Women of the Cross

I've had two interactions with women bearing (wearing) large and distinct crosses. The first one was on a manager at Laura's, who told me she was wearing it as a fashion statement.

The other one was on a manager at the Art Gallery of Ontario, who made my simple refusal to give out personal information (name and address) at the purchase of a ticket into some gargantuan problem.

I wonder what this means, in my small world, and, if I may pompously add, in the bigger picture of crosses, religion and Christianity?

I wrote a few weeks ago about a family wedding to which I was invited, and which I declined, where the wedding was to take place with no Christian religious ceremony. Yet, the couple chose an important (quasi-religious) holiday - the Canadian Thanksgiving - to "celebrate" their day.

I think people cannot do without some form of higher, transcendental order. Some will wear the only religious symbols they know, but give them different, or non-Christian significance. Others will be enticed by religious rituals and ceremonies, but restructure them to suit their requirements.

As with the "Wish Tree" which resplendently sits in the Eaton Centre, Christian symbols are around, but they are not used in their true sense.

I think it a sign, which we have to pay attention to. Idolatry is an integral part of our culture now.

We have to stay strong, and faithful. I think the Armageddon is not far ahead.

Yevarechecha

Boris Savchuk
"Yevarechecha"

"Yevarechecha HaShem veyishmerecha" ("May God bless you and keep you").

Wit and Will

Lawrence Auster, at the View From the Right, says this about fighting Muslims:

In the end, our refusal to face the truth about Muslims, our flattery of non-moderate Moslems as "moderates," will convince them that we are saps lacking the wit and will to defend ourselves, which will increase their aggression against us. Like the Marxist dream with its 150 years on the road to nowhere, our dream of a moderate Islam will inevitably collapse one day, and the price might be nearly as high.

Wars are not only fought doggedly, but also with imagination. I think that is what Larry Auster means with his phrase "wit and will." We need to use our creative forces to fight off each enemy, since every enemy is a new monster, with its own rules, history, strategies, weaknesses and strengths. "Wit" implies that we study and understand this, rather than attack through relentless "will." Both, I think, are necessary in warfare.

Our new enemy, the Muslims, have gone far with will so far. Theirs is a relentless, ever-moving bulldozing. I don't see them using much wit in their tactics. We need to surprise, unsettle and unnerve them with our wit, then strategically use our will to vanquish them.

Canada: An Amalgam of Mediocrity. Part II

Marc Chagall
Couple de Danseurs (Dancing Pair), 1941
Gouache, watercolor, and ink on watercolor paper
16 1/2 x 10 1/4 inches
Musée National d'Art Moderne, Paris

Chagall is one of my favorite artists. I think it is the whimsy of his images, with a full range of motifs from farm animals to fiddle players, that attracts me. It is also the colors he uses, which as I wrote here, "are deep and saturated." I think there is also an exotic element of Chagall's depictions of "Russian Jewish peasantry" which I find intriguing.

The Art Gallery of Ontario has extended its Chagall exhibition "Chagall and the Russian Avant-Garde" until mid-January, with an unprecedented half-price admission on Wednesday nights. Tickets for the show are not cheap - $25 each. Half that price is a bargain.

I went yesterday to buy a ticket for this evening, to avoid the disappointment of a sold-out show. I walked into the renovated (and ugly) front part of the building to the ticket booth. The woman selling tickets asked me for my name and address. I said I wouldn't give her that private information. She said she couldn't process the ticket without it. I said I wouldn't leave without buying the ticket, but I wasn't going to give her the information. She said she'd have to call her manager.

"Fine."

The manager came.

"I'm not paying by credit card or check. There's no reason for you to have my personal information."

The manager looked me up and down, then said: "Just give it to her."

Then she turned to me and said, "There's no need to be so difficult."

"You haven't provided me with a good reason to give you that information. You are implying that I may be an art thief or something, with your treatment of me, and with your jaded reasons for taking my private, personal information. When I go to Sears and buy a coat, no-one demands that I give out such information, unless I'm paying by credit card or by check."

"You've just ruined the day."

Unbelievable.

The woman was an Ethiopian, by the large silver cross she was wearing. She had the features of the Tigray people of northern Ethiopia. She was short, and dark skinned, with short, curly dyed (brownish) hair.

I've experienced this antagonistic behavior from other Ethiopians. I always attribute it to my own features, which remind people of the late Haile Selassie (although there is no relation). They are of course the features of the Amhara group, the people that led the country for several centuries.

The bitter Mengistu Haile Mariam (thought to be the illegitimate offspring of a southern woman and her northern Amhara master) rose to unprecedented power from a mere corporal to leader of the country. He proceeded to destroy (or try to destroy) Ethiopia's historical and cultural identity, and especially the Amhara. Despite the demise of Communism (and Haile Mariam fleeing the country), the taint of Marxism is still in people's psyche, and those elitist Amhara are still to blame for all that went wrong in Ethiopia.

I think this is where this woman is coming from, since I cannot think of any other reason for her vicious interaction with me. (I get this kind of interaction from non-Amhara Ethiopians relatively frequently).

Needless to say, I bought my ticket, and wrote another one of my "To whom it may concern" letters to the administrators of the museum.

Despite this glitch, I really look forward to the exhibition, and will write a review soon.

Immigrants And The Fate Of Canada

In front of the Eaton Centre

I wrote recently about a Ukranian woman (manager) at my job at Laura's who was wearing what looked like a Celtic cross, but who told me that it was "for fashion." I thought she was Orthodox, and told her we have a similar tradition of Orthodox Christianity. She made it clear that she doesn't believe in God, which shocked me a little. Funnily enough, she's been treating me "nicely" since.

But, what is strange, odd and unsettling about the sales girls at the store is that the majority are Iranian women. They have limited English, or if they do speak English reasonably well, they have strong accents which makes it hard to understand them. They also pass customers over to each other, despite a kind of honorary "next sales girl in line" type of system. I already complained about this to managers, and it has gotten a little better (our daily sales are recorded, so I had to be aggressive about getting this sorted).

I wonder, though, why the store at Eaton's has stacked its sales girls with Iranian women (these are not "girls" but mostly middle-aged women)? I think it is because they will put up with "anything." They will agree to being shuffled around the store, have their hours cut or increased according to the "whim" of the managers (although the managers assure us that it is a computerized prediction of customer volume), and they accept the "bad tempers" or rude interactions from their bosses. Most Canadians will not put up with this.

I think that sales are pretty low at the Eaton store. I think these low sales have to do with the low quality of service these sales women provide, especially their lack of English. Also the majority of customers who browse through the store are those who wouldn't be able to afford Laura's merchandize, and go to the cheaper stores to actually buy items. They are mostly non-white immigrants. The customers who buy anything are mostly white women who come in knowing exactly what they want, and they don't require much sales assistance.

I think the Laura store at Eaton's is maintained on the good sales of the other Laura stores (there are three or four of them in the city). And closing a Laura store in a busy and popular mall like Eaton's wouldn't do Laura's image much good.

Ironically, I've been repeatedly making high sales, hitting a record high one day which gave me a weird "high five" from one of the managers.

A few days ago, a male customer told me he was looking for something for his wife's birthday. Something about him didn't look right (to discriminate, he didn't look like he could afford the $500 coat and $300 evening gown he was "planning" to buy). He was also carrying a large backpack (somewhere to put the goods?). I kept an eye on him and would surprise him around some corner (so he knew I was behind him). Finally, he dropped everything and just left the store (and I had to clear up after him). I think he was a shoplifter (shoplifting is about $75/day, apparently). I mentioned this to another sales girl, and her descriptions of a customer and his mannerisms a day or so earlier were very similar to mine. I reported all this to a manager.

But none of this seems to register with the managers. Like I said, I think the managers are simply used to treating the "Third World" sales girls badly - there are no white women working there, except for a new Australian immigrant sales girl, a woman who mostly comes in to design the window displays, and an older woman in her sixties who is there for the "senior" customers. The other sales women are a smorgasbord of multicultural Toronto: Chinese, Nicaraguan, Mexican, Indian and of course Iranian. The managers are: a black woman, a Tibetan/Indian with a strong Indian accent, and the Ukrainian woman with a strong "Russian" accent. The general manager is a Mexican woman (also with a strong accent).

These lowered sales put everyone on edge. Customer "grabbing" is high, especially from neophytes like me (by the seasoned Iranians), and managers have short tempers out of frustration to maintain the higher sales expectations from head office. Customers are also short-tempered and irritated by the pushy sales tactics the sales girls have to pursue (under orders), although I think it is also the general demeanor of Canadian women, who are hard to please but quick to anger when not being served.

Perhaps this is a glimpse of Toronto's future. Immigrants of different ethnicities will stick with their own kind. Fewer of them will feel compelled to learn good, or even perfect, English since they live, work and socialize in segregated environments (even within a more multicultural environment like Laura's). They will discriminate against others, other immigrants and Canadians alike, partly due to their own isolated, self-sufficient communities, and partly because they really are different (and some will think better) than these others. Simple cohesive efforts like selling clothes will suffer, since there is no joint community (or group) that will work together for the better of the community at large, such as the business in Laura's. Wealth will suffer, and Canada and its citizens will progressively get poorer. Cultural and other societal gains will suffer and diminish. White Canadians who can afford to will leave for the outer suburbs while poorer whites will have to wade through all these cultural and societal upheavals (paradoxically, inner-city Toronto is largely white, but I think that is guided by expensive real estate. Here is a more comprehensive map showing this trend in 2006). But at some point, there will have to be some kind of decisive retaliation (war, splintering-off of Canada?) by whites, and some non-whites who genuinely understand what is going on, to restore what is lost or has changed.

Mathilda's Absence Is Our Loss

The Algonquin cat (or more precisely, the Algonquin cat tradition) is no more. Mathilda the Third, has been banned from the Algonquin Hotel, and no other cat will be allowed to roam the hallways and lobby (and kitchen) of that famous hotel.

The reason given is "hygiene." But the New York Post writes that it is more to do with the fear of repercussions by Nanny Bloomberg:

Prodded by Nanny Bloomberg, the DOH [Department of Health] has been socking restaurants with steep fines for minor violations — and slapping dreaded “C” ratings on places where no one was known to get sick.

Some places are taking no chances, eliminating popular features before the DOH can strike them down. The party-pooping agency recently nudged Sardi’s to eliminate cheese snacks at its bar.

Now, thanks to a DOH “reminder,” poor Matilda is on a leash behind The Algonquin’s check-in desk, or out of sight on a higher floor.

The city’s favorite feline, a blue-eyed ragdoll, took up residence last winter. She’s the 10th Algonquin cat since Rusty, a k a Hamlet I, moved into the hotel, legendary home of the “Round Table” literary salon, in 1932.

Mathilda, and her followers, will now only be a memory in the long history of the Algonquin Hotel, like the famous Algonquin Round Table.

Culture, tradition, erudition, and even proud felines are being replaced by the bland, the boring and the lifeless.

Throwing Young Girls To The Wolves

Left: Kristen Stewart at the set of Snow White in 2011, with bloodied knuckles
[Notice the gloved hand which looks like it is ready to punch her.]
Right: Kristen promoting her film "The Twilight Saga: New Moon" in 2009

Oz Conservative (Mark Richardson) has posted on the recent Snow White movie. He writes:

The actress playing Snow White, Kristen Stewart, has been doing so many intense fight scenes that she was photographed with bloodied knuckles: [photo of Kristen Stewart with bloodied knuckles follows, which I've posted above]

Is this something to worry about? In the sense that it's another example of a trend in modern society, I think that it is. Things go wrong when people don't identify wholly with their own sex. If you are in any way set against yourself as a man or a woman, then it becomes difficult to express yourself adequately in relationships with the opposite sex.

What does the recasting of Snow White suggest to girls? It suggests that to be the heroine you now have to mix a considerable amount of the masculine in with the feminine. It suggests that the feminine by itself is inadequate or inferior.

I suspect he's right. Although I think it is cultural elites such as filmmakers who are driving young women (and men) into these unconventional sex roles. I think their purpose is insidious, where they design these confused (not quite reversed) roles, in order to destroy the society which they hate so much and to bring on their version of utopia on earth.

When I saw the photo, I just felt immense sadness for the girl, and the same level of anger at this wolf pack of filmmakers. A young girl is driven to "act" until she's physically maimed (I wonder how her hands and knuckles will fare after this, or if she will have some kind of permanent injury ). A young man would have to go through considerably more physical altercations before he gets bloodied like that, and if he does, is able to brush it off (and heal) much sooner than a girl.

A society that doesn't protect its women, and even worse, drives them to forfeit all their feminine delicacy (yes, Kristen looks delicate and vulnerable to me) is truly an evil society. If it can send its young girls into the lion's den, then it is truly capable of any kind of atrocity.

-------------------------------------
Here are my posts at Camara Lucida on the hypocritical, society-destroying liberal elites:
- Spike Lee's Mantra to the "youth": "Change the World"
- "Youth, Change the World!"
- "A horrifying lack of justice"
- How Liberals Start Young

Washington: The Legend

George Washington
(The Athenaeum Portrait), 1796.
Oil on canvas. By Stuart Gilbert.
Jointly owned by the National
Portrait Gallery at the Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, and the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
[Click here to view a larger version]

[Portrait originally posted at Camera Lucida here: Happy Thanksgiving and here: Forces of Nature].

I'm reading a thick, new book on Washington titled Washington: A Life, by Ron Chernow (released in 2010). I'm going very slow to digest the dense information, so I'm still at the very beginning. The book brings Washington to life. It is very comprehensive, and the chapters are divided into six parts (plus a prelude on one of Washington's portrait artists, Gilbert Stuart):

- Prelude: The Portrait Artist
- Part One: The Frontiersman
- Part Two: The Planter
- Part Three: The General
- Part Four: The Statesman
- Part Five: The President
- Part Six: The Legend

From the Prelude (p. XXII):

The goal of this biography is to create a fresh portrait of Washington that will make him real, credible, and charismatic in the same way that he was perceived by his contemporaries. By gleaning anecdotes and quotes from myriad sources, especially from hundreds of eyewitness accounts, I have tried to make him vivid and immediate, rather than the lifeless waxwork he has become for many Americans, and thereby elucidate the secrets of his uncanny ability to lead a nation. His unerring judgment, sterling character, rectitude, steadfast patriotism, unflagging sense of duty, and civic-mindedness - these exemplary virtues were achieved only by his ability to subdue the underlying volatility of his nature and direct his entire psychological makeup to the single-minded achievement of a noble cause.

"Out of our selves and into Christ we must go"

C. S. Lewis
By Lawrence Reid Bechtel
Bronze mounted on polished stone base

My co-bloggers What's Wrong With the World from James Kalb's "Other Trads" site discuss a speech by C. S. Lewis. They've also provided a link to the speech.

At the final third of the speech, Lewis articulates many of the things I've been clumsily trying to write about in the past few days:

"Social service ends in red tape of officialdom"
"Good intentions going wrong"
" People trying to do good things, but somehow something goes wrong."

(These are not my words, by quotes from Lewis's speech I've partly transcribed below.)

Near the end of the excerpt, Lewis says:

...the real cure lies far deeper. Out of our selves and into Christ we must go.

Here is the transcript of the latter part of the speech, which you can also listen to here:

The Christian life is simply a process of having your natural self change into a Christ self, and that this process goes on very far inside. One's most private wishes, one's point of view, are the things that have to be changed. That's why unbelievers complain that Christianity is a very selfish religion. "Isn't it very selfish, even morbid," they say "to be always bothering about the inside of your own soul, instead of thinking about humanity?"

Now what would an NCO say to a soldier who had a dirty rifle, and when told to clean it, reply "But Sergeant, isn't it very selfish, even morbid, to be always bothering about the inside of your own rifle, instead of thinking of the United Nations?" Well, we needn't bother about what the NCO would actually say. You see the point. The man isn't going to be much use to the United Nations if his rifle isn't fit to shoot with.

In the same way, people who are still acting from their old natural selves wont do much real permanent good to other people. Let me explain that. History isn't just the story of bad people doing bad things. It's quite as much a story of people trying to do good things, but somehow something goes wrong. Think the common expression "cold as charity." How did we come to say that? From experience. We've learned how unsympathetic and patronizing and conceited charitable people often are. And yet, hundreds and thousands of the started out really anxious to do good. And when they'd done it, somehow, it just wasn't as good as it ought to have been. The old story. What you are comes out in what you do. A crab apple tree can't produce eating apple. As long as the old self is there, its taint will be over all we do. We try to be religious, and become Pharisees. We try to be kind, and become patronizing. Social service ends in red tape of officialdom. Unselfishness becomes a form of showing off.

I don't mean of course to put a stop trying to be good. We've got to do the best we can. If the soldier is fool enough to go into battle with a dirty rifle, he mustn't run away. But I do mean that the real cure lies far deeper. Out of our selves and into Christ we must go. The change wont for most of us happen suddenly. And I must admit, that for most Christians it will on be beginning to the very end of our present lives. But there are some in whom it goes further, even before then. Far enough for you to see it. Their very faces and voices are different. When you meet them, you know you're up against something which, so to speak, begins where you leave off. Something stronger, quieter, happier, more alive than ordinary humanity.

"What Do You Wish For?"

[Photo by KPA]

Last year's Sears Canada's billboard advertizement for its Christmas catalog (right by the Baubles Tree at Dundas Square) was "Holiday Wish." The word "Christmas" was carefully omitted, but there was a clear reference to it.

This year, it is "What do you wish for?" The reference to Christmas is now vague and indirect, with a question which was designed to elicit a materialistic response, as in "I wish/want a fur coat for Christmas," not something like "I wish/want world peace for Christmas." The holiday (the holy day) is gone, but the shopping spirit still lives on.

The fine print on the online catalog version of this year's sign elaborates:

If you were wishing for a little help with your Christmas shopping, check out these inspired gift ideas. There's something for everyone and every budget.

Wedding Baubles

"Mounds of Chiffon"
Vera Wang's wedding dress
from her 2010 collection

I wrote recently about a wedding I was invited to which involved not having a religious (Christian) ceremony.

I recently saw the photographs of this wedding, and was surprised at the formality of it all. The groom was in a tuxedo, and the bride chose a frilly, fluffy, long, white wedding dress.

People want their important days to be memorable. One way we show their importance is by the rituals and traditions that surround these occasions, which are often serious and beautiful. Also, these serious and beautiful celebrations are recognizable, and to deviate (too much) from these well-known practices would confuse the attendees, and thus diminish the seriousness of the celebrations.

So, rather than do away with these beautiful traditions and rituals, many keep their materialistic aspects, but remove their spiritual dimensions.

It is the same with Christmas. As I showed in my previous post, Christmas trees are still around, replete with Victorian baubles and decorations. Yet, calling them "Christmas Trees" and following the traditions that would evoke the real Christmas, the religious Christmas, with angels and stars and gifts, all alluding to the birth of Christ, is unacceptable. So Christmas is erased even from the vocabulary of the holiday, and a tree becomes a Wish Tree, and Santa's gifts get siphoned to children's charities, preferably charities for those really sick children to whom we can make a difference out of our kindness and and generosity. We have become Santas, after all.

In the wedding described above, God is discarded, yet all the other gravitas - the dress, the formal dinner, the mother of the bride, the specially hired photographer to take those pictures to be viewed by several generations - are present. But, as I wrote in my Christmas tree post:

I wonder when there finally will be no "Wish Tree" since it has too strong a resemblance to Christmas? Perhaps next year, we will just be left with the ungainly reindeer that are hanging over the banisters, with Santa still conspicuously absent.

Of course, many rituals surrounding weddings have already been discarded. And couples live in common law arrangements without going through these rituals. Yet, they speak of their "partnership" with sombre, serious voices, giving it the importance of a marriage, and some do in fact get "married" the common law way. But, without the religious and traditional elements, common law marriage is a mere shadow of the real thing. Common law marriage is simply a technical (legal) condition which helps two people living together as some kind of unit (and not roommates) to maneuver legal and procedural elements. In Canada, merely living together for three years constitutes a common law marriage.

Marriage and Christmas, and other formal elements of culture, have been reduced to their celebrations and festivities, or their legal definitions. Yet these celebrations are tightly linked to their religious components. We can have the glamorous wedding dress and the glittering Christmas tree without their deeper meanings and symbolisms, but how long can this last? Why have a Christmas tree, or a Santa, when Christmas is no longer on the calendar, and is called some name like "Season's Holiday" or better yet "A Celebration of Wishes" that gets rid of the Christmas that "Season's Holiday" alludes to? Why have a full wedding ritual, with its serious religious component, when a couple can say its own vows, and use the occasion to have an elaborate party (which, along with the wedding dress, every bride dreams of)?

Eventually, all the beauty and festivities that these hangers-on clamor for in these religious occasions will be destroyed together with the religion that they have discarded. A beautiful tree without Christmas becomes absurd. An elaborate party to celebrate a couple living together, which is already living together, becomes a joke. A beautifully crafted wedding dress becomes too traditional, and some mound of chiffon is a better substitute.

Soon, we (they) will be living in a godless world which is also devoid of beauty.

The square right in front of the Eaton Center has the ultimate, treeless Christmas tree, made of a stack of baubles.

The ultimate Christmas Baubles at Dundas Square
(in front of the Eaton Centre),
sending out "Holiday Wishes"

The Crystal Christmas Tree, And Toronto Style Political Correctness

[Photo by KPA]

Finally the Christmas tree is up at the Eaton Centre. Last year, the theme was gold baubles and Swarovski crystals. The year, we have big bows, red baubles and the Swarovski crystals are back again.

I'm not sure which tree I like better, although the red baubles have a more festive air.

Once again, though, political correctness and multicultural censoring is on display in Toronto. The Eaton Centre website calls the tree the "Swarovski Crystal Wish Tree." Eaton's, along with Swarovski, will donate $100,000 to the Children’s Wish Foundation of Canada.

A Christmas tree becomes a "Wish Tree" and Santa's absence is bought with $100,000. I wonder when there finally will be no "Wish Tree" since it has too strong a resemblance to Christmas? Perhaps next year, we will just be left with the ungainly reindeer that are hanging over the banisters, with Santa still conspicuously absent.

Throwing Out Ornament

Right: The new Ryerson University Image Arts glass box all lit up
Left: The cloister windows of Notre Dame of Paris

I walk by Ryerson University almost daily in order to get to and from the downtown amenities (stores, bank, subways, etc.). Yesterday evening, I saw a young man taking photos of the new Image Arts building. I asked him what attracted him to the building. He said he liked the simple square. The building in the evening is impressively lit, and glows in dark shades of blue and yellow. Other times, it lights up in fluorescent pinks and purples. I'm not sure if this lighting extravaganza is to honor the new building, or if it will continue regularly. In any case, for a building that calls itself image arts, it is a cheesy decoration. But, it accentuates the box-like structure of the building.

I asked this young man if he's a film or photography student. He said neither, but was studying to be a counselor for LGBT youth. "Lesbian---Gay---Bisexual---Transgender---Youth" I said. Yes, he answered.

I asked him if architecture hadn't regressed. "Think about the medieval cathedrals, or the renaissance palaces. All we do now is glass boxes. Lego for grown ups. We're back to simple squares and circle, just a little above the line in the sand drawn with a piece of stick."

He informed me of the level modern technology has reached in order to build an almost exclusively glass building, since the glass is now essentially as strong as concrete.

Yes, but we have lost art in the process. Also, the medieval stained glass windows were no less of a technical feat. Their designers had to work with coloring the glass, designing the shapes, figures and forms within the glass, and making it function as a window. Think of the beauty of the glass in Notre Dame Cathedral. And the strength of those windows which held up arches.

I'm not into ornamentation, he replied nonchalantly, referencing (I think, although I may be giving him too much credit) the early twentieth century anti-ornament movement.

I don't think he's been to Paris, or even bothered with the history of glass and glass structures, when he gave me his quick, empty response.

"So what do you do" he asked me. I said I'm a former image arts (Ryerson) student of film and photography and that I tell people like him, one person at a time, that modern art, for all its supposed sophistication, has done us a great disservice, and is slowly dismantling our art and culture. And that my task as an image maker is to revive the tradition of the arts (of the image arts), and pick it up where modernism has thrown it aside, scornfully rejecting thousands of years of wisdom and erudition.

"Good bye, I have to be off now!" I said. Less than a minute later, I heard him shout from the (now empty) skating rink in front of the building: "I'm off too!" I hope he meant that he was done with those photos. Perhaps he just needed someone to jolt his intellect a little. I waved back, and walked on. But someone who has embraced this contrary life, this anti-life, is hardly going to be influenced by a five minute conversation. What he wants is the ultimate destruction of the traditional and religious society that condemns his "lifestyle." The less powerful this tradition, and its concrete reminders, the better for him and his ilk. Juvenile, even infantile art of basic shapes and design will certainly help with that regression, and ultimate destruction. One step at a time towards the gotterdammerung.

White Cat For Good Luck

White cat similar to the protagonist in this post

I've never seen a white cat before in my neighborhood, but one was walking around looking for attention yesterday. It wasn't completely white, but had a tiny streak of tan on its back.

"Hello Cat!" got its attention, but like all cats, it was keeping its cool. I gave it a couple of strokes, which it accepted with a meow, then it was off (as I was).

Once a Marxist...

Cross similar to the one the woman
described in this blog was wearing

One of the women at my job is a Ukrainian immigrant (I thought she was Russian from her accent). Yesterday, she was wearing a crystal cross, and I asked her if that is how they make Orthodox crosses in her country. She replied that the cross was just "for fashion." I thought she was being polite, in this multi-culti poisoned atmosphere of Toronto. I said that I was brought up Orthodox too, not Muslim as many people think I am, and she didn't have to worry that I would take insult. And that I read somewhere that Russians were going back to their religious roots, since Communism hasn't helped anyone.

She was dead serious about the cross being "for fashion." She proceeded to say that she never goes to church, and that she doesn't believe in God.

So this is the spawn of Communist Soviet Union. Communism destroyed the traditional life and religion of Russians and the other countries it subjugated but gave this woman nothing as replacement. I suppose nothing can really be formed out of emptiness, and only leads to the emptiness that this woman displayed to me. She has come to the perfect place: multicultural Toronto, where all cultures are equal, but anything to do with God and tradition is akin to sin. We are all equal in our emptiness.

Still, she has a choice. The fact that she so vehemently denied her religious and cultural background, as though I had touched a sacred taboo, indicates to me that somewhere in her thoughts she must think God and religion are valid. And her guilty expression after our conversation (it looked like that to me) shows me that she takes her religious denials seriously.

It was a strange, surreal episode. I thought evil was easily recognizable, or at least when recognized for the destruction it has wrought, people would fight against it. But that isn't the case with this woman.

Pruning, Grooming and Conditioning Young Boys

Jenna Lyons, president and artistic director of J. Crew
with her son, Beckett's neon pink toenails

A few days ago, I wrote about Jenna Lyons' sordid private (publicly displayed) life, where she left her husband for another woman. I took her toddler son's toenail-painting episode lightly, finding her lesbian affair much more damaging to the young boy than a crayola play-time involving neon pink nail polish.

Although I still think the whole toenail thing was overblown, Lyons' background doesn't make it so innocent. I doubt that neon pink nail polish is going to turn this little boy into some kind of sexual freak (or even a homosexual). But what Lyons, and many like her, are doing is making young, normal, healthy boys (Beckett looks like that to me) into liberal bodies to support (and even advocate for) people like her.

Homosexual relations go against every grain of society. Despite the homosexual movement's persistent and aggressive drive to be included into mainstream society, their main argument being that they cannot help being homosexual, it really is still pretty much of a taboo in ordinary people's lives. But, such ordinary (liberal) people say: "As long as it doesn't affect me and my family, other people should be able to do whatever they wish, or as in the case of homosexuals, follow their innate, real selves."

Unusual behavior (coloring a boy's nails pink like a girl's) can be made into a game with crayola: Having two mommies (or two married uncles) is so much fun.

In college, two of my best friends were a homosexual couple (I could never get close to lesbians as friends, partly because they were generally so "scarey" looking, even the "chic" ones). This homosexual couple ran an artsy film theater (with a beautiful plush interior) and I was their most frequent customer. The more effeminate of the couple (let's call him Bob) was really into art, home decoration, baking (and cake decoration, he baked cakes for my birthday), fashion - in short, a real stereotypical gay man. Although my field at university wasn't art, I was involved in many artistic things, including being part of a small local modern dance group. I also took many photographs, and one of my best portraits was of the two of them together. After the shows, we would go out for a meal or coffee, and talk about the films, art, culture, etc. An Afghan restaurant was our favorite hangout. Bob and I always had a lot to talk about. His boyfriend (Tom, for now), would get jealous, which shows that homosexual relations aren't eternally stamped in stone. But I digress.

As time went on, this couple would try to make things "gay-focused." For example, they would invite lesbian women to their gatherings, or take me to their lesbian friends' homes/businesses/parties, trying to match me up with one of them. If they had a gay film festival at their theater, they would be disappointed if I didn't show up.

Many times, they expected me to be their loyal friend, defending them against the big, bad, homophobic world. If I didn't, they would be unusually upset, and even make subtle remarks that I didn't really support them, and was as homophobic as the rest of the world.

It was an odd, uncomfortable friendship, but I liked Bob, and I thought that friendships always have their thorny parts, so I was willing to accept these odd ones. Eventually, though, it just became too much for me, and I stopped communicating with them.

So, even benign, friendly homosexuals have an agenda. Like liberals (which they also are), their intention is to destroy our current world and its traditions and to implement their world where all sexuality is accepted (including the vicious sado-masochistic, etc. - I should add that gentle, benign Bob was a "sado-masochistic" expert, where men, usually straight men, would seek him to perform sado-masochistic sexual acts on them). I was to be one of their "messengers" from the straight, female world who could pass on their credo into the wider world. Just as young Beckett is being groomed to be the messenger from the straight male world.

The moral to this story is that there is nothing benign, gentle or innocuous about homosexuality (or lesbianism). Apart from fulfilling their private, individual sexual needs, homosexuals' real intention is subversive, and eventually destructive, where traditional norms are eliminated, or at least reduced in prominence, from society.

Luck of the...?

Bust of Joseph Burr Tyrrell at the
Royal Tyrrell Museum, Drumheller, Alberta
By: Danek Mozdzenski

On Saturday mornings, I work at the Cabbagetown Regent Park Museum. I've written about the museum, its history and its neighborhood here and here.

Yesterday, an elderly gentleman stopped by and gave me a check, saying that this is his donation to the museum. "You know what to do with that, don't you?" he asked politely concerned. I said, yes I do, and thank you very much. After he left, I opened the (unsealed) envelope, and was shocked to find a $500 check. I placed it carefully away, and waited for the museum supervisor to show up at the end of the morning. I gave her the check, "Five hundred dollars!" She was too busy bustling around and didn't hear me. I waited, then I interrupted her:

"Here's a donation check for five hundred dollars!"
"I thought you said five dollars!"
"No a generous, and kind, five hundred. Bye, see you next week!"

His last name is Tyrrell. I looked up Tyrrell and Cabbagetown together, and here's what I found on a Joseph Burr Tyrrell, listed under "Cabbagetown People":

Born in Weston, Ontario in 1858, he was the son of an Irish immigrant who was a successful builder. Tyrrell represented a new breed of explorer; a wilderness traveller who was also a scientist. He worked for The Geological Survey of Canada for 17 years from 1881- 1898 spending a great deal of time mapping the Northwest Territories.

His most famous discovery was of the first Dinosaur bones in the Badlands of Alberta, the largest find of its kind in North America to date.

He travelled up unmapped rivers to Fort Churchill and Dawson City, discovered coal deposits in Alberta and British Columbia and participated in the Klondike Gold Rush. He helped to develop many mines in Northern Ontario, including gold mines, and retired a wealthy man.

Later on in life he bought 600 acres of land for an apple orchard that is now the site of the Toronto Zoo. He died at 99 years of age in Toronto in 1957 having lived a full life, by any measure.

I'm not sure if this gentleman is related to this famous Tyrrell, yet it would make sense that a relative of someone listed under "Cabbagetown People" would make such a contribution. Perhaps I will solve the mystery next week.

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

At my job at Laura's, a middle-aged woman walked by my "zone" (each salesgirl is given an area called a zone, where she manages the customers that pass through). This customer eventually bought several hundred dollars worth of merchandize (pants, tops, cardigans, jewellery), which she said she needed both for office Christmas/winter attire, and for the holiday season in general. She says she comes in about twice a year to update her wardrobe. I told her she could wear these same clothes next year (i.e., no need to replenish her wardrobe). The store manager couldn't believe it, and it seemed like some big occasion (don't these people sell anything!?).

Bay Department Store Christmas Windows

The Bay has its Christmas displays up again. Tradition continues for another more year.

Here is what I took, and wrote, last year. The displays are the same this year.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------


The Bay department store continues with the tradition of decorating its windows during Christmas with seasonal scenes. Even the mice get to enjoy this holiday- the "underground" scene in the image above is the mice quarters, replete with matchbox beds. (Click on the image to view a larger version). The bottom image with what look like Salvation Army carolers has a realistic dog (more so than the humans) sitting by the paper boy. Everyone, animal and human, gets to participate - or is at least placed in the created scene by a generous artist. The scenes evoke Victorian Toronto, traditional and confident.

Both these scenes are filled with comfort and color. Yet in the real world of Toronto, despite adorned Christmas trees coming (sprouting) up everywhere, and carols filling every space we walk in, there still isn't the sense of a holiday. But, I've already talked about the multi-culti aura that permeates the city, which seems to affect even this most vigorous of our Christian holidays.

In front of the Bay yesterday, there was a bus load of people who looked like out-of-town Canadian tourists. They had made it part of their itinerary to stop and look at the windows. Parents with small children in tow are also frequent visitors to these windows. This will be a special memory for these small children to have: going all the way to Queen and Yonge on a cold winter's day, just before Christmas, to look at the window displays with carols sounding from the speakers. The Victorian era is an apt time for a return to tradition. It evokes nostalgia. Yet it is not too far gone, since the tradition is still practiced, and it still affects our modern spirit. The Bay (and Eaton's) haven't given up on continuing the tradition of Christmas, at least in their modest store decorations. We will have to wait and see if that is enough.


(Photos by KPA)

Lesbian Chic

J. Crew's Jenna Lyons (left) and Courtney Crangi

The President and artistic director of J. Crew, Jenna Lyons,

...splits from husband to live with lesbian lover. Colourful life of CEO Jenna Lyons. [Source: Daily Mail]

That is the same clothing company which Michelle Obama made famous (or more famous).

Lyons, J.Crew's top woman, has left her husband of nine years, Vincent Mazeau, and moved in with Courtney Crangi. Lyons has a five-year-old son, who now probably has to shuttle between his lesbian mother and father, and Crangi has three children, one daughter the same age as Lyons' son. I tried to look up the father (fathers?, sperm donors?) of Crangi's children, but to no avail. There is no news on Crangi's personal life, other than she "split from her partner" to be with Lyons. Is her partner male, female, transgendered, transsexual? No information on that either.

I've put together a couple of collages of these women. One shows how unfeminine, even androgynous, they look, even when married (prior to their tryst). The other is how Lyons' son looks like a little girl.

Top Left: J. Crew's Jenna Lyons with her husband Vincent Mazeau
Top Right: Jenna Lyons with lesbian lover Courtney Crangi

Lyons and Crangi have some photos where they appear in dresses, but even then, there is something androgynous, or unkempt, with the "feminine" styles they chose (see the top right photo of Lyons in her shapeless dress with the giant beads). Lyons has on an attractive floral skirt (bottom left), yet she wears it with a masculine blazer and dark, thick tights, not the feminine stockings it calls for. The bottom right photo of Lyons shows her in her full androgynous regalia, with masculine cut pants and shirt. She clinches the look with a hand in the trouser pocket. Crangi's pairing of a shapeless evening gown with a shaggy fur vest (top right) is simply odd.

Looking like a man finally led Lyons to flinging aside her womanhood and ultimately into a convoluted relationship she fostered with her "friend" (which is how magazines describe Lyons' and Crangi's original relationship). Crangi's trajectory is similar. Here she is with her brother/business partner looking reasonably feminine, yet here she is looking ominously amazonian.

I think looking feminine is part of the process of thinking (and being) feminine, which leads to all the other normal functions that women do: getting married to men; having children; battling the modern feminist world which wants to turn women into men (in the work force, in the family, etc.).

Appearances matter. The world has known this for eons. Kings dress as kings, soldiers as soldiers, women as women and men as men. Little girls dress as little girls, boys dress as boys.

But not only do people dress their roles, they dress in their roles aesthetically. I think aesthetics, or the desire to make things beautiful (our clothing, our homes, our cities), is part of our natural desires. When society veers away from that I think confusion ensues. Aesthetics seems to be the anchor around which we can build our identities. Looking like a beautiful (at least attractive and pleasant-looking) woman is part of securing the the identity of the woman. Having a beautiful city is inherent in our desire to live and maintain that city. Think of those Soviet cityscapes, where ultimately people could no longer live with their ugliness, hence that quick demise (as history goes) of the unaesthetic socialist revolution.

A well-groomed man is actually a more masculine man, where the grooming may takes on a cultural particularity, but is particular to all cultures. For some reason, a badly groomed man looks weak (and effeminate?). In any case, it doesn't help his masculinity.

Lyons with her husband

Notice (in the photo above) Vincent Mazeau shaggy beard, uncoiffed hair, and that startled expression I see in so many men these days, as though engulfed by the contradictions of feminism, an ideology which they support against their innate desire to be anything but a feminist - or feminist supporter. Although Lyons looks mild and nonthreatening in the photo above, below is another where she has none of the soft femininity one would expect of a woman (and a wife).


Mazeau was a "stay-at-home-dad" and is seeking alimony from Lyons for the time he spent at home with their son when he could have been building his career.

Lyons and her son Beckett

Above is the little boy, who became famous for having his toenails painted by his mother. On the left, he looks like any other toddler, with his truck and teddy-bear-type Sesame Street's goofy, yet decidedly undoll-like, Emo. Yet in the photo on the right, without his boyish paraphernalia, those long locks make him look like a little girl. I wonder what he'll grow up to be, with a father who couldn't keep his wife, and a mother who left the family for another woman?

Finally, here is the image in last spring's issue of J. Crew that catapulted Lyons' son into the media.

Lyons and her son's painted toenails

The caption above the picture reads:

Saturday with Jenna

"See how she and son Beckett go off duty in style."

The caption below reads:

Quality Time: "Lucky for me, I ended up with a boy whose favorite color is pink. Toenail painting is way more fun in neon."

I hardly think that painting a son's toenails in neon pink will damage his personality (notice the crayola in the jar, which makes the whole thing more of a fun painting game). It's the sordid family saga that is infinitely more serious, but no-one seems to be paying that much attention.

Sharon Bialek: A Jumble of Contradictions

Sharon Bialek in her appropriately
somber black dress, well below the knees,
ready to take on the corporate world. Yet
look at the ruffles on the side of the dress,
which match her cascading blond hair (which
takes a lot of grooming to achieve that look).
Although her jewellery is a restrained silver
instead of gold, the long chain still
glamorizes the dark dress.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I wonder why Sharon Bialek really decided to come forward. What kind of thoughts did she harbor after all these years (fifteen) about her business date/dinner gone wrong (if you read the accounts I've linked to below, that's what it sounds like)? What did she really mean to do to Herman Cain by throwing a fifteen-year-old story onto his presidential tracks? Is it anger, envy, self-pity, indignation? A whim? Some politically correct sexual harassment angle to her story which she suddenly picked up?

In any case, she's a myriad of contradictions (or contradicting reports). She's a corporate careerist who has been through nine employers in seventeen years. She's a single mother who lives with a "fiance" who is not the father of her thirteen-year-old son. She's a well-spoken woman who cannot help the "little girl" tilt in her voice. She's a career woman who dresses in conservative dark clothes, yet has a mop of disheveled blond hair and heavy make-up more appropriate for a bordello. She's a strong woman who cannot handle the advances of a lusty black man, despite her many come-ons.

The report here says that she's a "single mother," that holy, sacrosanct position of the modern world, with a thirteen-year-old son, and that he (her thirteen-year-old son!) told her to "do the right thing."

Bialek said that one of the reasons she came forward to tell her story was that her 13-year-old son thought she should. "My biggest fan is my son. .... I called him and I said, 'Nick, what do you think I should do?'" He said, 'Mom, you have to do the right thing. I think you need to tell on him.'"

"That confirmed it for me," Bialek said. "If my son is saying it I want to be the role model for him and for other kids growing up that this is not appropriate behavior."

There's something infantile (and creepy) about asking the opinion of your teenage son about reporting a sexual incident.

Her "fiance" Mark Harwood, to whom she has been engaged for a year and has lived with for three, says:

He will stand by his fiancée and believes coming out publicly was a 'gutsy' thing to do.

From the Chicago Tribune:

"It's not an anti-political thing. It's not a money thing," said Harwood, who shares a large, five-bedroom home with Bialek in north suburban Mundelein. "She's just trying to do the right thing, and that takes guts."

Bialek's fiance, however, denied she had any current money problems. Harwood, a corporate executive in the medical equipment industry, said he supports her financially so she can stay at home with her 13-year-old son from a previous relationship.

The independent, corporate career woman, according to Gloria Allred, has actually been living off a "fiance" (only for a year under that category, the previous three years he was just a boyfriend with whom she shacked up), acting the "stay-at-home" mom for a grown, teenage son, who is not even the child of this current boyfriend.

This from the Chicago Tribune:

Bialek has not had a job outside the home in about two years, according to her attorney, Gloria Allred.

Here is information about her son from WLS-TV Chicago:

In 1999, Bialek's son Nicholas was born and a paternity lawsuit was filed by the father, a media executive.

Which implies that the son was born out-of-wedlock, by another man, not her current live-in boyfriend.

And from abc.com, Harwood defends his mistress:

"She's of the same political persuasion as Herman Cain," Harwood said. "There was no money on the table to go and have an interview. This is truly about an American girl who's got a big heart and wants to do the right thing.

An American girl (age fifty) who's got a big heart and wants to do the right thing!

Although her professional life is long, with many managerial positions, she seems to have a pattern of leaving jobs after short durations. Chicago's WLS-TV reports that:

Bialek's resume and a trail of public records indicates that changing jobs has been a regular occurrence for the Chicagoan. She has worked for at least nine different employers over the past 17 years and appears to have struggled financially.

Gloria Allred (speaking at this news conference) lists Bialek's corporate career path that spans a couple of decades, apparently full of illustrious positions and achievements. But a closer look shows that Bialek, in many instances, stays very short periods with her employers before changing jobs. It's not clear how many times she got fired and how many times she left her various jobs. Her position at the National Restaurant Association appears to have lasted a short six months before she was "terminated," which sounds like a firing.

New York Post reports:

Sharon Bialek...worked for a branch of the National Restaurant Association (NRA) before being terminated in 1997...

More from the Daily Caller:

"We can confirm that Sharon Bialek was employed by the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation from 12/30/96 – 6/20/97," Sue Hensley, a spokeswoman for the National Restaurant Association, said in an email to The DC.

In her formal statement at the recent news conference, she says that she met Cain at a Tea Party convention in 1997. She knew him from her time with the National Restaurant Association. She asked him if he could help her with getting her job back (which she'd lost in June 1997). She looks friendly, attractive, and even enticing, if her news conference hair and make-up are any indication. Cain might have got the wrong signals. She accepted a ride with him. He made advances in the car. She rejected them. He stopped. And now she's reporting it as sexual harassment.

Lawrence Auster, at the View From the Right (VFR), has several posts on Bialek, as well as many on the ongoing Cain story. I agree with his answer to Laura Wood's comment. I don't think Auster is engaging in sophistry, or parsing [the story] from a partisan perspective, as another VFR reader, Jim C., has commented, but is trying to work between fine lines. Below are the interactions:

Laura Wood:

I think you are engaging in uncharacteristic sophistry on this issue. Regardless of how permissive modern liberalism is, the issue is whether, provided the accusations are true, conservatives consider Cain's actions improper. And they should consider them improper. He is not a suitable candidate if he is guilty of such reckless, illicit behavior.

Lawrence Auster:

Let's say for the sake of discussion that it was true. Fifteen years ago as a private individual he got excited by a woman and crudely groped her, including making a gesture pushing her toward oral sex. That offends me. The obsession with oral sex is a mark of the debasement of our culture. But I don't see how that one incident by itself 15 years ago would disqualify a man for the presidency.

You say that the wrongness of the left is not the issue here, but only what we think is right. But as I've said here, this issue is mainly not about our views of private morality but about what standards control our public life. Your position and Leonard's adds up to allowing the left to give a pass to outrageous sexual behavior by Democratic politicians, while we are ready to destroy a Republican candidate for one attempted and not-completed adultery in the distant past.

It's an impossibly complicated issue because of the way the left keeps jerking us around. I am aware that my position is not perfect and can be criticized. But it seems to me that the alternatives are worse.

Here's the interaction with Jim C.:

Jim C. writes:

I have to disagree strongly with your take. If Bialek's version of events is true, Cain sexually assaulted her. And I wish you wouldn't parse this case from a partisan perspective; some of us still believe that moral judgment is as important in business as it is in any other aspect of life. This woman believed that Cain was an ethical businessman, and what she discovered was a perv with affirmative action mojo.

LA replies:

Parsing it from a partisan perspective is the very thing I have not been doing. Unlike the Republicans who have been all-out defending Cain from the charges, I OPPOSE his candidacy. I'm not saying that moral judgment does not matter. I am saying that given the actual ruling morality in American public life, which the liberals have imposed on us, Cain's 15 year old alleged sexual assault, which evidently lasted about five seconds before he stopped and left Bialek alone, is not disqualifying in my opinion. If there were more such behavior by him, and more serious behavior, then it would be disqualifying. But this one incident, assuming it is true, does not rise to that level.

Bialek went into a situation (flirting with a male she didn't really know very well, apart from conversations at meetings) that she didn't know the outcome of. Flirtatious, or sexual, invitations to any male have unforeseen consequences. Different men deal with these interactions differently. And different races too. I find that black men are much more eager to take anything (a smile, a mild hello) in a flirtatious or sexual light, and to proceed with their advances.

Perhaps there was a racial (forbidden, unknown) element to Bialek's behavior (flirtatious, etc.) towards Cain, and not only the attraction of a powerful man.

She should have just licked her wounds, cut her losses, and started afresh. But given her strange private life, I don't think she had anything "fresh" to start over with. In any case, I think she did herself harm, probably more harm than Cain did since he can always go back to running his businesses if his presidential bid doesn't pan out.

What The World Needs Now Is A Brown Eyed Girl With A Social Conscious

I haven't posted music in a little while.

Here is Van Morrison's "Brown Eyed Girl" which I heard out of a restaurant speaker playing onto the street:

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

Jackie DeShannon's "What the World Needs Now Is Love" is a song one of the couples at Dancing With the Stars danced the waltz to (it worked):


Here is an interesting account of "What the World Needs Now Is Love" where a Los Angeles disk jockey remixed it as a social commentary "What the World Needs Now is Love/Abraham, Martin And John" :

In addition to the DeShannon hit recording and the numerous cover versions, "What the World Needs Now is Love" served as the basis for a distinctive 1971 remix.

Disc jockey Tom Clay was working at radio station KGBS in Los Angeles, California, when he created the single "What the World Needs Now is Love/Abraham, Martin and John", a social commentary that became a surprise hit record that summer.

The song begins with a man asking a young boy to define such words as bigotry, segregation and hatred (to which the boy says he doesn't know); he says that prejudice is "when someone's sick". Following that is a soundbite of a drill sergeant leading a platoon into training, along with gunfire sound effects, after which are snippets of the two songs – both as recorded by The Blackberries, a session recording group. Interspersed are excerpts of speeches by John F. Kennedy, Robert F. Kennedy, the eulogy after Robert's assassination by Ted Kennedy and Martin Luther King, Jr., and soundbites of news coverage of each one's assassination. The ending of the song is a reprise of the introduction.

"What the World Needs Now is Love/Abraham, Martin and John" rose to No. 8 on the Billboard Hot 100 in August 1971, and was Clay's only Top 40 hit.

"What the World Needs Now Is Love" was written by Burt F. Bacharach (music) and Hal David (lyrics). Hal's brother, Mack David, won eight Academy Awards for his songs in various movies.

More Synchronicity

Iris Grid
[Photo by KPA]

Purple Flowers by a Chain Link Fence
[Photo by KPA]

Top: A photograph I took last spring of purple iris against the grid of a brick wall.
Bottom: A photograph I took lat summer of purple mint flowers against a chain link fence.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The photographer from a photography blog Toronto Daily Photo was also struck by purple flowers against a brick wall. He writes:

Here, I thought the image of the flowers against the brick wall was interesting.

He titles his image Flowers on Brick. I wish he would give the name of the flowers, though. I often wander around asking people the names of plants I don't know before I post them. I think the flowers are Rhapsody Clematis (image here).

(Previous post on synchronicity here)

Have a Little Fun with Diversity

Here's a funny (as in coincidental/synchronous) post over at What's Wrong With the World, my co-bloggers on Jim Kalb's "Other Trads" list. Jeff Culbreath, who is part of the team of bloggers at WWWW, writes:

I'm back in the job market, having just resigned from a company whose ethical problems were too numerous and systematic for me to avoid complicity. If you have any openings where you work, please let me know.

Then, he writes about his application experience, specifically for a company called Ecolab:

Anyway, I just applied for a sales management position at a company by the name of Ecolab. I should have read their website first. They're really into diversity and inclusion. Here's a list of their "associate affinity groups":

The list from Ecolab's "associate affinity groups" link starts off with:

A WORLD OF TALENT. A CULTURE OF GROWTH.
At Ecolab, we believe that the success of our associates and the success of our company go hand-in-hand. We are committed to a culture that fully leverages our associates' talents by promoting an environment where all people can make a difference, be heard, be supported, be developed, and be rewarded for their contributions.

Then Jeff ends with:

Sounds like a diversity huckster's paradise, doesn't it? Not that I'm expecting a response from the HR manager, but if by some horrible mistake she (it's always a she) calls me in for an interview, I think I'll go just to have a little fun with her...

He's at least humorous about his call. I suppose my experience applying for a sales position at a clothing store could be funny.

I was interviewed along with a non-English speaker (well, that's how I would judge her if I were shopping in that store, since her English, in her heavy Indian accent, is incomprehensible), who was running around the store like a chicken with its head cut off, with a couple of desperate pleas for help from me, her competitor!

Although I fit in the "diversity" look, "diversity" seeking people are often startled when they meet me and converse with me. I.e., I don't go on about "diversity" and I don't expect anything from "diversity." I think this is what happened at the clothing store, hence my surprise at getting the post. But, I think the managers are more clever than I give them credit for, since my presence will attract (for a while, anyway) "diverse" clientele.

The "diverse" new colleague who came on board at the same time as I did can also benefit from me, another "diverse" new person. We can learn the ropes together. Translated, this means that I can (will) coach her on store etiquette, names of products, customer service (i.e. translations for both her and her customers), etc.

So, I could surely concoct some Monty Pythonesque episodes with my interactions between her and the customers, and between us two, since, like Jeff and his Ecolab interactions, I could have fun with her.

Skating Already

Skating at Nathan Phillips Square [Photo by KPA]

Above is a photo I posted last December of skaters at Toronto's City Hall (Nathan Philips Square) skating rink. Here's what I wrote:

Skaters at the City Hall's rink in Nathan Phillips Square (named after Toronto's first Jewish mayor) keep the spirits high. Some try their hockey moves (without sticks), others are just beginning.

The old(er) and the new are juxtaposed in the buildings. The new City Hall , which I don't like and which I refrained from photographing, stands near the "Old City Hall" (that's what it's called), seen in the above photo.

Notes:
1. The high rise is part of the city's skyline, and not the new City Hall.
2.The City of Toronto flags are waving in the background. Needless to say, in line with my critical nature, I do not like the flag design. Part of my dislike is that the lifeless new City Hall is the focus of the design (one bad idea always leads to another). But more on that later.

It looks like skating has already started at New York City's Rockefeller Center skating rink, which opened on October 15th, 2011. Toronto's rink is scheduled to open a month later on November 19th. So much for a northern city!

Below is a photo of the Rockefeller rink taken about a day ago, posted at the blog NYC Daily, which is a blog dedicated to taking photographs of New York City. There are some really impressive photos at the blog, although at times I find that the images are over-saturated (which helps to make them more dramatic, but New York hardly needs any added drama). It looks like the Christmas lights are going up, but the lighting of the Christmas tree isn't until the end of November.

Skating at the Rockefeller Rink [Photo from NYC Daily]

Laura's Fashion

This morning, I went for a job interview at Laura's, a clothing store in the Eaton Center. It was my "second" interview, so I was pretty optimistic that I'd got something (a few evening shifts for the Christmas season?). I went about fifteen minutes early, but had to wait an extra fifteen because the woman being interviewed with me was late (forget about showing up early to start the interview on time...). Then we sat around for another ten while the interviewer got the paperwork together. I was surprised when this woman showed up. She was there at my first interview, and spoke in an incoherent Indian accent. During that interview (we did it together), she kept talking about how she was a "newcomer" and a "new immigrant" (repeating her sad state of affairs in as many ways as possible) and "in my country, this is what we do" etc. The interviewer (a black woman) kept giving her encouraging comments like "good job, good point," etc. Still, I thought for sure she was out. After all, one of the requirements of a saleswoman is to assist the customers that are here and now, not a faraway there.

So, I was surprised, and a little shocked, when she showed up again today. As part of the interview, we did an "add to this piece of clothing to make it a complete set" exercise. We got a pair of grey pants and a camel colored coat and were asked to work with each separately. I thought speed was part of the exercise, so I finished both in about fifteen minutes. The Indian woman was still roaming around the store, so rather than sit and wait, I looked through the merchandise. While I was doing this, she kept coming up to me asking where to find things. I didn't know where items were either before I started the exercise, and had done a quick survey of the clothes at the beginning of the exercise - they were pretty logically set up by color scheme. So, I either ignored her or said I didn't know. This time, I was sure she was out.

Not so fast. She was asked to come in on Monday and Thursday afternoon, as I was, to which she responded that she couldn't make it on Thursday because she was taking classes. Then her time got changed to the morning.

After all this was over, we saw the store's General Manager, whose title we knew only after she gave us information about the I.D.s and other papers we needed to bring in. I actually thought she was another shop assistant, and wasn't paying her much mind. Her manner was ingratiating, and she also had a strong (Iranian) accent.

As I left the store, I began to understand why the saleswomen were all non-English speakers, some with heavy accents. I'm sure this GM had quite a bit to do with the hiring decisions, as did the black woman who interviewed us (who never gave us her title).

I always have trouble having my questions answered correctly whenever I come to this store, mostly from the accented saleswomen who range from Mexican to Iranian. None has ever helped me with my questions on garment type, pairing items together, or simple questions about where to find things. I realized that they really didn't know much about "add[ing] to this piece of clothing to make a complete set." There is a Polish woman whom I seek out, who has a better understanding of English and of the clothing.

This is multi-culti Toronto at its best. My assessment is that through discreet affirmative action and some Human Resources decision to hire heavily accented "new" immigrants, these women ended up in this relatively mid-level store without much talent or expertise. But I think it is more clever than that. By assembling these heavily multicultural women, some of whom sound like they just "came off the boat," the store's managers probably think that this can attract similar shoppers, even if they have to trek downtown from their immigrant enclaves in the northern outskirts of Toronto. I think I was also part of the multicultural scheme, and that I would help this fellow immigrant interviewee who speaks no English during her time of distress (team work was considered #1 during the interview).

But the reality is that Laura's doesn't attract those kinds of shoppers, who are probably more at home with the down-priced merchandize from Wal-Mart. Matching a deep brown wool coat with a forest green silk scarf is not at the top of their fashion (if they even use that word) list. A grey, polyester waterproof coat of synthetic insulation, with a knitted acrylic scarf would fit their requirement for battling the Canadian winter which they dread so much (all non-white immigrants, even several generations down, have this irrational fear of winter).

So, for all their attempts at inclusiveness and multi-culti hiring practices, this particular store (and probably all of Laura's branches) will get the usual white customers, many of whom know what they want and avoid these odd, accented saleswomen, and find their own items. They would be too polite to complain for fear of being called racist. That's how I used to shop, anyway. I did a small survey of the clientele in today's interview, and yes, they were of the demographic I would expect, independently going about their ways without so much as glancing at the saleswomen.

Fortunately, Laura's clothing quality hasn't gone down. I think this will continue to happen, despite the efforts of the stores' "brains" to adjust the stores to what they think is appropriate for Toronto, and Canada.