more northern Newfoundland and Labrador, but further south, probably by late June, which is when I photographed this bird (June 26th).

It's a delicate and strange little bird, with its extra long pointed beak, and long spindly legs. And a screech/call that is high pitched, not quite shrill, and audible through the wind and waves.

Audubon describes its song:

While flying out in these wide circuits, agitated by superior feelings to those of hunger and necessity, we hear the shores re-echo the shrill and rapid whistle of 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, and usually closing the note with something like a warble, as they approach their companions on the strand. The cry then varies to 'peet, 'weet, 'weet, 'weet, beginning high and gradually declining into a somewhat plaintive tone.

- From John J. Audubon’s Birds of America

Video from the Smithsonian Migratory Bird Center

I tried to find why this bird was called a sandpiper. Perhaps because it "pipes" through the sand as it looks for food (Insects, crustaceans, other invertebrates. Feeds on wide variety of insects, also earthworms, crabs, crayfish, small mollusks, small fish, sometimes bits of carrion - source Audubon's Guide to Birds of North America)?

The National Geographic has this explanation, more on the sandpiper's cry than its feeding methods:

When airborne [sandpipers] tend to be vocal animals. They sound off with a distinctive three-note, piping-like cry - often represented as “twee-wee-wee.”

Audubon describes the bird bobbing its tail as it sings. I didn't see this, but what I noticed was an endearing bend forward of its longish neck, perhaps as it contemplates flying off.

Below is a map of eastern Canada, showing where Audubon traveled to study the sandpiper.


Highlighted region: Newfoundland and Labrador