Before Lent

Irish Coffee at Failte's

[Photo By: KPA]

Night

[Photo By: KPA]

Dusk 2

[Photo By: KPA]

Dusk

[Photo By: KPA]

Cross of the Materialists

"Pattern Migration is an exceptional opportunity to connect with our community partners through the Art Gallery ofMississauga. Together, we have created programming that will enhance our guests’ shopping experience, and introduce them to up-and-coming and internationally acclaimed artists."

-Toni Holley, Marketing Director
Oxford Properties
Group, Square One Shopping Centre

[Photo By: [KPA]

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While inhabitants of western society are busy out shopping, they are oblivious of the anti-Christ that is funneling its way into their lives.

I took the photo above in Mississauga's Square One Shopping Centre's Holt Renfrew department store about six months ago in the section which is referred to as the Luxury Wing.

Right in front of the store's entrance, in the corridor, the Art Gallery of Mississauga teamed up with Square One to display art as part of its satellite exhibition program. On display are a series of photo-manipulated prints from the AGM's 2016 Pattern Migration exhibition, which was going on at the AGM at the same time. The AGM exhibit was from July 14 - September 11, 2016, while the display at Square One is still going on.

The images are:

...digital photo collages [which Mazinani creates] using her own photographs and found images...her Persian Architecture series was created from photographs of the intricate tilework in mosques in Iran. The AGM has invited Mazinani to create a new artwork inspired by this exhibition in partnership with the communities of Mississauga! To do this she will photograph patterned ceramic objects provided by the community, and create a new collage from the images.

Sanaz Mazinani, carefully and intelligently, presents to us her grand Persian imagery, acculturating us to her world of Islam. The AGM curators are not wedded to Islam. They present us with a smorgasbord of religious/spiritual art, even occasionally Christian ones.

Their intention really is to show us the wonderfully diverse population that now lives in Mississauga, and to help us museum-goers appreciate their backgrounds and origins. The curators' generosity knows no bounds, except when it comes to Christian art and Canadian culture. Do they think that other cultures and religions will so readily step aside, in the same spirit of generosity?


From Sanaz Mazinani's Works on Paper collection

Related article: Islams Missionary Women
By: Kidist Paulos Asrat
Published: ChronWatch, 10/02/08


Pattern Migrations' curator Kendra Ainsworth,
who now holds the title of Curator of Contemporary Art,
photographed here with the artist Sanaz Mazinani
at the exhibition's opening reception on July 14, 2016

The work on display in the background is
Mazinani’s “Golestan Palace Tiles”
from her Persian Architecture series

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Pattern Migrations exhibition at the Art Gallery of Mississauga




Left wall:
Diyan Achjadi
Java Toile, 2015
Toner print on Tyvek

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Floor:
Soheila Esfahani
The Immigrants, 2016
Hand-built and found porcelain

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Back and right walls:



Images left to right:
Golestan Palace Tiles, Tehran, Iran (1865/2014)
Archival Pigment Print (ed. 1 of 3)
Printed in 2016

Iwan of Imamzadeh Mahruq at the tomb of Omar Khayyam
Neyshapour, Iran, 17th c./2013
Archival Pigment Print (ed. 1 of 3)

Masjed-Jame mosaic, Isfahan, Iran, 841/2016
Archival Pigment Print (ed. 1 of 3)
Printed in 2016

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[Photo By: [KPA]

Mosaic of Mary: St. Michael's Hospital Chapel in Toronto

[Photo by: KPA]

Morality based on what?

Richard Spencer
"We Own the Alt-Right."

The Milo Phenomenon is now all over the news:

The obscene, sodomy-celebrating, and nasty provocateur; rising GOP star; and Breitbart contributor, Milo Yiannopoulos, was recently invited to be the keynote speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Fortunately, his invitation was quickly rescinded when an interview with Joe Rogan from ten months ago came to light in which Yiannopoulos gleefully recounted performing a sex act on a Catholic priest when Yiannopoulos was 14-years-old–a sexual act that Yiannopoulos insisted did not constitute pedophilia.
[Full article here]

Alt-Right[1] founder Richard Spencer has posted his commentary on Milo Yiannopoulos who used to be (or still is?) a follower of Spencer's Alt-Right movement. The video is at Altright.com's youtube page under: Milo Goes Up in Flames.

Below, I've excerpted from the long commentary (25 minutes long) on the points where Spencer discusses in moral terms the perverted sexual behavior of Yannopoulos.

As a side note, I have wondered why Spencer spent a rambling 25 minutes to discuss Yiannopoulos. I believe it is because of his inability to make a moral judgment on Yiannopoulos' behavior, and therefore his roundabout way to try to deem the behaviour as unacceptable. It is one thing to recognize the moral (or immoral) nature of someone's behaviour, it is quite another to judge it right or wrong.

I list and discuss the excerpts below.

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Excerpts from the commentary:

- What Milo is saying..."is totally indefensible."

- "Speaking as a father, I just simply cannot abide what he said. Milo just needs to recognize the fact that no normal person is going to accept what he said. It makes our stomachs turn."

- "The fact is this [pedophilia rings that Yannopoulos was privy to] is criminal. This is not OK legally speaking."

- "Look the fact is, if you witness something like that...you're legally and morally at the very least, I'm not a lawyer but you are at the very least morally obligated to say something and to try to stop that, or at the very least to take that information to the authorities."

- "This is just not acceptable. No-one is going to defend Milo. I'm sorry Milo no-one is going to defend you on this."

- "When someone is being attacked and there's a scandal, I almost want to defend them, because I know just how unfair the media is. I faced this myself with Hailgate. Everyone knows the punching incident, and I appreciate the people who defended me."

- "If this were any other scandal, I would not pile on. I do not like piling on. But in this case you, I have to pile on."

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In the 25-minute recording, Spencer vacillates between legal obligations, fatherly responsibilities (he has a toddler daughter), societal decorum, the unfair media, and normal behavior. Authorities (law and order), legality (lawyers and judges), normality (what one doesn't do in civilized society, at least publicly) are the issues he brings up in an attempt to explain why it is wrong to have pedophilia rings. He tries to frame his responses around morality or moral obligations, but he never specifies what morality and what moral obligations.

Spencer's hurt feelings of being insulted by the media ( "I know just how unfair the media is"), as though the media are really the cause of his and rejections, is the narcissistic reaction of someone who has no-one else to turn to but himself. "They attacked me because they are unfair (and evil)" says the narcissist, rather than search for something wrong in his approach.

Spencer is an atheist. As an atheist, there is nothing that tells him, other than his own perceptions, logic and observations, and societal "norms" what is moral and what is not moral.

Below is an excerpt from on a recent interview Spencer had regarding his atheism.

From The Friendly Atheist Blog at Patheos[2]:

Spencer has previously described himself (8:12) as a “cultural Christian,” but he told me in a private interview (over Twitter) that he is in fact an atheist. He also said the separation of church and state is “an utter illusion.

”Here’s an excerpt from the discussion:

McAfee: Are you religious? Do you support the Separation of Church and State?
Spencer: I’m an atheist. The “separation of church and state” is an utter illusion. The state and religion state [sic] deeply connected.
McAfee: So, despite your lack of religion, you do think religion and government should be connected. Is that right? Do you think a secular government would fail?
Spencer: A truly secular government could never exist. Sovereignty is a magical thing. For a political order to function — for it to accomplish its tasks, including war-making — the population must *believe* in it.

Why is pedophilia immoral? What is wrong with loving little children? After all pedophiles can argue that their behavior is a form of love. Unless it is a "rapist pedophile," most pedophiles are attracted to one (or two or three) children and maintain long term interactions with them. The young children become attached to them.

Legally society can decide that having sex with 5 year old children (who can say "yes" and "no," and make decisions) is perfectly acceptable and that it is not a crime.

Spencer is repulsed by pedophilia as a father of a young daughter. That is his frame of reference: disgusted with - and ready to tackle - anyone who would approach his child thus. What about men who don't have children? From what depths are they to channel the emotion of repulsion of a man having sex with sons or daughters who are not theirs? And how about fathers of older children? In fact, most fathers are protective (both of their daughters and sons) way into the children's adulthood, and only marriage gives them the peace of mind that their son or daughter isn't being "abused."

Society is held together not just by legal codes but by spiritual references. Spencer and the growing number of atheists are counting on a Christian society that produced these laws, behaviors, and civilized relationships, and that maintains (or can maintain) a functioning and good society. Laws, since they deal with right and wrong, and have a moral basis, have to be based on a spiritual reference. In Spencer's ideal world, such laws to protect him and his family would exist in a world without God, but he would not discard the Christian spiritual framework. Such is the hypocrisy of atheists: they will acknowledge some authority higher than man when they are threatened by nefarious forces. In Spencer's case, it is the realization that there is a pedophile out there advocating sex with children as young as his own daughter.

I've written about this here, here, here, here, and here.

I write in In Defense of Judeo-Christian Tradition::

It is unprecedented that people come outright and say "I am not religious." Previous generations wouldn't even know how to articulate these thoughts. What is even more irritating is the "but" that many of these people add. "Although not religious, I’m a defender of the so-called Judeo-Christian tradition." What does that even mean? As in "I will abstain from participating in one important element of Western tradition, but I will support it anyway?"

People can be overwhelmed by the beauty and poetics of the Bible, just as one can admire the poetry of Shakespeare. But, how can they, if they are so drawn to this book, not feel the mystery and transcendence of it as well? Where does that "tremendous literary achievement" lead to? Just for us to feel its tremendous literary achievement? Isn't there just something a little more than that?

Such is the ways of our modern world, where atheists sit around talking about the literary achievements of the Bible, as though they are great connoisseurs, and yet not have an ounce of reaction to its bigger picture.

It is Christianity which firmly and soundly built the society that was able to remove pedophilia from its midst, and which carved the laws which could punish the transgressors (the criminals).

Like all atheists, Spencer is an cultural opportunist. He latches on to what would make his life, his milieu, his relationships humane. The world created through God is good as long as one can get rid of pedophiles who would prey on one's daughters, but there is no logic to God's existence and therefore there is no God.

Here are a few of the infantile (I'm not denigrating Spencer here, I am just saying that his arguments are based on some kind of immature grievance that "God didn't answer my prayers"):

- Atheism offers the best explanation for the physical forces that cause natural disasters.

- Atheism offers the best explanation for the presence of unjustified pain and suffering in the world.

- Atheism offers the best explanation for God's silence in the face of adversity.

- Atheism offers the best explanation for divine hiddenness.

And so on. The full article (twelve points in all) is here.

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Notes:

1. Alt-right is a term that appeared in November 2008 when Paul Gottfried addressed the H. L. Mencken Club about what he called "the alternative right". In 2009, two more posts at Taki's Magazine, by Patrick J. Ford and Jack Hunter, further discussed the 'alternative right.' The term is commonly attributed to Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and founder of Alternative Right magazine.

The alternative right has alternately been called libertarian nationalism, "neo"-paleoconservatism, "evolutionary" conservatism, "scientific" conservatism, and the post-religious right. [Conservapedia]

2. Patheos is a non-denominational, non-partisan online media company providing information and commentary from various religious and nonreligious perspectives. [Wikipedia]

Highway Cross

[Photo By: KPA]

The Postmodern Art Critic

Roy Lichtenstein (American, 1923–1997)
Title: Art Critic, 1996
Medium: Prints and multiples, Screenprint
Edition: 150
Image size: 19.72 x 13.35 in
Catalogue: Joseph Fine Arts Inventory Catalogue

Contemporary art criticism is a fascinating subject.

No-one dares touch it save for the few allocated to it because:

- They have a bullying manner
- They went to the "right" schools and studied the "right" kind of art
- They support the "right" kind of art, which now is post-modern, nihilistic anti-art
- A multicultural viewpoint also helps quite a bit

The idea really is to displace western art and the western art tradition.

But the essential point of excellence is missed.

Measuring excellence is not a culturally loaded task.

The idea of excellence originated in western thought, guided by Christian philosophy.

So the true art critic bases his judgment on western tradition within a Christian context.

The Ten Commandments: "I am the Lord thy God"

Illustration by Sam Lawlor

The Ten Commandments are a sequential set of commands.

If the first is forsaken then all the others can follow similar suit.

Exodus 20: 2: "I am the Lord thy God"

How many in some form or other deny or denounce this?

Such are then more likely to:

- V. 3-5: Worship graven images (the graven image of liberalism)
- V. 12: Ignore or denounce the legacy of their fathers and mothers, which drives the neglect of one's country and fuels the immigration-fuelled culture of our modern age
- V. 13-15: Kill, commit adultery, steal - the abortion-minded, divorce-facilitating, welfare-driven society we live in now as though it were the norm
- V. 16: Bear false witness against thy neighbour - misreporting/ misrepresenting facts, in short lying, to attain a (liberal) agenda and world
- V. 17: Thou shalt not covet - desiring what's not one's own and looking for the easy way out to get what others have obtained through hard work, family inheritances, and national legacies

Denouncing the first leads to a sequential denial of all the others.

Below are the full commandments: "I am the Lord thy God"

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Exodus 20: 1-26:

And God spake all these words, saying,

I am the Lord thy God, which have brought thee out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of bondage.

Thou shalt have no other gods before me.

Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth.

Thou shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them: for I the Lord thy God am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children unto the third and fourth generation of them that hate me;

And shewing mercy unto thousands of them that love me, and keep my commandments.

Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain; for the Lord will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.

Six days shalt thou labour, and do all thy work:

But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God: in it thou shalt not do any work, thou, nor thy son, nor thy daughter, thy manservant, nor thy maidservant, nor thy cattle, nor thy stranger that is within thy gates:

For in six days the Lord made heaven and earth, the sea, and all that in them is, and rested the seventh day: wherefore the Lord blessed the sabbath day, and hallowed it.

Honour thy father and thy mother: that thy days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God giveth thee.

Thou shalt not kill.

Thou shalt not commit adultery.

Thou shalt not steal.

Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour.

Thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbour's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his ass, nor any thing that is thy neighbour's.

And all the people saw the thunderings, and the lightnings, and the noise of the trumpet, and the mountain smoking: and when the people saw it, they removed, and stood afar off.

And they said unto Moses, Speak thou with us, and we will hear: but let not God speak with us, lest we die.

And Moses said unto the people, Fear not: for God is come to prove you, and that his fear may be before your faces, that ye sin not.

And the people stood afar off, and Moses drew near unto the thick darkness where God was.

And the Lord said unto Moses, Thus thou shalt say unto the children of Israel, Ye have seen that I have talked with you from heaven.

Ye shall not make with me gods of silver, neither shall ye make unto you gods of gold.

An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.

And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it.

Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.

Happy Valentine's

Here is a post from 2014:

#valentineheartthrob



No I'm not on twitter. But my yahoo mail has a red Valentine's heart on the top corner, and it throbs!

I thought it was cute.

But all cuteness aside, a day of lighthearted celebration of love is a good thing. The problem is when people take it so seriously that it means everything (or nothing). Red hearts all over the place are a nice burst of color, in this dark depths of winter, and after the festivities of Christmas and New Year, it brings a holiday mood into February. Our next holiday is Easter, and that is as late as March or April.

I was recently watching You've Got Mail with Meg Ryan (as Kathleen Kelly) and Tom Hanks (as Joe Fox). Kathleen sends herself a dozen red roses for Valentine's. She says to Joe that she does it for the possibility of love.

That is how we should all live: for the possibility of love, for the possibility of goodness, for the possibility of beauty, for the possibility of summer.

So many possibility, it gives us quite a busy schedule!

Here is a simple menu:

- Plate of sweet potato fries
- Glass of Cabernet Sauvignon Vista Point from California

Wine description from the menu:

Intense blackberry and currant, a smooth easy drinking wine for any occasion.

I don't know why the wine is described as "intense" but it is more flavorful than intense.

Here's one moresite (pdf) with this brief description of the wine: "pleasant, semi-dry, smooth."

My evaluation is that the wine's fruity notes makes it a great match with the sweet potatoes.

Happy (belated) Valentine's to all!

Sing a Song of Sixpence

Illustration Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked in a Pie
By Scott Gustafson
From: from "Sing a Song of Sixpence"
Illustration for Favorite Nursery Rhymes: Mother Goose Collection

Sing a song of sixpence

Sing a song of sixpence,
A pocket full of rye,
Four and twenty blackbirds
Baked in a pie.

When the pie was opened
The birds began to sing
Wasn't that a dainty dish
To set before the king?

The king was in the counting-house
Counting out his money,
The queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey,

The maid was in the garden
Hanging out the clothes.
Along came a blackbird
And snipped off her nose.

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Laura Wood at The Thinking Housewife writes:

In his 2011 book, School-Induced Dyslexia and How It Deforms a Child’s Brain, the late author and education reformer Samuel L. Blumenfeld argued that the whole language or “progressive” method of reading instruction had caused a massive increase in illiteracy, especially among blacks, and a skyrocketing number of diagnosed cases of “dyslexia.”
Elementary school children in public schools are taught to read today by memorizing a few dozen “sight,” mostly one-syllable, words. The traditional phonics method involves sounding out the letters and gradually progressing to bigger words.

I don't think it is just a reading problem anymore. All of childhood "education" has been diluted to make children "feel good."

Feisty children are created from feisty stories.

For some reason, I thought of "Sing a Song of Sixpence" when I read Laura's post. Perhaps it is the melody of the nursery rhyme, or it is the lovely little birds that I hear along my way to the bus stop or the store, hiding between the leafless tree branches.

Or it is the blackbirds themselves. Who has sympathy of blackbirds that are baked in a pie? If it were: "Four and twenty sparrows baked in a pie" it might conjure up a more sympathetic feeling. Blackbirds, even ones I see and try to photograph, don't get my sympathy.

So I think the purpose of nursery rhymes is to subtly, and sometimes less subtly, teach young children about the "pecking order" of the world. That there is good and that there is evil. Even in the animal world. That some are strong and others weaker.

It is interesting that the two characters of "power" in Sing a Song of Sixpence, the king and the queen, display this order so very clearly.

The king was in the counting-house
Counting out his money

and

The queen was in the parlor
Eating bread and honey

How frivolous to eat a sweet snack and alone and separate. How indulgent!

Of course the king could be some megalomaniac only interested in his gold coins, but he is the one charged with the important role. He has his kingdom's wealth to be concerned with.

Such clearly defined roles of men and women and our position in the natural world, with few niceties (we can bake blackbirds in a pie) might cure our disoriented and insipid youth which pledges its time and intellect on "equality/environmentalism/anti-racism" and any number of "global causes" of its strange belief that all is about niceness (not necessarily goodness).

And even those blackbirds surmounted the heat of the oven and came out chirping, alive and well.

The Avett Brothers: The Return of American Music

Just know the kingdom of God is within you
Even though the battle is bound to continue

True Sadness

You were a friend to me when my wheels were off the track
I know you say there is no need, but I intend to pay you back
When my mind was turning loose and all my thoughts were turning black
You shined a light on me and I intend to pay you back

When I was a child, I depended on a bottle
Full-grown I've been known to lean on a bottle
But you're the real deal in a world of imposters
And I've seen the program make men out of monsters

'Cause I still wake up shaken by dreams
And I hate to say it but the way it seems
Is that no one is fine
Take the time to peel a few layers and you will find
True sadness

Adam and Eve must have really done a number
On that garden when the apple was finished
Leaving behind them a den made of sadness
A damage that can't or won't be replenished

'Cause I still wake up shaken by dreams
And I hate to say it but the way it seems
Is that no one is fine
Take the time to peel a few layers and you will find
True sadness

Angela became a target
As soon as her beauty was seen
By young men who try to reduce her down
To a scene on an X rated screen

Is she not more than the curve of her hips?
Is she not more than the shine on her lips?
Does she not dream to sing and to live and to dance down her own path
Without being torn apart?
Does she not have a heart?

I cannot go on with this evil inside me
I step out my front door and I feel it surround me
Just know the kingdom of God is within you
Even though the battle is bound to continue

'Cause I still wake up shaken by dreams
And I hate to say it but the way it seems
Is that no one is fine
Take the time to peel a few layers and you will find
True sadness
True sadness
True true sadness

A Desk With a Thousand Views

I'm reposting a blog post from March 2015: A Desk With a Thousand Views

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A Desk With a Thousand Views



This is what I see as I sit at my desk. I put up this collage a few weeks ago while I was getting an article ready. The blank, greyish brown wall was too empty and too dark, and I needed some kind of stimulation as I wrote down my ideas.

I came up with this, first by putting the mustard yellow wrapping paper as a background.

This is not the full collage. I have had to crop it to get the images as clear as possible. I have several other design drawings, a large card of a Tiffany window from the Metropolitan Museum of Art (the middle window here), my drawing of a mourning dove, and Pierre-Auguste Renoir's Les Grands Boulevards, which I saw at The National Gallery of Canada's Renoir Landscapes exhibition in Ottawa in 2007, amongst others.

I thought too many images would be a distraction - blank wall/paper and all that. But, it is actually helpful, and it is a comfort zone where I can calm down and think, with all these familiar, and beautiful, things around.

Here are the images:

1. Swan design from Well-Patterned.
2. Iris gift wrap paper from Longwood Gardens gift shop.
3. Cards from a photograph I took of the Cloisters, in New York.
4. Program from the exhibition Guilded New York at the Museum of the City of New York, showing Cornelia Ward Hall and Her Children. I visited the exhibition last year.
5. A print of my photograph of ferns, from my "plants from the Allan Gardens Conservatory" series.
6. Oak leaf from St. Peter and St. Paul Cemetery, near Philadelphia.
7. Balloons for 4th of July near Wall Street in New York. I took this photograph over ten years ago. I did a google image search "wall street balloons for fourth of july" with or without quotes, and mine is the first that comes up.
8. Patience at the New York Public Library, New York. I couldn't find a postcard of her companion Fortitude. I've used the library on a couple of occasions. I have a library card, which I got as a non-resident.
9. The Palm Court in the Plaza Hotel. Again, this is a postcard, although I have taken several photographs of that beautiful interior.
10. Card from the Frick Collection's Precision and Splendor exhibition. I bought the card when I visited the exhibition, which is a detail of the 18th century Gilt-Bronze and Enamel Mantel Regulator Clock.
11. Woman at Table with Parrot and Lamp at the exhibition A Shared Legacy: Folk Art in America in the American Folk Art Museum, in New York.
12. A postcard, framed, of a photograph of hydrangeas I bought at a sidewalk display at the Central Park mall. The photographer, Diane Dua, has a website.--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

Welfare Advocate Sarah Jessica Parker: The Hollywood Limousine LiberalArticle Submission and Rejection

Below is an article I submitted to the on-line journal The Imaginative Conservative. It was rejected with the following email from Alyssa Barnes*, managing editor at the journal:

Dear Ms. Asrat:

Thank you for your interest in The Imaginative Conservative; I hope you are well.

Thank you also for your proposal. I regret to inform you that your essay does not meet our current editorial needs.

Sincerely,
Alyssa

First: What is this "conservative" trend (for decades now) with formal letters being signed off with a first name? Odd and deceptively familiar. Deceptively familiar because it looks like I am a "friend" of sorts, whereas I am interacting with Ms. Barnes on a purely professional level.

Second: What does "does not meet our current editorial needs" mean? Do they have too many submissions to consider? Do they not like the topic? Do they not like the religious references?

Conservatives have always been accused of being too stuffy and out of touch with reality. Then suddenly Trump pops up and they are shocked.

A professional interaction does not inhibit (or forbid) one to be out with the common man. And being out with the common man doesn't mean one doesn't treat him with some level of formality.

Does she think that I am being blasphemous in associating Mary Magdalene's love of Christ with Sarah Jessica Parker's profane use of perfume?

Still, stuffiness aside, conservatives, and those who call themselves religious conservatives, keep missing the boat with their grandiose elitism and consequently their inability to read the common man.

They're as bad in their intellectual ivory tower as is SJP in her Hollywood ivory tower.

I should have known better, as I wrote a critique of a post at the IC just a few weeks ago: Mo and Mao: How the East Might Revive the West’s Tradition. Of course, my argument is that it is the other way around.

Probably this post would have made Ms. Barnes' cut. Lainey Gossip is the website of a second-rate Canadian media woman Elaine Lui who makes her income on gossip. She has a degree in French (it must be all those naughty "frrrench" who corrupted her). I doubt it. She seems to link her "harsh" take on life to her Chinese background, Tiger Mom style.

“My grandmother ran a Mahjong den in Hong Kong. My mother played, that’s what they do - they play Mahjong and they talk sh-t, all day and all night. They smoke cigarettes and send out for food and talk sh-t some more. That was how they communicated. Gossip is communication. That's how I was indoctrinated.”

My voice is snarky, bitchy but also deeply, deeply gossipy."

She got her husband to quit his job at a media company to join in with her "bitching" as "the business side" of her enterprise.

She gossips, but so what? How bland and boring.

There's no bigger story, no message, no moral. Just mean-spirited humorless empty gossip.

These days Lainey's dishes have has gone "lo-cal." Perhaps it is all those celebrity endorsements that have told her to cool it down a little. She also smiles a lot on her tv show The Social , but then she can't help herself with her periodic "b..." outbursts.

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Here is the short bio at The Imaginative Conservative on Ms. Barnes:

Alyssa Barnes is the Managing Editor of The Imaginative Conservative. She is a graduate student in Pepperdine University's School of Public Policy and Straus Institute for Dispute Resolution. Miss Barnes holds a B.A. in Philosophy, Political Science, and Classical Languages from the University of St. Thomas' Honors Program in Houston, TX. She has also been an Intercollegiate Studies Institute Honors Fellow.

Barnes' Linkedin page shows that she has worked directly in churches and religious institutions, and has attended Catholic schools and universities.

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Article submitted to The Imaginative Conservative:

Welfare Advocate Sarah Jessica Parer: The Hollywood Limousine Liberal

John 12:3-8

Then took Mary a pound of ointment of spikenard, very costly, and anointed the feet of Jesus, and wiped his feet with her hair: and the house was filled with the odour of the ointment.
Then saith one of his disciples, Judas Iscariot, Simon's son, which should betray him,
Why was not this ointment sold for three hundred pence, and given to the poor?
This he said, not that he cared for the poor; but because he was a thief, and had the bag, and bare what was put therein.

Then said Jesus, Let her alone: against the day of my burying hath she kept this.
For the poor always ye have with you; but me ye have not always.

Luke 6:20-21

Then he looked up at his disciples and said: ‘Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.

Left: Sarah Jessica Parker promoting her perfume Lovely in 2005
Right: Existential drama at the 2017 Golden Globes, soon after the election of Donald Trump

Mary Magdalene anointed Jesus' feet with expensive perfume to worship him and adore him. Sarah Jessica Parker brands her perfumes as part of her name and uses this fame to promote government dependency by America's poor.

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Sarah Jessica Parker used to look pretty, and even lovey at times. Above left is a photo of her in 2005 with her perfume "Lovely," and then in the photo on the right at the 2017 Global Globe awards. By 2017, she is looking up as though searching for some vampire-god's guidance with her blackened nails and elongated claws for eyelashes. Why the spiritual drama?

Well the immediate answer is that she is "shocked" by the election of Donald Trump. Here is her emotional rollercoaster of a reaction over Trump's election:

"I am shocked by what has happened. I’m devastated by…I’m sad..."

That partly explains her appearance: sad/shocked/devastated and trying to put on a happy face.



Parker is wearing a wedding gown for the Global Globe 's, with no hint or irony. Except that this is a mangled and ripped gown touted as the latest design by divorced wedding gown designer Vera Wang.


Vera Wang: Fall 2017 - Dracula's Bride

She is wearing her SJP Shoe Collection heels, having moved up the ranks to a shoe designer. They are a rather tame "spaghetti strap" heels, carefully hidden by the trailing cut-out gown, since they don't fit the vampire theme of the dress. Parker has always been about pretty, which is why she cannot display her black nails and grey eyeshadow with a genuinely happy face.




SJP Shoe Collection: Westminster Metallic Sandals



A rich Hollywoodian, Parker hypocritically "supports" the poor as she lives a lavish, luxurious and indulgent life. Which is part of the "long answer" to her existential malaise. She is rich, wealthy actually, but she wants to (pretend to) be one with the poor. Since she has no religion, or rather since she has abandoned God, even the God of her Jewish ancestors, she has no idea of the meaning of Jesus' words (and even if she did know them, she wouldn't know how to relate to them):

"For you have the poor always with you; but me you have not always. [Matthew 26:11].

Her constant scurrying around, her beaten-down look, her idols, including President Obama, all attest to her deep desire to be this "good person." She has made her charitable missions her religion. But like true hypocrites, such charity, especially when in the presence of the President, come with designer shoes and gourmet-catered dinners, all carefully orchestrated to be hidden away to avoid ostentatious exhibition. After all who questions a little glitter on slippers and a plate of

"Chicken with a mustard sauce, diced tomatoes and a lot of relishes on the side..." dishes Aretha Franklin, one of the honorary guests, to gossip media waiting outside the townhouse "Very tasty," she added.

She has some idea of how goodness from others (strangers and friends) can make life better. She talks about her life in poverty as a young child with her family being on welfare for much of her childhood, and having to get "welfare tickets" for free lunches while in the third grade in a Cincinnati school. More information on her family background shows that her mother divorced Parker's father when she was only a year old and remarried a year later to a Paul Forste. Parker's mother seemed attracted to men with unstable financial prospects. Stephen Parker was an "aspiring writer." Paul Forste was a "theater student" who also worked as a truck driver when he came to live with Parker's mother, bringing with him his five children making the household child count to eight. The family lived off the "theatre student" Forste's truck driver salary and what Barbara brought in on her teacher's wages.

It is never pleasant to criticize someone's poverty. But how much of her mother's bad choices led to Parker's difficult childhood? Still, her enterprising mother managed to find some way out of this poverty by enrolling her children in various entertainment productions. By 1977, at age eleven, Parker had a role in the Broadway musical Annie. By 1979, she had nabbed the lead role. And the rest is history (including briefly dating John F. Kennedy)

Parker is now an advocate for welfare, albeit indirectly, through her vigorous support of Obama and all his failed government policies. She is the epitome of a limousine liberal but one who should know better thus making her a hypocrite. It wasn't the free lunches that catapulted her into the ranks of Hollywood's elite, but her mother's savviness and a little of her own talent.

She now keeps making her films, and concocts more perfumes (she's got about four by now although none as good as the first one). I used to be a fan of hers in her Sex and the City days, which, to its credit, was uncomfortably inhibited with its "sex" part. Kim Cattrall, the sexpot in the series, always performed her scenes as though she were in a rush for them to be over. The prudence was possibly due to Parker (she is a prude).

Her latest media promotion for which she attended the Golden Globes is for a television series called Divorce. Her painful experience with her parents' split when she was a young child seems to have made her wiser, making sure her marriage stays intact. She has been married to Matthew Broderick for twenty-five years now.

“What I do on screen doesn't cross the placenta, do you know what I mean?”
[Parker in an interview with People Magazine in New York at the HBO premier series for Divorce]

But Parker does not really believe in marriage. At least the formal traditional kind.

That is the hypocrisy of the contemporary liberal elite. They make sure their own heterosexual marriages stay intact, and a surprising number are intact albeit many are in long-standing second marriages, or married after several years of "cohabitation." Look at for example Warren Beatty and Annette Bening, Meryl Streep and her non-movie star husband (she's the smartest of them all), Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson. But everyone else's marriage is up for grabs of freedom: freedom to leave a husband in pursuit of a career; freedom to choose the gender (or non-gender) of one's "partner;" freedom to have children; freedom to adopt a Chinese orphan. Parker sees herself as the spokeswomyn for the common womyn who reconfigures life to suit her agenda and ideology. Parker hasn't gained an iota of wisdom, or empathy, from the difficult, and sad, life of her own parents' failed marriages.

Parker never adopted a Chinese infant, as is the trend amongst these multimillionaire actresses. She has one son with her husband, whom she bore late in life (at 35). And she couldn't leave it at that. Instead, her youngest two children are through a surrogate. Imagine telling your children they have another "mother" out there somewhere.

The "Lovely" woman has become the epitome of the narcissistic Hollywood actress.


40K/plate fundraiser for Obama and his wife in 2012

Parker held a fundraiser for Obama in 2012 in her multi-million Greenwich Village brownstone home and introduced him and his wife thus:

"It is a great, a rare, a very special and I’m assuming a singular treat to welcome you into our home – our radiant, our extraordinary first lady...[and the] beloved current and future president of the United States.”

She is now mum about her retiring president, whom she helped to re-elect for a second term. And the state of affairs in which he left America after his presidency does not make a good pitch for a sitcom.


Mary Magdalene Anointing Jesus' Feet
Stained glass window
Meyer's Studios, Munich 1899
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*Alyssa Barnes


Video screen shot of interview of Alyssa Barnes on her transfer to
the University of Saint Thomas. Notice the tight jean pants,
the tight short-sleeved t-shirt, the string bracelet,
the heavy make up on her eyes.
I wouldn't blame her rather than the authorities who allow such school "uniform."

Barnes wrote an article titled: Top Ten Ways to be a Man, with the preface to the article:

In an age in which tweed jackets have been replaced by sweatshirts, pants have holes and shoes lack laces, and the “un-done” look is considered attractive, maybe we need to reconsider our codes of conduct, especially when it comes to the art of being a man. Thus, the question is begged: What makes a man?

Video: Why I transferred to the University of Saint Thomas

Here is the Linkedin profile photo of Barnes which implies that it is a much more recent one.



Although Barnes looks much prettier in her the profile, she is wearing a glaring red lipstick and has clearly had her hair tinted. She looks like a natural red-head, and yet added these unnatural and unaesthetic highlights to her otherwise pretty hair. And her eye makeup is as heavy as her lipstick.

Timothy 2:9

In like manner also, that women adorn themselves in modest apparel, with shamefacedness and sobriety; not with broided hair, or gold, or pearls, or costly array

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