Our Changing Landscape

And its stubborn persistence

New post at Our Changing Landscape entitled: "Mosques: From Nondescript To Full-Fledged Traditional." I discuss how Islamic architects are now building mosques in the center of Toronto with all the traditional elements (minarets and domes), showing a boldness which has not previously been seen.

Arguing With the Euro

Banknotes and nostalgia

Ten franc banknote from 1978 showing Hector Berlioz

Anne Roumanoff, a French comic, has a funny skit about the euro. This whole video clip shows many daily moments of how the euro is affecting French life. For example, when shopkeepers had to calculate changes in the euro while still (in the early stages) receiving francs from their customers.

The funniest, and actually the most poignant, joke is at the 7:42 point where she jokes about "couples who argue in the euro." Cultural elements, like money, have deep associations with history, daily life, memories and other very important human interactions. For example saying things like (presumably by a wife to her husband) "you're going to say that I'm throwing euros out the window?" has that cold, detached, cultureless ring to it that saying "you're going to say that I'm throwing francs out the window?" would not.

When I first heard about the euro replacing French currency, my first thought was how will they replace those beautiful franc notes, with all the historical portraits on them? As I predicted, the euro notes have no character to them, but look like some detached graphic designer drew outlines of "architectural elements" to decorate them.

Well, they at least they make the subject of funny, if not nostalgic, jokes.

Gathering Together the Blacks of the World

Starting right on target in Canada

Governor General Michaelle Jean meets
Obama in Ottawa

Obama came and left, and met with all the necessary dignitaries. The most peculiar was his meeting with Michaelle Jean, the Governor General. During a private talk, Jean explicitly brought up Haiti with him. She herself is a refugee from Haiti, and travels there frequently. She had just been there on a "working visit" in January.

Obama expressed his desire to have her visit Washington to continue their discussion about Haiti with him. Even Prime Minister Harper wasn't given such an invitation.

Now, this kind of visit requires all kinds of preparation - she is after all the representative of the Queen. An off-the-cuff invitation doesn't cut it. It may even be that protocol would not allow her to make the trip.

Another problem is the apparent subject of her invitation and visit - Haiti. Discussing issues of Haiti, a country to which Jean no longer belongs nor represents, is full of conflicts of interest. Why not Jamaica, or even China for that matter? Even more curiously, why not Canada?

In any case, Jean has always shown this lopsided bias - focusing an inordinate amount of time at her election on the color of her skin and all the "obstacles people like her have to overcome" to reach places of prominence in Canada. In fact, she went through no elaborate loops to get her Governor Generalship, which was given to her on a silver platter by the previous Liberal government, based on... her gender, color and immigration status. She fit the bill perfectly.

But, as we have seen in recent developments in Obama's new presidency, the gathering of blacks - national and international - is surely going to be one of Obama's strategies. He clearly demonstrated this with his interactions with Jean in Ottawa.

Building An Expanded University Campus

One immigrant at at time

Lilac Bush

I've been closely following Ryerson University's campus enlargement program for the last couple of years. It all started with this innocent photograph I took, and later transformed into a pastel and charcoal drawing, of a building right across from the campus and next to the Theater School. I loved the grey and black outlines of the building, and the pale violet colors of the lilac bushes.

A year later, the building was on the verge of being demolished, and I thought it was going to be transformed into one of the usual condominiums silhouetting Toronto's downtown in increasing numbers. I even quoted former blogger Dispatches from the Hogtown Front who had evidence for this.

Later on, I was struck by my premonition, which had led me to take a photo of the original building, and to record it as a drawing. Something must have told me to preserve this little piece of the city which we might not be seeing too much of in the near future. But in truth, this was not hard to decipher since the visual landscape of Toronto has been changing into glass high rises for a while, with smaller, older houses losing out.

It was also obvious that this rush to build more was a campus affair, where Ryerson (as well as University of Toronto) had made extensive, long-term commitments to expand its campus buildings.

I duly noted this, and the only conclusion I could come up with was that the expansion was in response to the increasing number of immigrant students. I based this on personal observations. I frequently go to the Ryerson Library, and find that over 80% of the students are non-white - mostly East Asian (Chinese, Korean and Philippinos), and South Asian (Indian, Pakistani and Bangladeshi), with quite a large number of Middle Eastern origin. Many still have their original accents, so they were clearly not born here.

I had also read that such spurts in buildings are related to increases in immigrant numbers. So I concluded that the Ryerson campus building spree beneficiaries are likely to be new immigrants, or more precisely, new immigrant students. In fact, this small building was eventually converted into a high rise (I was right on one count, at least) for student housing.

And now here is the ever-diligent Canadian Immigration Reform Blog saying that new immigrants are indeed calculated into the various campus expansion schemes. Both his February 21, 2009 and his February 15, 2009 posts are relevant.

Firstly, he says that foreign students will bring in the much-needed "revenue" (really? Or is it a matter of bad planning - as in high levels of campus expansions) for fees and other costs into universities. Secondly, he talks about the fast track into immigration these foreign students can enter into, a pathway he believes will increase the voting block of immigrants.

These days, Liberals and Conservatives are really fighting for the same groups, since their ideologies and polices are almost exactly the same. It might then just be a matter of "who does what first". The savvy Conservatives are beating the Liberals in their own game, and catering to immigrant groups.

What is more important and disconcerting is how much the Ryerson campus has changed over the last few years. At least so has the campus library, where I was never left deficient, and which has always had great staff to fill in the gaps that I may find wanting.

Here is my list of grievances, which I think is directly related to the inordinate number of new students the campus has been accepting, and the changing campus "culture" that has resulted from that.

- My deep shock occurred when I realized that students can now eat FULL-FLEDGED MEALS IN THE LIBRARY. When I naively complained about this, the LIBRARIAN told me that many students live far away from home, and need a place to eat, sleep, rest and study! This living away far away from home has never been an issue for other students in previous years. Students usually build their own culture of coffee-houses, hot dog stands, convenience store specials and other ways to get their victuals in on a regular basis. This "new" need for eating in the library is unprecedented and strange.

- The library reading rooms are no longer "reading rooms", but rooms where large group discussions are always in progress. I remember approaching a group of South Asians students studying in a "group". I asked what they were studying, and they said "chemistry". Then I said that whenever I used to study for my science classes, I DID IT ALONE. Studying with someone else either pulled me back, or left me more confused. Science is also a solitary study. No amount of group work can really make you better. They had NO CLUE what I was talking about.

- I asked a librarian if they could set aside a free table, and preferably a free room, for newspapers and journals. I said it is hard to open a large newspaper with other people's books scattered all over the table. She said that there are too many students who use the library’s facilities, and they cannot afford to give up any "unnecessary" space.

- Summers used to be great times to catch up on large amounts of research and study. They were quiet, space was ample, and books were often available and not required to put on hold. The past three of four consecutive summers have not shown ANY difference from regular semesters. Each summer session is now packed with large numbers of students. There are no breaks except when school is out, which are the first and last two weeks of the summer.

In short, the Ryerson campus now resembles a congested Third World city, both in the incoherence of the languages spoken, and in the number of people cramming every nook and cranny of the various spaces.

And the Ontario government and the Ryerson University bigwigs plan to continue in this manner for the foreseeable future. In the process, academia is sacrificed for enlarging the purse strings.

Chopin and Jerome Robbins

Second only to Balanchine

Broadway musicals and classical ballet, Jerome Robbins did it all. He was born Jerome Wilson Rabinowitz, and picked up dance when his sister started to learn the art. Some of his well-known Broadway choreographies include West Side Story, Fiddler on the Roof and The King and I.

He also did many classical and modern dance pieces, working closely with Balanchine for many years.

Here is a youtube of the third Pas de Deux from In the Night, with Chopin's Nocturne, op. 55, no. 2. Performed by the Paris Opera Ballet's Aurélie Dupont and Laurent Hilaire.

Soft Lights and Animated Expressions With the CBC

Peter Mansbridge Interviews Obama

Low, warm lights. But body language is a little awkward.*

Obama first visit to Canada garnered the CBC's Peter Mansbridge the coveted pre-visit interview. It took place two days before the official visit while Obama was still at the White House.

An unusually animated Mansbridge, with a bemused Obama.

The normal face of Mansbridge, this time with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.*

*Screen shots from youtube videos [1, 2]

Our Changing Landscape

In a post about a new Christian magazine entitled: InControl: A Christian (Sort of) Magazine, I talk about how their timid, all-inclusive message about God is a danger to young Christians.

The Minute Details of World Conquest

Manoel de Oliveira's The Fifth Empire - Yesterday as Today

The young King Sebastian of Portugal (1554 and presumed dead 1578) surrounded by advisers

Often with stories of the empire building and world navigation centuries of the European nations, we forget the mundane, human details - the fears, expectations, longings and stubborn plans - and concentrate on the grandiose projects.

Manoel de Oliveira's The Fifth Empire - Yesterday as Today is the story, which eventually became a legend, of the young Portuguese king Sebatsian, who was believed to have died in battle while in Morocco, and who would miraculously reappear (according to the legend) to save Portugal in her darkest hour.

De Oliveira's film is pure dialogue. The young king has returned from his North African expidition and wants to set out again, and debates this with his advisers. It is set in the sumptuous palace, and with supernatural moments. It reminds me of Jacques Rivette's two-part film of Joan of Arc (Jeanne la Pucelle) which also had very little action but much dialogue (often tortured self-examination) and some beautiful scenery and backgrounds. Another film, by my favorite French director, Eric Rohmer (and a little out of character for him), is about Parsifal from the legend of King Arthur. Rohmer's film, Perceval le Gallois, is of similar austerity as Oliveira's The Fifth Empire and Rivette's Jeanne.

Rohmer, though, has a great talent of bringing out the pettiness and insecurities from his characters, but always with the sympathetic eye of a wiser, older grandfather who still sees the strengths behind these weaknesses.

In their own way, Rohmer and de Oliveira mock their heroes a little, who seem beset by their youth and uncertainty. Even Rivette's Joan is full of unquiet moments of doubt, which she often needs to overcome. Very grand legends become very humble humans in the hands of these great filmmakers.

Here are excerpts from Perceval le Gallois by Rivette.

Australia's Fires

And their stubborn persistence


Considering I spent some time writing Australia: Whose land is it anyway, it is really sad to see the horrific photos of the fires and deaths out there. Worse, it adds a new twist to "whose land is it anyway" as the composite image of a suspected arsonist looks like this:



Aborigines? South Asian? Someone wanting to reclaim "his land"?

Octo-Mom's Strange Associations

And the future of children



I wonder if I'm reading too much into this. Nadya Suleman, dubbed the "Octo-Mom", has a string of strange associations.

Her father is of Iraqi origin, who says he needs to go back to Iraq to work and help his daughter with the new set of kids.

Her mother Angela, who appears to be white, is divorced from her husband (Suleman), though she still lives with him.

Her fertility doctor has been identified as Iranian. I'm not sure if that means that he was born in the US, or immigrated to the US.

Nadya Suleman has an obsession with Angelina Jolie - she of the multicultural brood with no geography and no stable land (I think they're all living in France for now).

Suleman's sperm donor is David Solomon, who will not come forward but who apparently fathered all 14 children. He sounds possibly Middle Eastern to me. Some sources are speculating that they are related (Solomon - Suleman...)

Suleman's previous husband was named Gutierrez - Mexican?

I can make many associations here and speculate that what unites all these people is a unique sense of family, place and even the future. Or more precisely, a unique inability to have a sense of family, place and even a future.

I think this is to do with who they are. They all seem like a ragbag of immigrants, or immigrant-born people. Why should they care about "the future of children"? Children are the future of a country. In every region of the world, there are very strict moral rules and laws as to how they are born, and how they are brought up. Why should these people, given all the adulations immigrants get, become attached to America, her future, and hence her children? I don't even think they see America as a country, but rather as a place where they can get their things done - practice medicine, have children, get a house and a car and even a spouse. But to care about the land? Why should they? They already have one of their own.

In a society of people who live to gratify their needs, and who don't have the wisdom of parents who have a feeling for the future, what Nadya Suleman did is hardly surprising. Children just become another commodity, albeit a hormonally dictated one - as she herself keeps saying that she wanted them since she was a child. In fact, she makes it sound like those pairs of shoes she coveted at 13, and now she can have 140 pairs of them.

Her string of associations just helped her along the way, each with his distorted sense of family and children, and ultimately what it means to live and grow up in America. In fact, their example is a negative one, by which I mean that they have demonstrated to us how not to live and grow up in America.

Her octopus-like ability to reach out and cling to what she wants has made her a formidable personality. But this isn't something she would have made away with only a few short decades ago, and certainly not something she could have done by herself.

I could be speculating here, as I've said before, but I don't think so. This kind of behavior talks of disrespect and disassociation. People who love their country and its future would take better care of how their children are born and eventually raised. Nadya and her conglomerate of characters have failed on all counts.

Ingrid Mattson

Portrait of a convert



My article, "Ingrid Mattson: Portrait of a Convert" wasn't picked up either by American Thinker or Chronwatch. I believe they found it too personal (focusing on one person alone) and unsubstantiated.

But almost all the quotes and "speculations" I made were based on Mattson's writings, direct quotes of hers and interviews from television or radio shows. I write about Mattson's personality and characteristics, how I believe she went from a devout Catholic girl to a non-believer at age fifteen, and then to a Muslim only a few years later at 23. I think personal portraits are one important way we can know about decisions people make, especially someone as prominent as Mattson.

I tied it all up with her fine arts background, how she used images to try and find God, and finally renounced these images to uphold Islam. Her journey is peculiar and interesting.

In any case, I've filed it under my articles archive, and is here.

I'd blogged about her in Our Changing Landscape.

Our Changing Landscape

Islam on IMAX

On new post on the Imax film Journey to Mecca, at the Ontario Science Centre, which opened in conjunction with an exhibition Sultans of Science, I question the motives of the film and exhibition organizers.

Read more at: Islam on IMAX

Conservative Film Forums

Are out of touch

Logo from The Reel Conservative, a website which
says that it has "tracked down and reviewed the 100
best conservative films and videos ever made."

Libertas: A forum [blog] for Conservative Film has been on a hiatus since July 2008. Its hosting website Liberty Film Festival, ditto.

Liberty Film Festival was once associated with Frontpagemag, having had a prominent link on its menu. I don't know what happened to have its name removed, but I have always wondered when the site would go defunct. It was disorganized, the information was never clearly available, and its activities seemed to be a little all over the place. Are its members documentary filmmakers? Are they film critics and writers? Are they an advocacy group? Are they trying to be a glamorous alternative to Hollywood? A monthly film festival of conservative films? It was never clear. Too many roles and activities is a sign of a lack of focus.

I remember listening to Govindini Murty, who according to the website is: "Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Liberty Film Festival", on an interview and found her to be the usual outspoken "conservative" woman, à la Michelle Malkin, Ann Coulter and Debbie Schlussel. A bit ingratiating, and spending too much time berating liberals (or liberal films) instead of talking about real alternatives herself.

Here is another film society called American Film Renaissance Institute, whose mandate is to:

[C]elebrate timeless American values by producing, showcasing and distributing films that promote freedom (including free speech, free enterprise and freedom of worship), rugged individualism and the triumph of the human spirit; and through supporting, nurturing and training filmmakers who share AFR’s mission.

Now, this doesn't tell me anything new. In fact their workshops look like any other film workshop, and their big name instructors are all from the "original" Hollywood. And like Liberty Film Festival, they don't really seem to have much going on.

The irony is that there are really quite a lot of very good films around these days, from Revolutionary Road to Valkyrie, and even Australia is a well-executed film from which students can learn a lot. There seems to be no need for a "renaissance." Somehow filmmakers are figuring it out by themselves.

The problem is not of technique, many film schools can provide excellent technique, but of script. And that doesn't really come from workshops and activism, but from core values. Of course, art is not ideology, and I think that is what conservative films are trying to do, in reaction to liberals; form an "artistic" ideology.

Reaction, a good word in many conservative causes, is now overburdened. All conservatives do is literally react to liberal ideology instead of formulating their own beliefs and thoughts. Thus, what they do becomes haphazard and disorganized, following their noses instead of their minds. I think also that somewhere in their hearts, there is a liberal meter beating. So, rather than form organizations true to fundamental beliefs, conservatives start and fail regularly. Hence we get the John McCains and the David Frums of the political world, trying out a "new" conservativism, which really means an embellishment of liberal ideas. The same, apparently, goes for film.

John Galliano Channelling Vermeer

At the Paris Haute Couture week

Galliano using the Vermeer Blues and Yellows

John Galliano designs essentially unwearable clothes. But his genius and artistry is so great that it really doesn't matter. As all fashion followers know, catwalk fashion is really about showing rather than wearing. The onus is on the ordinary folks, who can pick ideas from these creations and put together outfits which reference them.

Blue from Delft Pottery

Galliano has always been more interested in past fashions than anything present.

Hats and collars from Vermeer's paintings

In this 2009 Paris Haute Couture Week, he has outdone himself, using Vermeer paintings and the blue color and designs of the Dutch Delft pottery as his inspiration for his Christian Dior collection.

Tulips

The good news is that he has found examples from our own centuries - using Alfred Hitchcock's films and Helmlut Newton's photographs as inspirations, and even tried his own version of the 50s.

More Obama Fiasco

Hope as plagiarism

AP claims to own the photo from which the
graphic poster was designed, and wants
compensation.

Shepard Fairey, Obama's designer for the famous "HOPE" poster is facing copyright issues. Story here.

Fairey is also being scrutinized for plagiarism of various other graphic works that he has done. The graphic artist who is following this case says:

What initially disturbed me about the art of Shepard Fairey is that it displays none of the line, modeling and other idiosyncrasies that reveal an artist’s unique personal style. His imagery appears as though it’s xeroxed or run through some computer graphics program; that is to say, it is machine art that any second-rate art student could produce.

Contemporary design - whether graphic, textile or even web - is highly dependent on "copying" or using already existing images. I think this speaks of the dearth of drawing and illustration skills that would have been essential in the non-photography, non-xerox age.

This actually curtails the imagination of the designer, and even the precision (and aesthetic quality) of the work. Details that can be changed with a pencil and an eraser are ignored because they would take up too much time on the computer or the xerox machine.

I intuitively feel that this also determines the type of person who would design such a graphic work, one who might be more of a (hurried) ideologue than a careful artist. This is an idea I will work on.

Iranian Transsexuals

And subversive documentaries

Abbas Kiarostami's Through the Olive Trees

Although homosexuality is banned in Iran, more people "diagnosed" as transsexuals have sex change operations in Iran than in any other country besides Thailand.

This strange statistic occurred because several Iranian medical doctors made a case for the "human rights" of cross-gendered people, and succeeded in getting the government to pay for half of the sex change operation fee.

I think this is one of those subversive acts by smart Iranian laymen who are possibly also non-Muslims (doctors in this case). Rather than have homosexual men and women stoned according to Islamic belief, these liberal-minded doctors concocted this "human rights" notion that men who feel like women should be helped to become women, and vice versa. I think their real motive was to avoid deaths and other punishments towards homosexuals by changing these men and women to their what they called their "natural gender".

I remember watching beautifully crafted Iranian films, so artistically made, with daring subjects and messages. Many of these films were made in rural areas, with local people as "actors", and which in essence were documentary-type films.

By pretending to film in this documentary style, following the lives of ordinary people as they "naturally" unfolded, these filmmakers were able to convince (fool) the government censors into letting them make their films. Quite a feat, in the harsh theocratic climate.

BBQ Cat and Chinese Restaurants

And I thought it was dog meat

Image from (appropriately) Blazing Cat Fur

Canada's most irritating lefty has gotten himself into trouble, which has all the conservatives [1, 2, 3, 4, and yes, even the aptly named Blazing Cat Fur] rubbing their hands with glee.

Warren Kinsella, Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff's senior strategist, wrote on his blog:

Back in the big Owe [Kinsella speak for Ottawa] for a couple of weeks, so what better way to kick things off than with BBQ cat and rice at the Yang Sheng, hangout of our youth. Yay!

I was excited, I was happy, I even filmed a little W@AL [Warren at Arm's Length - his video blog].

Then I walk in.

Sitting there, two Conservative guys I Did Not Want To See. Just seeing them gave me indigestion, and I hadn't even tucked into a bowl of barbecued cat, yet.

That's all he said: "kick things off with BBQ cat and rice at the Yang Sheng" and "I hadn't even tucked into a bowl of barbecued cat, yet" referring to his indigestion. And his post was immediately taken down (save that many made screen savers of his outspoken frankness).

Chinese communities and newspapers voiced their outrage, and demanded an apology immediately. Chinese-Canadian Conservative MP from Vancouver, Alice Wong, asked why Ignatieff hadn't fired his campaign aide yet, and the conservative blogosphere watched with amusement.

Alex Yuan, chair of the Chinese Canadian Conservative Association even said:

[Kinsella] has hurt the feelings of the Chinese people and disrespected the Chinese culture.

Hmm. Smells of a potential Human Rights Commission complaint.

The problem is that Kinsella has been fully supportive of Human Rights Commissions cases, and of one more recently filed against the National Post reporter Jonathan Kay, and several conservative bloggers: Kathy Shaidle, Ezra Levant, Kate McMillan, and Mark and Connie Fournier.

Warren Kinsella is as anti racism as they come. Hence the glee for his blogging mishap by conservative bloggers.

But, they all miss the point.

In a normal, Canadian world, Kinsella's comment would have garnered a chuckle here and nod there. I remember going into a slightly run down Chinese restaurant and one of the people with us said, "I hope there's no dog meat here." We just all laughed a little, and ordered our won tons and chow meins.

The conservative bloggers should have especially understood that. More than the Chinese, whom they are all now defending, including the ever-earnest Ezral Levant who was served his day in the kangaroo court for publishing the Mohammed cartoons, Warren Kinsella is their ally.

Yes, he is a die-hard liberal. But his jokes will be Canadian jokes, his culture (even his "punk" band - imagine a middle-aged man in a punk band, and it is not ironic) is still Canadian. His name, his attitude, his memories, his gastronomical palette are all Canadian.

What is infinitely more disturbing than Kinsella's mishap (or joke, as I see it) is the reaction of the "Chinese Community", which started dictating to various Liberal politicians what they should do with Kinsella. Since when has the Chinese community gotten so important that it can politically strong-arm Canada's leaders?

Well, since Harper made that formal apology for the Chinese Head Tax imposed on Chinese laborers from the mid-nineteenth century.

Let's also not forget those awful SARS months, a health scare from China no less, and when Toronto officials went around Chinese restaurants apologizing for their decline in clientele. As though SARS were a side-issue and the hurt feelings of Chinese restaurant owners who cried "racism" were what we should concern ourselves with.

This is how big these things get. If conservative writers, politicians and bloggers don't get that anytime the Chinese community demands retributions for what Canadians do or say they are in effect hijacking the country and its people, then they really don't understand the minority battles that are surging beneath the radar. Actually, minorities like the Chinese have become so powerful now that they no longer have to fight their battles undercover.

Warren Kinsella, for all his immaturity and stupidity, is still more of our ally than not. Maybe compatriot is a better word. At least he's not a whole minority immigrant group full of grievances, which demands - arrogantly - apologies and recompenses any time it feels offended. Let these groups loose, and they will be worse than Kinsella's "punk" band.

Conference on Preserving Western Civilization

This Weekend


This site started its odyssey (strong word for such a small blog, I know, but the ambitions were high) with the intention of recording the good and the bad that is happening in (my) Western culture. I wanted to focus on art and culture, but inevitably I had to get into areas like immigration and multiculturalism, factors which are negatively affecting the culture I'm writing about.

There is an important conference taking place this weekend in Baltimore, Maryland entitled Preserving Western Civilization. As far as I know, it is the first of its kind. I think it is a timely and necessary conference. It represents what I'm trying to do here at Camera Lucida and Our Changing Landscape, at least in blogging about the issues.

Some participating speakers include:

- Lawrence Auster from the View From the Right, whose website covers issues from Islam, to liberalism, to Christianity and Darwinism with a traditionalist perspective.

Mr. Auster will be presenting on A Real Islam Policy for a Real America.

- John Philippe Rushton, psychology professor from the University of Western Ontario, who has been criticized by Canadian media, and has even received the honor of David Suzuki's attention with Suziki saying, "There will always be Rushtons in science, and we must always be prepared to root them out!" for his views, including his book Race, Evolution and Behavior.

- Peter Brimelow, founder of Vdare, an immigration restriction site, and Brenda Walker contributing writer at Vdare.

I'm not sure about hotel reservations and conference tickets, but there's more information here, including the topics the speakers will be discussing. I would think Washington D.C. and Baltimore residents can go for the day (both days or one only).

Our Changing Landscape

Converts get their own mosque

Here's another typical "stealth Jihad", "creeping Sharia" or any other name you would like to give the slow and steady encroachment of Islam into the West, this time in Antwerp. Local Belgian converts are opening their own mosque.

Read more at "Belgian Converts Getting Their Own Flemish Mosque".

Bloggers

Going bust

Now this is pretty funny. Pajamas Media, a blogging network that actually paid bloggers to post their bits, was losing money from the beginning, with the CEO saying that people were getting their checks from a "stipend", which his laid-off bloggers took to mean...welfare. Bloggers are mad, and Pajamas Media has washed its hands off the whole enterprise.

Now, I don't really know how people make "full-time" salaries from blogging, although a few have claimed to do so. Most make money off donation drives. One financial adviser to the PJ Media, who was unceremoniously dropped very early on, explains that if you are a narrow and well-defined blog with the potential to sell specific products, like a photography blog which can sell camera-related items, then you have some chance of making a living out of your ads on your blog. Otherwise, it takes a lot of work and marketing to get it all going. Hence the lack of success for PJ Media to make any profit.

I used to have Google ads on my side panel. But, I started getting Muslim dating ads regularly since I blog on Muslim issues. I didn't like that, so I just discontinued them. I made $0 out of them, anyway (thank God?)

Edith Wharton Books

Into film
Edith Wharton's estate in Lennox Massachusettes "The Mount"
[Click on image to see larger version]

Seven of Edith Wharton's novels have been adapted into films, two of which I've seen: The Age of Innocence, directed by Martin Scorsese - yes a big surprise - with Michelle Pfeiffer and Daniel Day-Lewis, and The House of Mirth with Gillian Anderson (who was in the long-running TV series The X-files).

Both were memorable films, good acting and good direction. But, I remember thinking how very tragic they both were. The House of Mirth is about a gambling addiction which gets the better of the clever protagonist, Miss Bart. The Age of Innocence is a more complicated story of society's requirements in marriage, divorce and children. Individualism is not rewarded in Wharton's society, and although old loves may never be forgotten, social cohesion and responsibility are what adults chose, or at least were supposed to choose.

It's interesting, because in real life, it didn't work that way for Edith Wharton. After 28 years of marriage, and several affairs, her husband eventually divorced her.

Wharton has also written a book called The Decoration of Houses, which I had revisited (no pun...) recently. That was when I got the idea to find her novels, and then remembered that I had actually seen two of them as films.

Rooms at The Mount, the house which Wharton designed
Left: Third Floor Sitting Room
Right: The Dining Room
[Click on images to see larger versions]

A slide show explains the architectural and decorative decisions for the rooms in The Mount conceived and designed by Wharton herself.

Here are Wharton's impression of houses and women:

I have sometimes thought that a woman's nature is like a great house full of rooms: there is the hall, through which everyone passes in going in and out; the drawing room, where one receives formal visits; the sitting room, where members of the family come and go as they list; but beyond that, far beyond, are other rooms, the handle of whose doors perhaps are never turned, no one knows the way to them, no one knows whither they lead; and in the innermost room, the holy of holies, the soul sits alone and waits for a footstep that never comes.

Once again, a little sad. Perhaps it is no wonder given the marriage she had.

All of the Mount's architectural details are original to the house or painstakingly restored. In 1982, most of the applied decoration in the drawing room, from the wedding cake of a ceiling (a demonstration of her disdain for "monotonous" overhead surfaces) to the decorative swags between the French doors, was reinstated after severe water damage. Those doors are key to her vision: An ardent gardener, Edith was an equally passionate (and prescient) believer in the modern notion of "indoor/outdoor" living; the room opens out onto an enormous marble-paved terrace overlooking her magnificently landscaped grounds.

The interior decorations, however, are complete fabrications. After Edith left for France in 1911, the building was a girls' school and then a theater company until 2002, when Edith Wharton Restoration, a nonprofit established in 1980, took over. That year, decorators were invited to reinterpret the interiors for a fundraising designer showcase. Fortunately for Wharton fans, Charlotte Moss hewed as closely as possible to the original scheme, right down to the fringe-trimmed tufted sage sofa and three separate "conversation" areas (one hidden from view).