Jewel Reigns

Last year a beautiful American Foxhound named Jewel won the Hound category in the National Dog Show.

This year, she went one up and won both the Hound, and the final coveted Best in Show prize.


Yes, she is smiling

Dogs are interesting creatures. They do things with such seriousness, and above all, with such eagerness to please their masters. Some act a little cocky, even in front their masters, but their are quickly reined in by an adroit and commanding voice. Jewel was a little disobedient in last year's competition, and that is why the judges feel she may have lost the grand title, although she did win the 2012 Best in Hound trophy. It looks like she was a little spooked by the foreign environment, with all the noise and the crowd. But, the judges were quick to add that at the moment of the hunt, the American Foxhound focuses in on putting his attention on the chase and capture. That is probably the same spirit that led Jewel to win the coveted dog prize this year.

And this year, she seemed perfect. She was happy to show what she knew, and she did so with some flourish. Probably the familiarity with the place helped, as well as a few other competitions and prizes she took along the way. And a dog's natural proclivity for play (at whatever age) also adds to Jewel's, and other dogs', charms.



The foxhound was President Washington's favorite dog. As I wrote here (quoting from the America Kennel Club):

George Washington, the father of our nation, is also the father of American Foxhounds. In 1770, Washington imported a number of hounds from England and in 1785, he received a number of French foxhounds from the Marquis de Lafayette. These hounds, carefully bred and maintained by Washington, are the founders of today’s American Foxhound. More than 30 hounds were listed in Washington’s journals, including "Drunkard," "Tipler," and "Tipsy."

First Gentleman of Virginia, 1909
John Ward Dunsmore
Fraunces Tavern Museum


Jewel: A Winning Spirit


Roger the Pekingese, who won Best in Toy [Dog] category.
How can this creature compete with the likes of Jewel?

There is a hierarchy of royalty. American President George Washington vs. Chinese Dowager Empress Tzu Hsi

The Pekingese is a spoiled lap dog: The American Foxhound is a working dog. Although the Amercian Foxhound became famous for fox hunts, it was also used for chasing coyote and deer.


Jewel, with her Best in Show 2013 Trophy

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Happy Thanksgiving

Norman Rockwell (1894-1978)
Freedom from Want
Oil on canvas
1943
45.67" x 35.43"
Norman Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, Massachussetts

Here's how I analyzed the painting in a post in 2005:

Freedom from Want. By Norman Rockwell, 1943

1. The grandfather is the center, both pictorially and actually - there is no ambiguity about that.

2. The picture is designed in the classic pyramidal fashion, with the important figures at the top of the pyramid (grandfather and grandmother) and the rest of family widening out to the base.

3. ...Rockwell has brought nature into to the family, with the turkey, fruits and vegetables all laid out on the table. Rockwell's Nature is really abundant.

4. All the food follows the central and important axis, with the grandfather at the top.

5. Although we are indoors, there is a sense of space and light. The elongated perspective of the table with its white tablecloth connects with the white curtains on the window, which in turn promises to take us out into the sunny mid-day exterior.

6. Finally, this family seems to be fully enjoying the moment. And even the one person looking at us is doing so with a sense of fun and mischief...

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Chutzpah!

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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A Bout de Souffle

Jean-Luc Godard is one of my least favorite of the New Wave French film directors. I think his films are cruel and violent.

But, Godard's first feature-length film, Breathless, or A Bout de Souffle, has a charm and wit about it, despite its intermittent violence. Godard's films are about corruption. It is charmingly displayed as in Breathless, or is violently, cruelly and sadistically shown in his later films.

I think Breathless' charm has to do with Jean Seberg's character Patricia Franchini, the American (Girl) in Paris. Seberg had a volatile personal life. Her early life was also clouded by the suicide of her brother. It is not surprising that she was attracted to Godard, and to Breathless. Like all astute people, and those alert to people's sufferings and weaknesses, Godard must have sensed Seberg's sadness, and emotional instability. Her whimsical, fresh looks is perfect for Breathless, and it is her very charm and (initial) innocence that underscores the violence of Breathless. The ending, with its deaths and betrayal, contrasts with the light and fresh beginning. Patricia comes out unharmed, at least physically. But, we sense in the final scenes that she has been damaged, standing lost and alone, unlike the confident and resourceful girl we saw at the beginning. Godard, and Belmondo's character Michel Poiccard, have corrupted her.


Final scenes of Breathless


Patricia in the streets of Paris selling the New York Herald Tribune,
at one of her first encounters with Poiccard.

Here is a detailed write-up on the film by an obvious fan. As well as describing the film, it references its influences, both American gangster movies and a continuation of the French New Wave movement.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Share Joy with a Starbucks Holiday Coffee

The gradual move away from Christmas is subtle and clever.

Starbucks has a new "holiday" logo out, which seems to be celebrating Christmas. But it doesn't quite do that.

The main, written message of the logo, instead of saying "share the joy" of Christ's birth, simply tells us to "share joy." What could this joy mean? One million things. Something different for each person. The unified joy that we are to feel around the Christmas season has splintered into the joy each of us feels for whatever reason.

That is one way Starbucks is shifting us away from Christams.

Another way it is relaying its message of a Christmas Holiday without Christmas is through the design of its products, which either distort Christmas symbols, or leave them out all together.

Here is the Starbucks paper cup for this "holiday season":



1. What looks like a star on the left cup could just be a sparkly tree decoration shaped in a flower design.

2. The triangular star shapes in the octagons (dispersed around the cup) are too uniform, and there are two of each star ray, making a total of eight. The rays are all the same length.

The star that shines in many renditions of Christmas paintings and illustrations has four rays. And the top and bottom rays are longer, with the bottom the longest. This elongated bottom ray connects the star to the earth, to show the spot where Jesus' manger lay. This star is often called "The Star of Bethlehem."




Elihu Vedder (American, 1836–1923)
Star of Bethlehem, 1879–80
Oil on canvas: 36 3/16 x 44 3/4 in
Milwaukee Art Museum

The frantic holiday scene I’ve described is starkly in contrast to the peaceful one we find in Star of Bethlehem created by American painter Elihu Vedder in 1879-80. This painting, currently housed in Milwaukee Art Museum storage, depicts a serene moment in the muted, golden desert. Three figures on camels overlook the path before them, while three shepherd/guides ahead and three behind also survey what lies ahead. Color can be seen in the distance in the green of trees. Above them the sky contrasts what is seen below with a bright light that illuminates the sky. There is a sense of anticipation created by figures that can be seen in the clouds, standing there, backs slightly hunched as they look down upon the earth. [Source: The Milwaukee Art Museum]

Here's Rembrandt's (or what is attributed to be a pupil of his) Adoration of the Shepherds, where Jesus is bathed in what is most likely the light from the Star of Bethlehem.


Pupil of Rembrandt, 1606–1669
‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’, 1646
Oil on canvas

Painters and art of various centuries and cultures show the importance of the star as a guiding light, and especially its pointed direction toward the earth to indicate where the infant Jesus lay.

Even popular illustrations, often for cards and hanging pictures, depict the bottom ray of the star pointing downwards. In the image below, the star shows the three kings where the manger lies.



3. Back to the Starbucks cup. The illustrations on the cup are sloppy. They look like they're preliminary sketches, rather than decorations ready for display. Especially irritating is the cone-shaped decoration, which is drawn as an amorphous blob.





4. The leaf at the bottom of the smaller cup is not that of a pine tree, nor does it look like a holly, the traditional leaf for most Christmas decorations.



It is a coffee plant leaf, and the nut-like shape, a coffee bean. Starbucks' marketing strategy, is to commemorate this "holiday" season through coffee rather than through Christmas.

The Starbucks Christmas cup is all about the coffee and very little about Christmas.

5. Shapes are scattered around the cups, as though to fill in gaps. What are the spikey triangular shapes - rays from a star? And the white dots - snow flakes? Why not have sketch of snow flakes, with some of the beautiful shapes?





6. The homes we see on the package illustration could be homes on any product cover. They have no Christmas distinction: there is no Christmas tree near the homes; there are no decorations around the houses; there is no angel or star above.



Below is a promotional image from the Starbucks website, showing the homes and their surroundings. There is no Christmas tree. The odd, leafless trees are dotted with what could be lights, but it could just be any kind of graphic embellishment. The homes have what look like lights framing the roofs, but it isn't enough to indicate Christmas lights. And the diamond-shaped objects in the sky could be stars, but there is no unique, distinct Star of Bethlehem to show that this is a Christmas scene, and not just any winter scene.

And we are invited to "create wonder," as though we have supernatural powers. What kind of wonder do we create? Again, whatever strikes our fancy, creators that we are. Like the message "Share Joy," what we create, and the joy that we share, are not related to the Christmas story, but rather, our very own individual fancies.



And finally, here is the description of the Christmas Blend mixture, from the Starbucks website:

A time to create wonder. An invitation to share joy.

Three decades ago, we created something wonderful - a coffee special enough for your celebrations big and small. Christmas Blend brings bright, lively Latin American coffees together with smooth, mellow Indonesian coffees, including rare aged beans from Sumatra. The aged coffee dramatically balances the overall flavor to create luscious, sweet, spice notes. Crafting this coffee embodies the best of everything we do - sourcing, roasting, blending, exploring, perfecting and sharing. It’s one of our most cherished traditions - made for you to savor season after season.

Of course, coffee is a Third World export. But, the description above tells us that it is part of Starbucks' "sourcing" strategy.

Dictionary.com defines "sourcing" as:

...the buying of components of a product from an outside supplier, often one located abroad

And Starbucks tells us how it does this "ethically":

Ethical Sourcing
We've always believed in buying and serving the best coffee possible.

And it's our goal for all of our coffee to be grown under the highest standards of quality, using ethical trading and responsible growing practices. We think it's a better cup of coffee that also helps create a better future for farmers and a more stable climate for the planet.
With the help of Conservation International, we’ve developed ethical sourcing guidelines that help us purchase coffee that is responsibly grown and ethically traded.

We’re working directly with farmers to develop responsible growing methods and investing in their communities to ensure a sustainable supply of quality coffee.

This sounds too much like the "Banana Republics" that developed through vast farmlands being allocated for big business plantations, while local farmers had to do with inferior land.

In this Starbucks produced video, Carlos Mario (no last name), who is clearly an intermediary between Starbucks (the corporation) and the local Costa Rican farmer, talks about the farmer and coffee production. This Third World company man says:

We are helping farmers, teaching them how to improve production, improve the quality, and reduce the use of pesticides. We are taking care of the environment and the pretty country that we have. Helping farmers is really good, and I feel really proud of that. I think Starbucks is working with agronomists because they know that if they don't care about the environment, they will not have good quality coffee in the future."

All Hail King Coffee!

Below is Toik Wolf, the cup's designer saying "All Hail King Coffee."

I found his quotes after I wrote my design break-down above. Wolf is saying almost to the word what I've written about the cup design. Of course, he thinks it is a Good Thing, while my analysis is a lament. This shows further that the deconstruction of Christmas is systematic and deliberate by the likes of Wolf and Starbucks, and not some random aesthetic project:

On The Design Process

Toki Wolf, Creative Director, In-store Promotions:
One of our early idea explorations was treating our core product, coffee, in its agricultural form and seeing if we could apply that in a beautiful way for the holidays. See if it can be meaningful in the holiday timeframe. So, there’s this image, a quick sketch of a coffee plant with coffee cherries coming out of the red cup. We were literally thinking, “If coffee is at the heart of what we do, can that be the foundation where the exploration comes from?” Even in that little sketch form, we thought we might be onto something. We kept going back to it, even after moving on from it and exploring different illustration style. We always went back to the drawing with the red cup below it. It was the basis of the elements that ended up on the red cups and the coffee bags for this year.

So, the idea was to take these coffee cherries and use them as a holiday element – like holly berries. The coffee flower that you see on the cups comes across, as maybe a snowflake, maybe a poinsettia. We start to see these interpretations. Even in the origin patterns, they kind of look like snow in an abstract form. They start to have a holiday feel to them. Once we realized that we could make this work visually in a way that was both authentically Starbucks and authentically holiday, we went for it, and extracted it all the way across all of our holiday elements. We started with the way it can be interpreted, creating the story around it. Going back to that original sketch, it feels like this beautiful holiday moment is coming out of the red cup, literally coming from the coffee. We ended up keeping the element in the swoop. We call it a “story swoop” or “story arch” that kind of flow around the packaging. So, you’ll see that across all of our holiday design elements, including the cups and the coffee packaging.

[...]

This holiday is the next step of the visual journey we’ve been on with the brand. Beginning with the new coffee packaging. We wanted the coffee to be at the center. We wanted it to look like the leader and to elevate above the noise in the coffee category. We wanted to create something that felt right for coffee but was unique and own-able to Starbucks. By doing so, we created this new visual vocabulary around coffee that looks traditional, and looks like it’s rooted in heritage, but yet it’s fresh and new. We haven’t done anything exactly like it - nor has there been anything like it in the category. You’re right. This holiday feels like a natural extension of that [the coffee packaging redesign]. It keeps that momentum going.

I like coffee, and I especially like Starbucks' blends. There is no doubt that its the "King of Coffee." I wish its leader would just say that they're in the business of making great coffee, and that they work in Third World countries. Let those countries make the necessary steps to help the farmers, while Starbucks provides the coffee for us through a true market and competitive manner.

And, I wish Starbucks wouldn't tell us to "Share Joy," or to "Create Wonder" if it cannot come right out with "Share the Joy of Christmas." I would rather just have a warm cup of coffee without being pulled into a false sense of the Christmas holiday. It is just coffee, after all.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Living on Canaan's Side

Living on Canaan's Side, Egypt behind
Crossed over Jordan wide, gladness to find


The book cover image for On Canaan's Side

I've tried looking for the subject of this photograph. She is identified as: Woman: Topical Press Agency, Getty Images in the book's jacket. When I do a google image search for her, I get and audio book cover (below). The woman is clearly the same one as on the book cover, but the shot is taken from a different angle. I would think she is somewhat well-known, perhaps a 1920s actress. I will keep tracking down her identity, although for now I've come up only with blanks.


Audio Book Cover for Canaan's Side

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I went to Chapters Indigo looking for a calendar, and I found instead a novel. Rather than go to the regular fiction section, I often go straight to the "bargain books" tables to see their collection. The books are randomly placed on the tables (well, it seems random to me, but I'm sure the store has its own method), so it requires a little bit of patience, and some time, to glean through the titles to find one that might interest me. Once I've found something I like, I then ask a clerk what he thinks about the book. Mostly, though, I go to the store's computer and look up the author to read what critics have written.

I think this time I got lucky. I found a book titled Canaan's Side, by Sebastian Barry published in 2011. I liked the religious allusion, and the cover's black and white photograph of a woman from the 1920s. Behind her, there is a skyline of Chicago. The book was on sale for CAN $6.99 reduced from $30. A great bargain at 75% off.

The reviews in the back are by award-winning, and best-selling, authors I've never heard of. Colm Toibin, winner of the Coasta Novel Award Brooklyn, writes:

On Canaan's Side is written with vast sympathy and tenderness. Sebastian Barry's handling of voice and cadence is masterly. His fictional universe is filled with life, quiet truth and exquisite intimacy; it is also fully alert to the power and irony of history. In evoking Lilly Bere, he has created a most memorable character.

Helen Simonson, author of the New York Times bestseller Major Pettigrew's Last Stand praises the book with:

Somewhere on the second page of this book, your heart will break, and you will devour every glimmering image and poetic line as if the sheer act of reading might alter the course of Lilly Bere's haunting tale. A story of love and loss, as Irish as the white heather and as big-hearted as America itself.

And Joseph O'Neill, Pen/Faulkner winner for Netherland says the book is:

A marvel of empathy and tact.

These three reviewers wrote novels which are a little too multicultural for me, but that is to be expected of contemporary novels, set in contemporary times.

Barry, though, set his novel, or rather starts his novel, at the turn of the twentieth century, with the protagonist Lilly Bere leaving Ireland for America.

I cannot imagine any of the three critics' books described as: "A story of love and loss as Pakistani as the jasmine flower, and as big-hearted as America itself." Or: "A story of love and loss as Trinidadian as the wild poinsettia, and as big-hearted as America itself." Or even: "A story of love and loss as Italian as the Lily, and as big-hearted as America itself." I am being facetious, but somehow we relate more to the white heather's Irishness than we do to the poinsettia's Trinidadianess.

Barry has also written two books short-listed for the Man Booker Prize: The Secret Scripture published in 2008, about the protagonist's "...chronicle not only of her deep emotions, but also of a turbulent era in her nation’s history, from the upheavals of the Irish civil war to the German bombing of Belfast during World War II," and A Long Long Way published in 2005, about Ireland's participation in the First World War.

The Secret Scripture will be made into a film for next year.

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I'm Living on Canaan's Side

Music composed by: Mathilda Durham (1815-1901)
From: The South­ern Har­mo­ny and Mu­sic­al Com­pan­ion
Compiled by: Wiliam Walker (1809-1875)

On Jordan’s stormy banks I stand,
And cast a wishful eye
To Canaan’s fair and happy land,
Where my possessions lie.

(Refrain)
I am bound for the promised land,
I am bound for the promised land;
Oh who will come and go with me?
I am bound for the promised land.

O the transporting, rapturous scene,
That rises to my sight!
Sweet fields arrayed in living green,
And rivers of delight!

Refrain

There generous fruits that never fail,
On trees immortal grow;
There rocks and hills, and brooks and vales,
With milk and honey flow.

Refrain

O’er all those wide extended plains
Shines one eternal day;
There God the Son forever reigns,
And scatters night away.

Refrain

No chilling winds or poisonous breath
Can reach that healthful shore;
Sickness and sorrow, pain and death,
Are felt and feared no more.

Refrain

When I shall reach that happy place,
I’ll be forever blest,
For I shall see my Father’s face,
And in His bosom rest.

Refrain

Filled with delight my raptured soul
Would here no longer stay;
Though Jordan’s waves around me roll,
Fearless I’d launch away.

Refrain

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

Henry Chao: Remember that Name

I wrote about a high-level Asian in the Obamacare design in Todd Park: Remember That Name. I said:

[I]t is much later on that we hear that Obamacare's "main architect" is an Asian - Todd Park. And his involvement in Obamacare and dishonesty about it is far greater than any of these three representatives [Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Marilyn Tavenner, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney].

Well, we're learning now that there is another high level official who is an Asian: Henry Chao.

Fox News reports today that:

...Henry Chao, Deputy Chief Information Officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, testified at a House subcommittee on Energy and Commerce hearing that the site will be “greatly improved” by the end of the month -- not fixed.

Chao said Tuesday [November 19, 2013] that up to 40 percent of the technical systems supporting the federal health insurance marketplaces have not yet been built, including a system to issue payments to insurance companies, The Washington Post reported.

[...]

At Tuesday's hearing by a subcommittee of the House Energy and Oversight Committee, Chao, who is widely seen as the operational official most knowledgeable about ObamaCare's online system, said he never saw the McKinsey report.(Read more at Foxnews.com: Sebelius says ObamaCare website will remain a work in progress after key deadline

Here's a video from S-Span with Chao testifying yesterday at The House Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, with questions presented by Rep. Cory Gardner.


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Rob Ford: Mayor of Vicious Toronto

Mayor Rob Ford in City Hall, lunging at Councillor Pam McConnell



Pam McConnell
No wonder Ford lunged at her. Who would want her around?

Pam McConnell is a limousine-lefty city counsellor (of the New Democratic Party). No wonder Ford wanted her out of his way. She is at the top of the "spending" bracket for Toronto's politicians. Ford is at the bottom.

The mayor of Toronto has become known to Americans mainly through CNN's obsessive reporting, and now through a Saturday Night Live spoof.

Basically, the mayor was caught in a crack cocaine bust, because of a video that the bunch of crack-smoking hoodlums with whom Ford was associated sold to a US blogger. Ford is not shown smoking crack.

Ford admitted to smoking crack once, although it is not clear if he did so during this up-for-sale photo shoot.



I should add that Ford used to coach inner-city black boys soccer. This photo could very well be one of his moments with his "gang."

In any case, Ford has been coming out in public denying allegations, and even weeping a little. Finally, Ford cleared the air and admitted that he smoked crack once, and that he is not an addict nor a repeat user.

His other folly is that he drinks a lot, and has been caught drunk on a couple of occasions. He also has a tendency to use swear words in some of his colorful retaliations.

Still, despite all this, he managed to turn around Toronto's economics, by actually saving the city money and leading it down a prosperous road. In fact, Toronto looks really good these days, with interesting restaurants sprouting up, a revamped shopping center at the Eaton Center, clean roads, and flower baskets on lamp posts along the main (and even side) streets.

For whatever reason, Ford is reacting very viscerally to all this. When he is not half-weeping in front of the camera, he is throwing fists at his adversaries.

And the media - left, right and center - is loving this.

I say, leave the guy alone. When left to his smarts, he does good things. Perhaps it is his home life that is in turmoil (although his wife is now dutifully appearing beside her man), or some other issue. But, Ford, although he admits he needs some counselling (for his temper, his alcohol drinking, for giving it to the media and his left-wing City Hall colleagues?), has said that he is not resigning, and will in fact run again at the next municipal elections.

Good for him.

There is a viciousness in Toronto politics, and generally Toronto life, where anyone remotely associated with a "right-wing" politics is deemed the anti-Christ. This leaves two options for the condemned: sit quietly and take it, or fight back as viciously as the adversaries. Ford decided to take the second route.

I think he'll be alright. He used to be a football player at one time, and he knows what fighting, and competition, is all about. I also think he will win in the next elections. The municipal elections will bring a large roster of candidates, and votes will be splintered between them. And I think Ford will amass enough votes to win. People like what he's doing for the city.

There was a time also when politicians were admired for any whisky drinking and cursing tendencies. A little red-blooded rowdiness never hurt anyone.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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The Handsome Kennedy Brothers

John, Robert and Edward Kennedy in Hyannis Port, Massachusetts,
in July 1960 after John F. Kennedy won the Democratic nomination for president.
John F. Kennedy Library and Museum

Chris Wallace, anchor of Fox News Sunday, presented John F. Kennedy's legacy on the fiftieth anniversary of his assassination in a panel discussion. Below is Wallace's interaction with Brit Hume, who was on the panel:

Chris Wallace: ...I think a fair reading of history would be that President Kennedy's promise exceeded his accomplishments, and perhaps, the most resonant thing was in fact his death. Why do people 50 years later care so much?

Brit Hume: I think he was the coolest president we ever had. He was just a cool guy and therefore, appealing [Note: I like Brit Hume, but he seems cursed with the adolescent vocabulary of our era. Why does he say "cool?" He could have stuck with "appealing" and made a more convincing point. Who wants a "cool" president?]

Chris Wallace: If you look at the pictures of him that we're running, he’s impossibly glamorous.

Brit Hume: Yes. No question. I think, however, that despite the thinness of the record that you just mentioned, that George mentioned, he has been the subject of the most successful public relations campaign in political history. The notion that he was a great president, indeed, perhaps, in some surveys he’s been listed the greatest president, is really a remarkable testament to the ability of those who have so admired him and others to have built this man's legend, and it is a legend bordering, I think, on myth.

Here is the video clip:



But, who doesn't want a handsome president running the country. All the Kennedy brothers were handsome, even the odd member, Edward Kennedy.

The Kennedy aesthetic gene went even further with JFK's son. Camille Paglia, the cultural critic, wrote several articles on the Kennedys, and especially Jackie Kennedy. About JFK Jr. she says:

In a certain way, John Kennedy Jr.'s beauty was a kind of narcissism. His physical perfection came from entrapment in a youthful persona.

John F. Kennedy Jr. in the John F. Kennedy School of Government in 1997,
two years before his death

Perhaps these Kennedys' potentials were cut short with assassinations and careless accidents. Bobby Kennedy was also assassinated, five years after his brother. And death followed another Kennedy brother, Ted Kennedy. A young woman who was with him in his car, died after he drove the car off a bridge, and this only a year after his brother Bobby was assassinated.

How could these Princes of Camelot disappoint us?
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Share Joy with a Starbucks Holiday Coffee

The gradual move away from Christmas is subtle and clever.

Starbucks has a new "holiday" logo out, which seems to be celebrating Christmas. But it doesn't quite do that.

The main, written message of the logo, instead of saying "share the joy" of Christ's birth, simply tells us to "share joy." What could this joy mean? One million things. Something different for each person. The unified joy that we are to feel around the Christmas season has splintered into the joy each of us feels for whatever reason.

That is one way Starbucks is shifting us away from Christams.

Another way it is relaying its message of a Christmas Holiday without Christmas is through the design of its products, which either distort Christmas symbols, or leave them out all together.

Here is the Starbucks paper cup for this "holiday season":



1. What looks like a star on the left cup could just be a sparkly tree decoration shaped in a flower design.

2. The triangular star shapes in the octagons (dispersed around the cup) are too uniform, and there are two of each star ray, making a total of eight. The rays are all the same length.

The star that shines in many renditions of Christmas paintings and illustrations has four rays. And the top and bottom rays are longer, with the bottom the longest. This elongated ray is to show a star that is connecting with the earth below, to show the spot where Jesus' manger lay. It is often called "The Star of Bethlehem."




Elihu Vedder (American, 1836–1923)
Star of Bethlehem, 1879–80
Oil on canvas: 36 3/16 x 44 3/4 in
Milwaukee Art Museum

The frantic holiday scene I’ve described is starkly in contrast to the peaceful one we find in Star of Bethlehem created by American painter Elihu Vedder in 1879-80. This painting, currently housed in Milwaukee Art Museum storage, depicts a serene moment in the muted, golden desert. Three figures on camels overlook the path before them, while three shepherd/guides ahead and three behind also survey what lies ahead. Color can be seen in the distance in the green of trees. Above them the sky contrasts what is seen below with a bright light that illuminates the sky. There is a sense of anticipation created by figures that can be seen in the clouds, standing there, backs slightly hunched as they look down upon the earth. [Source: The Milwaukee Art Museum]

Here's Rembrandt's (or what is attributed to be a pupil of his) Adoration of the Shepherds, where Jesus is bathed in what is most likely the light from the Star of Bethlehem.


Pupil of Rembrandt, 1606–1669
‘The Adoration of the Shepherds’, 1646
Oil on canvas

Painters and art of various centuries and cultures show the importance of the star as a guiding light, and especially its pointed direction toward the earth to indicate where the infant Jesus lay.

Even popular illustrations, often for cards and hanging pictures, depict the bottom ray of the star pointing downwards. In the image below, the star shows the Three Kings where the manger lies.



3. Back to the Starbucks cup. The illustrations on the cup are sloppy. They look like they're preliminary sketches, rather than decorations ready for display. Especially irritating is the cone-shaped decoration, which is drawn as an amorphous blob.





4. The leaf at the bottom of the smaller cup is not that of a pine tree, nor does it look like a holly, the traditional leaf for most Christmas decorations.



It is a coffee plant leaf, and the nut-like shape, a coffee bean. Starbucks' marketing strategy, is to commemorate this "holiday" season through coffee rather than through Christmas.

The Starbucks Christmas cup is all about the coffee and very little about Christmas.

5. Shapes are scattered around the cups, as though to fill in gaps. What are the spikey triangular shapes - rays from a star? And the white dots - snow flakes? Why not have sketch of snow flakes, with some of the beautiful shapes?





6. The homes we see on the package illustration could be homes on any product cover. They have no Christmas distinction: there is no Christmas tree near the homes; there are no decorations around the houses; there is no angel or star above.



Below is a promotional image from the Starbucks website, showing the homes and their surroundings. There is no Christmas tree. The odd, leafless trees are dotted with what could be lights, but it could just be any kind of graphic embellishment. The homes have what look like lights framing the roofs, but it isn't enough to indicate Christmas lights. And the diamond-shaped objects in the sky could be stars, but there is no unique, distinct Star of Bethlehem to show that this is a Christmas scene, and not just any winter scene.

And we are invited to "create wonder," as though we have supernatural powers. What kind of wonder do we create? Again, whatever strikes our fancy, creators that we are. Like the message "Share Joy," what we create, and the joy that we share, are not related to the Christmas story, but rather, our very own individual fancies.



And finally, here is the description of the Christmas Blend mixture, from the Starbucks website:

A time to create wonder. An invitation to share joy.

Three decades ago, we created something wonderful - a coffee special enough for your celebrations big and small. Christmas Blend brings bright, lively Latin American coffees together with smooth, mellow Indonesian coffees, including rare aged beans from Sumatra. The aged coffee dramatically balances the overall flavor to create luscious, sweet, spice notes. Crafting this coffee embodies the best of everything we do - sourcing, roasting, blending, exploring, perfecting and sharing. It’s one of our most cherished traditions - made for you to savor season after season.

Of course, coffee is a Third World export. But, the description above tells us that it is part of Starbucks' "sourcing" strategy.

Dictionary.com defines "sourcing" as:

...the buying of components of a product from an outside supplier, often one located abroad

And Starbucks tells us how it does this "ethically":

Ethical Sourcing
We've always believed in buying and serving the best coffee possible.

And it's our goal for all of our coffee to be grown under the highest standards of quality, using ethical trading and responsible growing practices. We think it's a better cup of coffee that also helps create a better future for farmers and a more stable climate for the planet.
With the help of Conservation International, we’ve developed ethical sourcing guidelines that help us purchase coffee that is responsibly grown and ethically traded.

We’re working directly with farmers to develop responsible growing methods and investing in their communities to ensure a sustainable supply of quality coffee.

This sounds too much like the "Banana Republics" that developed through vast farmlands being allocated for big business plantations, while local farmers had to do with inferior land.

In this Starbucks produced video, Carlos Mario (no last name), who is clearly an intermediary between Starbucks (the corporation) and the local Costa Rican farmer, talks about the farmer and coffee production. This Third World company man says:

We are helping farmers, teaching them how to improve production, improve the quality, and reduce the use of pesticides. We are taking care of the environment and the pretty country that we have. Helping farmers is really good, and I feel really proud of that. I think Starbucks is working with agronomists because they know that if they don't care about the environment, they will not have good quality coffee in the future."

All Hail King Coffee

I like coffee, and I especially like Starbucks' blends. There is no doubt that its the "King of Coffee." I wish its leader would just say that they're in the business of making great coffee, and that they work in Third World countries. Let those countries make the necessary steps to help the farmers, while Starbucks provides the coffee for us through a true market and competitive manner.

And, I wish Starbucks wouldn't tell us to "Share Joy," or to "Create Wonder" if it cannot come right out with "Share the Joy of Christmas." I would rather just have a warm cup of coffee without being pulled into a false sense of the Christmas holiday. It is just coffee, after all.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Fighting for Christmas

Sarah Palin was on Fox News on Monday (November 11), being interviewed by Sean Hannity. I expected her to talk about Obamacare, the government shutdown, and other political news. I even expected her to suggest that she might run for President in 2016. She did talk about current news, but she was also there to promote her new book: Good Tidings and Great Joy: Protecting the Heart of America.

Here are the book's chapters:

Dedication
Epigraph

Introduction
1. Angry Atheists with Lawyers
2. Knowing the End from the Beginning
3. The Real Thing
4. True Grit
5. Bad News, Good News
6. Seeing Double.......Standards
7. Who'd Make up a Story Like That?

Recipes
Acknowledgements

She writes here in the first chapter:

But while our worked hard to hold tight to our Christmas traditions, I wonder just how easy it will be in the future to joyfully and openly celebrate. Christmas has come under attack in recent years, and it's not just some figment of the religious right's imagination. I think about this every time I see a news story about an ACLU letter warning a school district not to sing "Silent Night," or when a college group isn't permitted to advertise a Christmas tree sale, or when "Merry Christmas" is replaced by the more politically correct "Happy Holidays" - all to avoid giving offense. I'm concerned that the years of relentless attacks against the holiday will eventually drain the joy from our public spaces as well as from our minds and hearts.

[...]

[Our cultural elites] send us the message that "Christmas" is something best practiced at home, as if it's a shameful and potentially exclusionary personal lifestyle choice.

[...]

The pundits like to pretend that anyone who belongs to the "Christmas with Christ" version is picking a fight over a non-existent problem. They trivialize the topic by reducing the whole issue to whether the cashier at the grocery store wishes customers "Merry Christmas" or "Happy Holidays." They say it's about the kids' two weeks off in December is called Winter Break...They claim the whole conversation is the result of hypersensitivity, intolerance, or - their favorite criticism for us "bitter clingers" - ignorance and fear of change...

But let me tell you what this conversation is important.

This book is not about isolated trivialities. It's not really about gingerbread cookies, or stockings hung by the fireplace with care, or the big fat man with big white beard. It's not about a holiday at all. It's about a little baby wrapped in swaddling clothes, who arrived long before hope and change became political manipulations. It's about Christ and our ability to worship Him freely. It's about America, and what liberty truly means in our day-to-day lives.

Hannity summarizes the book by saying:

"The book is great. Great Tidings, Great Joy [he gets this a little wrong - it's Good Tidings and Great Joy], Protecting the Heart of Christmas..."

And Sarah Palin jumps in and says:

"Which is protecting the heart of America."

The only serious criticism I have of this book, from listening to interviews with Palin, reading reviews on the book, and from Palin's own comments, is that Palin is trying to be "multicultural" about worship.

She says in the interview:

It is unquestionable that there is an attack on Christmas, which is again the tip of the sphere [why doesn't she say iceberg?! And is "the tip of the sphere" an actual phrase?] when it comes to an even greater battle brewing, and that is an attack on our freedom of religion, where we can exercise our faith - whatever that faith may be.

Palin is parroting the main stream American idea of "freedom of religion." In the next sentence she says:

There are double standards being applied to those who wish to celebrate Christmas, for instance, in a traditional way. Those who would - I refer to them as Scrooges - they are usually angry atheists armed with an attorney, and they want to tell us, they want to tell patriots, the want to tell traditional Americans that no longer can you acknowledge that Jesus is the Reason for the Season [I admit, I laughed at the last Palinesque phrase].

When Palin gets talking "from the heart," she says sensible and reasonable things. Despite her "freedom of religion" mantra, she believes that Christianity trumps all other religions, and that American tradition is not based on a multi-faith amalgam but on Christianity. I think probably her internal litmus test for these other non-Christian faiths is Islam, and how radically and violently different it is from Christianity, and how it is endangering this American tradition, as well as the American nation.

Also, Palin understands that these angry atheists are angry at Christianity, and at the Christian roots of Western society. They want to destroy Christianity, and consequently a West based on Christianity, which according to them has oppressed and marginalized the non-Western, and non-Christian world. And these oppressed religions and cultures deserve acceptance and respect by the West's whites (which is also what these angry atheists almost exclusively are). These atheists are even willing to fight for these oppressed peoples. And alongside them, Muslims, blacks, Hispanics, and a slew of other "oppressed" people can then unite to rid the world of whites.

At some point, Palin will be able to decipher (if she hasn't done so already) that this ideological, and opportunistic, alliance the non-West has given these angry white atheists a formidable, but volatile, ally: Islam. Muslims can fight Christianity and the West through a variety of strategies including violent attacks on Christian societies and communities; immigration of Muslims into Western societies to dilute Christian populations; and internal violence (suicide bombs, killings) once in these societies. But Muslims will not stop there. There are no atheists in Muslim societies, as there are no other religions besides Islam. It is Allah or nothing. At some point, when they have enough force and presence, Muslims will attack these very benefactors who fought to let them into these societies: the angry (white) atheists.

Palin is lucid and intelligent in the interview. She has matured politically and intellectually since her last public appearances running for Vice President with McCain. She has a trace of her colloquial accent, but that makes her more authentic, compared to the uniformly accented talking heads we hear in the media. I could see her making another run at politics, perhaps taking on Hillary Clinton in 2016.

She looks thinner, though, and little strained. Perhaps one never really recovers from politics. And I'm not so sure about that glittering halter-neck top she has on (probably for the glitter of Christmas, along with the Christmas red cardigan). And the pendant around her neck is the American flag, but it looks undecipherable from the distance of a television screen. She used to wear crucifixes. I would have preferred that.



Below is the full interview. The section on her book starts around the 6 minute point.



I will find, and read this book.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Todd Park: Remember That Name (On Remembrance Day)

This Remembrance Day, I think it is apt that I also posted on an internal enemy of sorts, ready and willing to dismantle our civilization.

I have posted In Flanders Field in the previous post, but read also my post: Todd Park: Remember That Name which I posted earlier the same day.

As I wrote here in Todd Park: Remember That Name:

[I]t is much later on that we hear that Obamacare's "main architect" is an Asian - Todd Park. And his involvement in Obamacare and dishonesty about it is far greater than any of these three [Obamacare] representatives.

This enemy is more difficult to find, and thus fight. It comes to us through a cultural and societal angle, making use of the multicultural laws and beliefs. It comes in the guise of "equality," but its real aim is to take from whites and give to non-whites. It opens up the door for other kinds of forced equalities, such as equality of religion, which let in floods of Muslims into Western countries like Canada and America. Muslims have now set up their separate, and at times violent, enclaves in these accommodating Western countries. Other cultural groups are less obviously taking on this "separatism," but they get bolder as their numbers grow. The source that gives them life, and lets them proliferate, is the very Western society that they reject.

I think Park is part of the Asian group that appears to participate and assimilate with the traditional white, Western culture, but is in fact progressively living as a distinct and separate group. At the same time, it expects entitlements as it falls behind in "equalities," as though these inequalities were caused by society, rather than the inherent make-up of its group.

The full post Todd Park: Remember That Name describes the Asian involvement in politics, and hence in American (and Canadian) culture, and its gravitation towards entitlements rather than independent achievements. I write in the post:

Asian-Americans happen to be the highest-earning group in the U.S., out-earning whites, and they generally place enormous emphasis on family. A perfect fit for Republicans, no? No. Asians voted for Obama by 73-26 [in the 2012 elections]; they were more Democratic than Hispanics.
[Source: Asian Voters Send a Message to Republicans]

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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In Flanders Fields

Lieutenant Colonel John Alexander McCrae, MD
(November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918)

In Flanders Fields
By Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, (1872-1918)

In Flanders fields the poppies grow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Todd Park: Remember That Name

Todd Park with Tim O'Reilyat Gov 2.0 Summit 2010 in Washington DC.

Tim O'Reilly is the founder of O'Reilly Media "an influential book publishing empire...which has snagged a significant share of the computer book market with series such as "The Missing Manual" and "Hacks."

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Obamacare is a self-devouring organism, so it really isn't worth saying much about it. But, it's deviousness and insidiousness are fascinating to observe.

Of course, there is Obama's apology. People shouldn't (ever) underestimate Obama. He may look contrite and worried, but he has pushed as far as he probably never imagined a program on the American people that they never expected. He is clever, and devious.

Here's another interesting point. At the risk of sounding "racist," liberals' favorite sin, Obama sent his white representatives, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, Head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Marilyn Tavenner, and White House Press Secretary Jay Carney, to do his dirty work for him of reporting to the House Ways and Means Committee for Tavener, to the House Energy and Commerce Committee for Sibelius, and to the public and the media for Carney, about the debacles of Obamacare. Jay Carney just appeared periodically to issue apologies, non-apologies, explanations, non-explanations, while standing in front of a blood thirsty media. All went through grueling and humiliating appearances.

Yet, it is much later on that we hear that Obamacare's "main architect" is an Asian - Todd Park. And his involvement in Obamacare and dishonesty about it is far greater than any of these three representatives.

Fox News interviewed Rep. Darrell Issa, Chairman of the House Oversite Committee, on November 7. This is what he had to say about Park:

Issa: ...Todd Park and other people, who knew the facts, had to know the facts, and the facts were from documents we received form lead contractors, that they slowed down to an unacceptable lever at 1,100 users. Well in fact Todd Park was telling us that at 16,000 was the target, and at 250,000 they just couldn't handle it. The truth that their goal, according to documents, wasn't even 16,000. Their goal was 10,000. They reached 1,100. So of course, at 250,000 they were never going to work. Which means that this was a still-born site. This was a failure to launch that they new about on September 30th, and went ahead anyway.

Gretchen Carleson: You know, it's interesting that you bring up Todd Park, the US chief technology officer. On October 6th, that would have been five days after the launch, he said what you just said, and I'll add this to it: "Take away the volume, and it works." Was that also a lie?

Issa: Well it certainly was false statement. And since he was working closely with the lead contractors, and documents show that these contractors were in a sense optimistically saying: "Well we're at 1,100, but we're working toward the goal of 10,000." But that that was on September 30th. Clearly the President had an opportunity with his lead contractors and his technology people to take the time out that Congress was asking them to take, to delay the launch at least until security and speed concerns and so on could be addressed, they didn't do it. And Gretchen, as you and I talk here today, we don't have all the facts, but we certainly have indication that there are security bugs in this software, and yet they're not willing to take the site down to make it secure. They're going forward and hoping for the best that the hackers don't get there before they do.

Carleson:...Are you going to make news here and say that there are other hearings coming up next week?

Issa: We are. On Wednesday we're going to have Todd Parks and a number of other political appointees who were part of this pattern of interference and false statements related to this site. And we're going to try to get to the bottom of why politics went ahead of best practices and good technology, something the American people expect, that didn't happen in this case. And it's the tip of the iceberg that we're worried about is if they're willing to put politics into a website, what will they put into your health care.[Video Source: Huffington Post]

House Oversight Committee Chairman Darrell Issa issued a subpoena to top Obama administration technology official Todd Park late Friday requiring him to testify at a hearing on the bumpy Obamacare rollout on Wednesday.

In a letter to Park, Issa wrote:

Millions of Americans have lost their health insurance and are rapidly approaching a point where they must prepare for the possibility of having no health insurance on Jan.1, 2014. They deserve your sworn testimony before their elected representatives about what went wrong — not simply the media outlets that White House officials have deemed an appropriate use of your time away from working on the website project.

Given your [continued] unwillingness to appear voluntarily next week, I am left with no choice but to compel your appearance. [Source: From Politico: Darrell Issa subpoenas W.H. tech official for Obamacare hearing.]

According to Politico:

The hearing is expected to focus on the technological problems that have snarled the federal Obamacare enrollment website ever since it launched in October.

One final point: The image that pops up the most frequently when googling Obamacare, or Affordable Care Act, is the following:



It makes me wonder if Park had anything to do with it. I don't understand the juxtaposition of the young Asian woman with the older one, which clearly shows a mother and a daughter. Why not the father as well, or a husband for the younger woman? Why two generatios of Asian womenr? Still, this shows that Asians have become a strong participants in government-initiated programs. This deflates the myth of the financially secure, independent minded Asian, and exposes them as entitlement seekers.

Asian-Americans happen to be the highest-earning group in the U.S., out-earning whites, and they generally place enormous emphasis on family. A perfect fit for Republicans, no? No. Asians voted for Obama by 73-26 [in the 2012 elections]; they were more Democratic than Hispanics. [Source: Asian Voters Send a Message to Republicans]

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Obamacare by Mornin'

The country folk, and their musical representatives, give us their rendition of Obamacare, at the Country Music Awards, held last Wednesday.



Here's Carrie Underwood and Brad Pailsy, with a guitar, singing: Obamacare by Mornin':



Obamacare by morning.
Why’s this taking so long?
I’m going to wind up with hemorrhoids
If I sit here till dawn.
We'll have cataracts and dementia.
Oh, this is gettin' on my last nerve.
Obamacare by morning
Over six people served."


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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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The Great War and a World Shattered

A World, Shattered
By: Sage McLaughlin
Posted at What's Wrong With the World

The spiritual crisis engulfing the West entails not only revisionist academics’ skepticism concerning the Resurrection as an historical fact, or of the doctrine of the Trinity. So decadent and thoroughgoing is the skepticism of modern man that a willful embrace of ugliness, a worship of personal power for its own sake, and an unrestrained exaltation of the self are the most obvious features of our culture and our public life. A rejection of form as such is implicated here. There is a calamitous discordancy in all our public rituals. Our national anthem is seldom performed with reverence and beauty, being reduced to wild and extravagant displays of “range” on the part of the performer. The confused Novus Ordo Catholic liturgy celebrated in virtually every contemporary parish lurches from the sudden, crashing onset of noise, to awkward silence, is afflicted by incessant contradiction in the movement of the unconsecrated to and from the altar, and suffers from a near-complete absence of coherent form that is the necessary picture frame of ritual. Disorientation is our preferred orientation.

The last hundred years would seem to bear out Fr. Seraphim Rose’s contention in Nihilism: The Root of the Revolution of the Modern Age that Western man, having once received and accepted the truth of Christian revelation, could not but descend into nihilism and madness if ever he rejected it. I will not bother trying to defend that proposition, though of course there are many people who would dismiss it or find it offensive. Still, what in economics has been referred to as a hermeneutics of “revealed preferences” might be worth something here; that is, the truth about people can be discerned not by asking them what they think about a subject, as in a public opinion poll, but by watching what they say and do under relevant conditions. And we can say that the disintegration of the Christian consensus, the embrace of a thousand heresies that put man and his politics in place of God and His divine Law, and the rejection of the “Old Order” of the European monarchies ultimately manifested itself in the mechanization of mass murder known as the First World War. Thus when the German Expressionist painter Otto Dix (1891-1969) went to fight in the trenches on behalf of the Kaiser, he said that he carried with him two texts: the Holy Bible, and Frederich Nietzsche’s Also sprach Zarathustra.

The Great War was, in one sense, the end of the world. Dix’s often grotesque, desolating works in the years during and after that war (which I do not recommend beyond their interest as objects of analysis) do not so much portray the visible destruction of the European cities, which were left largely unmolested by the shells; indeed, one could have toured Munich, Paris, London, Budapest, or Prague in those days without detecting that there even was a war. Instead, the images Dix crafted are of a world shattered, and it is striking to me just how closely the artistic style of the period resembles nothing so much in aspect as a broken mirror, a lugubrious expression of angst by a civilization that no longer knew what it was, but was haunted by the terrible knowledge that all things were now twisted and misshapen. His self-portraits vividly show us the transmogrification of the Western man, beginning with the scowling 21-year-old Dix’s Self-Portrait with Carnation (1912):

Self-Portrait with Carnation (1912)

By the end of his first few months during the “Phony War” of late 1914, we see the piercing, knowing eyes recede into anxious blots of doubt, lurking beneath the prominent golden sun of the gunner’s insignia, the bright baubles of state obscuring the increasingly faceless and uncertain man:

Self-portrait with Gunner's Helmet (1914)

By the time of Self-portrait as Mars (1915), the human being is annihilated, having been reduced to the raw material of the apocalypse, a metallic figure with a wheel in place of his heart, the self now scattered as shards in a maelstrom:

Self Portrait as Mars, 1915

The Western art world, influenced by cubism and led by Expressionists like Dix, was belching forth an endless stream of content that was evocative of cataclysm, of a world broken and devoid of beauty. This visual style, replicated in thousands of similar images from the interwar period, was perhaps most famously delivered to a mass audience by the classic Robert Wiene film, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari.

Robert Wiene (1873–1938)
Scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920

It is a remarkable point that The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is sometimes credited with introducing the concept of the “twist” ending in cinema, and that the particular twist envisaged here is the now-shopworn script in which the main characters are revealed to be the inhabitants of an insane asylum, the entire story a homicidal delusion. Such was the logic of the cosmic cul-de-sac of post-Kantian modernism, which promised a morality that was both universal and a product of the human mind.

Robert Wiene (1873–1938)
Scene from The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, 1920

All of this was brought into focus for me by a piece of architecture that was not, surprisingly, the work of a corrupt American Cardinal of the Catholic Church. Nor was it the work of Daniel Libeskind, whose original concept for the post-9/11 reconstitution of Ground Zero was an adolescent expression of avante garde contempt for ordinary standards of beauty and form (his colleague Jeffery Kipnis probably said more than he intended about the contemporary art world when he remarked of Libeskind, “There’s only one Daniel in the world of architecture. I’m glad there’s Daniel, and I’m glad there’s no other.”) No, I am myself a modern man, so of course what actually got me thinking about this particular continuity in our art and architecture was the new football stadium for the Atlanta Falcons. Though long an enthusiast of organized sports, I just cannot imagine what would attract a person whose only knowledge of the subject was this artist’s rendering to take part in anything that happened in that building.

The incessant braying of our loud, vain, ugly public rituals signifies terminal decay. Now having been inured to it, there is next to no offense against beauty and dignified public order that will not find its defenders, all the more if it is packaged as entertainment. Spectacles of apocalyptic violence and destruction are more popular than ever. They are no longer even expressions of introspective horror, but of positive delight at the cleansing of a world devoid of meaning and coherence, and a return to something simpler--the void. Incredibly, this was the “promise” of the First World War which, many people do not realize, was in its beginnings very popular and a cause of exhilaration and even optimism across Europe.

It occurs to me that what all this imagery prefigures for the human race is indeed a cleansing fire, but not one of our own making. In contrast to that unhappy thought, in my next post I will take a glimpse back at the beauty and the order that still was, even amid so much turmoil and confusion, and still might be, if only in our own little gardens. But now, to bed.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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