The Most Beautiful Love Story

Of the Rosenblats

The Rosenblats

All the righteous people are now condemning this poor Jewish couple.

Oprah has already made a fool of herself once before with James Frey, who apparently doctored his memoirs to sell his book. I was at the cashier at Chapters buying a book when the woman beside me asked for Frey's book. I was intrigued by the title - A Million Little Pieces - and asked her what it was all about. "It's an Oprah Book!", she says hyperbolically.

"But what's it about?" I ask again.

"Oh, about a guy who overcomes his drug addiction."

I laughed a little, and let it pass. An Oprah book? And what a boring subject (and possibly full of strategies to tug at our hearts. No thanks.)

When I heard of the dupe, I actually laughed aloud. But then, I felt sorry for the guy. He seemed a pretty sharp, clever guy, who nonetheless didn't quite manage to think it all the way through (i.e., what if he ever got found out?)

Then, Oprah was really nasty to him. Rather than let it drop, she brought him back to her show (he had to be there, for his future "career", and sure enough he's written another book; fiction this time), and just berated him. He sat there and took it all in.

So, now, she's done it again. Who is she, anyway, to bring such undue notice and publicity to this couple? Doesn't she realize that her behavior can also have negative effects on people? She wished for a "love story", and she got it, at the expense of an elderly couple.

The story is more poignant than that, as far as the truth has been discerned. And at this moment, there is no more reason to doubt these details that have come up.

This particular love story actually took shape after Rosenblat was injured by gunfire during a burglary in the 1990s, and Oprah had him on her show after he won a newspaper contest for "the most romantic story". He then appeared on her show at least one other time.

Rosenblat references his mother's influence twice while telling his story. Once, to say that it was his mother who had sent him the "angel" to give him food at the concentration camp. And again, when he was recovering in hospital from the gun shot wounds, his mother (who had died in the Holocaust) came to him in a vision, telling him to share his love story with the world.

This all sounds like a man slightly overwhelmed by his circumstances, who perhaps pays an inordinate amount of attention to his mother's "voices". I daren't say he might be a little affected mentally, but that seems to be the case. He obviously has a loving wife, who might also be trying to protect him.

It was sad to see their simple, daily, life overrun by all this recent publicity. If I were Oprah and her ilk, I would have just let it die off quietly. In their craving for high romance, they pounced on this couple instead.

This tells you a thousand times more about Oprah, and those incessantly hunting publishers and film producers, than it does about the intent of the elderly Mr. Rosenblat.

I believe he meant it when he said that he just wanted to make people happy. And it looks like he really loves his wife too (and she him). What better way to please her than to make theirs the most beautiful love story ever told. And what better way for her to love him than to accept it.

More Update on Valkyrie

Finally a review from a knowledgeable source

Here is finally a very worthy review of Valkyrie, which gives due respect to Tom Cruise and the filmmaker's fine suspense-filled direction. The reviewer gives a good account of the historical context (and political reasons) for the obscurity of these German resistance fighters after the end of the War.

So much for Sailer the critic, Sailer the historian, and Sailer the analyst of human character. I wonder if Vdare is doing their website service by giving him such undue attention. I still have a theory that his successful analyses are a hodge-podge of opinions and writings that he carves together from many sources. Whenever he has to rely solely and uniquely on his own thoughts, he often comes up with the kind of post he wrote on this fine historical film.

Update on Valkyrie

Sailer and aristocracy

It is probably a mistake to discuss Sailer's limited critique on Valkyrie. He says nothing substantial about Tom Cruise's acting other than to say that he doesn't like Cruise, that Cruise's career has tanked since hiring a new publicist, and then he contradicts himself and writes: "the Cruise brand name implies that the film will be a quality product."

Sailer has managed to come up with a few hits in his commentaries at Vdare, as well as at his blog, but sometimes I wonder if this is to do with real insight, or just churning of numbers (he was a marketing researcher, after all) which he translates into repetitive, if not limited, writings that he echoes ad nauseam making it seem like he comes up with wonderful insights every two weeks or so. Even his Obama writings haven't garnered the popularity and commentary one would expect from having published a whole book on the subject. Modest bloggers and commentators have come up with better ideas.

Sailer has forever condemned Cruise's great acting in Valkyrie declaring that Cruise isn't aristocratic enough. But Stauffenberg, the real aristocrat who is played by Cruise, actually had a military career, and wasn't some sensitive patsy. As this article explains, aristocratic Germans were highly represented in the German resistance, partly because these Germans felt a responsibility to protect their country, and also they were themselves trained and skilled military men.

Stauffenberg had spent many years in the war effort, including in North Africa, after which he became disappointed in Hitler's war. He started to find ways to get involved in the German resistance, as well as finding ways to participate in a coup. He eventually tried various attempts on Hitler's life, including the one which became the closest anyone managed to get.

His military background made him a practical and well organized leader. This is exactly how Cruise played this part. Sailer's commentary is therefore partly ignorant, and partly arrogant, as though he is the expert on aristocratic behavior.

Sailer also over-works the English, American and a few smattering of German and Dutch accents found in the film. I think the filmmaker actually made great use of the various international actors and their "stereotypes." The pragmatic, no-nonsense, action-oriented role of Stauffenberg was given to an American actor (Cruise), and the more hierarchy-minded General Olbricht (with a slightly uncommitted demeanor) was given to an English actor. Of course, these nuances were lost in Sailer's unimaginative analysis.

Here is the final quote from Sailer: "The film would have worked better with a Shakespearean-trained English actor as the Count." Stuck on his own limited definition of aristocracy, and unable to see the clever and adroit way in which the director actually used different accents and nationalities to help him with different personalities, Sailer, the movie critic for The American Conservative, ends up with a bland and thoughtless review of a very good film.

The Perfect Christmas Gift

In moments of despair

It is to the liturgy of the Anglican St. James Cathedral that I have been going to for the past few years. The Christmas and Easter celebrations are extraordinarily beautiful with the pomp, ceremony and devotion combining to make uniquely inspirational services. During the rest of the year, it is the evensongs that I attended, with their quiet, sincere services preceded by organ recitals, which I also attended. I also had the great fortune of living in the vicinity of the Cathedral, making my weekly trips there an easy task.

This last year, it all changed. The clergy at St. James are decidedly for the ordination of gay priests, is actively involved in gay issues (for example, advertising Toronto's yearly gay parade in their website), and my strong intuitions tell me that one of their reverends - Lisa Wang - is a lesbian. And even if she isn't, she has insidiously taken over many aspects of the services, appearing several times a day at times from morning Eucharist to afternoon evensong. Her messages are so uninspired, that they are actually dark and depressing, with their focus mostly being on oppressive "social justice" issues. But it isn't just hers; this was that has become focus of most of the clergys' sermons.

I have essentially been brought up in the Anglican tradition. I love the liturgy, the music, the prayers, and the churches. I have been in church choirs since the age of ten or eleven, all the way until seventeen, and even after that participated for many years in college and community choirs.

But, the controversies that exploded in recent years over the ordination of homosexual priests, and blessing of same-sex couples, and St. James' open support of all these measures clinched it for me. I made a decision not to return last year. In fact, I only went once to a Tuesday lunch-hour organ recital.

So, this year, for the Christmas day service, I opted for a small Lutheran church, just around the corner from my home.

It is a lovely, humble church, small but beautifully constructed. It has a simple adobe structure, enforced with stained glass windows and some lovely carved wooden panels at the alter.

The Christmas morning service was equally humble. There were probably a total of 15-20 people there. I kept thinking about the very beginnings of Christianity, when there must have been these small, grass-roots type churches, which bravely put on their services week after week, eventually winning large populations and dominating the European religious structure.

Of course, what is really going on now is a reversal. The churches are losing their congregations, as though reeling backwards in time, to eventually reach a complete disappearance. The mood in this little church was subdued, even though it was Christmas morning. The subdued mood was also part of the sermon, where in a delicate and sincere fashion the pastor reminded us that the extraordinary thing about Jesus' beginnings was how humble it was. This sermon fit the little church, and as all intelligent and religious pastors are able to do, actually put hope in this small, half empty place of worship. That from humble beginnings (or regressions) great things can happen.

Perhaps that will happen in Christianity. Perhaps all those missing congregants will suddenly become a force again, and rebuild their abandoned churches. I think, though, the resumption will be a long and painful process, with many closures and leases of church buildings (to Muslim these days). One cannot recharge a ruin just by turning back the clock. It is much harder to build than to destroy. One cannot step up from a congregation of 15 to one of 200 overnight.

But, there is indeed hope. In early December, a new Anglican Church of North America started a province in defiance of the current Episcopalian and Anglican churches in the US and Canada. This more traditional and conservative body promises to return Anglicanism to its former commitment to the Bible and the word of God. In a moment of despair, we have been given the most perfect Christmas gift of all. How can we not accept this as an answer to our prayers?

This, unfortunately, doesn't mean that I will return to St. James Cathedral. That diocese has made it clear which side of the divide it is on. But, it certainly means that I will be able to continue in the Anglican tradition that I have grown to love over the years.

Tom Cruise's Fine Role

As Colonel von Stauffenberg

A bust of Colonel von Stauffenberg,
and the uncanny resemblance of
von Stauffenberg and Tom Cruise

My younger brother recently relocated to Toronto, and he managed to take time off his very busy schedule to spend time with me.

We attended the new Tom Cruise movie Valkyrie together. Tom Cruise has been getting a lot of flack for his Scientology beliefs, and some movie and celebrity pundits are even insinuating that he is "abusing" his new wife, Katy Holmes. I believe quite the contrary; he and his wife and their little (super sharp) daughter Suri look happy and content to me.

But back to the acting: I think Cruise is a fine actor, and his role in the true-life German Colonel Claus von Stauffenberg, was very well done. Cruise has this capacity to fill in the outer-armor of a role, to exude whatever it is he is portraying. I don't think he is a very psychological actor, nor particularly sensitive, but he embodies a role really well. I'm not sure what modern film-goers want in their male characters - a romantic, sensitive, anti-hero type, I suspect. Well, Cruise does none of these, and in fact radiates confidence and certainty, which sits very well in this new role of his.

I had heard of Col. von Stauffenberg for the first time from a forum I participated in a while ago. I was really surprised to find out that Germans had actually spent the Nazi years trying to dispose of Hitler through assassination and coup attempts. Col. von Stauffenberg was the one that got closest to its mission.

My brother, when I told him that this was a real story, displayed the same kind of surprise and positive reaction that I had exhibited: "At least they tried" was what he said.

I agree with him. The Germans that I find in forums (and as classmates in high school - I haven't befriended any Germans since) always had some kind of unspent energy, as though they were trying to get rid of something but could only do it in indirect ways. They were just overly aggressive personalities, and I was never sure why, in those early days of my encounter with them. Now I understand that it has quite a bit to do with their history, their cultural heritage. How does one reconcile Nazism as part of one's heritage? How does one explain it away?

This similar behavior was exhibited by the German participant in the forum I mentioned above. Without going into some torrid details about the kind of behavior she exhibited, here is a comment I made to her about her strange "negative" post to the heroic efforts of Col. von Stauffenberg discussed on the forum.

[W]hy did you post this article which makes an anti-hero of Stauffenberg? Are you trying to be objective? With all due respect, it seems that you always seem to be on this ambivalent track. Should you praise Germany, or just give it an approving nudge?

I sensed immediately that she was refusing to put him on a pedestal. I wondered why. The only explanation I could come up with was that she blamed him for not being successful. It just wasn't enough that he tried, and to get so close! He failed in the final mission!

Why cannot the Germans accept that they had real heroes? That hidden behind the bland faces and saluting voices were real Germans who battled secretly against this horrible phenomenon? Why are they so hard on themselves?

The only thing I can think of is that it is addictive to feel betrayed. To feel the guilt of their fore-fathers' sins. To not accept any heroes.

Perhaps this is the ailment that is striking all Westerners. This guilt that they cannot expiate, which seduces them into inaction and complacency. The more they feel guilty, the less they have to do, and the more they can blame it on "circumstances."

Heroism takes work, risk, disappointment and even death. It is easier to do nothing as a great reactionary sulk - initially, that is. The more one does nothing, though, the more the evil accumulates, then it is really just a matter of shooing in destruction.

Still, it is hardly surprising that this story of a German hero was made by an American director. And although it is supposedly an American-German co-production, I think it is still the American positivism which shines through.

Despite the grays and greens of the somber sceneries, which hardly deviated from these militaristic colors except when the blood red of the Nazi flags were on display, there is a sense of something being accomplished, of a certainty that the coup had a real cause to save lives and save a country.

The subdued acting of the heroes-in-the-making, scheming their revolutionary tactics in full view of Hitler and their enemies, makes the film worth viewing. Someone ought to tell the nattering critics that Tom Cruise and his production company have done a very fine job.

In fact, here I am, saying just that.

My previous post was a little stringent. We need to remember the real meaning of Christmas. But, let us not forget that it is also a festive occasion!

MERRY CHRISTMAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!

The Meaning of Christmas

The Meaning of Christmas

Luke 2:14 from the American Standard Version Bible:

Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men in whom he is well pleased

King James says this:

Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace, good will toward men

Yes, we need to play our part to receive God's pleasure and gift. He sent His Son as a gift, so that we may accept it and remain in His pleasure.

The Coventry Carol

The Coventry Carol

From: Carols for Christmas by the Royal College of
Music Chamber Choir, with Aled Jones as soprano

This is my favorite carol. I usually like it sung by a choir of boys and men, but in this case, I like the way they have divided the sections into male, female and boy soprano parts. The harsh judgment by Herod is sung by the men, the mother lamenting is sung by the women, and the final verse by a boy soprano.

Disclosure: I sang this carol during a Christmas party when I was teaching English (as a second language) to a group of mostly Egyptian Copts, most of whom were elderly women. (They all spoke pretty good English, and very good French.) A few of them had tears in their eyes at the end. I used to be a soprano in college choirs, and was a chorister for several years in my high school and elementary school Anglican church choir.

Lully, lullay, Thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay. Lullay, thou little tiny Child, By, by, lully, lullay. O sisters too, how may we do, For to preserve this day This poor youngling for whom we do sing By, by, lully, lullay. Herod, the king, in his raging, Charged he hath this day His men of might, in his own sight, All children young to slay. That woe is me, poor Child for Thee! And ever mourn and say, For thy parting neither say nor sing, By, by, lully, lullay.

Can Anyone Else Fill in Sarah Palin's Shoes?

As a mother?

Now: Bristol Palin next to the father of her unborn, as of now illegitimate, child, ready for birth any day;
Then: Sylvie (from the film Les Diablesses next to one of the nuns when she enters the correction center for "lost girls", ca. 1950.

This is a tragic story. Just around Christmas time, Sarah Palin's daughter, Bristol, is expected to deliver her first child, whose pregnancy she was displaying at the Republican National Convention at Sarah Palin's Vice Presidential nomination. This will, without any doubt, be an illegitimate child.

Sarah Palin's interjection into the national and international scene was full of strange coincidences. She was the younger, plucky female to the tired and old McCain; Tina Fey became her near-double (how often does that happen!), playing gags of her throughout the election period; and now, her daughter is giving birth out-of-wedlock around the same time as the birth of Jesus.

If I were Palin, I would take these omens as signs to question her motives, her life and that of her family. There was a time when such young girls as Bristol had to give up their children to avoid a confused and confusing society. Now, almost every Hollywood starlet has a child with a "boyfriend", and some even make last-minute, after the birth dashes to get married - soon to be divorced again. Bristol even had some acknowledgment from one such Hollywood name, Jamie Lynn Spears, as a camaraderie of adolescent young mothers. And there is the terrible teen-pact of young adolescent girls getting pregnant as a group to help each other out. Young girls take example from what they say around them.

Sarah Palin obviously doesn't think this is a big problem. Sure, it derailed her political life somewhat, including many unfounded rumors centered around her own pregnancy of Trig, but she is after all a member of the Feminists for Life which has a college outreach program for pregnant students. Yes, the point is to make life as comfortable as possible for these unmarried college students expecting their illegitimate children.

I don't care what Palin's rationale is - to avoid abortion, to increase birth rates. Whatever. If something is done with the wrong methods, the outcome can only be wrong. There is no "means towards the end" rhetoric here. It is irresponsible and and dangerous to society.

If I were Sarah Palin, I would worry about her other two daughters, and what their future actually holds. There are many accounts that her absence from home (and her husband's, who works on oil fields for part of the year) led to frictions with her eldest daughter. Would that mean, God forbid, that Palin leave her political position and focus on her family? Why not? What is more important to her, a post at this point which can really be filled by another candidate, or her role as a mother which can only be fulfilled by her?

Transcendence vs. Belief

Can contemplating soaring cathedrals substitute for Christianity?

Nave of Canterbury Cathedral. Kent, England

There are many people who say "I love and support Western culture, but I am an atheist/I don't believe in Jesus Christ God incarnate."

The history of Western civilization and its relation with Christianity is complicated. I think there were pre-modern doubters, including the great scientist Newton - although his doubts were more of questions to details rather than outright disbelief, and of course the German "renaissance man" Goethe, who it seems did admit a semblance of Christianity into his life near the end.

But nothing compares to modernity which is replete with public avowals of disbelief or truncated/fabricated belief. There are very intellectual-sounding arguments which put God or Jesus - as prescribed in the Bible - completely out of the spiritual picture. Since many of these people are highly spiritual, then you have interesting takes on their transcendence which they base often on Christian themes - the soaring cathedrals, Bach's Passions, even a Christmas carol. Often they will say that liturgy and specific prayer will not move them, but a quiet time in the pews of an empty church can trigger that feeling.

But, Western civilization wasn't built on a transcendent feeling, but on belief. If they love the past so much, the most important, successful and astonishing one having been built on Christian belief (many talk about the Greco-Roman belief systems which sustained their great civilizations, but I contend that what they built is nothing compared to what the Christian civilization has built), then how are they going to build the future?

Here is blog discussion - to which I submitted a few words - which discusses these issues.

I think we're at a cross-roads towards extinction or progress. Our biggest enemies so far, liberalism and Islam, are gaining the upper hand. Both have their own very well established systems of belief. We cannot approach them with ephemeral transcendence. Our only arm really is Christianity.

Our Changing Landscape

New Post

Keeping Up With Muslim Wedding Traditions

Although many American and Canadian-born Muslims talk of fusion and assimilation, this often involves the superficial parts, whereas their real traditions are kept in tact.

Belated Report on the Death of the Architect who Designed the Sydney Opera House

And who never saw the completed building



One of the most beautiful modern buildings in the world, the Sydney Opera House, was never seen by its designer/architect once it got completed. The Danish architect, Jorn Utzon, died at 90 three weeks ago without ever stepping into the building.

Cost and delays caused such controversies at the time of the design, that Utzon resigned and left Australia in 1966 before completing the building, never to return.

He did receive the top architect prize, the Pritzker Prize, in 2003 which many feel was a way of honoring him for the building.

I have blogged about the Sydney Opera House here.

Whacking a Billy Goat

A good lesson for Mark Steyn too?

Lawrence Auster at VFR kindly introduced my article from American Thinker on his website.

He has a funny anecdote about a billy goat - whose name is... you guessed it - who needed a whack on the head with a stick to stop his charging ways.

This then became a good metaphor for Mark Steyn, who also had his own article about Little Mosque a couple of years ago as I wrote here, who needs a whack (or two) on the head to stop his frivolous ways.

Critical Art Critics, Update

What Panero should be looking at

James Panero's put-downs of the brave new artists who are trying to revive tradition - easel painting, the importance of drawing, beauty and composition, careful but not overwrought attention to color, in short:

Classical Realism...referring to an artistic movement in late 20th century painting that places a high value upon skill and beauty, combining elements of 19th century neoclassicism and realism.

which has also branched out to:

The Hudson River School for Landscape [which] aspires to build a new movement of American art, modeling itself after the artistic, social and spiritual values of the Hudson River School painters.

is as jaded as the critiques who couldn't see what Matisse was doing when he started out on his "rebellion". I've written about both these revivals here and here (the latter being part of my last post critiquing Panero's critique).

Rather than praising these brave artists, and their talented leader Jacob Collins (the one with all the inherited money - which to Panero opposes everything"traditional" about the poor, garret-living artist), Panero wears his blinders so effectively that he cannot even see that Collins is following a tradition of sorts.

Collins is not only reaching far back to the Renaissance, but to the tradition of the more recent modernist painters, who were the antithesis of "Classical Realists", but who still believed in the canvass, its array of colors and some attention to form and drawing. We almost lost all of this in our gradual rejection of painting, which even Matisse and his ilk didn't completely abandon. By citing them in his own works, Collins is insisting on the continuation of painting, which may have had some breaks in our very recent past, but which is still part of a long stream of centuries of influences.

His themes of art vs. real-life abound in modernists' paintings.

Untitled interior, Jacob Collins

The ephemeral interior (untitled), with the curtain-covered windows suggesting a bright exterior, and the slightly ajar door letting in a gentle light, are juxtaposed against the painted canvass and the empty frame (soon to frame a landscape?). Windows and doors become frames and canvasses in an almost abstracted rhythm of squares and rectangles. This is nothing less than what many modernists were painting. They were incorporating art, or the making of art, as a subject of their paintings, rather than painting pure landscapes, portraits or still-lifes and interiors.

Henri Matisse, The Piano Lesson, 1916

There is Matisses' The Piano Lesson, the balcony rails mimicking the music stand of the young boy, with his "canvass" of music in front of him, and the doorway and window framing their subjects (the woman and the exterior shrub.)

Left: Childe Hassam, The Room of Flowers, 1984
Right: Photograph of the studio as depicted in the painting

In Childe Hassam's The Room of Flowers, where there's an endless rhythm of squares and rectangles, from the frames of paintings leading to the framed (by windows) exterior, and the white canvass-like table cloths and square books, also white. Everything is "art" there, from the busts at the end to the walls crammed full of paintings. Even the girl reclining on the sofa and hidden amidst the clutter has on a white dress which blends in with all the other flurries of white in the room. She's another symbol for an empty canvass and who then becomes a subject painted on Hassam's the real canvass.

Left: Paul Strand, SidePorch, 1946
Right: Paul Strand, Window, Abandoned House, New England, 1944

There are also photographers who played with this inside/outside, art vs. real-life theme, such as Strand's peeks into a rectangular slit of a porch door suggesting a framed exterior. Or his window panes which create their own landscapes pane-by-pane, faithfully reflecting the exterior view.

This is what Panero should be writing about. That the search for Jacob Collins and his company may come from the past, but the movement is definitely moving towards the future.

Steyn has a new article on Little Mosque

And how it compares with mine



A commenter on my article over at the American Thinker posted that Mark Steyn had just written about Little Mosque as well. Steyn calls it The Little Mosque that Couldn't.

When I initially sent my article, the editor of American Thinker told me that his online journal had already covered this topic. I told him that mine was different. It wasn't a review of the show, but a description of what the show was doing culturally. To rephrase a running term, it is stealth culture, something that I have been noting for some time now at "Our Changing Landscape", and which I initiated with an article about two or three years ago called "Islam's Missionary Women", about high-ranking Muslim women in the West who are trying to change our society's rules and institutions to accommodate their version of Islam.

So, my observations that Muslims are surreptitiously "changing our landscape" and, as I saw it, our visual landscape, runs back a few years.

Now here is Mark Steyn's mildly hysterical descriptive review of this Little Mosque phenomenon. Just the kind of contribution the American Thinker wasn't interested in, having covered that angle about a year ago.

I call Little Mosque a phenomenon because unlike Steyn, I believe it is a Little Mosque that very much could. A show that is now available in 60 different countries, including France, Switzerland, Israel and Finland. And whose rights Fox Television has recently acquired to air an Americanized version.

As I write in my article, Little Mosque is now basically a franchise; its cast attend Muslim events, get interviewed by major Canadian television and radio channels apart from their patron the CBC, and raise awareness (and funds) for Islamic events. CBC does relentless ads for the show, which is actually tanking (500,000 viewers), but the ads alone give it a kind of brand name even for those who never watch the show. And I doubt the CBC will drop it. It's already in our psyche.

And all Mark Steyn can do is make jokes, along with a few grim, panic-stricken outbursts about real Imams declaring "I come to slaughter all of you." And even here, poor Steyn has to add his little joke, writing: "He meant it, but come on, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to weep with laughter."

Weep with laughter.

Plus, Steyn spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing the CBC, which no amount of complaints will change, so it all becomes an irrelevant exercise.

In any case, leaving aside all the puns and witticism (rather meek, in my opinion), Steyn ends off his string of quips with not a word on: So What?

Even in the first edition of my article, I write that this whole debacle may just be a problem of numbers. Unlike Steyn, I put a historical context to the problem saying that about 100 years ago, the first Muslim immigrants could have never gone this far (and never did), because there were too few of them. Now, instead of assimilating into our culture, Muslims are assimilating us into theirs, because "their large numbers [is] exempting them from assimilating into the dominant society". To reduce or even to eliminate the problem is to...reduce their numbers.

Here is a comment I most recently posted at the American Thinker, which is in line for approval by a moderator:

The only way to rectify this problem is to follow the example of the early immigration patterns (at the time of the Al Rashid mosque.) At that time, the small number of Muslims were forced to assimilate, and couldn't advance their culture and religion on to Canadians.

Now, we have to find ways to reduce at least the immigration numbers. By 2011, the number of Muslims is expected to reach 1.1 million (that of course includes those born here as well as new immigrants.) Our only reasonable recourse at this time is to reduce, if not issue a moratorium, on Muslim immigrants.

That is an important way our cultural symbols and institutions can be salvaged. The more Muslims there are, the less they will assimilate, and the more they will try (successfully) to assimilate us into their way of life.

New Post at Our Changing Landscape

"Eid at the Ex"

"Eid at the Ex" documents the Eid Al-Adha festivities that just took place in the landmark Canadian National Exhibition.

New Article

At ChronWatch, American Thinker and New Media Journal

I have a new article printed both at ChronWatch, American Thinker and The New Media Journal.

"How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie is aiming for our souls."

I edited it for a final version which I have posted in my own articles archive. I realized that my final statements in the original article needed to be more forceful, so I added more information in the last two paragraph specifying that the problem with Muslims' take over of our cultural symbols and institutions is because of their numbers. Earlier Muslim immigrants never behaved this way, and the only differing factor is that there were much fewer of them.

Here is the edited version:

Muslim integration in those early years was high (mostly through inter-marriage), and Muslim immigration was a bare minimum. In the 1930s, there were about 700 Muslims throughout Canada. Now, there are over 700,000 and growing. Projections for 2011 has the numbers almost doubled at 1.1 million...

Reducing the number of the projected 1.1 million Muslims (400,000 new ones) for 2011 would be a start, by simply erecting policies that decrease, if not outright halt, Muslim immigration into Canada. And given the fascination for Little Mosque on the Prairie in other Western countries – France, Switzerland, Israel, Finland and the United States to name a few - the recommendation is the same for all of them.

Having done that, the articles at ChronWatch, American Thinker and The New Media Journal stand on their own.

I have also added a comment at American Thinker about the CBC, Islam converts, and Little Mosque as an institution.

Critical Art Critics

And their lack of generosity

Untitled (Interior) by Jacob Collins

James Panero, the art critique at the New Criterion, has an article about the horrendous productions of China's contemporary artists. Such horror stories include "a dead fetus snuggled against the face of a deceased old man in bed covered with ice -titled Honey)" and "[an artist who] cut a fetus specimen into five handy pieces (two arms, two legs, one head-and-torso) and gnawed—or at least pretended to gnaw—the morsels for a still camera - titled Eating People)."

Panero exhibits the normal shock and abhorrence reserved for such atrocities. Yes "art" using dead fetuses and corpses of old men is repulsive to anyone. Something's wrong with you if you don't feel that way. But Panero goes one step further and blames these Chinese modern artists for scamming innocent New York art speculators millions if not billions of dollars for their works.

Well, just a minute. Is anyone twisting the arms of these speculators to buy these atrocities? Just like no-one is forcing Damien Hirsts into Sotheby's galleries?

Panero does a great job of panning these Chinese opportunists, but when the occasion came to review art communities which are trying to subvert and eliminate such modern terrors, he is far lest indulgent (in the praise that is, not the admonishments).

For example, about the Classical Realism groups that are forming around the country, he says:

Classical Realism is enraptured with its urge to teach, but much of its best work can resemble a demonstration piece of technical abilities without a vision beyond the schools.

Sure, each and every art atelier will resemble a demonstration piece. How else are students to learn and masters to experiment?

And at an earlier blog, I commented on his mild cynicism regarding the Hudson River School revival by Jacob Collins (whom he also derides as the recipient of old money, hence his success at establishing his various studios. What's wrong with being a talented artist and having money?). His position, again, is that the technical mastery of these painters doesn't necessarily mean they have found the essence in their paintings - which in the Hudson River School for Landscape apparently is God.

Panero writes a 2,300 word article about the atrocities of Chinese contemporary art (and Chinese art imports), but cannot utter real words of praise for those who are countering, one brush stroke at a time, these horrible forces in the art world.

It is easy to be indignant about fetus art, but why not be generous about neo-revivals?

In the final analysis, Panero doesn't believe in revivals. He doesn't believe that they have anything to offer us. Instead, he would rather we march down the brave road of progress. Toss everything else aside and see if we can come up with something just a little better than fetus art. Who wants to "copy" those old traditions anyway?

So, who's to blame, then, for the Chinese art market? Those who buy it, or those who sell it? I think Panero has actually bought (into) it. Just leave out the dead babies, but keep the rest, he seems to be saying.

A lesson for Sarah Palin's daughter?

The troubled girls of Les Diablesses

Now: Bristol Palin next to the father of her unborn, as of now illegitimate, child, at five months pregnant;
Then: Sylvie next to one of the nuns when she enters the correction center for "lost girls"

Les Diablesses is a harsh two-hour film of "lost girls", adolescents who were sent to correction homes to be retrained back into the ways of proper society in 1950s and 60s France. Some of these girls were pregnant out-of-wedlock, and even after the adoption of their infants they were sent there for a period of time. Others were just considered too rebellious, often because of furtive relationships without parental consent. They often stayed in these homes until they were adults at 21 years of age. These correction centers were eventually phased out in the 1970s.

The film was based on testimonies of women who actually stayed in these homes. I have to admit that some of these stories were pretty hard to take. I wondered if the filmmaker inflated them up a notch for dramatic purposes. The other possibility is, of course, like the stories behind residential school abuses, liberal filmmakers find any way they can to undermine traditional societies, which are simply trying to dampen or eliminate foreign and antagonistic elements. Young, unmarried girls having sexual relations and getting pregnant certainly constitute foreign and antagonistic elements to traditional society.

The nuns in the center were depicted as incredibly callous, cold-hearted women. I wonder if this was really the case, or if it is the distorted view of some lapsed Catholic liberal director? These nuns were given the unpleasant job of disciplining girls who were temporarily rejected by their families, and they certainly had to be strict to keep their convent safe and orderly. The girls, despite their internment, did have moments of happiness, and their adventurous nature does come out in fugues from the center, and other small pranks. Some even stayed on despite offers of release, since they had already made friends in these homes.

But traditional society has always been harsh. Factors that will undermine or diminish its position have always been dealt with briskly and without sentimentality. Yes, the girls had to live a difficult life for a while in these centers (and possibly even beyond), but they cannot be an example for other young girls in the outside world. Deviations from accepted rules of society will result in hard if not brutal consequences. Otherwise, the whole foundation of society will start to crumble - fatherless children, single mothers, what next? Well now, in our modern nightmare, we have eliminated marriage and parenthood to such an extent that single women are having children from anonymous sperm donors.

I wonder (again) if these proponents of correction centers for rebellious girls (and rebellious usually meant sexually rebellious) ever imagined such a society as ours? Where girls are not only supported for having illegitimate children, but their adult female mentors are having illegitimate children without even a father in sight.

These were the questions that should have been discussed by the Palin's family before their eldest daughter was allowed to attend national political conventions five months pregnant, and in full view of the whole country. Each and every adolescent girl who watched those moments will surely decide that a boyfriend who gives you a big belly is nothing to worry about. And those adoring Palin fans, the parents, instead of a frank dismissal of and a harsh warning against such behavior, decided that they would go for Palin-fever, and even produced videos such as this.

Spain's Muslim History

And modern-day influences

A room of the Alhambra palace and a
view of the Court of the Lions.

I wonder what it is like to live in modern-day Andalusia, which has some of the most impressive Muslim architecture in the world. Including the Alhambra palace in Granada, and the Mezquita (mosque now turned cathedral) in Cordoba.

It must be disconcerting to be surrounded by such beautiful Muslim architecture, even if many of them have lost their original functions, or have been converted to Christian ones.

There must also be a strong culinary and linguistic inheritance, as well as an ethnic Arabic presence.

Islam is a strong religion, and requires a strong counter-faith and tradition to keep it at bay. I wonder if modern Spaniards have that kind of strength of character? Which really means are they strong enough Christians.

The autonomous Spanish city of Melilla in North African (near Morocco) recently recognized Aid el Kebir as an official Muslim holiday for the first time since the Reconcquista.

Defence of the Judeo-Christian Tradition

By atheists



In conjunction with the previous post about Ruth, here is a strange internet discussion:

Although not religious, I’m a defender of the so-called Judeo-Christian tradition. I’m not hostile to religion (except to Islam, which is a political system).

The author of this quote, Ilana Mercer, then goes on to say:

I’m of a generation of secular Jews which knows and loves the Hebrew Bible as a tremendous literary, philosophical, and historical achievement.

I picked this up from a dialogue that was going on between Mercer and John Derbyshire at a new website called Secular Right.

It is unprecedented that people come outright and say "I am not religious." Previous generations wouldn't even know how to articulate these thoughts. What is even more irritating is the "but" that many of these people add. "Although not religious, I’m a defender of the so-called Judeo-Christian tradition." What does that even mean? As in "I will abstain from participating in one important element of Western tradition, but I will support it anyway?"

People can be overwhelmed by the beauty and poetics of the Bible, just as one can admire the poetry of Shakespeare. But, how can they, if they are so drawn to this book, not feel the mystery and transcendence of it as well? Where does that "tremendous literary achievement" lead to? Just for us to feel its tremendous literary achievement? Isn't there just something a little more than that?

Such is the ways of our modern world, where atheists sit around talking about the literary achievements of the Bible, as though they are great connoisseurs, and yet not have an ounce of reaction to its bigger picture.

Mercer goes on to quote Paul Johnson who says:

The Bible is essentially a historical work from start to finish. The Jews developed the power to write terse and dramatic historical narrative half a millennium before the Greeks.

Yes, like the literary achievement, there is no doubt about its historicity as well. But, as usual, these "reasoned" intellectuals go around in circles.

It reminds me of people who endlessly talk about the great champagne they had, or the wonderful cheese you can buy at that high scale market, and who are so engrossed in their ability to discern such wonderful foods. The Bible seems like such an exercise.

So, to Derbyshire and Mercer, what does the Book of Ruth mean, other than to show the strong, quiet character of one woman? What do they make of the final verses of genealogy, which goes down all the way to King David (Ruth 4:17-22). Isn't there some significance to this other than a historical review?

I guess not.

One final gripe I have. The Old Testament is a historical book. But the New Testament has an odd sense of ahistoricity about it. It is almost as though history has come to an end, or has reached its conclusion. Which is of course what Christ's story is all about; the long line of Jewish history, miracles and prophecy, which produced the Son of God, who became the salvation of mankind.

If the Bible were simply a historical document, then what would they make of the New Testament section of that Bible?

Ruth's Firmness of Characther

And her role in future kings

Naomi entreating Ruth and Orpah to return to the
Land of Moab, 1795. William Blake.

The Book of Ruth is a short, four-chapter book of the Bible about a woman who leaves her own people to be with Naomi, the mother of her dead husband. Together they return to Naomi's people and God.

I was following a discussion on Ruth here at Passages on Christian Television Station, a weekly half-hour discussion on a passages from the Old Testament.

Last week, Dr. Reena Basser, formerly from Queens University, was making the argument that despite the quiet and gentle nature of the Book of Ruth, unlike the previous Book of Judges which was full of "grand actions", Ruth was still a woman of action.

She beautifully illustrates this by saying that Ruth's character is associated with "rapid fire" verbs where she does this, then that, then the other. Here, Basser is making a case for psychology not based on thought or even dialogue, but on physiology - movement, or type of movement. Ruth makes short, decisive movements. And these movements, or actions, indicate a direction - a goal or intent.

The examples she gives are in Ruth 2:3: "And she went, and came, and gleaned..." And again after Boaz has her come and eat in Ruth 2:14: "...and she did eat, and was sufficed, and left."

Basser also says that the Book of Ruth is a story of small gestures, as opposed to grandiose actions. Ruth doesn't organize an army, or proclaim the name of God to thousands, yet Basser equates Ruth's actions to those of Abraham's. I think she means by this the decisiveness and purposefulness of Ruth's actions have the same energy (or force) behind them as Abraham's.

Yet, this book of small gestures had Ruth as its protagonist. A woman of action and determination (she did follow Naomi to be with her people and her true God), who had the character to be the forebear of the great King David, and later on Christ himself.

The Elusive Harper

Update on Ambler articles

For more information on "What does Stephen Harper want?", here are some posts by Kevin Michael Grace at his site "The Ambler" and at others:

Harper's hidden agenda revealed?!

Harper's Immigration Folly

Interview of Stephen Harper by KMG, before Harper was Prime Minister

This Union can't be saved

Canada's Harper rejects Sailer Strategy...and loses

Few people write clearly about Harper (or even admit that they can't quite figure what he is about). I think Mr. Grace does some clear thinking in these posts, and perhaps lets us understand why Harper decided to throw the unnecessary dart at the Opposition, I think causing this unnecessary debacle.

What's on my Youtube

Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Portrait



Porgy and Bess: A Symphonic Portrait is a medley of Gershwin's opera arranged by Robert Russell Bennett into a 24-minute orchestral piece. I have just uploaded the first third, which includes a rendition of the beautiful Summertime at the end, starting around the 6min:44s section.

Hubris and Arrogance

Conrad Black and Stephen Harper

Photo taken from The Ambler's site with this caption:
Hubris: Amiel as Antoinette, Black as Richelieu:
If God exists, they will have to answer for many things

It is a pity that Canada's most observant pundit is keeping quiet these days.

It would have been great to hear his views on Harper shutting down Parliament, and Conrad Black's appeal to George Bush for a pardon.

I suspect he wouldn't have too much sympathy for either of them.

Here's an article entitled Prescience (which features the photo above) by The Ambler (Kevin Michael Grace) on Conrad Black's various adventures, including renouncing (then demanding back) his Canadian citizenship, and the various newspapers he owned, sold, and got into trouble over.

I did a short take on Black's sudden love for America-hating comedian Rick Mercer, considering Black was the champion defender of all things American, until his conviction for fraud and obstruction of justice, that is.

When he suddenly wanted his Canadian citizenship back.

God, Conscience and Civilization

From The Ox-bow Incident

There can't be any such thing as civilization unless people have a conscience. Because if people touch God anywhere where is it except through their conscience? And what is anybody's conscience except a little piece of the conscience of all men that ever lived?

The Ox-bow Incident is a short (1 hour and 10 minutes) 1943 film about a group of men who decide to take the law into their own hands.

This letter quoted above, read by Henry Fonda, is written by a man who had to suffer at their hands.

What struck me most in the letter were three words: God, civilization and conscience.

Without God, there is no (true) conscience. And it is this conscience that brings forth civilized men, and civilization. God is therefore necessary for civilization.

All those barbaric societies, and savage acts by men, can be cured - or disciplined - into civilization once God becomes part of them, and a true conscience is developed.

This is something I have thought often about. Why does a country like Zimbabwe turn into a cesspool of blood and gore? What is missing? Although this may be a simplistic answer, and it may not be the whole answer, part of their cure is to return to true conscience, and, as this young man writing this letter testifies, they have to ask a higher figure to help them achieve this.

Out of this, one thousand miracles can then begin to happen. Nothing else has worked.

Our Changing Landscape

No religion=Islam convert

New post up at Our Changing Landscape about the susceptibility of non-religious young men to Islam.

New Design

Channeling Voysey



a. Mourining Dove, drawing
b. Dog Rose Series, Repeat Pattern design
c. Dog Rose, watercolor
d. Voysey, Bird and Tulip

[Click on the images to view full-sized versions]

Here is a new repeat design, based on the bird and foliage motifs of CFA Voysey. Voysey was part of William Morris' Arts and Crafts Movement of the late 19th century. He was more of an architect than a textile/wallpaper designer. But his deceptively simple puzzle-like pieces are carefully crafted where each section fits perfectly with the others, as though he were building a house. He is the designer I admire most.

I often draw the pieces I want to work on before tackling their combination. Simple things like the wings of the bird, or the interior structures of the flower, can then become part of the design.

Channeling Cyd Charisse

Dancing with the stars

I've previously blogged about Dancing with the Stars, saying that part of its charm is that it is reviving older dance routines, such as the waltz, foxtrot and the quickstep, along with older tunes and melodies.

It nonetheless has a "back to the future" feel about it. The dancers have a subtle lack of sophistication and finesse. I don't think this has to do with their ages, but rather with their cultural environment, where a certain freewheeling spirit is encouraged.

Compare them to Cyd Charisse and Fred Astaire [dance videos linked]. There is tremendous discipline, restrained energy and sophistication in these dancers.

Still, Lacey Schwimmer choreographs [video of mambo linked] a pretty good rendition of a mambo - one of those dances which was fine-tuned by American dancers, despite its Latin origin, into a playfully teasing interpretation. I think she channels Cyd Charisse well with this dance.

On another note, the Viennese waltz that Derek Hough dances with Brooke Burke is heavy on beat ONE, and really doesn't work as it should, making the usually talented dancer Derek [video of waltz linked] at times lose the beautiful smooth sweeps that such a dance demands. I think the melody should be stronger to allow the embellishments that such a dance needs. The pop tune in Derek's choreography is bereft of any interesting parts and is continuously overshadowed by the beat of the bass. [Ed: On further thought, I was a little harsh on Derek's choreography. A lesser talent wouldn't have come up with his waltz. I still think he was fighting against leaning on the bass to much.]

Here is an example [dance video linked] of an inconspicuous beat, with an intricate melody, and how it helps the dancers to be much more fluid, and to choreograph interesting moves.

Here is another video of Charisse and Astaire doing a wonderfully graceful "Dancing In The Dark" from the musical "The Bandwagon." It is not a waltz but its flowing melody and quieter bass helps the dancers to glide through their number.

So, it isn't really Derek's fault. It's really a deterioration of the music - more bass, less melody. And it results with modern dancers who cannot quite reach the level of perfection that their predecessors worked so hard to achieve.

Royal Ontario Museum

Has a new logo



The Royal Ontario Museum is still basking under its new Crystal addition by architect Daniel Libeskind. I've written about him, including his original design for the New York "Freedom Towers" which had to be revised by another architect for their unstable structure.

His ROM extension is another unstable, or unstable-looking, construction, and critics are concerned that the outer wall may actually start to fall apart in the future.

His interior has also been criticized for its awkward walls - how are they going to hang the paintings on those angular, slanting spaces? And his dinosaur section doesn't leave much for elbow room, and in fact can cause injury due to jutting out corners (especially to young children visiting the collections).

Well, the proud elite of the ROM team have now designed their logo mimicking this crumbling structure.

Future generations will not be impressed - if the building stays that long.