Who Will Help the Royal Couple?

Well, the royal wedding has certainly has us talking! And so it should. As I looked over the photos of William and Kate in Canterbury Cathedral, that grand and beautifully majestic building, I was suddenly struck by the youth (they're both under thirty) of the couple standing in that ancient edifice where so many others have stood before them, and the huge expectations that even the non-believers have of them.

I've talked often of the cohesive force that, say, the Ethiopian monarchy brought to the country over the centuries, allowing it to withstand everything from Islamic to Italian invasions.

But, I think one of the primary factors that allowed this monarchy to resist obstacles, and to keep the country as safe and united as possible against destruction, is Christianity. Emperors were ordained through God, and referred to the religion and its symbolic (and practical) values as they reigned. And the common man looked up to them in a semi-religious way, trusting that they will keep them safe and united, and promising loyalty in return. Patriotism began with the Emperors.

This is what Kate and William can bring to their country. Not a cultish adulation (or an entertaining distraction, as has been the case here, which caused my initial negative reaction to the festivities), but something prescribed from higher levels (of tradition, of faith), which, as history shows us, is such an important aspect of the health of a nation.

But as I wrote at the end of my previous blog, "the couple [needs to] rethink through the muddle [of the ring, which I used as a metaphor for what they've inherited]. The problem is, who will help them?"

That is the big question.

Down-toning the Royal Wedding Ring

This photo's caption reads "Prince William and Kate
Middleton exchange rings." This is incorrect. It is Prince
William who gives Kate Middleton a ring. He doesn't
receive one in exchange. The controversial Archbishop
of Canterbury presided over the ceremony.

The writers at What's Wrong With the World have a post and discussion on the royal wedding. They dissect the changes ("down-tonings" - scare quotes are Lydia McGrew's) in the vows from the original Anglican Church 1662 marriage service, and how they has been modified for the couple. McGrew comments:

Those are rather strange down-tonings. The concepts appear to be the same, though not exactly. For example, the reference to fornication as "sin" is eliminated, though the general notion seems to re-emerge in the phrase "directed aright." Altogether an odd set of liturgical innovations--almost pointless, except to make things in some very vague sense sound less "harsh."

The dropping of "obey," of course, is substantive.

The couple has of course been involved in "sin" (McGrew's scare quotes) for about a year before the wedding. The modified service is not to sound less "harsh" (again McGrew's quotes) but to modify the service according to the Church of England's re-writing of biblical tenets, and heading ever closer to a new "Christianity" (quotes my own) that is overtaking our modern world, which gives less importance to God's will, and more to our own.

McGrew also writes:

If so, that combined with the other bit of gossip to the effect that W. is giving K. a wedding ring but not vice versa is rather amusing and shows that the young couple is more than a bit clueless about liturgy. The whole asymmetry whereby the man says, "With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow" but the woman does not say all this to him, is part and parcel of a distinction between the sexes represented by her promising to obey him but not vice versa. But I suppose one can't expect them to know that.

The exchange of rings (or lack thereof) is not gossip. Perhaps McGrew posted her comments before viewing that part of the ceremony. William gave Kate a ring, but did not receive one from her.

The history behind the ring "asymmetry" is somewhat explained here:

"It's very traditional to have a single ring gift, not a double exchange," said the Rev. Spenser Simrill of St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. "Historically, the woman was the only one who received a ring. Today (a male ring) is the standard, but it can be an elective."

It basically took World War II to kick off the double-ring tradition. According to research by Vicki Howard, author of "Brides Inc." (University of Pennsylvania Press, $19.95), the number of men who incorporated a ring into their wedding vows increased from 15% in the late 1930s to 80% in the late '40s as part of "a new cult of marriage."

The shift "was shaped by changing gender ideologies," said Howard, an associate professor of history at Hartwick College in New York. "It symbolized a new form of domestic masculinity, a feeling of shared bonds and togetherness as part of a household unit. Wearing a band to signal that you're married was a symbol of these changing roles."

It is strange that William, in a seemingly chauvinistic manner (the woman is identified as married and belongs to the man, as is implied by the ring on her finger) opts not to wear the ring, yet allows Kate (surely they discussed this between them) to drop her "obey" in their vows.

I don't think the couple are "clueless" as McGrew opines, but have made a conscious, but muddled, attempt at changing the church liturgy to suit their whims (what else can it be?).

"William struggled to get the ring on Kate's finger" reports the Daily Mail, which might be a slight nudge from higher forces that the couple rethink through the muddle. But, the problem is, who will help them?

Jacques Vert's Royal Fascinators

Jacques Vert's Fascinators

On Tuesday I posted photos of hats on display at the Bay department store window. The display was part of a video/photo installation of the bizarre Japan Vogue editor-in-chief Anna Della Russo and the insipid "fashion" blogger Tommy Tan, who blogs about what he thinks is the latest "in" thing for fashion. I failed (and still fail) to see the connection between the lovely hats and the slovenly Russo and Tan.

It turns out that the hats are by British milliner and fashion designer Jacques Vert, whose hats are being promoted during the "Royal Wedding Celebrations" which the Bay is modestly hosting on Thursday and Friday. I think the window display designer (it turned out to be a "he" - Scott Lovell, who obliged me with this updated information) felt compelled (or was instructed by higher authorities) to include these hats along with the Russo/Tan installation. I wonder why he didn't organize a larger, more complete, display of the wedding, including clothing, photos, wedding dresses (didn't Diana's ever occur to him?!), sans Russo/Tan? But, like all post-modern designers, he is at odds with beauty, formality, hierarchy etc., etc., so he gives us a mish-mash of ugliness (Russo and Tan) who overwhelm small islands of beauty (the hats) so we hardly realize that beauty exists at all.

I was finally directed by a saleswoman to the third floor of the store to see more of Vert's hats. Another saleswoman explained to me that some of these "hats" are fascinators, which are a combination of a head gear and a head piece. Here's what Wikipedia says about fascinators:

A fascinator is a headpiece, a style of millinery. The word originally referred to a fine, lacy head covering akin to a shawl and made from wool or lace. The term had fallen almost into disuse by the 1970s

In the early 21st century, the term has made a comeback, but the meaning has slightly changed; it is now used to describe a delicate, slightly-to-very frivolous head decoration worn almost exclusively by women. A fascinator may be worn instead of a hat to occasions where hats were traditionally worn—such as weddings—or as an evening accessory, when it may be called a cocktail hat. It is generally worn with fairly formal attire.

This saleswoman also gave me an invitation to the store's "Royal wedding Celebrations" where the royals' favorite accessory, hats, will be part of the event. Invitees (she made us/me seem exclusive and special) will also get up to 20% off all items on display for the event. I suppose 20% off a $150 hat/fascinator is a pretty good deal.

So the mystery behind, and purpose of, those yellow rimmed head pieces has finally been solved.

Epater la Bourgeoisie

Current window dispay at Queen Street's The Bay
[Photos by KPA]

Left: Full display of whimsical hats with glaring videos and photos of Vogue fashion editor Anna Dello Russo

Right: Close-up of mannequin with hat

I emailed the display designer at the Bay asking why she juxtaposed the aggressive video with the lovely hats. And asked also who is the hat designer. But, I've had no answer so far.

I figured out the letters "J'ADR" which is a play on Christian Dior's perfume J'Adore, and which are the initials of Anna Dello Russo - J'adore Anna Dello Russo. Clever.

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

I'm not sure why the window designer at the Bay Department Store has a display of whimsical hats alongside the aggressively flashing videos and giant photographs of Japan Vogue fashion editor-at-large Anna Dello Russo. The window display has a sign which directs us to the third floor designer clothes showcase "The Room" to view "Canadian visual journalist," a.k.a fashion blogger Tommy Ton's, homage to Dello Russo, who is apparently his muse. But nothing more on the hats.

The Italian Dello Russo is a very prominent and visible part of Vogue, which seems odd for someone who neither designs nor models the high fashion garments that fill up Vogue (she does own many of these clothes and often wears them). But this kind of prominence is not unusual. Jeanne Beker, Canada's famous fashion reviewer, covers fashion for television shows and several magazines. British fashion commentator Isabella Blow was the muse for milliners, and modeled their eccentric works wherever she went. André Leon Talley was editor-at-large for American Vogue, and was as famous as the models and designers he reviewed, showing up at fashion shows in large fur coats or capes (depending on weather and/or mood).

Back to Dello Russo. She looks transgendered, with long limbs and masculine features. I wonder why "visual journalist" blogger Tommy Ton, whose blog consists of large photographs of what he considers the fashion statement of the moment, has taken her on as his muse? I went through his category of subjects, and there is none for "beauty." In fact, his whole "categorizing" is haphazard and uninteresting. He has a category he calls "my favorite things" which say it all. I wonder what makes him so popular that he gets to spend time with Dello Russo (although quite frankly, I wouldn't spend any time with her) and proclaim her (him?) his muse? He looks like a strange creature himself; he looks homosexual. Perhaps her oddness and androgyny is his connection to her. So much for feminine beauty determining men's choices for muses.

Modern fashion is about the avant-garde, the eccentric, épater la bourgeoisie. As I wrote earlier, it is all about worshiping the ugly. Yet, how backward (and behind) these connoisseurs are. Beauty is the new avant-garde. The bourgeoisie is the guardian of our fashion heritage (of the rigorous standards of beauty). The lazy Dello Russo and Tommy Ton, and all those jet-setting fashion commentators and designers, have completely missed the boat.

Toronto's Third Largest Parade Held During Easter

Statue of King Edward VII at Queens Park

CTV (Canadian Television), Canada's national news network (second to the formidable, and formidably leftist CBC), reported on the Easter festivities yesterday evening on its local news. I was interested to see what parades took place around the city. I happened to be around the Queen/Bay area late afternoon, and upon hearing a commotion past Queen Street, I asked a bystander if that was an Easter parade. Looking out, all I could see was a swarm of Sikhs walking along Queen Street to the West. I immediately said: "That's not an Easter parade. That's a bunch of Sikhs. They've done this before on Easter. They have nothing to do with Easter!" The woman looked (mildly) disgusted, and her expression agreed with my strong comments. I wished her a Happy Easter, and walked on.

Sure enough, CTV reported on the Sikh parade, calling it the city's "third largest parade" which has been going on since 1986! I'm guessing that it's third following the gay orgy parade in June and the Caribbean carnival (where there is often a shooting incident) Caribana in July.

Of course, the Sikh parade has absolutely nothing to do with Easter, or any Christian, Western, Canadian holiday, but instead "celebrates" the Sikh New Year. The parade starts at the lake shore, and continues downtown, terminating at Queens Park, which is the seat of the Provincial government. And like clockwork, Ontario's Premier, Dalton McgGuinty, appeared on the screen. He had ("respectfully") attended the celebration. It has now become a tradition for politicians to pop up at multi-culti events to canvass for votes. Harper this year was out west in British Columbia, attending "one of the oldest and biggest Sikh celebrations in North America."

The only other parade going on in the city, as reported by CTV, was way out east in the quasi-suburban Beaches, where mostly the area's (non-multi-culti) residents attend a Lion's Club sponsored Easter Parade. The Beaches Lion's Club Easter Parade travels eastward (about two kilometers) away from the city. The formidable Sikh parade, on Easter Sunday, travels more than double that distance at five and a half kilometers, and weaves through major downtown areas, with road blocks for most of the afternoon, and culminates at the building which seats the provincial government in the center of the city. These Sikhs sure know how to make a parade significant.

The Presence of God

[A post written on April 10, 2009]
Stained glass showing the martyrdom of
Thomas Becket in Canterbury Cathedral

As I was going past St. James Cathedral to attend the Good Friday service (it was at 2:00pm, and I went late thinking it was the regular Evensong time of 4:30), I was thinking, "What a waste of a beautiful, historical building."

Why a waste?

Some dioceses from the Anglican Church of Canada have joined the recently formed Anglican Church of North America, protesting the loss of traditionalism in the original church, including its stance on homosexual marriage and the ordination of homosexual priests.

St. James Cathedral is not part of that protest, and continues to maintain those non-Christian beliefs.

I hardly ever go to services anymore, occasionally to evensongs, and more frequently to their first-class organ recitals on Tuesdays.

What a waste that such a magnificent building, with its stained glass windows and newly-restored organ, should be dedicated to a group of worshipers that are taking it down the heretical road.

When I was a young school girl in England, it was in the Anglican Church where I learned to appreciate, and love, the church liturgy. And the quiet and holy feeling of the church's interior with the subdued stained glasses whose stories I never tired to look up and contemplate.

It was there too where I learned of the beauty of English sacred music, which I think is superior to any. In fact, when the rest of Europe was busy inventing and composing opera, Queen Elizabeth I made sure that the church music never floundered, and in fact let it flourish.

There too, I learned to love this music, having been in choirs all through school (from 11 years on), and was awarded not one, but two, music prizes.

It deeply saddens me, therefore, that this great tradition is being stifled by heretics and blasphemers. And they don't give ordinary people like me a chance to wholeheartedly celebrate these most holy of days.

Perhaps that is why I went there late.

On a more positive note, the organist for recital for the March 31 Midday Series was Douglas Schalin, and his whole program consisted of music by John Stanley, specifically a selection of Stanley's Voluntaries for Organ.

The organ is a fascinating instrument. It can go from a the whimsy flute pipe (and a beguiling echo) to an awesome sound which evokes the presence of God.

These are the things that this blighted leadership is trying to destroy.

But through the grace of God.

Happy Easter to all.

Pretty Hip[py]

"Pretty Hip"
Currently at the Bay's King Street
window display
[Photo by KPA]

The Bay department store continues with its tradition of decorating its windows with a new theme for each season [1, 2]. Spring is for flowers, and the current window displays certainly showcase an explosion of flowers. But what happened to the fashion, since part of the display is to advertise what we might expect to buy for the season?

Hip[py] is in, pretty (despite the window's label) is out. It is "hip" to be a hippy, as in disheveled and un-pretty. (Notice how the lettering for "Hip" is slightly askew - leaning to the right, mimicking, approving of, those hip(py) mannequins.) I've written before that modern people have a visceral, negative reaction to beauty (prettiness is simply a variation - of a lower hierarchy - of beautiful). They hate it. I see it everyday in the clothes women wear in the streets: black; gray; formless coats; ugly boots. And in what the fashion magazines prescribe for us. I wrote in this post, Elimination of beauty:

Ugliness rules. In clothing, in films, in art and even in our "representatives" of beauty. I don't think it is a lack of knowledge about beauty. We've developed standards and often unanimous agreement about what constitutes the beautiful. So I'm not going to into the beauty-hater's argument that beauty is relative; beauty can be objectively measured. What's going on is that people are hating beauty. It is a form of envy. If I cannot be beautiful, then why is she beautiful? It is like wealth, or intelligence, or a sense of entitlement to live anywhere one pleases. Spread the wealth, accept I.Q.ers of 91 into Harvard, let everyone from every corner of the world come into the prosperous West. Or youth. Why cannot I be as young (and attractive) as any fifteen-year-old, at my ripe old age of seventy? Such are the mantra of the equal-opportunity narcissists.

So, in order to fit in with their lowered standards, beauty magazines are (actually they have been, for decades now) publicizing ugliness in their fashion shoots, their models, and even with the "celebrities" and film actors they promote. There was a time when actresses like Elizabeth Taylor, Ingrid Bergman, Grace Kelly and many more appeared in immaculate clothing, looking ethereally beautiful, at any age. And we admired them.

Now, we get Lindsay Lohan, whose pretty features at twenty have deteriorated into the haggard face of a drunk and drug addict. The fashion literati are so mercilessly attacking this young woman that it cannot be anything else but malice - envy. Let's make this pretty girl into a monster. Unfortunately, Lohan, for lack of guidance and role models, obliges them with the images they can gloat over.

As I ponder more on what I've written above, I think the underlying premise is equality. We are all equal in our intelligence, our talents, our luck, our wealth, our youth (age), and of course our beauty. We are all beautiful. But, in order to make this equality a reality, we have to subscribe to the lowest common denominator. After all, it is much easier to lower the standards of beauty (how low can we get before we call it ugly?) than to reach for the higher echelons of beauty; it is much easier to make our young look old and haggard, to come to our level, since we can never look young and beautiful as only they can. This is the prescription to equality that we have been fed. But we don't have to accept it.

In the window display above, the bags (pouches) in the background are as unattractive as the clothes on the mannequins. I wonder what we are expected to put in these mini-luggages? It's odd, the less women require to put in their purses (according to current subscribed standards), i.e. lipstick, combs, mirrors, perfume, handkerchiefs, powder/cosmetic cases, the bigger the "hand" bags get.

Praying for Our Freedom

The Taking of Christ, c. 1602
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Oil on Canvas
52.6 in × 66.7 in
[From my blog post, The Taking of Christ
which describes the Caravaggio painting]

Here is an article I wrote last year published at Frontpagemag.com titled: Reclaiming Religion from the Left. I'm not sure if that is the title I sent in, since journal editors often re-title articles I send in. In my files, the title I've kept is, Praying for our Freedom.

The article describes the Hollywood, large scale studio movie The Ten Commandments, which was the holiday movie on ABC and CBC for Easter 2010, and continues with President Obama's Seder dinner in the White House that same holiday. I criticize both these saying:

Two television networks showcased Cecil B. DeMille’s epic 3 ½ hour The Ten Commandments this Easter: ABC and Canada’s CBC. The 1956 film had no need for our 21^st century Computer Generated Imagery to convince us that the Red Sea was indeed parting, and that the “bush burned with fire, and the bush was not consumed” (Exodus 3:2). I wondered if the networks made this choice because there is really no superlative modern narrative of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection? We have Mel Gibson’s The Passion of Christ, but its gore and blood is too hard to take at Easter. The Last Temptation of Christ by Martin Scorsese is too idiosyncratic, and would be something to watch and study at another time in the year. There are plenty of bland and insipid made-for-television versions of Christ’s story, many of which are programmed during Christmas, but for some reason they were not screened this Easter.

Perhaps these channels chose to commemorate Passover rather than Easter, which fell around similar dates this year. Or they’re simply following the ritual of politically correct inclusiveness. Even President Obama has made Passover Seder-at-the-White House a new tradition, hosting it for the second time as President. No other President before him has hosted the Seder at the White House. Obama’s Seder started on a whim, it seems. During his campaign trail, two young Jewish aides were celebrating their Seder in a basement of a Pittsburgh hotel, away from home and family, when Obama joined their festivities.

Obama’s interest in Jewish celebrations may indeed be a liberal’s outreach to cultural diversity - after all, the White House now hosts Ramadan dinners. But, it fits his narcissistic personality, conforming the Seder to any situation he may be experiencing at the time of the holiday. At the first, impromptu, Seder in Pennsylvania when his campaign was steeped in the Reverend Wright controversies and was "in the desert," as another campaign aide put it, Obama proclaimed "Next year at the White House" as an addition to "Next Year in Jerusalem" commonly said at the end of the dinner. Perhaps, as suggests Judi Kantor from the New York Times, this year’s focus could have been one of the universalist themes that Obama is so fond of: to free Americans from the bondage of capitalist healthcare and to give them the abundance of Obamacare.

The Center for American Progressives has another suggestion. In it’s article on Obama’s Seder celebration this year, CAP cleverly used the Bible’s New Revised Standard Version to quote from Exodus 22:21: "You shall not wrong or oppress a resident alien, for you were aliens in the land of Egypt." Almost all the other versions use "stranger", "foreigner" or "sojourner" in lieu of "resident alien," clearly portraying a temporary dweller and not the long-term inhabitant that "resident alien" implies. The CAP’s advice to President Obama is that he treat Mexican illegal aliens with the same compassion they interpret from the NRS, and pass comprehensive immigration reform. But when we parse the words, it is clear that illegal aliens are not the "resident aliens" implied by CAP, but emboldened Mexicans, foreigners and strangers, who wish to take advantage of the lax rules and borders that makes it possible for them to enter and reside in the country with impunity.

One has to marvel at the President’s Seder chutzpah after his dismal treatment of Prime Minister Netanyahu during his recent visit to the United States. It is one thing to celebrate an ethnic festival, but another to respect the significance that the celebrants give their rituals. The Israelis that Obama commemorates in these Seders were freed from bondage in Egypt, and their descendants later received their Promised Land. Yet, Obama seems intent on removing this sacred land from the Jews, and forcing on them new enemies who are probably far more ruthless than the Egyptians.

This year, the White House hosted an Easter Prayer Breakfast on Tuesday April 19.

There is to be a "Get Up and Go!" Easter Egg Roll to promote health and wellness in children (following Michelle Obama's infamous "Let's Move" campaign to fight childhood obesity), for Monday April 25th on the White House lawn.

But Michelle Obama's Earth Day event planned for today (Friday April 22, Good Friday) was cancelled due to bad weather.

So what exactly are the Obamas celebrating this Easter: Seder, with a White House dinner; Earth Day; Michelle Obama's childhood health and wellness program "Let's Move"; Children's Holiday Fun and Games; Easter, through a "prayer breakfast"?

Perhaps acceptance of immigrants (and legalizing illegal immigrants from Mexico) continues to be a salient, priority program. After all, one of the meetings Obama's hosted at the White House this Holy Week, on April 19, was the following - and no press allowed:

3:25PM

The President meets with a broad group of business, law enforcement, faith, and current and former elected and appointed leaders from across the political spectrum on the importance of fixing our nation's broken immigration system for our 21st century economic and national security needs so that America can win the future.

State Dining Room
Closed Press

ABC is screening The Ten Commandments again this Saturday, but there is no Easter story on any of the networks.

I end my article above by appealing to the wisdom of the Old Testament to lighten (and enlighten) or own personal strifes, but I think this message goes out to each level of society, from our individual burdens, to our families', our countrys' and ultimately our world's:

Like the Old Testament’s Jews, we have to trust that God will free us from our current tribulations.

In fact, End Time preachers use the exodus as an allegory for our liberation. Our ultimate release is entry into God’s heavenly land. But the Passover and Easter stories are also our personal stories. The journey from bondage to freedom reflects our own mundane ordeals. And we experience death and resurrection with each sin and atonement. Celebrating these holidays each year gives us the hope that we too will inherit our particular Israel.

The Taking of Christ

The Taking of Christ, c. 1602
Michelangelo Merisi da Caravaggio
Oil on Canvas
52.6 in × 66.7 in

TVO (Television Ontario) had a one hour program yesterday on Caravaggio's The Taking of Christ. Here is the video (in five parts) of the program. About half of the program describes how Caravaggio painted the piece, and is a very interesting (and well-explained) review of his technique. The rest of the piece describes how the painting got lost, and then was found. This story itself mimics the death and resurrection of Christ. The painting is now in the National Gallery of Ireland, in Dublin.

I posted this painting last Easter.

"Who will wipe this blood off us?"

Prophet, 1912

Emil Nolde

There is a timely discussion going on at the View From the Right (VFR). The topic on Rand and conservatism weaves through race, Athena and Zeus, Christianity, American Protestantism, the nature of individuality, heroes, the objective good, God, and ends with this comment by Lawrence Auster quoting Nietzsche's madman from The Gay Science:

The madman jumped into their midst and pierced them with his eyes. "Whither is God?" he cried; "I will tell you. We have killed him--you and I. All of us are his murderers....

"How shall we comfort ourselves, the murderers of all murderers? What was holiest and mightiest of all that the world has yet owned has bled to death under our knives: who will wipe this blood off us?... Is not the greatness of this deed too great for us? Must we ourselves not become gods simply to appear worthy of it?"

Nietzsche's ambiguous, ambivalent relationship with the God he perceives as greater than anything he can conceive of, yet deigns to have him killed to supplant him, is surely part of our Easter story.

Celestial Paintings

AE Aurigae

Menkhib

Zeta Ophiuchi

I found a brief report on runaway stars at Drudge, which linked to the story at the Daily Mail's online Science and Technology section.

The Mail referred me to NASA's website, which has a whole series of these magnificent images. The three above especially caught my attention.

I usually link to the Mail's website to skim through its often unabashed and frank "reports" on the latest runaway stars (Britney, Lindsay, Kim, et al.). But these are the true stars.

I Like Americans

Flags, Fifth Avenue
Childe Hassam, 1918

The funny Colbert of the Colbert Report had on Caroline Kennedy the other night in his episode Colbert with Caroline. The show is a little late for me, but I wanted to see what Kennedy was up to.

So, I tuned in. Kennedy was promoting her book of poetry, an anthology titled: She Walks in Beauty. She was giggling like a school girl throughout Colbert's antics. They read a couple of poems together from her books (she has a another book, A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love, which was published in 2003). Kennedy has a strange monotonous voice (that was criticized during her bid for a seat in the U.S. senate in 2008). One would think she would add more emotion in her voice at least for poetry, especially since she says during the interview (which I've posted in a more complete form below): "I think that women grow up...living in the world of emotions." Still, she can't go wrong with an anthology. But here is what Kennedy says about women's "relationship" with poetry:

Colbert: Do women have a different approach to poetry?
Kennedy: Women have a special relationship with poetry. I think it's something that's passed down much more often by mothers to grandmothers to children. And I think that women grow up...living in the world of emotions. And men write about women, which is really the greatest poetry of all.
Colbert: This is mostly men writing about women?
Kennedy: This is men celebrating women. And women celebrating themselves...What could be better than that?
Colbert: O.K. (Then Colbert suggests they read: "Leap Before You Look" by W.H. Auden)

Does she mean that women write poetry, then pass it on down a matriarchal line? Or do they pass on poetry in general, most of which is written by men, and that women are the guardians of poetry in families and societies? I'm afraid, in her jumbled and incoherent way, she means more the former than the latter. This is similar to homosexuals, and homosexual supporters, saying that any male in the arts is (naturally) a homosexual, as I've briefly written about here. Through Kennedy's feminist-tinted lens, women have that special, mysterious, ability for poetry - both in understanding it and producing it, and even exalting themselves through it. So, no full-blooded, heterosexual white male need apply when it comes to poetry.

I thought it would be interesting to see how many male and female poets she has in her latest anthology. The numbers are pretty much skewed towards the male: Fifty-five male to thirty female. But, it looks like many of her choices are from the 19th and 20th century, when there was a surge of female poets. And I've heard many more of the male than the female poets. I think her selection of poets was designed to include an "equal" number of male and female writers, although even in that search, she came up short (30 and 55 are not equal).

Here is a poem Colbert and Kennedy read together:

I like Americans^[1]

By Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1924

You may say what you will, they are the nicest people in the world.
They sleep with their windows open.
Their bathtubs are never dry.
They are not grown up yet. They still believe in Santa Claus.

They are terribly in earnest.
But they laugh at everything…

I like Americans.
They give the matches free…

I like Americans.
They are the only men in the world, the sight of whom in their shirt-sleeves is not rumpled, embryonic and agonizing…

I like Americans.
They carry such pretty umbrellas.
The Avenue de l’Opera on a rainy day is just an avenue on a rainy day.
But Fifth Avenue on a rainy day is an old-fashioned garden under a shower…

They are always rocking the boat.
I like Americans.
They either shoot the whole nickel, or give up the bones.
You may say what you will, they are the nicest people in the world.

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

I have a feeling that Kennedy is lightly, in her liberal elitist fashion, mocking the Americans that, like those in the poem, are naive and genuine instead of adopting the European sophistication and flickers of cynicism that is present even on the grand and beautiful Avenue de l'Opera.


1. The poem is from Kennedy's: A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love

Casey Abrams: American Idol

Casey Abrams sings Nature Boy

American Idol's Casey Abrams took a big risk when he sang an old jazz number accompanied only by his double bass. I thought that was the end of him. His "advisors" had told him to skip the jazz and do In the Air Tonight by Phil Collins instead. But, he survived (another week).

The song he chose was Nature Boy which many seem to associate with the movie Moulin Rouge (sang by David Bowie). But it is actually a 1947 piece by eden ahbez. This is what JazzStandards.com says about ahbez:

The composer of “Nature Boy,” eden ahbez (no capitals per his request), was born Alexander Aberle in Brooklyn in 1908. The original sheet music of the song shows a photo of ahbez-long hair and beard, an almost Christ-like figure, highly unusual for the 1940s. In some respects, ahbez was the prototypical hippie twenty years ahead of his time, for in addition to his appearance he lived a simple life, wore a robe and sandals, was a vegetarian, and even was reputed to be living with his wife under the “L” letter of the famous “HOLLYWOOD” sign.

Early in his life Aberle and his 12 siblings were orphaned, some sent to a foster home in Kansas. Alexander didn’t stay long and embarked on a wandering life, eventually ending up in Los Angeles. In 1947 he left a tattered manuscript of his composition “Nature Boy” backstage at a Nat “King” Cole performance. Cole liked the tune and subsequently recorded it for Capitol. The label’s executives, however, didn’t know what to think about it and held off releasing the record. Yet Cole believed in the song and its simple message, and live performances proved the song’s appeal to the public. Eventually the Capitol hierarchy released Cole’s recording and the rest is history, as it’s said.

Many in the music biz refer to people like eden as a “one hit wonder,” and, even though he did write a few more songs and recorded an album in the early 1960s, none of his compositions drew much attention. He continued to live in his simple way and died, in 1995 at age 86, after being struck by a car.

Another (hidden) Yiddish influence in American song culture! The beautiful (enchanting) song has been performed by many renowned musicians. Here is a list (mostly from Wikipedia) of versions I particularity liked, which I've linked to Youtube or other recordings.

- Nat King Cole - abhez wrote the song for Cole
- Frank Sinatra
- Cris Barber - I've never heard of Cris Barber, but she does a clear, straightforward jazz version
- James Brown (!)
- John Coltrane - Coltrane's long (typical) eight minute piece dragged out to its maximum stretch
- Harry Connick Jr.
- Christina Peoples An unknown opera singer
- Miles Davis - Miles's haunting trumpet
- Ella Fitzgerald
- Egelbert Humperdinck (!)
- David Bowie - From the movie Moulin Rouge
- Celine Dion - I've always thought that Celine Dion is a great vocalist
- Jon Hassell (Trumpet)
- Django Reinhardt (Guitar)
- Jacky Terrasson Ode (on the piano) to Coltrane?
- Ike Quebec (Saxophone)
- Stéphane Grappelli - Back to the Yiddish roots on the violin?

I have to say that Casey is up there with the greats. Another (former) American Idol contestant, Naima Adepado, also sang a classic Summertime, risking her spot on the program, a couple of weeks ago. Her performance was also far superior to the poppy numbers so common on that show. Although she also went through that week, she was eliminated the following week for her reggae number.

A few things struck me about these two (unorthodox) choices. First, everyone discouraged these two singers from singing these old, classic jazz numbers. Both these beautiful melodies are written by old Jewish composers, with old Yiddish melodic influences - ahbez for Nature Boy and George Gershwin for Summertime. The contestants didn't change the songs or make them into pop tunes, but sang them pure. Finally, I think there is a hunger for old melodies such as these, which young musicians (Abrams is only twenty) are picking up and reacting to. I don't know where they even hear them (Moulin Rouge's Nature Boy is nothing like the jazz version Casey sang). But, it's all in the air, somewhere.

How to be a Movie Star

Or: How to be Elizabeth Taylor
This photo is on the cover of William J. Mann's
biography on Elizabeth Taylor. It is somewhat
cropped on the book cover.

The original (above) is by Philippe Halsman, taken
for LIFE magazine in 1948.

Halsman has a black and white version, with
a more subdued pose, at the MoMA.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------

I found another gem of a book, a hardback How to be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, at a regular bookstore, down to $6.99 from $28. I'm not really surprised at the reduction, since it is a "celebrity" biography. People would rather pick up the glitzy, photo-filled glamor magazines, rather than read through four hundred pages of writing (albeit many anecdotal and quick reads) with only a few pages of photographs. And there have been quite a few commemorative magazine issues on Elizabeth Taylor this past month. There's a 100-page special American Media collector's issue in March which is going for $5.99. Even People Magazine is publishing a 128-page "soft-cover book": Elizabeth Taylor, 1932-2011 for $11.99.

The author of How to be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood, William J. Mann, has previously written about another screen legend, Katherine Hepburn. But much of the rest of his work is on "gays and lesbians" including one titled: Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood. Now, that idea itself is up for contention. It is the same with the fashion world, where the "understood" insider report is that it is homosexuals who "shaped" the fashion world. Much is also said about the art world and its non-conventional artists - for example, people have been trying to pin the "homosexual" label on Leonardo da Vinci, but there is no evidence for that.

Of course, homosexuals have always had a place in the Western civilization (perhaps following the more explicit Ancient Greece?), but no culture, until our brave new world, has put them on such a pedestal. It is a little off-putting that this really very good book is seen through the prism of a homosexual's lens. It is a little like what I felt on reading the "leftist-liberal" John Leonard's book on New York, which I wrote about here. Still, talent is talent, as I wrote on John Leonard, and How to be a Movie Star is a clever and insightful book. For all his apparent adulation, Mann takes Elizabeth seriously, and indicates that she was as smart as she was beautiful, and orchestrated many of the events of her life, mostly through sheer hard work and persistence.

This is what Mann observes in the prologue:

Elizabeth Taylor had...tangled with lots [of sharks]: demanding studio heads, overbearing directors, bluenose columnists, greedy husbands. And she's done so with a shrewdness and a keen understanding of just how a star went about getting what she wanted. "She was always in control," said a friend, photographer Giannin Bozzachi. "She did not seek fame but she knew how to use it. She was very smart. People don't know how smart." Some chroniclers, perhaps too dazzled by the violet eyes and the glittery melodrama of her life, have missed that salient point. Long before our own celebrity age, Elizabeth Taylor carved the template for how to be a movie star. So many of the tricks of the trade can be traced right back to her.

Fabergé Eggs: Just in Time for Easter

The Rose Trellis Fabergé Egg was acquired by

American businessman Henry Walters in 1930,

and is now at theWalters Art Museum in Baltimore.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Fabergé eggs were made between 1885 and 1917, and:

[W]ere designed primarily at the behest of Russian Tsars Alexander III and Nicholas II as annual Easter gifts for Tsarinas Maria and Alexandra.

This is the Easter gift that Tzar Alexander III gave Tzarina Maria Fedorovna in 1885, which also marked their twentieth wedding anniversary:

Easter is the most joyful celebration of the Orthodox faith in Russia. After the devout church services, families gather to exchange gifts of decorated eggs, symbols of renewed life and hope. The Easter of 1885 also marks the twentieth anniversary of Czar Alexander III and Czarina Maria Fedorovna, and the Czar needs an exceptional gift for his wife.

So he places an order with a young jeweler, Peter Carl Fabergé, whose beautiful creations have recently caught Maria's eye.

On Easter morning, Fabergé delivers to the palace what appears to be a simple enameled egg. But to the delight of the Empress, inside is a golden yolk; within the yolk is a golden hen; and concealed within the hen is a diamond miniature of the royal crown and a tiny ruby egg – both now lost to history.

Here is what the Walters Art Museum says about the (above) Rose Trellis egg:

On April 22, 1907 [on Easter], Tsar Nicholas II presented this egg to his wife, Alexandra Fedorovna, to commemorate the birth of the tsarevich, Alexei Nicholaievich, three years earlier. Because of the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, no Imperial Easter eggs had been produced for two years. The egg contained as a surprise a diamond necklace and an ivory miniature portrait of the tsarevich framed in diamonds (now lost). Fabergé's invoice, dated April 21, 1907, listed the egg at 8,300 rubles.

Many Fabergé eggs were either sold or taken out of Russia during the Russian revolution. Eight eggs are lost. Ten are now on display in the Kermlin Armory Museum. Sotheby's put up nine eggs for auction in 2004, and the entire collection went (back) to Russia, purchased by Russian oligarch Viktor Vekselberg.

Götterdämmerung in Progress

The above poster is for the 2011 movie
Red Riding Hood (no longer "little"), where
the wolf is now a werewolf,
a man who turns into an anthropomorphic
man/beast creature. The movie is
classified as "Romance, Horror" by
some movie listings. In the original "Little
Red Riding Hood" any amorous encounter
between the wolf and the (little) girl was left
unsaid. In fact, it is a handsome (human) hunter
who saves the girl, and arranges to kill the wolf.
The modern version is explicit about the illicit
affair between girl/woman and man/beast.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

In my previous post, I explain how a "copping out" mechanism is put in place by individuals who cannot, or will not, deal with reality. In clinical terms, this is termed as madness. But, what happens when whole societies turn mad? I believe this is what the Nazi world was all about. But, the Nazis didn't just leave their madness to their private imaginations, and instead refashioned the real exterior world to resemble this utopic interior (mad) one. I think this was possible because they were not isolated individuals, but groups of people who could discuss and build - in real time in their current real world - this new world. Their method involved destroying - the great Götterdämmerung - the current world and replacing it with their twisted vision. But in the end, what they wrought was dead bodies and ruins.

Pre-Nazi society gives us many signs on the direction German society was headed. Art seems the most reliable gauge. German Expressionist paintings, films, musical cabarets (which influenced the Expressionist artists) where their decadence attracted Nazi officials - Cabaret is a great Hollywood version with Liza Minnelli, made between the two world wars were important cultural indicators. Of course the Nazi project was to destroy this decadence, and purify Germany. But their solution was no better than the alienating art or (re)constructed realities in film that they were trying to destroy. Their aim was to use the whole of Germany (and eventually the world) to recreate their paradise. They were paramount artists.

I should qualify that madness is often a willed condition. Natalie Portman's madness in The Black Swan was a condition of her evil narcissism. The German society was no less mad. This is why the German "madness" eventually led to one of the most evil projects of humankind: A willfully planned destruction of life. The great Götterdämmerung.

Our modern world is also going in that direction. I think the signs are there in art, and also in popular films (post WWI German films were also very popular and well-attended). Below is the list of films at my local (giant) theater. I've highlighted the ones that are Horror/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Thriller, or otherwise take us out of our ordinary world and into some fantasy land, or some violent and alien one. Notice how Red Riding Hood is classified both as Horror and Romance by some listings. As the German post WWI films indicated, is all this a sign that we should be paying attention to? Are these films preparing us for an ominous reconstruction of our world, through violence and war, into that elusive paradise on earth?

Here is the tally of films at my local (giant, twenty-room) theater:

- Out of twenty films, seven fit the Horror/Fantasy/Science Fiction/Thriller category
- Of the remaining thirteen films, there are seven listed as "Comedy" or "Romantic Comedy." And these are not sophisticated numbers. Here are descriptive phrases/synopses of some of these "comedies" or "romances":

-"Worst house guest,"
-"[W]ives take a bold approach to revitalizing their individual marriages: granting [their husbands] a "hall pass," one week of freedom to do whatever they want."
- "Two men with autism... advocating for people with autism...take their message global."
- "[A] sardonic screenplay filled with juvenile characters."
- "[The] screenwriters...have turned [the wimpy kid] from endearingly weedy into annoyingly insufferable. "

Even "Little Red Riding Hood" is classified as horror ("Red Riding Hood, minus the "little" in this 2011 film remake.) True fairy tales are frightening (although redemptive) but never "horror."

1. Beastly
Romantic Drama/Fantasy

2. Hop
Comedy

3. The King's Speech
History-based Drama

4. Unknown
Dramatic Thriller

5. Just Go with It
Romantic Comedy

6. Hall Pass
Comedy

7. Red Riding Hood
Horror

8. Paul
Sci-Fi Comedy

9. Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules
Comedy

10. Rubber
Sci-Fi Horror

11. The Lincoln Lawyer
Drama

12. Wretches & Jabberers
Documentary

13. Wrecked
Thriller

14. Imax: Born to Be Wild
Documentary

15. Win Win
Comedy

16. Insidious
Horror

17. Soul Surfer
Sport Action

18. Arthur
Romantic Comedy

19. Carmen 3D
Musical Drama

20. Thank You
Romantic Comedy

Zombies and Zeitgeist

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari by Robert Wiene, 1920. Exterior and interior scenes

A recent program on Television Ontario's news/current Affairs program The Agenda had a panel discussion it titled as "Zombie Zeitgeist" and had zombie experts from various universities as guest on its panel. Here is the link to the video. It is astonishing how seriously they all take the topic, including the usually sharp and adroit host of the program Steve Paiken.

I noticed this foray into the "unreal" with two films that Leonardo DiCaprio made, in quick succession just last year: Shutter Island and Inception. DiCaprio's characters enter some abyss (in Shutter Island we find out that he's actually mad) where the laws of reality (including gravity) don't exist, or at least they don't fully and consistently exist.

The main character in a recent film The Black Swan (after the character in the ballet Swan Lake) delves into what seems like voluntary madness to cope with the difficult and exacting world of ballet. Natalie Portman's black swan Nina Sayers, is faced with a competitor who might take her role away from her, and of course the lime light too. Her isolated narcissistic self cannot accept this.

What is intriguing about these films is that they're not truly "horror" films, in the tradition of Carrie or The Exorcist, but "cop out" films In Carrie, there is an alien, evil, force which takes over and inhabits Carrie's her body. In The Black Swan, Nina willfully succumbs to her inner evil. Contemporary film characters are simply withdrawing from the world, by imagining the worst (or their rendition of the worst, since it is all in their imagination after all), and living in that constructed (inner) reality.

German cinema between the two world wars had large numbers of horror-type films. The Germany of that period was undergoing a serious decline in national identity and pride. WWI was a disaster for the German psyche, and the high unemployment rates that resulted dampened materialistic realizations. And the German were losing ground on their greatness to the formidable Americans across the Atlantic.

German filmmakers were producing films that are now considered part of Germany's artistic heritage - they still had to produce the best of the worst! The protagonists in these films did not only remove themselves from life, but constructed parallel worlds, replete with architectural and cultural idiosyncrasies, in which they maneuvered, alone and unaided, labyrinths of hostile environments. This is what Nina in The Black Swan is doing. Rather than an alien force taking over her body and psyche, it is her deranged inner life that distorts her hold on reality. Nina has constructed her own evil, has given up fighting (or simply refuses to accept her fate), and tries to resolve her pain in her own, aggressively self-pitying way.

To tie together zombies, deranged and narcissistic personalities, and German post WWI society, they all reject reality and construct their own worlds, often through psycho-social separation, or eventually through outright destruction of the current world to build their own superior reality (in the case of the Nazis who developed out of the individualized narcissists that preceded them).

But all these constructions are essentially nihilistic - their structures haven't proven to be long-lasting, and they discard the wisdom, goodness and transcendence that preceded them. Building out of nothing (which is very hard to do, and all these groups still have no choice but to latch on to some things that came before, even if it is to have solid roofs above their heads) only gives back nothing.

This is a long post, and I should try to come up with an underlying idea that might "solve" all this propensity towards Armageddon. I think the problem is, and I mention it briefly here, a lack of the sacred, the sacrosanct. And specifically, a rejection of the Christian God, that leads to the evil that all these films envelop. The Devil is always waiting, patiently and ruthlessly. He must be having a field day in our twentieth century epoch.

Fabergé and Vereshchagin

Eggs and Landscapes
"View of St. Petersburg" by Petr Petrovich Vereshchagin, 1836-1886

I recently wrote about Russia:

Strange and tragic sets of circumstances caused Russia to endure debilitating communism for three quarters of a century.

But I continued that Russian is reviving its iconic cultural presence. Russian native turned American citizen Mikhail Baryshnikov is auctioning off one of his paintings to finance his cultural center in New York, the Baryshnikov Arts Center. The painting is "View of St. Petersburg" by Russian painter Petr Petrovich Vereshchagi, dated around 1836. The European impressionist movement seemed to have bypassed Vereshchagi, whose realistic rendition of St. Petersburg Baryshnikov describes as "extraordinarily detailed," with a "very recognizable panoramic view of St. Petersburg."

Back in Moscow, and in time for Easter, the museum in the formidable Kremlin Armory is exhibiting six Fabergé eggs from the House of Fabergé, which was started by the 19th century Russian jeweler/goldsmith Carl Fabergé. Although the original Fabergé line was discontinued in 1918 by the Bolsheviks, modern style Fabergé eggs attract enthusiasts and designers.

Here is what Wikipedia says on the the egg that inspired all the rest:

The story began when Tsar Alexander III decided to give his wife the Empress Maria Fedorovna an Easter Egg in 1885, possibly to celebrate the 20th anniversary of their betrothal. It is believed that the Tsar’s inspiration for the piece was an egg owned by the Empress’s aunt, Princess Wilhelmine Marie of Denmark, which had captivated Maria’s imagination in her childhood. Known as the Hen Egg, it is crafted from gold. Its opaque white enameled ‘shell’ opens to reveal its first surprise, a matte yellow gold yolk. This in turn opens to reveal a multi-coloured gold hen that also opens. It contains a minute diamond replica of the Imperial Crown from which a small ruby pendant was suspended. Unfortunately, these last two surprises have been lost.

Empress Maria was so delighted by this gift that Alexander appointed Fabergé a ‘goldsmith by special appointment to the Imperial Crown’. He commissioned another egg the following year. However, after that, Peter Carl Fabergé, who headed the House, was apparently given complete freedom for future Imperial Easter Eggs, as from this date their designs become more elaborate. According to the Fabergé family tradition, not even the Czar knew what form they would take: the only stipulation was that each one should contain a surprise. Following the death of Alexander III on November 1, 1894, his son presented a Fabergé egg to both his wife, the Empress Alexandra Fedorovna, and to his mother, the Dowager Empress Maria Fedorovna.

The Hen Egg, gift of Tsar Alexander III to his
wife the Empress Maria Fedorovna on Easter 1885

Lesbian Country Stars

The innocence of Chely Wright

I always thought that the world of country music was the last bastion of masculine men and feminine women, but here is an article on  reasonably well-known country star Chely Wright who "came out" as a lesbian, and is now set to marry her "girl friend" - sorry for all those scare quotes.

Looking at their photo together here, there is something devious and evil about the girl friend Lauren Blitzer. I often wonder in such unholy situations if there isn't an innocent party, where one member of the couple somehow, deviously, convinces the other to join in with the aberration. But innocence can be a sin too. It can be like a curtain drawn against life, and a refusal to participate in it, and to refuse to learn (or learn to recognize) all that can be harmful.

The country music world seems to be going out of its way not to sound homophobic, and Nashville has sympathetic information about her, even promoting a documentary on her "lifestyle" which the website Nashville.com describes as:

[A] personal and intimate look at Chely Wright, the first country music star to come out as openly gay, despite what some people in the industry have referred to as a career-ending decision.

Radically Peaceful Muslims Or is it Peacefully Radical Muslims?

Detail from miniature painting:
The Prophet, Ali, and the Companions
at the Massacre of the Prisoners of the
Jewish Tribe of Beni Qurayzah
Illustration of a 19th century text
By Muhammad Rafi Bazil.
Manuscript now in the British Library.

The cover is also from Andrew Bostom's book
'The Legacy of Jihad. Islamic Holy War and the
Fate of Non-Muslims'

Bostom discusses the illustration
further down the page, here.
-------------------------------------------------

As usual, View From the Right (VFR) gets excellent correspondence. Here is one writing in on the "Koran burning Pastor" from Florida. The correspondent explains (or tears apart), in one succinct sentence, the false notions dividing moderate/peaceful Muslims and radical Muslims:

[T]he only thing that separates peaceful Moslems from radical Moslems is their actions, not their beliefs.

Of course, to get such clarity of thought, one has to accept the whole truth of Islam, something which our pundits and writers who purport to reject Islam in the West, seem unable to do.

Jihad Watch's Roland Shirk, who's article on Terry Jones is referenced by this correspondent to make his point, may have reappraised his position on Islam and the Koran book burning, but there is still that residual "only the weird do these things" mentality that persists. Shirk describes Jones's beard as "weird facial hair," implying that this is an isolated incident conducted by a slightly wacky (Christian fundamentalist?) man.

When things are more subtle than burning Korans in daylight, say I won't sit in the same bus as a hijabed/niqabed/burqad woman and tell others not to, or won't do business with Muslims, will Shirk condone that as crazy behavior, and find a myriad of attributes to "support" his statement?

Also, contemporary commentators have no traditional or historic references (or if they do, they ignore them) with which to base their sartorial commentary. Shirk's description of Jones's facial hair is rebutted by VFR's Auster: "Jones's mutton chops facial hair is unusual and old fashioned, not weird."

This is similar to what I posted on a writer who had no reference (or no imagination) for understanding Geert Wilders's hair style, who wrote here, and whom I quote below:

Wilders's hair has always made me suspicious of him, as there's just something not right about an originally dark-haired (I think) but now graying 50 year-old man wanting to be a blond. Now I think I understand.

I surmise:

Saigo has no capacity (or desire) to ask innocent and interested questions about Wilders's appearance. She simply jumps into a derogatory conclusion, aiming to tarnish and harm him: "That racist, politician who (look!) has a non-European ancestor. Imagine him refusing entry to immigrants from Indonesia, or any other part of the world for that matter. Isn't that where he's from, anyway? Who does he think he is!" Allow me to put words in Saigo's mouth. But, I'll bet that I am much more accurate about her thoughts than she is about Wilders's...

I always thought that Wilders was emulating those 18th century powdered wig wearers. George Washington wore one. I think it gives him (and Wilders) a distinguished air. Wilders has said nothing about his appearance. What man (and politician) would?

Perhaps it is also the tradition of wearing wigs in courts of law, although I don't think the Dutch follow that tradition. Still, one can ask intelligent questions about why a prominent anti-jihad Westerner decides to present himself as Wilders has. A similar curiosity would be useful for Terry Jones.

"Imported from Detroit"

Detroit: Before and After

Top: United Artists Theater, from 'The Ruins of Detroit'
by Y. Marchand and R. Meffre

(The above link is to a slide show of selected photos of Detroit's 
fallen buildings from 'The Ruins of Detroit.'

A second collection of photographs 'Theaters' shows images
of grand and splendid theaters, some converted into warehouses
for mattresses and sneakers.)

Bottom: Still from Chrysler commercial (Youtube posted below)
showing the Fox Theater interior.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There's a TV ad that's now showing for Chrysler, shot in Detroit, saying that Detroit "has been to hell and back." I think it is a great sign that rather than advocating for government handouts, which have been part of Detroit's economic structure for several decades, ads like this are saying that there is a chance to bring the earlier resourceful, manufacturing spirit back into Detroit.

I still remain skeptical. The article linked to above is also promoting philanthropists who are donating millions "to help educate the children." I think that means kindergarten through high school, and let's also add college and university to that kind of education. Vocational training seems the most promising, and productive, route to take in the case of Detroit.

I once had a conversation with a young black man. I was still in college then, and I understood the sadness in his voice. He said that everyone invested in him to go to college and study engineering. He wasn't doing that great, I think he had repeated a year, and wasn't even sure if he would finish (or if he wanted to finish). "By now, if I had followed what I wanted to do, I would have had a job, and even a house," he said quietly.

He had wanted to be a mechanic. Instead, he was in some four-year college program, fulfilling the philanthropic dogma of some donor, receiving all the checks he needed, until at some point when they get "strict" and discontinue them, leaving him tangled and confused. I asked him why he just doesn't go back to mechanics, since he'd learned quite a bit already in his mechanical engineering courses, and it should be easy. His answer had to do with pride. There's his family, the donors, and everyone else who will say, another young black man who failed.


"Imported from Detroit"

-------------------------------------------------------
Camera Lucida posts on Detroit:
"Detroit's Horrors"

Unmasking Mohammed

In his recent article "Time to unmask Muhammad" Wilders references a variety of scholars and their assessment of Mohammed's personality. Diagnoses go as far back as the 8th century. I have provided some background links for each, along with Wilders's short descriptions.

1. Theophanes the Confesssor: Byzantine theologian (752-817)

"According to the historian Theophanes (752-817) Muhammad was an epileptic. Epileptic crises are sometimes accompanied by hallucinations, perspiration form the forehead and foaming at the mouth, the very symptoms which Muhammad displayed during his visions."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2. Herman Somers: Contemporary Belgian scholar

"In his book 'The other Muhammad' (1992) the Flemish psychologist dr. Herman Somers concludes that in his forties the 'prophet' began to suffer from acromegaly, a condition caused by a tumor in the pituitary gland, a small organ that is situated just below the brain. When the tumor in the pituitary gland causes too much pressure in the brain, people start to see and hear things that are not there. Somers’s psychopathological diagnosis of Muhammad’s condition is: organic hallucinatory affliction with paranoid characteristics."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3. Armin Geus: Contemorary German biologist

4. Dede Korkut: Pen name of contemporary Turkish Physician(pdf)

"The German medical historian Armin Geus speaks of a paranoid hallucinatory schizophrenia. A similar analysis can be found in the book 'The Medical Case of Muhammad' by the physician Dede Korkut."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5. Masud Ansar: Washington D.C. based hypnotherapost of Iranian origin

"Dr. Masud Ansari calls Muhammad 'the perfect personification of a psychopath in power.' Muhammad had a unhinged paranoid personality with an inferiority complex and megalomaniac tendencies. In his forties he starts having visions that lead him to believe he has a cosmic mission, and there is no stopping him."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Take me, ta-ta-take me Wanna be a victim Ready for abduction

Katy Perry (the California Girl) with her new song E.T.

The above video is Katy Perry's new song and video "E.T." featuring Kanye West, the black rapper who interrupted (shoved aside, more like) Taylor Swift when she was accepting a "Best Female Video" award at the Video Music Awards in 2009, by telling her and everybody else that Beyonce should have won. Scroll down for the clip here.

I'm not sure for how long Katy Perry's E.T. will be available on Youtube, so I have posted below some stills from the video. More available here.

Katy Perry meets the "alien" who could be the devil or an angel, (words from the song's lyrics which I've posted below).




Yet, here is Katy looking like a feminine (feminist?) Pan herself.


It is infinitely interesting that Kanye West is not the alien brought to life (no acting roles for him) holding hands with the real Katy Perry - she doesn't need (or want) an alien double. West is not about to mingle alien steps with a feminized Pan, who is also white to boot. Now, Beyonce, she who got robbed of her prize by that Taylor was it White?, is bootyliciously supernatural, and Kanye might have reconsidered changing his prestigious human form just for her.

Such is the (alien) world we inhabit.

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

Lyrics to the song. No need for explanation or interpretation.

E.T. By Katy Perry

[Kanye West]
I got a dirty mind
I got filthy ways
I’m tryna Bath my Ape in your Milky Way
I’m a legend, I’m irreverent
I be reverand
I be so fa-a-ar up, we don’t give a f-f-f-f-ck
Welcome to the danger zone
Step into the fantasy
You are not invited to the otherside of sanity
They calling me an alien
A big headed astronaut
Maybe it’s because your boy Yeezy get ass a lot

[Katy Perry]
You're so hypnotizing
Could you be the devil
Could you be an angel

Your touch magnetizing
Feels like I am floating
Leaves my body glowing

They say be afraid
You're not like the others
Futuristic lover
Different DNA
They don't understand you

Your from a whole other world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I'm ready to go
Lead me into the light

[Chorus: Katy Perry]
Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you're an alien
Your touch are foreign
It's supernatural
Extraterrestrial

Your so supersonic
Wanna feel your powers
Stun me with your lasers
Your kiss is cosmic
Every move is magic

Your from a whole other world
A different dimension
You open my eyes
And I'm ready to go
Lead me into the light

[Chorus: Katy Perry]
Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you're an alien
Your touch are foreign
It's supernatural
Extraterrestrial

There is this transcendental
On another level
Boy, you're my lucky star

I wanna walk on your wave length
And be there when you vibrate
For you I'll risk it all
All

[Kanye West]
I know a bar out in Mars
Where they driving spaceships instead of cars
Cop a Prada spacesuit about the stars
Getting stupid ass straight out the jar
Pockets on Shrek, Rockets on deck
Tell me what’s next, alien sex
I’ma disrobe you, than I’mma probe you
See I abducted you, so I tell ya what to do
I tell ya what to do, what to do, what to do

[Chorus: Katy Perry]
Kiss me, ki-ki-kiss me
Infect me with your love and
Fill me with your poison

Take me, ta-ta-take me
Wanna be a victim
Ready for abduction

Boy, you're an alien
Your touch are foreign
It's supernatural
Extraterrestrial

Extraterrestrial
Extraterrestrial

Boy, you're an alien
Your touch are foreign
It's supernatural
Extraterrestrial

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About a year ago, film director James Cameron (a Canadian transplant to Hollywood) made his highly successful - commercially - film Avatar, which broached this same subject of aliens as "the Other." Below are my two posts on the movie, and its ideas.

- Conservatives Still Cannot Get Away from the Noble Savage Myth
- Political Correctness at the Golden Globes

Liberals Throwing Children Under the Bus

Perez Hilton, patron of the website Perez Hilton,
a pseudonym which is a mesh of Paris Hilton and
the Hispanic last name Perez. Perez Hilton also
has a fashion blog he calls Coco Perez. There is
admiration, and then there is emptiness. Is this a
homosexual trait that they have to inhabit other
people in order to be accepted?

Perez Hilton can include "children's book author" in
his repertoire.
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In a previous post "Youth, Change the World!" I wrote about Spike Lee's foray into children's books:

"Youth" is a recurring and important category that liberals love to use, as though they are benign, protective adults. Instead, what they are doing is systematically, through schools and various media including children's books, building their army of fascist children, who are trained to be foaming at the mouth, and to destroy then rebuild society according to the gospel of their liberal/fascist parents.

This is what the openly, and flagrantly, homosexual "celebrity" blogger Perez Hilton, who is also producing a children's book of his own, clearly has on his mind. He says about his book:

"This story is about every kid that's ever had a dream, felt excluded, wanted to belong, and hoped that one day they could do what they loved and make a difference."

There is not one critical voice in the media on this book. Some are merely concerned that Perez Hilton might now be "nicer" to celebrities since he's advocating for those who "felt excluded" and "wanted to belong." This is what the Examiner opines:

Perhaps all of this is Perez Hilton's way of making good on his 2010 pledge to stop harassing celebrities, and to try and be a more positive celebrity force.

The liberal world is once again ready to throw children under the bus at a chance to promulgate its world view.

These "grown-ups" parallel innocent young children, who have very little control over their environment and influences, with "celebrities" who are nothing but powerful - they have money, status and many play around political fields as though it is basketball.