New York Skies

Someone asked me recently which city I prefer, Paris or New York.

I have lived in Paris from age nine to seventeen, when I went to the U.S. to attend college. I eventually got to know New York really well. Even though I have never lived in New York, I did spend long summer periods in the city, and my university in New Jersey was close enough that I would go into the city quite regularly for day trips.

I replied that despite the uncontested beauty of Paris, there is something grand, modern and dynamic about New York. I sacrilegiously said that Paris is "old fashioned."

I prefer New York.

Here is a funny, and very accurate, book Paris Versus New York, by Vahram Auratyan, an Armenian writer and graphic artist, who admits he is a lover of Paris, but nonetheless captures the spirit, humor and beauty of New York. One of my favorite sections is "Sous le ciel de Paris" vs. "New York October Sky." It is true that Paris has a lot of grey days (through fall, winter and spring). Early fall in New York can be magical. And winters, despite the cold, have many bright, sunny days, with a lighter, but still brilliant blue sky.

Joint Forces For Women

Lawrence Auster at the View From the Right has written a post on the initials RNC and DNC (C=Convention or Committee? Go over to his site to find out his argument).

But regarding the RNC, he does conclude:

So it looks as though the Republican Party is reserving the initials RNC to mean Republican National Committee.

And he adds this bit of information:

They [The Republican Party] are resisting fashion, and holding on a useful distinction. If only they had showed the same mettle in opposing other fashionable developments, such as the homosexualization of the U.S. military, the acceptance of (democratically elected) jihadists, and the idea that women can have it all.

I wrote saying:

You wrote:

“If only [the Republican] party had showed the same mettle in opposing other fashionable developments, such as … the idea that women can have it all.”

Will you get with the program and accept that women CAN have it all?

LOL.

If he's not careful, he will have the wrath of both the Democrats and the Republicans (and Mrs. Romney might be the one leading the joint assault).

Where Have All the Good Jokes Gone

Jumping marines don't ask or tell. They just demonstrate.

I watched the recent White House Correspondents' Dinner speeches, and I thought there were reasonably funny and light-hearted moments, although there were a couple of mean-spirited jabs, especially when comedian Jimmy Kimmel sniped:

The President was very candid in an interview with the Atlantic a couple of weeks ago when he called Kanye West a jackass. No offense sir, but I think you got the wrong West. I think you meant Allen.

Allen West was in the audience, and took the "joke" with stride.

I thought Obama was generally funny. But he was also dead serious at some moments. His took a mean-spirited jab at Sarah Palin with: "What’s the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? A pit bull is delicious." Of course, this is in reference to his dog-eating childhood in Indonesia, but at the same time, he managed to slyly and cleverly denigrate Sarah Palin, who used this famous line in her Vice-Presidential campaign:

"I love those hockey moms. You know, they say the difference between a hockey mom and a pit bull? Lipstick"

Mitt Romney's wife, Ann Romney, proudly says that she raised fours sons as a stay-at-home mom, after news commentator Hilary Rosen quipped that Ann Romney "never worked a day in her life." I think ordinary women are beginning to realize the importance of child rearing as a sole activity and not intertwined with some career oriented job. But the true pit bulls are still out there, who have an underlying hatred of motherhood permeating through their blood, and who see no independent value in the role.

Obama's "joke" on homosexuals in the military was also dead serious:

In my first term as president, I repealed Don't Ask, Don't Tell. In my second term, I will replace that with 'It's Raining Men.'

"It's raining men" is a popular song, and the phrase is used as a code identified with homosexuality. With his "it's raining men" promise, Obama simply means that he will not give up on allowing homosexuals to enter the United States Army, and that he will do so with renewed vigor and force for his new Presidential term. He is making a campaign promise right there.

Another Almost Moment

Max Bretos and his Asian wife, and Asian-looking half white son

I've written before that this seems to be the era of the Asians. I blogged about the brouhaha around Chinese basketball player Jeremy Lin when Max Bretos, an anchor for ESPN, was suspended for using "Chink in the armor" in a discussion, and a sportswriter for ESPN was fired for using "Chink in the armor" in an article. Both were referring to Lin, the Knicks player whose team lost to the New Jersey Nets, putting a glitch in the Knicks' winning streak. I wrote on Lin:

I don't understand the eulogies that go alongside Lin's name, as though he could do no wrong. He is only one, tall Chinese guy, after all.

Jared, a commentator at Larry Auster's View From the Right says something similar to what I've written, albeit in a gentler way:

Lin was asked by the media about the situation. He said,

"They've apologized, and so from my end, I don't care anymore.... You have to learn to forgive, and I don't even think that was intentional."

What he should have said was:

"To be honest, I'm very disappointed with ESPN. In fact, it's despicable and insulting to think that the Asian community would take offense to such a ridiculous thing. Even if it were meant as a racial insult, which it wasn't, I think I speak for all Asian Americans by saying that we would laugh something like that off without a moment's notice. We are better than that and I am far more insulted that ESPN made more of it than it really is."

And Larry Auster replies, humorously:

Thank you for providing all this useful perspective on the Lin story.

No one asks: Is the familiar expression, "a chink in the armor," or "a chink in the wall," now outlawed if there is a Chinese person anywhere within earshot? Or, I should say, if there is a Chinese person anywhere on the continent?

Lin had his "almost" moment. I've written about other prominent Asians in the West and their "almost" moments (here, here, and here). My take is on these "almost" moments in the world of fashion design, where something is amiss in the creations of big-name Asian designers, and their clothes don't quite come up to par with those of the classic Valentino and even the flamboyant Jean Paul Gualtier.

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.

Two Dogs and a Fire Hydrant

This photo is from yesterday's Drudge. I'm not sure if it's still up. All I could think was: "Why don't the dogs just lap up the water under the fire hydrant?" One has moved away, looking very hurt (his feelings, that is), but I'm sure he'll be back again to battle the elements.

Self-Authentication

Stella, Joseph
The Skyscrapers, 1920-22
(Cover of John Leonard's book Private Lives in the Imperial City)
------------------------------------------------------------------------------

John Leonard, in his short story "To Dance or Not to Dance" from his 1979 book Private Lives in the Imperial City, writes:

Then came the sixties. In a series of seedy discotheques, to which I went only in the company of Erving Goffman and other dramaturgists, I found that people were dancing without looking at one another. Narcissism was liberating. Energy did not require talent; it was self-authenticating. To be sure, a partner or two complained that a key was needed to unlock my knees, that I lacked soul - but I have always believed, with Descartes, that my soul, if I have one, is in my pineal gland, not in my pelvis or anywhere else south of the tropic of my bellybutton. I could dance, while at the same time maintaining my autonomy, the crux criticorum.
--------------------------------
Private Lives in the Imperial City
"To Dance or Not to Dance" p. 163

I wrote in my blog post Geometry in Pride and Prejudice (I'm reproducing the complete, short post, below):

Jane Austen's novel Pride and Prejudice , also enacted in various movie versions - the 1940 version with Laurence Olivier being a classic - is full of geometry.

During the frequent social dances which bring different families and groups together, dances are a common way for people to interact. Dancers are paired off with diagonally opposite partners, then break loose to join those next to them, and travel down lines with yet another. Partners weave in and out of lines and squares to complete the dance. The music prompts you when to start, stop and change directions and patterns.

Finally, at the very end, like a lovely carpet, all the patterns settle in perfect harmony and geometry. Everyone, and everything, is just where they belong.

Such dances are a microcosm of what happens in society itself. The rules of the game are dictated by subtle meters and melodies, decorum and restraint are required, conversation and interaction with partners and groups are carefully choreographed. And the final outcome is an unobtrusive and polite pairing off of the right couples.

In a short century and a half, social dance (dancing within a group with a specific partner) becomes "self-authenticating" rather than where "groups [and partners] are carefully choreographed" to form a final pattern. Contemporary social dance is like a Jackson Pollock painting of splattered paint. The painting's purpose is to represent the individualized soul of the painter. It is often (always, at least to the uninitiated) incoherent and "patternless." But its purpose is not to relate to others, or even to the world beyond the painting, but to release the energy (idiosyncrasies) coiled within the painter.

I picked up Private Lives in the Imperial City in a second hand bookstore. I had no idea who Leonard was, and still don't know much about him, except that he was an abashed leftist (Wikipedia calls him "an acerbic leftist" and lists one of his activities as "a union organizer for migrant farmers") and a book critic for the New York Times - I'm not sure if the two are related.

Still, subscribing to leftist politics doesn't preclude talent, and I think Leonard had plenty of it. His chapter on dancing is very funny, especially when his "sidekick" refuses to dance during a night out with a group of people, having acquired serious doubts about her dancing abilities. Leonard sympathizes with her insecurity: "I dance like an oil rig myself, all elbows and pumping action." But he believes that such talentless gyrations should be celebrated, unlike his more discerning friend, since they exult the individual, freeing him to fulfill his "self-authentication."

Polar Bears in the Snow?

Cute Furry Friend? I wouldn't
want to get too close to him.

What's so unusual about polar bears in the snow?

Below is more of Drudge sensationalizing the Christmas news. But, I get the feeling that he doesn't like the Christmas season much. At least I wrote about polar bears in the summer heat! But, I've noticed the trend, subtle but present, of the shift away from celebrating Christmas in general.

Here are some of Drudge's current snow-scare headlines:

- Snowstorm Threat Shifts South...

- Dangerous Christmas Weekend Winter Storm

- Atlanta first snowy Christmas Day since 1882?

- Syracuse smashes snow records for December...

- Forecasters: Colorado faces most dangerous avalanche conditions in state history...

- Freak diversion of jet stream paralyzing globe with freezing conditions...

Still, he's mellowed out a little the day before Christmas Eve. Maybe he's getting a lot of mail...

Under the heading "Christmas Miracle":

- Firefighters save one of their own...

- 51-year-old recipient of 16-year-old's heart...

- Person leaves nugget of gold in SALVATION ARMY kettle...

- Mother Gives Daughter One Of Her Kidneys...

Think of the Polar Bears

In this summer heat

It's been a long, hot, humid and even wet summer. The weather experts say that this has been a summer of record heat waves, beating out those of  the last ten years.

But, think what the polar bears must be going through! There's been some funny commercials here on Toronto television stations for the Toronto Zoo summer ad campaign. And who do they use as their stars? The polar bears, of course. This is the kind of humor that has put Canadians on the top of television comedies, notably the cast on Saturday Night Live.

The above ad is one of a few that has kept the humor going in an otherwise pretty difficult summer.

Stereotypes as Jokes

How Late Night Shows get away with telling the truth

I often say that the jokers/hosts of late night talk shows are the ones that hold truth in the palm of their hands. Of course, they can get away with it because it is all a joke, don't you know. Forget about the daytime Ellen DeGenereses and the Oprahs, they have nothing going, and even less so the news shows.

I don't often watch these late shows, mostly because their lugubrious Hollywood guests, who are all about themselves, are not worth sitting through to get at the 10 to 12-minute monologues of jokes.

But here is one (video below), where Jay Leno tries repeatedly to get John Weir, the obviously gay figure skater who didn't break any records or win any medals in Vancouver despite being one of the most talked about athletes, to admit that he is gay. Weir, for all his flamboyance, is holding back. Why?

Along with Weir, there is also the black basketball star Charles Barkley who says that black people don't skate. Now let's hear a sports commentator at ESPN say that, and he would probably be out of a job.

Near the end, Weir talks about his fascination for Russia, but says Arabic is much harder to learn than Russian. Leno says, "Don't try the flamboyant thing in Arabic." Loud laughter - everyone knew what he's talking about. On Fox News, Leno would be reprimanded, or have his comments section filled with how racist and Islamophobic he is. On Leno, the ordinary audience gets it.

You can watch the video here.

Avatar Makes the Circuit of the Jokers

And some serious debate too


Everyone is making fun of Avatar. The Late Night jokers, Youtube videos, and even at the Oscars.

Cameron took his movie VERY seriously. He even wrote a whole book depicting Pandora, the Na'vi and the language. I am not sure that he is taking this joke making with stride.

At the Oscars, right in front of Cameron, several people dared to squeeze a laugh out of Avatar. The funniest was Ben Stiller coming out in full Na'vi gear to present the Best Costume category. He then looked straight at Cameron, went into his imaginary Na'vi monologue, and ended up saying in English, "I See You." If Cameron were the Queen, I am sure he would have declared "We are not amused."

There was a more serious discussion on Avatar on Steve Paikin's The Agenda at TVO. The leftists and the rightists on the show equally hated it. The leftists say it wasn't overt enough about discrimination, oppression, colonization etc., while the rightists say that there was nothing racist about Avatar, it was just too simplistic and sweeping about race. The clever and astute Paikin simply lets the ball roll where it may, with a mischievous grin on his face. This must be the panel of his dreams, where all his hosts agree, but for different reasons.

Here is the TVO video. It is about 45 minutes long, but I think it is worth watching.

Canadian Multi-Culti P.C. Police Force

In all the wrong places

The Jamaican Bobsled Team is a good sport. Its members gained fame when they qualified for the 1988 Winter Olympics in Calgary. They never finished the race because they lost control of their sled, which crashed. This is disappointing, or funny, depending on your sense of humor.

Canadian comedian John Candy acted as their coach Irv Blitzer Cool Runnings, the film about the bobsled team. Recently, playful University of Toronto students donned blackfaces and bobsled costumes and called themselves the Jamaican Bobsled Team. Of course, the Canadian Multi-Culti P.C. Police Force descended furiously upon them, despite one of the pranksters being a black man who covered his face with white makeup to represent their coach Irv.

All this, though, didn't bring the real-life team any luck. It unfortunately failed to qualify for the February games in Vancouver.

Don't Mess with Scandinavian Women

A lesson learned too late by Woods

The three blonde-haired photos
are of the same woman - Jamie Jungers.
The dark-haired woman is Mindy Lawton.

Hmmm. More women coming out of the woodworks^TM. But, my original thought that he's looking for his mother in these women still holds. The blonde Jungers isn't really a blonde (her roots are too dark). And the top two photos of hers don’t resemble much the one on the bottom right. Maybe they are more recent? I wonder which look she presented Woods with?

Despite the terrible consequences of this strange, sad and clearly pathological behavior, the internet has gone "viral" with jokes. I suppose this is one way to tone it down. I think Woods has been incredibly hubristic, not just in his stream of women, but in his carelessness at not covering his tracks. It's as though he was entitled to it all. I wonder if he will ever humble himself (after all this humiliation).

Saturday Night Live has a funny skit. Some musician has set Woods's infamous voicemail to a mushy romantic song (scroll down the page).

And even Elin's golf club rage (I'm sure that was what happened) has made its rounds as comedy.

But, one thing Tiger forgot (or didn't realize) is that those Scandinavian women are the toughest feminists around. They are not going to take anything lying down.

Catfish and Darwin

Can they really walk? And if not now, then when?

I found this image at Wikipedia

The folks over at the View from the Right, paramount critics of Darwinism, are on a roll. It started off as a semi-serious discussion of a photo of a fish on a highway (watch out for falling bricks, um road crossing jokes), and ended up unravelling some real possibilities about its evolutionary path from swiming to walking (across highways). Humor has its tremendous benefits after all. For one, it allows us to get out of the box, and become creative in our thinking.

Who said that Lawrence Auster has no sense of humor? Mary Jackson of the New English Review for one, who also had some (serious) things to say about Hirsi Ali and feminism. Maybe it is just that feminists have no sense of humor, and thus always seem to get things wrong.

By the way, the Google search tool at VFR is really good. All I had to do was type in "sense of humor" and Mary Jackson's quotes were up there amongst the top three. The top two dealt with Hillary's sense of humor (which, I'll admit I don't think really exists - but then again I may have Mary Jackson-style blinkers on), and relegated to second place is God's sense of humor - and a rueful one at that.

But, in all seriousness, the post on the fish on the highway is worth reading.

Humor and truth - a connection here?

A Race-Obsessed Feminist With No Sense of Humor

And who can't do algebra either


Poet, writer and professor Rozena Maart is described thus in wikipedia:

Dr. Rozena Maart (born 1962) is a South African writer, professor and psychotherapist, currently living in Canada... [She] was nominated for the "Woman of the Year" award hosted in Johannesburg, for her work opposing violence against women and for starting, with four women, the first Black feminist organization in Cape Town, Women Against Repression (WAR).

She exercised her activist tendencies, and wrote a letter to the editors of the Globe and Mail about a cartoon entitled "Afrocentric Algebra".

The cartoon was in reaction to the Afrocentric schools that were opened up experimentally in Toronto last year.

Part of the joke is that the cartoon character is mimicking a popular American Idol judge who often exclaims, "What's up, Dawg (dog)" whenever he is pleased with a singing contestant. Jackson is an accomplished musician, and his colleagues on American Idol, as well as the contestants, admire him and respect his viewpoints.

So, the cartoon was in no way diminishing this black teacher, or his pupils, with that slang. In fact, it was a respectful (and humorous) reference to Randy Jackson's enthusiastic outbursts.

Of course, someone obsessed with race (racism, to be precise), sexism, and is an avowed feminist, as Maart is, would find this cartoon insulting.

But, that is all beside the point (and predictable). What is funny is the follow-up apology by the Globe and Mail editors, who after listing all the positive references and writings the paper has published about Afrocentric schools, wrote this zinger (and I think the bigger joke), which of course Maart missed:

Moreover, through a mistake in transcription, the equations on the blackboard were not quite correct. This was our mistake, and there was no intention to suggest that the imaginary teacher in the cartoon was not competent.

Or race-obsessed feminist are not either.

Benny Hill Does Have A Sense of Humor

Although he never comes out and says "catsmeat"

I've never really liked Benny Hill, especially his propensity to include dubious looking ladies in his skits.

But, in view of a a harmless joke on a lefty's blog( a lefty dubbed forever Catsmeat Kinsella by the the right wing faction), and the retaliation of the Chinese community to his harmless joke, I thought that in a sane world, this Benny Hill skit might get a few chuckles. That is, until the various levels of the Chinese community political branches decide that it's an HRC-worthy offense.

Here's the Youtube skit, uncannily titled: "Benny Hill as Chinese fish & chip shop owner Chow Mein, found guilty by Industrial Tribunal":


This skit, a little long at eight minutes, but you can get the gist after a couple - make sure to watch until the Indian walks in - is funnier and more timely, than it initially looks.

A Chinese shop owner is brought to an "industrial tribunal" by an Indian staff for work-related injuries. Language, accent, idioms and many other subtleties get in the way. The Indian and the Chinese are happily chattering away while the poor tribunal is jumping hoops to understand what exactly is going on.

Welcome to our multi-culti twenty-first century.

More Writers on Obama

Satire from Bad Eagle

President Abraham Lincoln,
February 9, 1864
Photo by Matthew Brady.

I just came across David Yeagley's risque post over at Bad Eagle. I wish I could have included it in my previous post on Obama's Many Writers.

It is satire at its best. The lines I like most are:

Lampooning and cartooning is a grand western European tradition, starting probably with the late 15th century German wood cuts made to demonize ol’ Vlad “Tepes” (tsepesh), better known as Dracula. That was all “white,” too. The Caucasians are apparently culturally immune to their own rebuffs. It is a lavishly self-correcting race, at least up until now.

And

Ah, but things are indeed different now, since January 20, 2009. (Mabye since August 27, 2008.) Only beauty and dignity are allowed in the White House. Only loveliness and good will.

Very good.