Resuming a Film Forty Years Later

From Buñuel to de Oliveira

Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 in G major, Allegretto grazioso
from my Camera Musica Youtube collection.

Note how one commenter compares this Dovrak movement
with Grieg's Anitra's Dance (from Peer Gynt), and I respond to him.

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Dvorak's Symphony No. 8 in G major, Allegretto grazioso was playing throughout Maneol de Oliveira's 2006 "Belle Toujours", with scenes of Paris floating by at night (mostly). De Oliveira is a Portuguese filmmaker, but like all artists, he quotes other artists. In this case, it is Buñuel's 1967 "Belle de Jour." In fact, de Oliveira ingeniously resumes "Belle de Jour" by reintroducing the two lead characters several decades later.

The old man, now in his late seventies, is clearly enjoying life with his cigars and whisky. But, the woman (played in Buñuel's film by the beautiful Catherine Deneuve) has ended up bitter and wary. She was the one who became a prostitute to overcome her frigidity. She now talks about going to a convent, surely to repent of her past sins.

I have this very Dvorak movement in my music Youtube, Camera Musica, and it was a pleasure to hear it in such a lovely little film (only an hour long). The music fit perfectly, especially with the male character’s light-hearted ways, and his clear enjoyment at teasing the woman with memories of the past.

De Oliveira likes sumptuousness, and this film is certainly luxurious, with the rich internal decors of hotels and restaurants.

Non-White Conservatives Disappoint Yet Again

Article at American Thinker By Nigerian Second Generation Immigrant


Just as I think a non-white conservative has some promise, then he takes the typical "blame whites for my, and my people's condition" attitude.

Look at Colin Powell who actually endorsed Obama, and Condoleezza Rice who was running around the world equating Palestinians with American blacks.

Here is another one. While browsing through American Thinker articles list, I came across this: "Obama, the African Colonial" by L.E. Ikenga. The writer sounds West African, and the title original.

I clicked to read further.

It starts out quite well, with the writer making a case for Obama's African (rather than African American) psyche, which she says he adopted from his father, and evidence of which she found in his book Dreams From My father.

She calls him a product of Africa's colonialism, where such men as Obama Sr., and Obama himself, instead of finding their own African heritage, adopt Western "isms" in order to structure their societies and countries. Ikenga writes that such men "[use] socialist themes as a way to disguise [their] true ambitions: a complete power grab whereby the 'will of the people' becomes completely irrelevant."

This is where Ikenga becomes the typical non-Western basher of Western ideals. She gives a 6-point "reminder" on what the European imperialist (the British in the case of her ancestral Nigeria) did to "[destroy] of all forms of democracy." They all fit in the classic: Europeans are the oppressors and destroyers of African culture, which is the reason the continent is in this quagmire.

She then equates these points with how Obama is destroying America. Her exact words are: "Here are a few examples of what the British did in order to create (in 1914) what is now called Nigeria and what Obama is doing to you [Americans]."

It is a clever juxtaposition of Obama's truly destructive ideologies with a system (European Imperialism) which actually brought democracy, stable system of governance and nationhood to many African countries. That some of these countries couldn't benefit from these systems is hardly the fault of the "imperialists."

Because many people have reading and comprehension deficiencies, and because they are so partisan (anything bad that is written about Obama is surely good), they got pulled into this typical Western-bashing article. Only a few comments of the 160 so far criticized Ikenga. Here is one lucid comment:

Posted by: Bruce Thompson
Jun 25, 05:40 AM

Much of what [Ms. Ikenga] complains about regarding the British would be called their desire to "assimilate" various tribal groups into a cohesive national identity. Where would India's "Untouchables" be without British colonization of India? Great Britain was the first nation to ban slavery. Great Britain built a nation called Rhodesia, which the native, tribal Africans have destroyed under the name Zimbabwe and it's "President" Robert Mugabe.

As to the Igbo tribe, Americans of a certain age will remember the pictures of starving children from the short lived nation of Biafra.

So Ms. Ikenga, please do not lecture us, the Americans, about the benefits of African tribal societies.

Conservative-Libertarian Lesbians

Where do we draw the line?

The Thinking Housewife (Laura Wood) had a great article up a few days ago on lesbianism and friendship. I sent her a comment yesterday about a commenter named Rose, who defends her lesbianism quite eloquently.

Laura wisely says that at the very end of the discussion:

I can neither condemn nor support Rose’s lesbianism. She upholds traditional marriage and the norm of heterosexuality. She is not recommending her way of life to others. She has explained her desires and dilemma. They seem quixotic, which is to say irrational and idealistic.

I agree with her. Yet, I felt compelled to send her a couple of emails on her posts because there are many "conservatives" like Rose, who essentially hold the libertarian view of "if it doesn't harm anyone, then my behavior is O.K." and still consider themselves part of the conservative community.

Again, it is hard to condemn people who seem half-way aware of their situation, but I'm afraid much of it is a solipsistic approach to life, and is in fact quite harmful.

For example, Rose will have young relatives cousins, young nieces and nephews, or other friends and acquaintances with impressionable children.

What are they to think when they see her behavior and her choices?

She may not advocate any of this in a vocal, public manner, but all her actions will draw attention to her “condition”, which will in fact become quite acceptable and normal in the eyes of these youngsters who don’t know any better.

I don’t know what the solution is to all this. In previous eras, such situations would have not warranted discussion – wrong is wrong, would have been the approach.

But, irrespective of all of that, conservative-libertarians are getting quite good at having us accept their deviant behaviour, and if not that, have us listen to them.

Does Sarah Palin See Her Errors?

Articles at American Thinker and Chronwatch.com

Palin family at the Republican National Congress

My recent article on Sarah Palin is up on American Thinker and Chronwatch.com.

I had been following Sarah Palin, and blogging about her and her family since her stunning rise into the VP candidacy last year. But many things seemed awry from the start, which I adress in the article.

An unedited, original version is at Chronwatch.com.

An edited version is at American Thinker. The editor of American Thinker asked that I make the changes in order for it to be more accepted for his website. I agreed, since I do like Sarah, and her gutsy approach to politics.

She has made some serious mistakes, and I think people should be made aware of them since she's in such a high-profile political position.

Looking for Allah in the Dark

Iranians chanting "Allahu Akbar" from their buildings


A screen shot I took from a youtube coverage of Iranians shouting "Allahu Akbar" from their buildings at night. The twinkling lights are the individual souls trying to get Allah's attention.

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The intense news coverage of Iranians protesting the elections was intriguing to watch. At first, though, it sounded like it would end up tragically, like the Tiananmen Square incident, but a hundred times worse.

Then, the protests kept going day after day, and I tried to find in the news coverage (or I should say the Facebook, twitter and youtube coverage) some insight into the demonstrators, and what they expected to accomplish.

Finally, there was one strange and underreported episode. In the dark of the night, with only the building lights to illuminate the scenes, chants of "Allahu Akbar" bounced off from building to building. Why didn’t we hear these chants during the day, and why in the dead of the night?

I think it is the syndrome of the absent Allah. Try as Muslims might to find him, Allah makes himself invisible, unattainable, unapproachable. This is why the minaret chants are so plaintive, crying out to Allah to show himself. I sent a comment on this to the View from the Right a while ago, which was kindly posted here, focusing on architectural and decorative design elements which force Muslims into this futile, incessant search for Allah.

Night makes Allah’s absence all the more poignant. At least during the day, there are signs and symbols on buildings, mosques and even people (the hijab-wearing females) to give an impression that Allah is in their midst.

At night, the Muslim has to contend with the darkness, which only conveys emptiness. The Iranians’ shouts were attempts at getting Allah to respond to them, in this dark moment of their protests.

Once I heard those chants, I realized that there was no revolution. Perhaps the theocracy might be subdued, but Iranians will remain Muslims, and they will have to battle, for eternity, the strong forces of a totalitarian, sharia-based country with their wish for a democracy. Unfortunately, the two are incompatible. They will have to give up one or the other. They will have to choose between Islam and democracy. And I think they have chosen Islam.

Drawings at the National Gallery of Canada

A student's paradise

Michelangelo's study for the Libyan Sibyl, 1511;
The Libyan Sibyl at the Sistine Chapel.

Blogging was light these past few days since I was in beautiful Ottawa.

Ottawa is just the right combination of the urban, rural and suburban (which is more rural than most suburbs). Being the nation's capital city, it has an impressive downtown area, with the official, governmental buildings standing tall and stately.

Almost every summer, the National Gallery of Canada brings a one-of-a-kind exhibition, sometimes a rotating one (with other big-name museums and galleries). This time, the exhibition was exclusively for Ottawa and was titled: "From Raphael to Carracci: The art of Papal Rome."

Spanning a full century, from 1500 to 1600, it exhibited works commissioned by these powerful popes from the prevalent artists of the age, including Michelangelo and Raphael.

Most of the works were preparatory drawings, later to be made into large-scale paintings, or frescoes as in some of Michelangelo's works.

This exhibition was a student's paradise, showing us the trials and experiments the painters went through to convince their patrons, the powerful popes, and to finally get their works completed.

Niagara Escarpment

Lorraine Roy's Textiles

Escarpment 5

[Click image to see larger version].

Also, visit Lorraine Roy's website for her beautiful collection of textile art based on nature.

Modern Artists and the Occult

No longer just a strategy for art-making


I've been caught up with doing some fascinating research on the Human Rights Commissions, which I've been blogging about at Our Changing Landscape for the past several weeks.

This has taken my time away from Camera Lucida, and some themes I have been following recently, one of which is filmmaker Bruce Elder's latest book on modern artists and the occult.

Invariably this led me to W. B. Yeats and the occult. But I found Yeats' use of the occult far less harmful than Elder's. In fact, I think Elder uses his art to describe and pay homage to the occult, rather than use the occult to help him find a strategy to make art, which is how Yeats used it.

I will write more on this later, but I'm getting more and more convinced that much of art these days is a substitute, and even a re-creation, of religion and spirituality, and Elder's work seems to illustrate that.

Sarah Palin's Hypocrisy

And not facing up to her problems

 
Bristol Palin next to the father of her unborn, as of now illegitimate, child, ready for birth any day.

Sylvie, from the film Les Diablesses, next to one of the nuns when she enters the correction center for "lost girls", ca. 1950. Sylvie, and many girls like her, had their illegitimate babies in secret, and then were forced to give them up for adoption.

Images from an earlier post on Sarah Palin.
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Sarah Palin's daughter and her daughter's fiancé keep dominating the media. A few months ago, Levi went on various talk shows to discuss his relationship with Bristol, and how they broke up.

Now, it is David Letterman who made jokes about Bristol's propensity for getting pregnant.

What does Palin expect? She paraded her unmarried pregnant daughter at the RNC last year, where everything seemed under control with the fiancé also present. But they had never set a date for a wedding (although there were stories that Palin tried to get them married off before the RNC), and Levi's interviews later revealed that he was coerced into going to the RNC.

But, what is worse than that is Palin apparently had allowed the young teenager to stay overnight with his girlfriend at her home in Alaska.

Now, there is only one reason why Palin would allow this under her roof: to avoid her daughter from going somewhere else to be with her boyfriend.

In other words, her daughter was out of control, and only extreme measures such as this would keep her near her mother.

So, now when comedians, who always have the knack for catching underlying problems and make them into jokes, bring this up, she gets all indignant. In fact, she calls it an assault on a young girl's "self-esteem."

This is sorry language from a conservative woman. In fact, it is feminist language. But Palin is a member of a pro-life group which calls itself "Feminists for Life."

Now that her family's disorganized (and disastrous) life has been exposed, she resorts to the victim mentality rather than take full responsibility for all that went wrong.

Purple Flowers Again

Wisteria on gray wall

Iris growing in a Victorian yellow brick house garden

Columbines in a parking lot; Clematis have all summer to take over

Projects I'm Working On

The Pink flowering dogwood

The flowering dogwood

I started with the cluster above, and reduced it to just three flowers using photoshop.

I then moved the middle flower around,


then got rid of it altogether in the final image.


Here is the drawing,


and some brush strokes and colors I'm trying out for the watercolor.


I plan to add a small bird in the center between the two flowers, maybe one like this:

A yellow-billed magpie
 
Eventually, I will transform the whole image into a repeat design. I won't change the structure of the flowers much, except to work with placing the bird in front or behind the flowers.

Like Clockwork: Part III

This is becoming a Takuan Seiyo-style series


The purpose of my posts is not to denigrate writers, and their often heart-felt need to communicate their ideas in their own idiosyncratic styles.

I am an ordinary reader, whose background is definitely not writing, although I have spent a good deal of my life reading (mostly, 99%, fiction) to have been called a book-worm at one point.

So, it is a little surprising that I turned to the visual media as my training and profession. Perhaps I understood that a hidden obsession of many writers is to be a Hemmingway or Dostoevsky.  

Perhaps people who read the writers I have mentioned so far have also this secret desire to be great writers themselves, and are hungrily devouring every word as a way to find the clues to what they think might be good writing.

But, conservative writing, I believe, has taken on too much of this ego and idiosyncrasy.  

In any case, I will take on the Brussels Journal regular Takuan Seiyo, who has a (so far) twelve-part series:"From Meccania to Atlantis", at their website.

The first time I read Takuan Seiyo at Brussels Journal (Seiyo’s name reminds me of those Japanese cartoon characters which are the craze in video games - not a good image for a “seasoned” man), I literally skimmed the paragraphs to catch key-phrases of his never-ending 4,000-word article. I think it was Part 3 or Part 4.

After that, I simply lost interest, and I don’t think I read any more until perhaps the 8th or 9th article in the series, and again to skim through the last two or three paragraphs.

I wonder if Seiyo plans on publishing these in a book? I somehow don’t think so. I don’t think his wild trips into the modern world’s psyche make for a good book – they’re too repetitive and too exclamatory. But, what do I know. There are enough people who take the time to read his articles who might be game for a (paid) book version.

The interesting thing, though, is that at Gates of Vienna, Seiyo has a new article about the Vdare-featured Kevin MacDonald’s anti-Semtitic writings. And the title even has a normal ring to it: "Critique of the Culture of Kevin MacDonald."

Despite its close to 4,000 words (3,811, to be exact), Seiyo has avoided the screeching tone of his “Meccania to Atlantis” series to write something which reverberates as genuine and sincere.

Ironically, although writers may think they are connecting us with their "true self" when they let their ego or vanity dominate, the exact opposite actually happens.

Here are links to the first two parts:

Like Clockwork: Part I - Writers at Vdare show us something of their true nature

Like Clockwork: Part II - What exactly is Ilana Mercer?

Windows Adorned

A way to belong

Photos by David Wyman

The photo on the right is titled: "Beautiful security, Queen Street East, Toronto."

The photo on the left could be any barbershop in a more modest neighborhood in Toronto (many barbers are Italian). The barber has taken the time with make-shift signs, and painted the exterior a dynamic blue. Even the interior walls are filled with paintings and drawings, giving the store a personal touch

[click on the photos to see larger images]

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There is a long tradition of adorning shop windows so they reflect the business or the trade that they front. Some settle for simple decorations, others go for the more ornate.

But, there is nothing more depressing than a shop which makes no effort on its windows, not just to attract shoppers, but to brighten up its space by the sidewalk.

I think shopkeepers make this effort when they feel they are part of the street, part of that community and the neighborhood. This way, they show some pride and care in their store, which after all is an extention of themselves.

These days, there are an infinite number of convenience stores which have sprung up at every corner of every street (well, that's what it feels like). Its owners are often silent Asians, many Koreans and Chinese, who don't go through the preliminary greetings, and often don't even to call out the price of the item as they ring it in. 

Of course, part of this is their lack of English. But, I've experienced this with those more fluent. It is as though the shop is just a storage place for the goods they are to sell, which will bring them the income they need. Everything else is secondary.

Not only is this attitude visible in their shop exteriors, but often the interior is a heap of articles in narrow passageways, which simply encourages the shopper to get the item and leave as quickly as possible

Like Clockwork: Part II

What exactly is Ilana Mercer?


The interaction at David Yeagley’s blog, after his write-up on three non-liberal commentators, sparked a theme of mine I had been trying to broach for a while, but didn’t know how to do it without coming off negative and overly critical.

Patience usually rewards with opportunity, and these last few days, there have been plenty of opportunities.

The theme that I have been pursuing is the non-conservative nature of non-MSM (NMSM) conservatives.

This is my analysis of the situation:

1. NMSM so-called conservatives tend to form a clique against those evil liberals, so anything liberals say, however true (or false, it doesn’t really matter), is to be categorically dismissed and ridiculed. So truth becomes secondary to attacking liberals.

2. Many of these NMSM conservative commentators spend an inordinate amount of time "expressing" themselves with quaint writing styles, caustic expressions, clever turns of words with which to insults liberals, and an anger which is always present, which I’ve discussed is what often fuels their energy and writing. This results with writing full of ego, which I call vanity.

3. In reality, many of these NMSM conservative writers are not conservative at all. But they need somewhere to publish their works. So they depend on true conservative media sources which often have the largest readership. When a true conservative reads their material, he is left confused with what appears to be muddled, and at times incoherent, writings which don’t really support conservative ideas.

This actually supports point #2. If the truth (of conservatism) is not their main point, what then is their purpose? To write to "express" themselves, which ultimately showcases their vanities.

In my post "Like Clockwork", Peter Brimelow provided me grist for the mill, so to speak.

And more recently I linked to Ilana Mercer, to read some of her comments that David Yeagley wrote about in his article mentioned above.

I have maintained for a while that Mercer is no conservative. She calls herself a classical liberal (as a step closer to a conservative?) on her blog, but I don't think she's even that. But more on that a little later.

Mercer’s articles get published at Taki’s Mag (another "conservative" site I will leave for another blog post). The title to her latest article included an immature expletive, which was what the editors at Taki's Mag decided on (you can still see the full title in the web address).

Shortly after I saw that post, the expletive was deleted.

This article had been up for a couple of days before this word was removed, and most likely not until Taki's Mag fans had read it and the article.

Any self-repsecting writer would have asked immediately that the word be removed. Did Mercer do this? No, and even the later removal was the work of the editor. Mercer's excuse was that she has no control over this. Well, writers who say they have no control over such things are afraid of not getting published.  

I might be picking on an unnecessary detail here, but I think it is the same character revelation as Brimelow’s "strikingly handsome" quote. And this proves my point that writers form cliques, mainly to find places where they can get published, and principles are distorted or even discarded for the sake of the writing.  

Despite describing herself on her website as a classical liberal, Mercer’s article at Taki's Mag was reprimanding libertarians to not alienate their followers, and more importantly to act as good ambassadors for the Libertarian leader Ron Paul, whom she clearly supports. So, what exactly is Mercer, a conservative, a classical liberal, or a libertarian?

One final point. How can someone who talks, albeit rather confusedly, about conservatism, write for an online magazine whose editor regularly admits to his past adulterous, drunken and prison experiences?

Lilacs At Their Last Stretch

City lilacs downtown, and only ten minutes away in a residential area.

Like Clockwork

Writers at Vdare show us something of their true nature


Here is a post at the immigration reform website Vdare, where my suspicions about the vanity of writers are, if not confirmed, at least supported.

The editor and founder of Vdare, Peter Brimelow, posted this observation about him on Vdare's blog a few days ago:

Peter was strikingly handsome, with light-brown hair and piercing blue eyes.

Yes, it is a quote from an article by another writer – from the Vdare nemesis National Review. But who quotes from someone else how "strikingly handsome" one is?

Sorry, but Mr. Brimelow has nothing on him, light brown hair and piercing blue eyes notwithstanding (even in later years) .

But, as tempting as it is to go on about this, although it seems that readers are being goaded by Brimelow himself, I am not really interested in this. I am more interested in the content of Vdare, and what has it accomplished in the past ten years.

According to its copyright stamp at the bottom of its website, Vdare has been around since 1999. That is ten years.

So, it begs the question: What has Vdare achieved in the ten years that it has been publishing information and articles about immigration? Let me start by comparing it to another site.

Numbers USA has been around since May 2008 (at least according to their blog archives – although it seems much longer to me). They have divided their website into various categories:

- In depth articles
- Regular blogs
- Links for taking action – for political or grass-roots activities
- Other sources of practical information, including the latest immigration news, policies, governmental actions, election results, etc…
- Several ways in which to contact congressmen, including faxing or emailing them
- Updates on Numbers USA members in their grass-roots or political action, including testifying before various Senate committees.

Throughout the time I’ve been reading Numbers USA, they urge their readers (now well-informed about the issues through the blogs and articles) to actively participate in the immigration fight, including contacting their congressmen, or specific congressmen when the issues are more definite.

I’m not saying that a politics-oriented website has to enter directly into the field of politics. But Numbers USA has done an incredible job of posting researched articles, daily blogs, policy oriented information, grass roots action, and much more, for their readers. And they make things happen.

The only thing I would hope Numbers USA address with equal insight, information and action, is Muslim immigration. They are so focused on Hispanics and Indian IT workers, that they have neglected this most dangerous group of immigrants.

There is no doubt that Peter Brimelow has gone through great lengths to build his website. It really is a fountain of information, with some cutting-edge, factual, empirical, research on immigration and its costs to American society.

Yet, the writers have a tendency to use the site as a grievance center, Brimelow included.

The writers seem more interested in dredging out the most horrific news, statistics, and anecdotes. Some abandon completely their grass-roots involvement with immigration (such as Joe Guizzardi, a candidate in California’s gubernatorial recall election in 2003, who fled California - according to a blog entry in Vdare -  for Pennsylvania).

Vdare could have been the powerhouse which Numbers USA is slowly becoming. Vdare has the man-power and the intellectual capacity. It apparently also has a loyal following, which nonetheless might be not so loyal if recent fundraising drives are anything to go by. People don’t want to send money to a movement which has no…motion!

I will conclude with one more point.

At a recent, very important, inaugural conference, Preserving Western Civilization, Brimelow gave the following speech: "Immigration, Innumeracy, And The Case For Impeaching Judges." Well, this is the title he gave his speech on Vdare, post conference. At the conference, it was simply called: "Problems Caused by Immigration."

Brimelow started his speech – in front of an expectant audience – with an unnecessary jibe (a tradition at Vdare) at the SPLC, and only after he got that in did he thank his host, who should have had the honors at the onset. Angry retaliation at one’s perennial enemy seems to take precedence over acknowledging the hard work and enterprising spirit of one individual who managed to get an important group of people together for an action oriented meeting, something which Brimelow so far has been unable to do.

But, beyond that breach of courtesy (anger and bitterness makes you awfully self-centered), and a flippant reference to a one-man-show website, and its author’s dedication with time spent on the internet, without complaint, to get his insights and information across to thankful readers (Brimelow always seems to be complaining about how much time his website takes to run), Brimelow gave a rambling speech on immigration in general, much of which his adroit audience probably already knew. And he provided an odd ending.

Brimelow’s final suggestion (solution to problems in immigration?) was to: impeach the judges. That was it. As an immigration expert of many years, who has all the data and information under his belt, this was all he could come up with.

In contrast, look at the leap of imagination, and a hope for something concrete and even possible, that the afore-mentioned and slightly, perhaps affectionately, mocked website author, Lawrence Auster, presented in eloquent fashion: "A Real Islam Policy for a Real America."

I have written that many writers these days, who are trying to fight the liberal world, get caught up in their own anger, bitterness, and eventual vanity (may as well be pleased with oneself – and one’s "eloquence" – if all else fails). This is what I think Vdare, despite its many good services, has become.

I think Brimelow is better off considering what his real impact on the immigration problem has been, besides giving rambling, and not so eloquent speeches at important conferences.

Despot...Hmmm

No analogies here



Yes, I have corrected it. I was pronouncing the "s" as a silent one. But in French it is also “despote” – and the “s” is pronounced. So I have no idea where the error came from.

In any case, I just realized that my image of the Ivory Coast city may be misconstrued as analogous to one in the U.S. (or what Obama may do to the U.S. in the future).

Not likely. Obama is already off the wall. Just look at Gitmo, and his awful "the Muslims built our tallest building" thing - well yes, they also destroyed two other tall ones. Won't people of all stripes and orientations begin to realize what a mediocrity he is, and a dangerous one at that (and I would add insulting, too)?

No, the photo was to show how ludicrous President Félix Houphouët-Boigny was, spending all that money and time for a pretentiousness that doesn't fit his city or his people. All for show.

That's the part where Obama comes in. All show. Maybe I should have just called him nouveau riche, and be done with the whole de[s]pot thing. I don't even think he has it in him to be a despot.

Obama As Third World Despot

Or is it nouveau riche?

Basilique de Notre Dame de la Paix de Yamoussoukro, Côte d'Ivoire.
Built in the late 1980s at a cost of $300 million.
It is listed as the largest church in the world.

Third World despot, or is it just nouveau riche? But isn't that the curse of Third World despots, who get all agog in the face of their new power, and all the things they can do with it?

Here is a short, but by no means complete list (it will stretch over the years), of some of Obama's over-the-top behaviors:

- An 850 mile pizza delivery. Obama has a St. Louis pizza restaurant owner fly to the White House with a suitcase of dough, cheese and pizza pans make pizzas for him and his guests. He had sampled the chef's specialties while in St. Louis during his campaign. Now, what person remembers a deep-dish pizza while in the midst of a tumultuous traveling and speaking whirlwind to secure the most important post in the country?

- Michelle Obama* was wearing designer sneakers (really ugly, I might add) while volunteering at a D.C. foodbank. Wearing $500 sneakers at a food bank is like saying, "let them eat cake."

- And of course the famous "date night", in the middle of the recession and while GM was preparing to file bankruptcy, to New York for dinner and a Broadway show.

I have a feeling that such strange, disconnected (with ordinary people) behavior will continue. And each time it happens, people will be outraged, and writers will find renewed energy to pen their ineffective pieces.

* I had promised not to write about Michelle Obama's fashion sense. But, this isn't really about her shoes...

Calling the Bluff of "Conservative" writers

They have no desire to cure their anger

As I read the conservative commentators over the past few months, one thing I notice is that their ire with Obama gets more high-pitched by the day.

I don't know why they're spending their energy this way. Obama has consistently acted in ire-inducing ways, and gave us a sample of this even before he became president. Some incidents include:

- His church and Jeremiah Wright
- His grandmother
- His reaction on blacks and crime 
- His silence after his wife’s atrocious words

And after his election, it just continued to spiral, or at least continue in the same direction.

There is just too much anger going on in conservative writing in general. An anger that allows them to wax eloquent. 

In other words (pun intended), all those angry words the angry conservatives wrote have added up to zilch. I maintain that much of conservative writing (although it must be writing in general) is a kind of vanity. Look how angrily I write. How eloquently, how wittily, how profoundly I can write. What a tool for my writing my anger is.

I'm saying all this after an interesting interaction with David Yeagley's blog, who like all the rest, uses this anger as his crutch.

The discussion there was about the female non-liberal writers (I don't even know what to call them) [1, 2, 3], who have offered us reams of their indignations. And what are we left with? A mediocre president, who bustles around the world and around the country as he pleases. Who ignites the anger of these writers! How convenient.

My solution to their anger, which of course they would never want to let go of, is:

At the moment of the Hussein debacles, the Wright atrocities, the insult on whites, the demeaning of the grandmother, Michelle’s horrific words, writers should have just left their comfortable desks and high speed internets to do some...ground work.

- Have people sign petitions
- Do marches around D.C.
- Sit in hunger strikes
- Overtake radio stations
- Get arrested for civil disobedience
- Team up with the Minute Men
- Go to the heartland and learn to shoot
- Build an army of the unemployed (victims of out-sourcing) of Ohio

DO something about this candidate, and now president, who flames their indignation so (too) easily.

But no. If I were a psychoanalyst, I would have concluded that these writers didn’t want to lose their anger. They didn’t want things to change. I would have called their bluff.

Often writers are scorned for having no effect. There is nothing truer than that at this point.

The Barriers That Hide Truth From Us

Can they be surmounted? 

David Yeagley, on his webstite Bad Eagle posted this article: "Malkin, Mercer, and Schlussel on Sotomayor". I never read conservative, or non-liberal writers these days, since their whole being has morphed into liberal bashing. I don't think they inform me, or provide for me any insightful commentary that would help elucidate the world around me. This is how I responded to his article:

There are some really interesting women writers, who don’t have their snarkiness. Diana West is one, and with a successful, non-snarky, informative and insightful book out called "The Death of the Grown Up"... Another is more of an academic - Christina Hoff Summers. She’s the one everyone quotes for ideas on what’s happening to young boys.

Your trio (or more) of women pundits are really just followers, David. They don’t bring original insights, and almost all of their writing is a quote of a quote of a quote.

One of his reactions to my comments was : "The Sword of Amhara has arrived. (I knew it!)".

Now, for some reason, this really irritated me. I responded a little hastily: 

David, I know it is really your style to categorize people in terms of their tribal groups, but these days, even the Amhara don’t really find much similarity with me. I grew up in England, France, in complete isolation of Ethiopians. When I came here, it was rather a culture shock to find so many Ethiopians.

Whatever I say, I say as a Westerner. That is how my mind thinks.

A little later, and a little calmer, I posted this:

I think I understand what irritated me about this. It is as though if I (as an example) get angry or voice a slightly controversial opinion, in your eyes (sorry to put you on the spot), it could be a relative truth as in "This is how an Amhara says it, or reacts to it" as opposed to: "this might be a possible truth."

As though truth is a relative thing, with some more approachable to it, and others not.

I’ve noticed you use the same analogy with women.

Now, this is a really interesting problem. If truth seeking, or truth recognition is only privy to certain groups, what does this mean?

I base my speculations on a purely intuitive premise, and that, I base on religious truth.

If one claims that certain groups of people cannot get at Truth, one is claiming they cannot get at the Truth of God. That is a pretty stiff condemnation to make.

Everyone has the ability to see the light of that Truth. If everyone can see that Truth, how about the mundane truths of everyday life, choosing between truth and falsehood, right and wrong? Those too. 

The barrier that gets in the way of truth, I think, is our ego. In response to David Yeagely's article, I call that vanity, for women at least. Some women are affected by it, others less so. And perhaps women are affected by it more so than men, which makes their barrier harder to surmount.

Rather than the inability to see, or tell, the truth, it is some kind of barrier which can come between the truth and us knowing or practicing it. Maybe that what David Yeagley is talking about.

So, the secret to truth-telling or truth-seeking might just be this barrier. And the task is how to prevent it from overshadowing our reception of truth.  

The Legacy of the Likes of the Human Rights Commissions

And how it affects our designs

I've spent of good deal of time on the HRCs in Our Changing Landscape. As an antidote, I posted on another type of legacy, a positive and constructive one (in the literal sense, in that it builds rather than destroys), on an immigrant Danish textile designer.

Design suffers under the stifling climate of the HRCs, which I maintain are fueled by the multicultural society that immigration fosters. I posted an earlier blog titled, "How Multiculturalism Infantilizes Design", relating to Diana West's book Death of the Grown Up, and a lecture where she equated multiculturalism with the infantilization of our society. Here is the quote from the lecture:

During one lecture on The Death of the Grown-Up, I took a question from a man who wondered, in a rather agitated way, if I were actually saying that multiculturalism is juvenile. I hadn’t phrased things that way, but, on quick reflection, I told him that, yes, that was indeed what I was saying. The fact is, buying into multiculturalism — the outlook that sees all cultures as being of equal value (except the West, which is essentially vile) — requires us to repress our faculties of logic, and this in itself is an infantilizing act.

On more practical terms, if someone (a Muslim, say), doesn't like the kind of design you put up for your company or business, he can go to the HRCs and complain that his feelings have been hurt, and the sign has got to go.

So, out of fear of insulting, offending or hurting the feelings of the myriad of groups, whose cultures genuinely may not accept the kinds of imagery and logos you design, you are forced to take the true character out of your creations, and come up with atrocities like these instead.

How multiculturalism, and the HRCs, can affect our design

Diana West's multicultural infantalization is a direct result of our immigration policies.

To regain our mature and truly vibrant styles, (and to dismantle the HRCs), it appears more and more necessary that we pay attention to immigration, which lets this juvenile multicultural world to escalate, while diminishing our own complex world.