Central Park West

John Coltrane
Central Park West

Chasin' the Equinox

My Favorite Things

A Bed of Purple Flowers at the Allan Gardens

[Photo by KPA]

Spring flowers and green leaves surround the Allan Gardens and the conservatory. Only a few months ago, snow covered the grounds, and the trees were bare.

Who Has the Backs of Ordinary People?

L- Spike Lee with his white-looking wife posing with
race-baiter Sharpton
R- Zakaria and Throckmorton-Zakaria

I recently posted on the Third World elitist, hypocrite Fareed Zakaria with his ant-West (anti-Christian) and anti-white commentaries, who nonetheless marries a white woman.

Spike Lee is another non-white, elitist, hypocrite, who finds any way possible to malign white and western culture, yet cannot live without the offerings of these cultures. I discuss this here. This link also quotes from Jim Kalb's speech "The Cultural Antichrist" where he discusses fascism:

[Fascism]'s a nice clear system, and it's got some logic behind it, but it doesn't work very well. It was tried and it lost. For that reason, the liberal solution won out.

That solution is a bit more complicated. It starts by noting that all our purposes are equally purposes, and infers that everybody's purposes equally confer value. Each of us is equally able to make things good or bad just by thinking of them as good or bad. That makes each of us in a sense divine. Our will creates moral reality. Instead of the wonder-working leader of fascism you get the divine me of liberalism. It's every man his own Jesus.

I comment on this:

So how do liberal leaders get all these equally stationed demi-gods to follow them? It is still sheer will, I would think, of maintaining a semblance of liberal equality, but working with (and secretly ruling with) brute fascistic superiority, through a lot of lying and deceiving.

The sooner people realize that their (liberal) elites really don't have their backs, the better.

"I couldn't Do Without a Pansy Bed­"

"I couldn't do without a pansy bed­"
From Reverie, by Helen Bath Swanson
[Photo by KPA]

Reverie
By Helen Bath Swanson

A warm and cheery fire roars merrily
And shadows dance about the darkened room.
Beside the hearth a gardener sits and dreams
Of sunny days, of flowers in full bloom.
Some hollyhocks should tower near the fence,
Bright red. ones that the bees can't help but find.
The trellis at the gate again must wear
Blue morning glories, or the rosy kind.
To lend a bit of distance to the scene,
Close to the rear I'll plant in shades of blue:
The tall and stately larkspur, double ones­
Of course I'll put in scabiosa, too.
I couldn't do without a pansy bed­
Snapdragons make such beautiful bouquets­
Frilled zinnias and yellow marigolds
Add just the proper touch to autumn days.
The flowers grow and bloom with loveliness
Until a sound destroys the fantasy­
A burning ember falls and I must leave
My garden and my charming reverie.

Malign America, but Marry Her Women - Links Added

Zakaria and Throckmorton-Zakaria

In my previous post Malign America, but Marry Her Women, I wrote that Fareed Zakaria is married to the statuesque blonde Paula Throckmorton, and that his marriage is going through some "rough patches." I neglected to provide the link to the "troubled marriage" information, which I got from a short spot on Huffington Post, which links to a slightly longer post at the New York Post.

Goddess Wannabes

Beyonce, the girl who runs the world

There is a group of female pop stars who are channeling the netherworld of the goddess. The most prominent is Lady Gaga, whose name might imply someone who is gaga over the world, but is really is a narcissistic spotlight on her (often half-naked) self - be gaga over me. It actually fits well with gag, which is a reflex she would induce in a normal world. Yet Gaga  writes such conventional songs, that her "outrageous" persona may just be another camouflage to detract from her ordinariness.

Her spawns, or "monsters" as she refers to her fans, also include a group of female pop stars, who would deny this association, but the resemblances are too great to ignore. They may not dress her part, but they certainly live up to her image.

Beyonce recently released a music video she titles "Girls run the world" Girls! Girls?! So much for girl power. She is looks all-powerful in a skimpy outfit and wobbling in ten-inch Gaga-inspired heels, lugging along a couple of wild dog beasts in an apocalyptic landscape. "When not performing, [Beyonce is] often soft-spoken, feminine," and even demure in public, I wrote here. I suppose girls want it all.

Britney Spears and Rihanna (Rihanna's S&M music video was recently banned) sing together while performing simulated lesbian sex, wearing futuristic plastic underwear. Britney, to her credit, looks tired and unconvinced throughout the video, with an aggressive Rihanna pushing the limits. Poor Britney, first Madonna, then Rihanna.

Nicki Minaj shows up in her videos with an overblown rear-end, and in multi-colored wigs and make-up as camouflage. Once again, it is surprising to hear her sing conventional pop songs behind such outfits.

Jennifer Lopez wriggles on the dance floor with her non-singing voice squeaking out mediocre melodies, making sure the attention is on her moves rather than her voice. Recently on the variety show American Idol, we realize that even these small town contestants with no name are infinitely better singers than Lopez. We also had to watch her perform a stripper dance while her Latino husband Mark Anthony took the stage with his English/Spanish song. Even Ryan Seacrest, the diplomatic host of the show couldn't help saying: "Is that the kind of think you do at home?" at the end of her performance.

Lopez and Anthony have signed up to do a Latin America Idol. Lopez gushes:

[This is] a show for the 21st century with an unprecedented global and local story. The Latin culture is a tapestry that is rich in passion, tradition and artistry. This journey for me and Marc is going be exciting and groundbreaking.

Christina Aguilera keeps showing up in tight tights and bulging thighs, having given birth recently. Something tells me that she will keep this "look."

And Katy Perry, when she isn't dressed as an alien, comes out in exaggerated little-girl uniforms of short dresses and eyes wide open with mascara and kohl.

Few of these women pop stars use color - no reds, oranges, yellows, pinks, mauves - to adorn themselves. Wherever they use jewelry, it is frighteningly large, or the ubiquitous cross (goddesses have to use some religious symbolism after all). Beyonce dresses in gold - but that surely is the color of the goddess. And Katy Perry comes out in bubble-gum colors and skirts hiked up high, and she's the (little) girl who rules the world.

What happened to the feminine voice, and the feminine body covered in pleasing colors and dresses? What happened to beauty? Or even prettiness? What happened to melody?

Of course, Madonna started the lesbian kiss trend and the bizarre outfits which never fit her bouncy, danceable songs.

And Cher started exposing a semi-naked body at the rise of these young goddess wannabes to avoid being shut out of the limelight.

There are many others in earlier decades, but I don't think they conflated their imaginary lives as performers with a real-world agenda. Contemporary female pop stars take themselves very, very seriously.

Avril Lavigne, in a ballet frock and army boots
advertising her perfume "Black Star" and with
all kinds of S&M paraphernalia

What the Hell (Avril Lavigne, 2011)

You say that I'm messing with your head
All 'cause I was making out with your friend
Love hurts whether it's right or wrong
I can't stop 'cause I'm having too much fun

You're on your knees
Begging, "Please
Stay with me"
But honestly
I just need to be
A little crazy

All my life I've been good,
But now...
I'm thinking, "what the hell?"
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about...

If you love me
If you hate me
You can't save me
Baby, baby
All my life I've been good
But now...
What the hell?

What?
What?
What?
What the hell?

So what if I go out on a million dates?
You never call or listen to me anyway
I'd rather rage than sit around and wait all day
Don't get me wrong, I just need some time to play

You're on your knees
Begging, "Please
Stay with me"
But honestly
I just need to be
A little crazy

All my life I've been good,
But now...
I'm thinking, "What the hell?"
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about...

If you love me
If you hate me
You can't save me
Baby, baby
All my life I've been good
But now...
What the hell?

La, la, la, la, la, la
Whoa, whoa
La, la, la, la, la, la
Whoa, whoa

You say that I'm messing with your head
Boy, I like messing in your bed
Yeah, I am messing with your head when
I'm messing with you in bed

All my life I've been good,
But now...
I'm thinking, "What the hell?"
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about
All my life I've been good,
But now...
I'm thinking, "What the hell?"
All I want is to mess around
And I don't really care about...

(If you love me)

If you love me
If you hate me
You can't save me
Baby, baby
(If you love me)
All my life I've been good
But now...
What the hell?

La, la, la, la, la, la
La, la, la, la, la, la

I wonder what Doris Day and her contemporaries would say?

Malign America, but Marry Her Women

Zakaria and Throckmorton-Zakaria

I never gave Fareed Zakari's personal life any thought. He's just a CNN talking head who manages to twist news and world events into some anti-American, or anti-West, slant. Here are insights on Zakaria at the View From the Right (VFR):

Lawrence Auster:

Zakaria is an alien in our midst, building his career on his identity as a fashionable alien who lectures the natives on the need to give up their country and adapt to the global community, particularly to Islam. He represents the "New Society" that globalists are attempting to turn American into. Every step in America's weakening and loss of identity, means the strengthening and advance of Zakaria and his career and his importance.

Zakaria started out as a member of the neocon circle. Then in the late 1990s he began to move left. Then, when he made himself the journalistic representative of the new, non-white, non-Western, Islamified America, his career really took off.

VFR Commentator Vivek G.:

This Fareed Zakaria is also quoted by a leading Indian politician. The politician has been criticized here. Zakaria was born in India, a non-Muslim nation; migrated to U.S., another non-Muslim nation; married a non-Muslim woman (he must have converted her); and preaches tolerance, secularism, and assimilation to these non-Muslims. Isn't it ironical? Shouldn't he rather do this preaching in Iran, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and such countries?

Pardon my acerbic tone, but I find this as if a beggar seeks help from a household, gets to stay there for sometime, and soon after that he starts preaching on self-reliance to the hosts!

Zakaria is now going through "rough patches" with his "stunning" wife Paula Throckmorton. That doesn't sound like an Indian, much less Muslim, name, so I looked her up. She is indeed stunning (at least tall and statuesque) and blonde. So much for her being a "representative of the new, non-white, non-Western, Islamified America." Zakaria of course is the ultimate Third World (non-white), elitist, hypocrite, who want the best the West has to offer him, but cannot tolerate what the West actually is.

"To throw a perfume on the violet"

[Photo by KPA]

This looks like a meadow of violets, but is the garden in front of a home. The owner cultivates them (I'm not sure if it is to sell them) and told me that they spread "like wild fire."

William Shakespeare
King John, Act 4, Scene 4

To gild refined gold, to paint the lily,
To throw a perfume on the violet,
To smooth the ice, or add another hue
Unto the rainbow, or with taper-light
To seek the beauteous eye of heaven to garnish,
Is wasteful and ridiculous excess.

Lovely Lilacs

[Photo collage by KPA]

Lilacs usually appear in early June. Maybe it's all the rain that watered this bush, whose full bloom a week early surprised me beside a parking lot.

Tulips for Spring

Humble Tulips for grand buildings planted
near Toronto's few skyscrapers
[Photo by KPA]

I found a field of daffodils the other day, but spring for me means tulips. I think they are loved and ignored in almost equal proportions (sometimes by the same person), which even daffodils cannot boast of. Daffodils have a grand poem written for them, whereas tulips get Sylvia Plath. For all their modesty, tulips were part of the biggest (and earliest) commercial speculations, from which they remained unscathed and no less modest, and continue to adorn, for a fair price, peoples pots and gardens.

Since When Do People "Flee" From Bad Movies?: Part II

Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar
holding (up) his star Hollywood actor
Antonio Banderas at the Cannes Film Festival

The Fox News article on Antonio Banderas' new movie I blogged on here allows comments by readers, and so far there are 437 posts. I'm so glad that by what I've read, the majority are as disgusted by the film as I am.

Some comments are funny, some are discerning, some are both. Here's a sample (I've ended up posting many of them below):

- Incest by proxy... Liberals should LOVE this !

- What would you expect from The Freak Monster Almodovar ? He's just taking it up a notch...The Lady Gaga of Directors

- ...That's just whats called Thursday in San Francisco

- ...To be the perfect liberal film, the raped man/woman with the dead daughter's face would end up pregnant, and have a late-term abortion paid for by Obamacare.

- Yet another example of how Hollyweird (and their international cohorts) are utterly narscisistic... They produce the most demeaning and violent attacks on human dignity in a story that makes THEM feel all artistic, then lure people in and emotionally assault them with THEIR "art".

- That movie is ONE of the signs of the end times. It is unimaginable. Dear Jesus!!!

- I see now that I was mistaken in my belief that “entertainment” has hit rock bottom and could go no lower. Who would have thought that someone would break out a jackhammer and start digging?

- What is find interesting is the NAIVE GUEST Americans were able to see the writing on the wall before the rest of the audience who walked out too eventually.

- I'm surprised and pleased there are still moviegoers with the innate decency to be repelled by this sort of brutality.

- sadly this is why this kind of degradation keeps going on, because the moral sit back and let the amoral develop this trash.

- WHO talked the gorgeous Antonio Banderas into this fiasco?

- Every now and then evil bubbles up to the surface. It exists...

- Please identify the people who stayed and gave the ovation so the rest of us will know from whom to protect our children.

- Pure filth. A culture without a moral compass. Make no mistake, this is why our enemies are within our gates and we are powerless to stop them.

- They say Art is the expression of the Artist soul...

- A movie so bad people run away and they want to give it the highest award?
Someone explain this to me?

- The Obombya presidency. (bad movie?)
Nobel (award).

- The further we get away from God the more obvious it becomes how depraved we are.

- The weak among us, the so called "elites" are so desperate to be thought of as "with it" they will cheer for ANYTHING they are told is "Avant Gard" . Rather then stand and call garbage what it is they cheer as if they know something no one else does. These are the same folks who see some deep meaning in a canvas with paint thrown by a Monkey on it.

It's a toss up who is the more idiotic here, the producer of this trash or the people who actually gave it a standing ovation.

- sounds like a torture and snuff film.

- What ever happened to the molds that real directors and actors were fashioned from.....John Ford, Cecil B. DeMille, John Wayne, Henry Fonda, etc. Those days of epic movies are long gone, never to be similarly cast or produced. Just shows people how far out of touch with the real world actors and artists have become. Pathetic bunch of over paid, over pampered, spoiled brats whose only worth seems to be unending volumes of material for celebrity scandal sheets.

- As soon as its out on betamax its mine.......can't wait.......

- This has happened a lot of times in the past, but now this is evil!

- Hey moron the world ends tomorrow, send me your money.

- increase in wickedness...

- SOON THIS WILL BE NORMAL JUST LIKE BEING GAY, (WHAT A MISS USE OF THIS WORD) CROSS DRESSING, CHILD RAPEST AND ANYTHING ELSE.

- You want to be a sexual reprobate, knock yourself out, your punishment for such filth will be what others do to you when all moral restraint is removed and the most vile and perverse sexual acts are forced upon you. When you remove the moral walls that restrain immoral evil, you often become the victim of the tidal wave it brings.

- Liberals are intelligent only in their own minds.

- That's not how liberalism works. If it's vile and perverse, you are obligated to either watch or "turn the channel". In other words, this trash gets a pass while YOU the normal human being is subjected to having to close your eyes (and your children's eyes) while perverts like him indulge their base instincts like gutter trash.

- "Art"

- "trash"

- Banderas was never the same after Shrek. Poor little kitty.

- You know... I'm a visual artist and I do appreciate lots of art, but I sometimes wonder if some of these people that write and create this stuff do so willfully desiring and fantasizing about such atrocities. I mean, you have to be a really disturbed person just to even "invent" this stuff. Think about the frame of mind a person has to be in to create it... basically they are committing the very acts in their minds. Also I recognized a while ago it is easier for artist's to embrace the dark side rather than the good side of life. Which is one of the reasons I've always thought it was ridiculous for an actor to get rave reviews and to win awards for playing a mentally challenged person. To me that is possibly the easiest role any actor could do... what would be impressive is if a mentally challenged actor played the role of a "normal average everyday Joe". LOL :)

- Sounds like a lot of posters are harsh with the doctor who is simply avenging the death of his daughter. Sounds like a warm story where a villain is being taught a lesson.

- Not liking this film can only be explained by subconscious homophobiacismism.

- I think this film is trying to show how Revenge is Madness. It does this by showing how the surgeon wants to get revenge for his daughter's r a p e and subsequent s u i cide, by putting the r apist in a position where he feels the daughter's pain. However, the surgeon ends up not avenging his daughter, but greatly disrespecting her. The first act of disrespect was to cut off her face after her death. Then, his "sticking it to the rapist" seems more like an act of i n c e s t, again disrespecting his own daughter. The surgeon appears more depraved than the ra pist. Maybe the point is: not to become the evil you hate. I agree this film sounds very sick, and depraved. It does seem to make no sense as a revenge movie. But, I think that is the whole point.

- Europe continues with record levels of depravity, while unemployment remains staggeringly high, Muslims continue to pollute European nations, and citizens continue to bury their heads in the sand and perform an endless Gregorian chant that 'everything is ok' ... and you wonder why world wars start in Europe every time. What they don't get is that for the next one ... we're staying home. Best of luck, folks. I like Banderas as an actor, but this plot just sounds insanely gruesome, certainly isn't 'uplifting' is it?

- Apparently EVERY OTHER movie idea had been used.

- Critics have also fallen in love with the upsetting film and are placing
it in contention for the highest Cannes honor, the Palme d'or. Must be the same folks who gave Obama a peace prize.

- For what it's worth, Spain does have good directors -- check out anything by Carlos Saura.

And similar comments at Fox News keep growing. Within twenty minutes, the comments have reached 463, from 437.

Since When Do People "Flee" From Bad Movies?

Spanish film director Pedro Almodovar
holding (up) his star Hollywood actor
Antonio Banderas at the Cannes Film Festival

The avant-garde, with its épater la bourgeoisie adolescent mantra still hasn't grown up. And since when do people "flee" from bad movies? What happened to just walking out? That is how Fox New reports the audience cleared out of Spanish director Pedro Almodovar's latest piece screening at the Cannes Film Festival. But he still got a standing ovation, alongside his starring actor Antonio Banderas, from the remaining hardy (foolish, more like) group. And the critics just loved the film, and have placed it in line for the prestigious (anymore?) Palme d'Or.

The disgusting film is described here. It is interesting to read the synopsis only to realize how low "artists" have gone with their shock factor. Hollywood actors and directors (Banderas became famous because of his roles in Hollywood films), living their elitist bourgeois (not a contradiction in terms) lives, can afford to destabilize the rest of the world, since we are the ones paying their way through endless experimentations on film. Banderas lives in Spain with his American actress wife Melanie Griffith and their young daughter. They even meet up with the King of Spain, no less. Yet he's driven to make this drivel, I'm sure not for money, but for some "message."

The Design Exchange: A Kaleidoscope of Activity

[Photo by KPA]
The streamline moderne, art deco,
and stripped classicism styles of the Design Exchange
building surrounded by the modernist
Mies van der Rohe Toronto Dominion Centre.
In the background is the gold-covered Royal Bank Plaza.

I was at the Design Exchange building (formerly the Toronto Stock Exchange building) yesterday because I remembered that the building was incorporated into Mies van der Rohe's modernist Toronto Dominion Centre, which I've blogged about here. Once inside, I realized that this was where Princess Diana's dresses were assembled for view before being auctioned off (I had seen the various television promotions that the dresses were to be displayed in Toronto this spring, wrapping up a world tour). The dresses were bought over the years by an American investor Maureen Rorech Dunkel, who set up The People's Princess Charitable Foundation.

I wondered why Dunkel was selling these heirlooms, and a Google search shows that she filed for bankruptcy in 2010. Here's some background:

Dunkel's motivation for putting the gowns up for auction isn't known but she filed for bankruptcy protection in January 2010 after HRH Ventures LLC sued her and the People's Princess Charitable Foundation Inc. claiming they defaulted on $1.5 million in loans that were secured by the gowns. HRH Ventures asked a court for five of the dresses, alleging that Dunkel and her foundation weren't able to "adequately care for these irreplaceable dresses." Dunkel countered that she had agreed to repay the loans no sooner than 2012. The lawsuit was stayed by the bankruptcy filing.

It is apt that these dresses, which are estimated to fetch about 3 million dollars, should be exhibited in a design hall whose building was once the center of speculations on money.

Waddington's auctioneers are displaying the dresses at the Design Exchange until the auction on June 23.

Designer – Catherine Walker
A long evening dress of lilac wild silk,
with an embroidered bolero.

From Waddington's website:

A lilac silk dress with a bodice embroidered overall with pink and white flowers, green & star shaped sequins, gold glass beads and gold braid in Mughal motifs. The long sleeved bolero jacket embroidered overall en suite with the dress.

Designed for Diana’s State Tour of India in 1992...Embroidered in the Mughal fashion, it is a tapestry of flowers, sequins and gold, giving the appearance of encrusted jewels.

‘My Decade With Diana: The Perpetual Power of the People’s Princess’, G.A. McNulty, 2007, pg 46

A section of Charles Comfort's "Gold" mural
in the Design Exchange

Here's what the Design Exchange catalog says about the building:

Designed by architects George and Moorhouse with associate S.H. Maw and completed in 1937, the Toronto Stock Exchange building combined streamlined moderne, art deco and stripped classicism styles. Although it is commonly labeled an art deco building, the dominant style is streamlined moderne...Its design was revered as an architectural and technological marvel, a "masterful expression of its time, place and function" with "the most up-to-date trading floor in the world."

The Exchange building was a major construction project for its day. The Depression had hit Toronto's building industry hard, causing public and private sector spending on building construction to plummet. The $750,000 TSE building represented a significant portion of the city's total construction activity in 1936-37.

The TSE building was designated a heritage property in 1978 because f its "architectural value and historic interest." in 1983, the Exchange moved to its current headquarters at the corner of King and York. The original building has remained wholly intact and parts were fully restored by the developer. The specific heritage components surviving today are the building's exterior, the facade and frieze, windows on all levels, two sets of stainless steel doors, the Vale Inco Grand Staircase and detailing, the trading floor, eight murals by Charles Comfort, and the only surviving post from the trading floor.

In 1994, Kuwabara Payne McKenna Blumberg Architects (KPMB) incorporated the historic Trading Floor and the TSE structure into the unique Toronto-Dominion Centre complex, creating a blend of old and new spaces to be used for the purposes of the Design Exchange.

More information is available at the Design Exchange website.

Below is a section of the frieze above the building's entrance, also by Charles Comfort, and a funny anecdote by Artistic Toronto:

In 1969 the Toronto Star headlined this 1937 limestone relief of the Stock Exchange building’s 22.5 metre-long frieze “a bay street joke preserved in granite.”

Painter, Charles Comfort who designed the engraving denied any forethought to the seeming parody, in which a well suited stockbroker is depicted lingering his hand over the pocket of an oblivious common labourer, as if greedily taking what does not belong to him.

At the time this little discovery stirred quite a fuss within the city’s financial district. The relief was also implemented during the Great Depression, when a lot of society shared overwhelming feelings of economic betrayal.

To this day, there is debate over just how suggestive the artist wanted to be, or if it was all just blown out of proportion years later.

Toronto Stock Exchange, Trading Floor, 1930s.
City of Toronto Archives, Series 1057, Item 461.

Blossom Chutzpah

Blossoms
[Photo collage by KPA]

It is always a surprise to see these explosions of spring. They don't last very long, but they do arrive with flourish (and I would even add chutzpah, as though mocking winter)!

Camera in Hand: Part II - Brookfield Place Eateries and Asian Hegemony

Ki Japanese Restaurant in Brookfield Place
[Photo by KPA]

Beauty in this city is mired by strangeness, or alien-ness (ugliness?). Brookfield Place, photos of which I posted in my previous blog post, looks like it has very little retail activity (perhaps I'm unfairly comparing it to the chaotic Eaton Centre). Most of the stores are underground, separate from the main floor's Allan Lambert Gallery and its three-story high glass structure. That's not the strange part; in fact, I think it is a great design feat to make the place look empty of commerce, when it is commercial at its core.

What is strange is the dominance of Asian (and specifically Japanese) restaurants in the center. There are two Japanese (or Japanese sounding) sit-down, formal restaurants of the four formal restaurants in the center. The two non-Japanese formal restaurants are generic (European?). One (Marché) sounds French, but it is simply the French influence in Canadian names, and the food ranges from oysters to grilled chicken. The other is a diner-restaurant called Pumpernickel, and the name says it all.

The Japanese-sounding restaurant is called Obika. Its sign has Japanese-looking script with the appropriate accents, and its interior has Japanese decor and seating. But it is actually an Italian restaurant trying to look Japanese. Its menu even includes "zucchini sushi" (smoked mozzarella wrapped in grilled zuchinni, as a waiter described to me). Here's what a May 13, 2011 review by the Globe and Mail about Obika:

Obika does not boast the clichéd hallmarks of an Italian eatery. There are no red-checkered tablecloths, cans of tomatoes or garlic braids. In fact, the southeast corner of Brookfield Place in the heart of Toronto’s financial district looks more like a Japanese restaurant with its black and red color scheme, stark calligraphy typeface and sushi bar set-up where fresh ingredients are featured front and center in the glass display.

Of the four formal restaurants, two are Asian. Three of the six Asian (formal and fast food) restaurants are Japanese (I will include Obika in this group since visitors will assume Obika is Japanese from its signage, and part of its menu includes Japanese-style foods such as zucchini sushi).

Obika (Japanese but Italian?) Restaurant in Brookfield Place
[Photo by KPA]

Here is the rundown of the types of restaurants in Brookfield Place:

All restaurants and food kiosks
- 23 venues

All non-Fast Food - percentage of all foods
- 17% (4 venues)

All Fast Food - percentage of all foods
- 82% (19 venues)

All Asian Food - percentage of all foods
- 26% (6 venues)

Asian non-Fast Food - percentage of all foods
- 9% (2 venues)

Asian non-Fast Food by Country - percentage of all foods
- Japanese - 9% (2 venues)

Asian Fast Food - percentage of all foods
- 17% (4 venues)

Asian Fast Food by Country - percentage of all foods
- Japanese - 4% (1 venue)
- Chinese - 4% (1 venue)
- Thai - 4% (1 venue)
- Indian - 4% (1 venue)

All Non-Asian Food - percentage of all foods
- 78% (18 venues)

Non-Asian, non-Fast Food - percentage of all foods
- 13% (3 venues)

Non-Asian Fast Food - percentage of all foods
- 65% (15 venues)

Non-Asian Fast Food by Ethnic Foods - percentage of all foods
- Italian - 4% (1 venue)
- Middle Eastern - 4% (1 venue)
- Mexican - 4% (1 venue)
- Greek - 4% (1 venue)

*Obika included both in the Asian and Ethnic restaurants

There are altogether twenty-three food kiosks and restaurants. One quarter (26%) of all the food places are Asian. Three (or 13%) are Japanese (or Japanese-themed).

My point, in this long post, is to show that there is a strange infatuation with all things Asian in Toronto these days [see references below], and especially Japanese. I will continue to monitor this observation. The most prominent manifestation, which always surprises me and takes me aback, is the number of Asian female/white male couples there are as I walk through Toronto's downtown - I've roughly counted that one in three couples are this Asian/white mix. I've already defined in a previous post "Asian" to mean East Asian - often Korean or Chinese, although Japanese women (students in their twenties) are appearing more frequently.

Since I haven't yet theorized about this phenomenon, I will start here and develop it in later blog posts. Curiosity about other cultures (and unknowns) drove the Western civilization to produce hardy men who traveled around the world to fulfill that curiosity and desire for knowledge (even during the time when they considered the world flat, and believed that they may never make it back from the deadly precipice that may await them). This was also coupled with a sense of adventure. But those men never considered staying in the lands of the other but came back with representations of the other through food, "art," cultural objects, etc.

As long as this quest to understand the other was an exploratory, scientific, or even religious mission, the West was able to keep its culture and society pretty much intact. But, now in the modern era, the world has essentially been explored (and heathens are no longer deemed unacceptable), and this energy has been transformed into some kind of immersion with (and infatuation for - a stronger version of curiosity) the actual other. Immigration has been an important factor in bringing the other into Western lands, with all his remaining exoticism and alien habits to learn from and adopt. But, this includes not just a desire for "friendship" but also for mates. The white male/other female pairings are a modern manifestation of this adventurous curiosity of white men. And immigration provides an endless supply of this other to satiate their curiosity (and desires).

But why the preference for Asian women? Black women prefer to be with black men. What about white women? They are quadruple victims: of feminism; of Asian female aggression (at finding white mates); of their own personalities which fall between aggressive blacks and the more feminine-behaving Asians; and of the quest for the other by their white men. Lazy "feminist" white men are thus drawn to the other in the seemingly more feminine Asian women, and not willing to do the work of living with white women, something which their predecessors have done for centuries despite their forays into exotic lands and cultures.

These are the same white women whose genes provided for the extraordinary successes of the white race, which has now allowed, through modern technology and modern liberalism, its existential competitors to freely enter the West. Life in Western countries is coveted by almost all the peoples of the world. And these non-white, non-Western populations, who are allowed free entry into Western lands, give white men the pick of the world's crop, so to speak, when choosing "desirable" mates.

The supposedly less aggressive (compared to blacks and whites) Asian women thus behave the most aggressive of the three races when landing a white mate.

What about Asian (and Japanese) men? How can fathers allow their young women to travel alone, and live alone, thousands of miles away from country and family, as is the case of the Japanese students? How can Asian men allow their daughters to marry outside of their culture and race, where she, following their traditional behavior, is expected to adopt the man's cultural and familial background, and lose her Asian culture?

But, in this topsy-turvy world of immigration and multiculturalism, the white male makes extraordinary efforts to adopt (and adapt to) the Asian woman's world and culture. (With Asian male/white female pairing, the cultural background of the male is kept as much as possible and this could be a reason why such pairings are much rarer, since our feminist society - and its women - would find this "misogyny" hard to accept.) Still, in the final analysis, the offspring of both these kinds of pairings work towards the sinicization of the Western culture. "Asianness" trumps everything else. I've observed this especially in creative fields like art and design.

This post is mostly about culinary dominance in a major Toronto commercial center. So, why is there a preference for Japanese food, over all the other Asian, and over all other non-Asian, non-Western foods?

First, there is no doubt that Japanese food is more sophisticated than the other Asian foods (in the minimalist way that modern avant-gardes, through their Epater la Bourgeoisie rebellion, admire) .

The other reason is that the Japanese may indeed be starting their "outreach" into the West, not just for economic reasons, but for domination. The Japanese restaurant, Ki, at Brookfield Place is a huge, fort-like structure, something which most Westerners are not accustomed to seeing. Japan is demure tea ceremonies, and shy and subservient women in kimonos, isn't it? Such outright attempts of dominance and power by the Japanese is unexpected by most Westerners, and therefore ignored.

Which brings me to the phenomenon I've discussed above regarding Asian immigration, and the consequent interracial marriages. I think this is a concerted (perhaps not yet systematically planned) endeavor by the Far East to try and get foot-holds into the West. And what easier way than through (wine) women and food?

Articles posted at Camera Lucida blogs on China, Chinese immigrants, and Chinese in Canada:

1. Donald Trump for Made in New York

2. How a Focus on Culture Might Get at Imperceptible Societal Changes Quicker than Focusing Only on Politics

3. A Sino-Draconian Mission

4. More Sino-Muscle Flexing

5. Proof Positive

6. China Rising?

7. China Rising? [cont.]

8. Precedents to China Rising

9. Land Grab from the Poor to the Poor

10. Is China Providing a Better Way of Life?

11. "Revolt on the Nile"

12. The West's Fascination with the "Other"

13. Erosion of Civility

14. Festering beneath the Calm of these Chinese Immigrants

15. The Smorgasbord of Cultures that Will Be Canada in 2031

16. A Place To Eat for Every (and Any) Culture on Yonge Street

17. Multiculturalism in Canada Is Here To Stay

18. Visible Minorities in the GTA [Greater Toronto Area]

19. Immigration and Visible Minorities

20. Jason Kenney Thinks Immigration Is All Good

21. Time for Ezra Levant to Focus His Energy on Addressing Multiculturalism and High Levels of Immigration

22. Oh Canada, Poor Canada!

Camera in Hand: Part I - Brookfield Place

Brookfield Place, Toronto [Photo collage by KPA]

Yesterday was a rainy day. The weather girl described it as "light rain," but it was an irritating, incessant sprinkling of hard rain drops for which I had to carry an umbrella. I went out with my camera all the same, figuring out where I would go once outside.

Then I remembered the lovely BCE (Bell Canada Enterprises) Place which is an indoor structure incorporating outdoor elements, and has a huge internal archway, six stories high, made of glass and white steel. I walked (for a good forty-five minutes) to get there, down Yonge street. I got a little lost, and had to ask for directions.

The photos (which I've assembled in a collage above) are of BCE Place, now called Brookfield Place, "after a holding house" as a bakery owner told me, which means it is part of a real-estate conglomerate. The internal archway is named the Allen Lambert Galleria, and was designed by the Brazilian architect Santiago Calatrava. The stone building facade is of the 19th century Merchants' Bank, which was dismantled from another site and relocated into the Galleria. The place was quiet for a Saturday, which reflects the week-end shut-down of the area's banking district. But it was great for taking pictures.

Donald Trump for Made in New York

There is a make-up brand called New York Color (abbreviated simply as NYC which looks like it stand for New York City) available in drugstores. Their In a New York Color Minute nail polish - meant to dry in a minute - are the most fun (if that is a word to use for make-up) since all they're named after neighborhoods in Manhattan, which is of course synonymous with NYC. I think the brand name NYC opened up the creativity of the color designer, since I haven't seen other brands with such an interesting variety of colors.

Imagine wearing an "East Village" turquoise blue, or a "Park Avenue" gray. It would feel at the beginning as though I were living the sophisticated life of a Park Avenue socialite or an East Village artist vicariously through the nail polish.

Toronto Color (abbreviated as TC) just doesn't cut it. Not least because TC doesn't mean anything. During tourist season, T.O. - as in Toronto Ontario - crops up more as a gimmick than a custom. And even if there were a huge campaign to recognize TO (and a catchy TOC for a make-up line?), what Toronto locations would have the same effect as "Prospect Street" or simply "Uptown" when naming the products?

These are the NYC colors and names that caught my attention:

- Mulberry Street - beige
- Central Park - pale orange/pink
- Wall Street - pale translucent pink
- Prospect Park - pink
- Spring Street - orange/brown
- Times Square - red (as in paint the town red?)

The only problem I have is with the Wall Street very pale, feminine pink. But perhaps it makes sense since I would assume that the male to female ratio is quite high in Wall Street, and whatever women are there would have to tone down their femininity.

The NYC make-up line is very cheap. The product labels say: "Designed in New York. Made in the U.S.A. Dist. Coty US LLC: New York, NY 10016." I would think that "Made in the U.S.A." has a lot to do with the low prices.

So much for cheap Chinese products. I would support Donald Trump's presidency purely for his stand against cheap Chinese products, and his promise to reduce the Chinese hegemony on our daily products while building up Made in America.

Here is Trump talking about China and cheap Chinese products on CNN (the full transcript is here):

They're making stuff that you see being sold all the time on Fifth Avenue, copying various, you know, whether it's Chanel or whatever it may be, the brands, and just selling it ad - ad nauseum. I mean this is a country that is ripping off the United States like nobody other than OPEC has ever done before.

These are not our friends. These are our enemies. These are not people that understand niceness. And the only thing you can do, Wolf, to get their attention is to say either we're not going to trade with you any further or, in the alternative, we're going to tax your products as they come into the United States...

We would - I would lower the taxes for people in this country and corporations in this country and let China and some of the other countries that are ripping us off and making hundreds of billions of dollars a year, let them pay...

They're going to make General Motors build the cars in China. They're not going to let China - they're not going to let General Motors take their cars from this country and sell them in China. They want General Motors to give up all of its intellectual rights and at the same time have Chinese workers build the cars, something which we are not doing, to that extent. If you look at what's happening with China and what they're selling to this country - or take South Korea, with the television sets and everything else, they're making it over there. China wants General Motors to build the cars in China.

At the end, Wolf Blitzer asks Trump if he's going to run for the US presidency. Trump answers that he's "giving it serious thought." Since then, Trump has said that he will officially announce his bid for the presidency on the finale of his show "Celebrity Apprentice," a show which I'm sure taught him some hard lessons about race reality in America, and in the West in general. Trump may seem to have brushed off all those ugly "celebrity" incidents, but as a hardened businessman, I don't for a (New York) minute think he will take any of them lightly.

Fats Waller's Ain't Misbehavin'

Blogger (Mis)Behavior

I am thankful that Blogger lets me put up my blogs for free, and never asks for contributions, back-payments, due bills, or anything else. I assume the blogger folks - who mysteriously fixed the recent glitch - use (all of us) free bloggers in some way to generate revenue. But that's O.K. (I think) with me.

Here are a couple of fellow-bloggers who got caught in the recent blog silence.

I Skyped Blogger and enquired, only to be told:

"No one to talk with,
All by myself...
No one to walk with,
But I'm happy on the shelf...
Ain't misbehavin',
I'm savin' my love for you!
I know for certain,
The one I love,
I'm through with flirtin',
It's just you I'm thinkin' of...
Ain't misbehavin',
I'm savin' my love for you!"

Beat of a Different Drummer

[Photo collage by KPA]

I wrote in my previous post:

There are still some superior street musicians around. I wonder if they make enough money, or if they use these street venues to practice, or if they have simply had hard lives and are just making do. There is a really talented rock drummer at the popular Eaton Square, and he sometimes brings in a young partner. His crowds are always large. And recently, a young guitarist (he looks like he's in his early teens) is there playing classical music.

I've posted above photos of the drummer.

Proof Positive

I've been observing for a while now an "Asian" presence here which I've always looked at with caution and skepticism. I've always felt that Chinese and Koreans (who collectively call themselves Asian) are not allies of the West, and the white/Asian pairings (and now more frequently black/Asian) is not their desire to become Westerners or even for the affections of a partner, but in the greater scheme of things, it is another way to further their Asian presence. I will unfold these observations over time, since one blog post is not enough to cover it all.

There seems to be a cultural permissiveness amongst Chinese and Koreans to "marry out" of their groups and for their offspring to associate more with the Asian group and culture than with the white group and culture. I observed during my years as an art student at the Ontario College of Art and Design, and as a film student at Ryerson University, that all (without exception) the projects of the Asian students - immigrants, "Canadians" or half-Asian, focused on their Asianness. I think this fits in with my observation that some genetic Asianness will manifest itself as full cultural Asianness. Their works were often of odd, inferior quality. Even when they went for fundamentals (like pure drawing, painting or photography, without apparent ethnic undertones), there was an odd simplicity with their final products, as though they weren't able to produce layered, textured works, but could only think in simpler, more basic ideas. Thus, the Asianness in their art was clear, although in subtle and nuanced ways - i.e. its pared-down simplicity, which at first glance looks like the minimalist "sophistication" which is now part of contemporary art, and which might be the reason why they were amply praised, at least in my classes. This causes me to reflect how their contributions will fit in with our true, historic Western societies, and especially in the stability and longevity of our art, architecture and other creative institutions.

Here are a couple of incidents that triggered this post. I try to listen to people's accents, as is my habit these days, especially if they are non-white and speaking in English. Yesterday, while walking downtown, I was behind a couple (a male and a female), which from the back I assumed were both Asian. The woman, at first, sounded Chinese while the man had a distinct Canadian accent. I thought this was another, common, manifestation of the Asian presence here, where one of the couple is a Canadian-born Asian while the other is a Chinese or Korean immigrant. But I later deciphered an Iranian accent in the woman's speech, especially when I saw her middle-eastern looks. They were talking about management styles, and here is a fragment of what I heard the man say:

"The problem is, as a manager in the Western world...."

Now, this unfinished sentence may not be enough to make any conclusions, but what true Westerner, living in Canada, would start a sentence like that? The expected introduction to a problem on management styles would be: "The problem with management is," or "Our problem with management is," etc. What this Asian was emphasizing was not problems with management, but problems with management in the Western world.

If this kind of conversation goes on in public, on the street, what kinds of things are being said behind closed doors? And imagine if the couple were not the multicultural hybrid that Toronto is sprouting these days, but a "real" Asian couple? Or even consisting of a weak-willed, West-hating white who clearly finds his assimilated-but-Asian partner (often,as I've said, it is a white male with an Asian female) so superior to others?

I turned my head around (and slowed down) to listen more to this conversation. What is this management style that they're critiquing? Do they have any solutions? The man started to muffle his voice, and eventually stopped talking. I wonder if he realized that this alienating conversation is subversive?

The second episode occurred when I heard a jazz melody being played on a soprano saxophone nearby at a department store. I walked towards the player sitting outside the store. The player was a poker-faced Chinese who kept playing the same tune over and over. I realized I'd seen him before doing the same with another popular jazz tune. He was in some kind of trance, just sitting there with his instrument, repeating endlessly the same, short, tune. The melody, and its simplicity, never changed. It was beguiling at first, but then I kept waiting for more - complexity, transitions, rhythmic changes. After about a minute, it just got boring. There was a woman with an expensive camera, crouched down taking photos of this man. I'm often curious what (exactly what) people are photographing, especially if it isn't some group "tourist" photo, so I often stop and watch and eventually ask. Many people are obliging, especially if they are photographers. I am too, if someone stops and asks me. The woman glanced back at me with a hostile look. That is when I realized she was Chinese. This dismissive, negative, attitude is often of an "artist" who lacks confidence (which often translates to lack of talent). So I began to wonder if the point of her photograph is to showcase the "Chinese in Toronto" or some such "ethnic" photo project that is popular in exhibitions around the city. They (the "saxophonist" and the "photographer") are well suited to each other, I thought.

There are still some superior street musicians around. I wonder if they make enough money, or if they use these street venues to practice, or if they have simply had hard lives and are just making do. There is a really talented rock drummer at the popular Eaton Square, and he sometimes brings in a young partner. His crowds are always large. And recently, a young guitarist (he looks like he's in his early teens) is there playing classical music.

Meanwhile, the crowd around the saxophone player is non-existent.

Atheists and Our Islam Threat

I understand that there are all kinds of people who are denying the strength and the seriousness of the Islamic religion, and its mandate (scripture) to turn the whole world Islam, but I think that one of the main reasons public figures (and leaders) in the anti-jihad movement cannot dwell on the religious aspects of Islam is because they are atheists or nominal (self-scripting) Christians, themselves, and do not have the religious weight with which to battle (or understand) Islam.

Lawrence Auster at the View From the Right (VFR) writes:

Speaking to Kay [of the Canadian National Post], Wilders makes this interesting and amusing remark:

"I see Islam as 95 percent ideology, five percent religion--the five percent being the temples and the imams. If you would strip the Koran of all the negative, hateful, anti-Semitic material, you would wind up with a tiny [booklet]."

Readers may remember that I have disagreed with Wilders's statements in the past that Islam is not a religion but only a political ideology.

Now he has moved in my direction. Even if it's only five percent, that's enough. I'm not concerned about the percentage. The point is that our side sounds silly when we claim that Islam, one of the world's major religions, is not a religion. To say that Islam is not a religion is like saying that a rhinoceros is not a mammal.

Mr. Auster is very generous in accepting this move to the right (direction). I, on the other hand, am a little impatient. I see every day in our Toronto streets Muslims inching into our society, whose ideology is clearly intertwined with, and fueled by, their religion. There would be no Muslim "ideology" without Islam. I've written about this here:

Blog posts
- We've come a long way
- Visceral Reaction
- Full niqab in full daylight

Articles
- Stealthy Islamic Inroads Into Our Culture - ChronWatch
- Islam's Missionary Women - ChronWatch
- How Canada's Little Mosque on the Prairie
   is aiming to take over our souls - ChronWatch , American Thinker
- Burqua Prejudice - American Thinker, Frontpage Magazine

Mr. Auster provides a series of solutions and arguments to combat Islam in the West (a search engine for VFR articles on Islam is on his site). But, here is Auster's article A Real Policy for a Real America from his presentation at the Preserving Western Civilization Conference in 2009 where he writes:

My purpose is not to promote hostility against Muslim persons or to spark civilizational warfare between the West and Islam, but to reduce and end the current increasing civilizational warfare, by separating Islam from the West. We respect the right of Muslims to follow in peace their religion in their lands. But in order for us Americans to follow in peace our religions and flourish in our way of life, the followers of sharia need to leave our country and return to the historic lands of Islam.

I agree, promoting direct hostility toward Muslims living in the West will at some point turn into a civilizational warfare, especially where their numbers are large. But, I don't think Muslims have any qualms about exacerbating such a civilizational war with us, so we had at least better be prepared for this. Here is a blog I wrote at my "sister" blog Our Changing Landscape (whose topics I'm now integrating into my Camera Lucida blog): Christian Tolerance, Islamic Jihad. It is abridged from my article of the same title, (also published at VFR).

Daffodil Surprise

Daffodils at the Allan Gardens
[Photo collage by KPA]

Only a week ago, it was hard to find even potted daffodils. Now, whole fields are in bloom. I thought these daffodils were tulips as I walked by them yesterday. I don't know how they suddenly appeared in this field (park) that I walk by almost daily. The park's gardeners must have spent all day (all night?) planting them to give us this field of surprise. The poem Daffodils is much more suited here than in my original "Daffodils" post.

Daffodils
William Wordsworth

I wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o'er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,
A host, of golden daffodils;
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the milky way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced; but they
Out-did the sparkling waves in glee:
A poet could not but be gay,
In such a jocund company:
I gazed--and gazed--but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought:

For oft, when on my couch I lie
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

On a more macabre note, as I looked up "surprise" on dictionary.com, I found the first two lines of Emily Dickinson's short poem Apparently with no Surprise listed under its "famous quotations" section.

Apparently with no Surprise
Emily Dickinson

Apparently with no surprise
To any happy flower,
The frost beheads it at its play,
In accidental power.
The blond assassin passes on.
The sun proceeds unmoved,
To measure off another day,
For an approving God.

Our nice weather girl promises summer-like humidex levels within the next few days (and also promises a "nice hot summer" after the cold and rainy spring we've had so far). Morning frost is no longer part of the spring.

It isn't only spring and daffodils that have prompted me to look up poetry. Here is a post I wrote on (long-gone) winter with a photo of "snow dust," a phrase I used without knowing about Robert Frost's poem Dust of Snow, another short (unexpectedly macabre) poem.

But, let's forget winter (and the macabre). Spring is here.

The Royals Have Nothing on These

                                     Hats at the Kentucky Derby

Sluts and Crybabies

"Proud to be a slut" marchers protest through
downtown Toronto, yet glance disapprovingly
at the girl who is dressed like a slut holding
a poster which says "Proud Slut" (video here)

The ever-industrious Steve Paiken of the current affairs/news program The Agenda (broadcast on Television Ontario) brought together a panel of women (men were notably absent) to discuss the recent Slut Walks, which I blogged about here.

Here is his panel:

- Susannah Breslin is a freelance journalist and blogger from Texas.

- Jaclyn Friedman is the executive director of WAM! (Women, Action and the Media) from Cambridge Massachusetts, and according to web sources a "Queer Jewish writer." Friedman had a weird coy demeanor during the panel discussion, as though she were trying to seduce the viewers. I didn't realize she had the other demographic in mind.

- Gail Dines is a professor of sociology and women's studies at Wheelock College, in Boston and author of Pornland.

- Heather Jarvis is co-founder of The Slut Walk in Toronto.

- Kate McPherson is a professor of history and women's studies at York University, Toronto.

So, in a panel of five women, two are professors of women's studies, one is a director of a clearly feminist agency, one has written a pornographic book (as well as holding a professorship in women's studies), one is the co-founder of The Slut Walk. And finally, one is "queer."

Also, two of the women, Heather Jarvis and the lesbian Jaclyn Friedman, said that they were "sexually assaulted" which in today's scenario could mean anything from a boyfriend thinking "no is yes" after his girlfriend takes him up to her room late at night

The only one who is not defined by her "womanness" according to TVO's biographies, is Susannah Breslin, who is presented as a freelance journalist and blogger (and I would assume - no I will conclude - that she is the least stable financially and "career" wise) although she's now a Forbes blogger (which is no professorship).

And guess who was the one holding the fort against these formidable r-e-s-p-e-c-t (as Hugh Grant would put it) feminists? Yes, the lowly blogger.

The discussion around the feminists revolves around "taking back the word 'slut'" as in those years when women were "taking back the night", and homosexuals "reclaiming queer." Of course, at Breslin's push, the women started to redefine what they meant by "reclaiming" the word "slut." It goes something like this: If some women are called sluts because of the way they dress (and what triggered the whole march in the first place is a police officer's observation that if women wanted to be free from sexual assault, they shouldn't dress like sluts), and if this causes them to be raped, then all women are in solidarity with these sluts, and are sluts themselves, in protest against men raping women who are dressed like sluts.

The funny thing is that none of these women were dressed like sluts on Paiken's show, even Friedman, who does don the attire at her queer/feminist protests. But they have no qualms about naïve, young girls in the avant-garde parading their flesh while holding "slut" signs. So, what part of "slut" are they reclaiming, as Breslin challenges them?

Just before this panel, Paiken held an interview with Anne Kreamer who is the author of the book It's Always Personal: Emotions in the New Workplace. The whole interview was funny (in an embarrassing way) to watch. Kreamer advocates crying in the workplace, and that stiff upper lips are no good. Of course, the majority of work-place-emoters are women, but Kreamer also talks about men who cry, and who felt "cleansed" after the experience. She didn't bother to delineate (at least in the interview, and Paiken never pressed her) what is the incidence of men crying. The reality, of course, is that, women cry more often, and in public. All I can say is that the work place is a kind of a war zone - money, projects, prestige, success - are on the line. The nice guy does finish last. What this translates to, which these women would never admit to, is that women are less suited to this cut-throat environment. There are two solutions to their problem: one is to have fewer women in high-stake positions; the other is to regulate the work force to make it more conducive (nicer) for women workers. So far, the latter is winning.

Kreamer's interview was the perfect introduction to the panel. Despite "rewriting" the word "victim" during the panel, what the women are really saying is that women are victims (weaker, more vulnerable) when it comes to rape, which is often performed by men because they are women. Like the career women, these feminist experts want society to rewrite the reality of the world, make it soft and gentle, so that women can do what they want including dress as sluts (and not be raped).

To catch all the nuances, expressions, vocabulary, explanations and other fascinating aspects of both the panel discussion and the interview, I recommend the two videos from TVO's site:

- Anne Kreamer: Emotions in the New Work Place
- "Slut Walks" and Modern Feminism

New Leaves: II

[Photo by KPA]

New Leaves

[Photo by KPA]

It was an overcast day when I took this photograph yesterday, but it didn't dampen the early leaves of spring. Overcast days are actually ideal for taking photos. Sunlight can interfere through heightened shadow and light regions, making it difficult to take photos.

Speaking Freely Can Get You Convicted of Hate Speech in Denmark

Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist (left) with Lars Vilks, the Swedish cartoonist (right) both in hiding after threats from Muslims

Lars Hedegaard, President of the International Free Press Society, has been convicted of "[issuing] a pronouncement or other communication by which a group of persons are threatened, insulted or denigrated due to their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation."(The quote is from Diana West's website, who has a fuller review of the conviction.)

I met Mr. Hedegaard in 2009 during an International Free Press Society sponsored conference in New York on freedom of speech and how Muslims are transforming Western societies. The conference was held specifically to introduce the Danish Kurt Westergaard, illustrator of the (in)famous Danish cartoons which were a satire on Mohammed and Muslims. Kurt Westergaard, Hedegaard's compatriot, was facing Muslims' ire for his illustrations (cartoons) which they felt demeaned their religion and their prophet. Through his experiences, the hardest of which is his life in hiding from death threats by Muslims (similar to what Geert Wilders is facing in the Netherlands), issues like freedom of speech started to come to the fore of political and public discussions.

Hedegaard is the last person to denigrate people, although he has strong and substantiated views on Muslims, immigration-run-amok in Denmark, and Western values and institutions that are being dismantled or changed (such as freedom of speech) because of immigration, and specifically Muslim immigration. His conviction is more symbolic than anything else. He was fined $1,000 and he plans to appeal.

This (symbolic) conviction is a blessing in disguise. It will put Hedegaard in the news for a while because of his appeals process, and he will be able to reach more people with his views on how Muslims, and Muslim immigration, are transforming Denmark. The more information people get, and the more outrageous cases like Hedegaard's, Westergaard's and Wilders's become public, the truth about Islam and Muslims will be revealed.

Here's more from the International Free Press Society website:

Lars Hedegaard was today [May 3. 2011] found guilty of hate speech under Article 266b of the Danish penal code...

§ 266b of the Danish penal code:

“Whoever publicly or with the intent of public dissemination issues a pronouncement or other communication by which a group of persons are threatened, insulted or denigrated due to their race, skin colour, national or ethnic origin, religion or sexual orientation is liable to a fine or incarceration for up to two years.”

Let Them Wear Hats!

Jacques Vert's Fashion. Good hat design
influences the quality of other attire.

One thing about the royal wedding which is heartening is that perhaps, maybe, people will start to wear hats again. The British royalty has always got the flak for its hat-wearing tradition, but finally I think they have got it right, and people are noticing.

But, often, attention to accessories also translates to improved quality in over all dress. When designers design good hats (or shoes), the rest of the attire has to reflect that. So, this glance at hats that I'm seeing may result with improved dresses, jackets, skirts, blouses, etc.

But back to hats. It is possible to wear an attractive hat (rather than a toque-like woolen affair) even during the coldest parts of the winter. One solution is to work with layers (putting a warm woolen toque under a more attractive hat) which I have done. I've also sewn hats, or around hats. For example, I bought a length of faux fur fabric and simply placed it around a warm woolen (not very attractive) hat to make it look like those Russian fur hats. And adding the same fur around the coat collar ties everything together. The difficult part is how unaccustomed people are around hats. A simple 1920s style hat (in burgundy) which I wear when the temperature is not so low gets surprised reactions (one person said he remembered me because of my hat) from strangers. I hope to break into an orange straw hat for the summer. Someone has to start!

I was at the Bay again since I did receive an invitation to its Jacques Vert collection, which is a permanent collection with seasonal variations. I didn't know it was so substantial, and quite affordable. And quite beautiful too. The sales girl was very obliging, and took me around, describing how it was displayed in sets, mostly of colors, with dresses, skirts, jackets, shoes, purses, and of course hats. (The Jacques Vert on-line store in the U.K. has what looks like a complete display of the items that were in the Bay for the spring/summer season.) I was surprised that the sales girl especially liked a conservative, navy blue set. She looked like she was in her late twenties, early thirties. I've always believed that women (especially the young women we see around in skimpy, ugly, dark "uniforms" who assiduously follow "fashion") actually will take on beauty (and prettiness) if given the chance.

Now, why not dive into color, especially for spring? That's what I told the sales girl, and she confessed to buying a lovely chiffon blouse with orange floral prints (here it is). Then she said she'd wear it with black pants. I didn't want to belabor the point, although I couldn't help pointing out that a cream skirt (already available with the set she was pointing to) might be better. Still, working in a Jacques Vert section, and looking at the clothes, surely gets her to see in the world in colors rather than in black and gray (and navy blue).

Often, a good design, fabric pattern, cut, color, etc., will influence the quality of other items. The dearth (or the eccentricities) of our contemporary fashion is partly because we have no good designs. If the royal wedding gets to promote designers like Jacques Vert, who are affordable but with quality designs, that would be wonderful. I have my doubts, though, and that this attention is the novelty (fashion?) of the moment.

Some welcome things at Jacques Vert are:
- Many of the dresses are floral (and other) prints
- The dresses have longer lengths than the minis I'm seeing these days
- The dresses and skirts come in sets, with jackets, blouses and sweaters
- There was a wide range of colors from subtle pinks to pale greens and brighter oranges and blues
- Shoes and handbags can be co-ordinated with the dresses, and are available on display