"Is There a European Personality Type?"

Another great article by Council for European Canadians:

Is There a European Personality Type?

Soldiers and Sailors' Monument, New York

Soldiers and Sailors' Monument
Riverside Drive and 89th Street, New Yorkk
[Photo By: KPA]

This massive circular temple-like monument located along Riverside Drive at 89th Street commemorates Union Army soldiers and sailors who served in the Civil War. This monument, one of the few in a city park that the New York Landmark Commission designated a landmark, was designed by architects Charles (1860–1944) and Arthur Stoughton (1867–1955), who won a competition with this ancient Greek design.
The marble monument, with its pyramidal roof and 12 Corinthian columns, is based on the Choragic Monument of Lysicrates in Athens. It was commissioned by the State of New York, and dedicated on Memorial Day in 1902. Sculptor Paul E. Duboy carved the ornamental features on the monument. The pillars list the New York volunteer regiments that served during the battle as well as Union generals and the battles in which they led troops. For years the monument was the terminus of New York City’s annual Memorial Day parade.

In 1961 the City spent more than $1 million to fix the monument’s marble façade, which had deteriorated, and portions of the monument were replaced with more durable granite. [Source: NYC Architecture]

The Particularities of Heaven

Multicultural Gothic
From the Painting American Gothic
Illustration By: Kagan Mcleod After Grant Wood

I met with a group in New York which holds monthly meetings but which I can attend only periodically. Despite my low attendance record, I am on the mailing list for announcements on upcoming meetings and also for the topics to be discussed at these meetings.

I will post later on the discussion and responses. But here was one question about heaven which I found intriguing and insightful. (It wasn't so far off topic since the discussion dealt with Western civilization, and a large part of the strength of Western civilization was Christianity and belief in God which of course includes the afterlife and heaven.)

"What language is spoken in heaven? What are the flower and plants in heaven?"

Simple but profound questions, which refer to the multicultural utopia that is now being designed in Western countries, but with little success. People still group around their cultures. Even if they don't "speak" their ethnic languages, they still "think" and behave within those cultural and ethnic contexts.

One fascinating thing is as the numbers of ethnic groups increase both through immigration and birth, the younger generations start to congregate together.They all speak English fluently, and with less fluency their parents' languages. These Chinese, Korean, Indian, Somali, Ethiopian etc. youth groups create their own variations of "ethnic" English adding words from their ancestral languages, making their own distinct "language," or perhaps a better word than language is their own idiom. They also have subtle but distinct accents so astute observers can distinguish a Chinese ancestral influence from a Korean, or an Ethiopian from a Somali.

So multicultural utopia is a myth. Eventually, at a critical number, people capitulate towards their own particularities.

New York: Green Fire Escape

[Photo By: KPA]

New York: Doorway Window

Doorway Window

[Photo By: KPA]

New York: Path

St. John the Divine New York
Path below the cathedral

[Photo By: KPA]

The Illusion of Freedom s brought on by fear

But those of us endowed with a brain somewhat larger than that of Whiskers,
sooner or later come to feel that there is something rather fishy about this freedom.
For every time we think we are about to dive into some inviting crack or
sink our teeth into some lovely hunk of wood, we are brought up short,
arrested, and constrained.
J. M. Smith, from his article (posted below and also printed here) Life in a Rat Ball[Image of the Union Rat

I think the primary "feeling" that guides this illusion of freedom is fear. Modern man is full of fear. When he abandoned God he was left with an insurmountable abyss (yes the analogy holds: insurmountably deep). He has to fill this through a number of ways. Some become addicted to drugs alcohol. Some spend hours watching television - news, soap operas, MTV music videos. Others spend their days surfing from one website to another trying to find that connection.

This fear now is so ingrained that people have no way to analyze it or even attempt to get rid of it. They can only keep on going with the same futile behavior of circling around in a ball like a rat.

Contemporary man has become a wimp, and all he can do is run around in circles, like a rat or a madman.

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March 17, 2017
Life in a Rat Ball
By: J. M . Smith
The Orthosphere
March 17 2017


My daughter has a pet rat, an engaging little creature named Whiskers, who enjoys riding on her shoulder and hiding under her hair. When Whiskers is not on my daughter’s shoulder, or in his cage, he bumps around the house in his rat ball. This is a sphere of clear plexiglass into which he is inserted by way of a door, and which he can roll in whatever way he pleases by simply attempting to climb its walls.

Watching Whiskers bump around our living room the other day, it occurred to me that much of what we humans call “freedom” is, in fact, the freedom of a rat ball. Like Whiskers, I, for instance, am often left to myself unsupervised. And then I move about with a certain semblance of freedom. But although I am “free” to move about unsupervised, I can never break free of the rat ball.

I am not saying that I am desperately eager to slip away through some crack under the baseboard in order to take up a stealthy and secretive life within the walls. Like Whiskers’, my life is good. But should such an impulse come over me, it is not one to which I could yield. My rat ball won’t pass through cracks.

Escape is not the only thing a rat ball prevents. Whiskers is an engaging fellow, but he is still a rat, and therefore has it in his very nature to gnaw. Gnawing is a rat’s reason for being, his destiny, if you like. And yet there is nothing at all for Whiskers to gnaw inside his rat ball. The concave inner surface of the sphere is impossible to bite, and all those lovely, gnawable chairs, and fabrics, and cords, are absolutely beyond his reach. Indeed, since they can be seen through the ball, I must suppose that poor Whiskers suffers the torments of Tantalus as he bumps around the house.

So, there you have it: life in a rat ball. There is, at first, a superficial experience of freedom. Each of us bumps around the world crying Whoopee! Look at me! I’m free and I’m really going places! But those of us endowed with a brain somewhat larger than that of Whiskers, sooner or later come to feel that there is something rather fishy about this freedom. For every time we think we are about to dive into some inviting crack or sink our teeth into some lovely hunk of wood, we are brought up short, arrested, and constrained.

When this happens, most of us will simply shrug, turn, place our forepaws against a different side of our rat ball, and roll off in another direction. Some of us do this with the expectations that things will be different the next time around.

Road to New York

[Photos By: KPA]

There is a dominance of blue in the photographs (that's what happens with snow unless you correct for it). I don't have time to tweak them now, but I think it works, giving the impression of an icy blue wonderland outside.

The snow at times enveloped the countryside and we could barely make out the outlines of the trees and the farms. But it snowed throughout the trip - all 12 hours.

It was a beautiful trip. I left our safety to God, and to the skill and intelligence of the driver.

Flurries

Flurries
[Photo By: KPA]

Even a bland shoppng centre can have moments of beauty.

I took this early yesterday just as the "snowstorm" was starting, from the interior of the Mississauga Square One mall entrance.

Multi-Culti-Holi-Festi

Residential apartment building elevator announcement in Mississauga Ontario.

Matthew 7:7-11

Gate in Barrie, Ontario
[Photo By: KPA]

Matthew 7:7-11

7 Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
8 For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.
9 Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone?
10 Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake?
11 If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

Good Illegals

Julissa Arce‏ @julissaarce Mar 2
#ToImmigrantsWithLove I will use my voice and my power
until the day we are free like the Monarch butterflies.

Julissa Arce came on a CNN interview show this morning (she tweets about it here, but no link yet to the interview) as an expert on immigration.

Acer's story is that she came into the United States as a young child illegally with her parents. She has lived almost twenty years illegally. Since her entry into the country, she "graduated" from college with honors, "contributes" to the society, "pays" taxes, "works" in a high profile company, is an exemplary "employee," got married (from what I could discern, just to become "legal"), and now has written her memoir telling this tale.

It is incredible. An illegal and wrong act, which sets a domino effect of all the other wrong acts, is deemed an inconvenient incident so far back in the past with no bearing on this woman's present and future. Legal and illegal become irrelevant terms as long as the person is a "good" person.

This is the society that this woman is building and without a single pang of guilt, or a sliver of doubt over her wrong doing.

Such is the state of our brave new world.

Figuring Out Where Nina Kouprianova's Loyalties Lie

Nina Kouprianova: Russian Spy?

The wife (estranged?) of the atheist Richard B. Spencer, Nina Kouprianova, writes extensively on Russia and has a twitter handle where she calls herself Nina Byzantina‏.

Her biography tells us that she left Russia as a young teenager and she attended high school and university in Canada, and lived in Canada before moving to the States, where she now resides. For all practical purposes, she is a Canadian/American.

It is odd that she devotes so much of her time on Russia. She seems to be presenting herself as some kind of spokeswoman for Russia, but it looks more like a glorification of the country. Why, as a Canadian/American, does she invest so much of her time on Russia? In her interviews, she talks about her expertise and academic knowledge on the subject. But her link to Russia seems more than academic (or theoretical). Her cultural and personal commentary shows that she is more than a detached observer. So what happens when things settle down in Russia (or the Ukraine)? Will she make the personal investment and move there, and live there, as a Russian? These are innocuous enough questions, but there are some asking about her Russian ties. She has previously "relocated" to Russia in 2009 to do research for her doctoral dissertation (which she completed in 2012) titled: "Revolution, Tradition, and Modernity: Russian Consumer Advertising in the Era of NEP [New Economic Policy]."

She wrote a fascinating article in the journal The Soul of the East in 2014 which she titled "Being Who We Are."

She writes as a bona fide Russian:

We will also have to examine our recent past, since we were considered a stronghold of the “global Left” in the 20th century. It would be most logical to treat the Soviet era precisely as a period in history. Otherwise, there is the impression that Lenin and Stalin are still alive ruling our lives on a daily basis. It is time to leave necropolitics behind.

The latter will help us stop looking for cravings toward Tradition, faith, and hierarchy in the Communist Party’s congresses and speeches of leaders.

Here is a photograph she took while in Russia dated on her website as 2013. It is the Ivan the Great Bell Tower, which dates back to the early 16th century.

Kouprianova is all about Russia.

I think Kouprianova's story is the usual story of contemporary immigrants who cling to their "native," past however remote it may be, and instigating the consequent, steady, erosion of European (Anglo or Franco) cultures in the US and Canada to promote their own.This is natural and desirable, but BACK IN THEIR OWN NATIONS.

But, Kouprianova has been "hijacked" by the Russian government, naively or not, (I think - strongly - the latter) , which various medias sources have noted (1, 2). And to give a "fair and balanced view," this (conservative) website calls her a Russian nationalist. Again, how can an American citizen be identified as a "Russian nationalist?"

Western Europe has historically associated cautiously with Russia. The formidable country is hard to classify as East or West, and really should hold its own geopolitical label. Russia can be an ally of the West, but it will always, and primarily, be Russian. This, I think, is what current political leaders are "confused" about. Putin will side with whomever will make him strong. And he may go beyond personal power and delve into deeply seated patriotic feelings for his country to make his decisions, but we don't know this. He may still be all about brute force.

I think that is the same context within which Kouprianova presents her commentaries and opinions. But she goes a step further and presents Russia as the promoter of white Western Europe. In this 2009 Taki Magazine article she writes:

[F]or those concerned with the “Death of West,” some comfort can be found in the fact that what is taboo in western Europe and America [promoting a blond, blue-eyed population] is a national priority in the Motherland.

This is clearly one (perhaps the only) point of similarity between her and Spencer: the promotion of white European culture within the American sociopolitical sphere.

Here is an article addressing her Russian "ties."

Nina Kouprianova, who also writes under the name Nina Byzantina, publishes articles lionizing Vladimir Putin, criticizing western media and appears on the Kremlin-funded RT network to promote anti-Ukraine talking points.

Kouprianova's personal interest based on her identity has morphed into a cultural and political obsession that it would have been called treasonous by bygone eras. Contemporary Western society, of course, will make not such commitments, which is why the likes of Kouprianova are able to flourish in our countries.

Below is a photo Nina Kouprianova recently put up of Putin on her twitter page with a shadow of a cross engraved/tattooed on his forehead.





In a post above it, she has a photo of Marine Le Pen with a cross (protruding out of her forehead).

Perhaps Koupriavona is saying that we are united through our Christianity.

I think that is a false and dangerous premise.

Countries do exist. It is not only religion (and also very different variations of the same religion) which form and unite them. And the Orthodox Church is especially region and country specific, and depends much on cultural contexts.

It's Happening!

Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains fields questions in Davos, Switzerland
on Thursday, Jan. 21, 2016.

Canada to make skilled workers permits easier in wake of US delays
New project set to launch June 12 [2017], will let companies apply for workers using new streamlined process: Globe and Mail.com

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

Kevin Michael Grace‏ @KMGVictoria 44m
A picture is worth a thousand words: electing a new people #Globalism #Immigration #cdnpoli

371‏ @ottorosseforp 2m2 minutes ago
Replying to @KMGVictoria
Khalistan West

Blair Nathan‏ @Blair_A_Nathan 38m38 minutes ago
Replying to @KMGVictoria
I think this may all end with self-sorting between more- & less-cucked Western countries, perhaps sooner rather than later.

Kindergarten Feminism: In French and English

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau with her PM Hubby Justin
"Celebrating" International Women's Day

#sophiegregoiretrudeau posts on her Instagram page yesterday for "International Women's Day"

Are you ready to ignite change?
This week, as we mark International Women’s Day, let’s celebrate the boys and men in our lives who encourage us to be who we truly are, who treat girls & women with respect, and who aren’t afraid to speak up in front of others. Take a picture holding hands with your male ally & share it on social media using the hashtag #TomorrowInHand. Together, we can create a movement that inspires more men to join the fight to build a better tomorrow with equal rights & opportunities for everyone… because #EqualityMatters. 🤝

Êtes-vous prêtes à faire des étincelles pour allumer un changement ? Cette semaine, à l’occasion de la Journée internationale des femmes, célébrons les garçons et les hommes qui nous encouragent à être qui nous sommes vraiment, qui traitent les filles et les femmes avec respect et qui n’ont pas peur de parler haut devant les autres. Prenez une photo main dans la main avec votre allié et diffusez-la dans les médias sociaux avec le mot-clic #DemainEnMains. Ensemble, nous pouvons susciter un mouvement qui incitera davantage d’hommes à lutter avec nous pour des lendemains meilleurs, l’égalité des droits et des chances pour tous …parce que l’#Égalitécompte.

Sophie Gregoire Trudeau got a lot of flack for "praising" men on this sacred day for women, but is she really doing that? "Equality by holding hands" is her message. Equality doing what? Running a country? And of course, Justin agrees.

Latest reaction by Sophie (and more to come as promises #sophiegregoiretrudeau, @sophiegregoiretrudeau,
Well, now we're having a conversation! Thanks to everyone for your pics and feedback! Love it," she wrote in the post. "Our goal is gender equality, and fighting for it is going to require men and women working together - raising our boys and girls to make a difference, hand-in-hand. This is about recognizing that we should be allies on this journey."

Gregoire Trudeau said she would speak more on this at International Women's Day events on Wednesday.

Well, now we’re having a conversation! Thanks to everyone for your feedback and pics! Love it. Our goal is gender equality, and fighting for it is going to require men and women working together - raising our boys and girls to make a difference, hand-in-hand. This is about recognizing that we should be allies on this journey. I look forward to talking more about this tomorrow at events with Plan International Canada and Equal Voice. Stay tuned…

Eh bien, nous avons maintenant une conversation! Merci à tous pour vos commentaires et vos photos! J’aime ça. Notre objectif est l’égalité des sexes, et la lutte pour l’obtenir demandera plus de collaboration entre les hommes et les femmes – il faudra qu’on élève nos garçons et nos filles pour qu’ils fassent une différence, main dans la main. La clé consiste à reconnaître que nous sommes alliés dans ce cheminement. J’ai hâte de parler plus à fond de tout cela demain dans le cadre d’activités avec Plan International Canada et Equal Voice. Restez à l’écoute…

Pigs Flying

There is nothing cultural about multiculturalism. It is purely materialistic.

Its purpose is to get as much financial benefits as possible in order for "cultures" to advance their agendas and programs.

This is the final revelation of multicultural Canada. No-one dares, or more likely cares, speak about this, since it would be an admission of the failure of one of the strongest, and longest, selling points of Canadian identity: the nice, tolerant, civilized, inclusive Canada into which people rush to enter.

It is the biggest scam perpetuated by a government on its deliberately blind people.

I'm not the only one openly saying this, although I am more direct about it:

"Multiculturalism is assimilation by stealth"

Overpriced Clothing Stores Selling Ugly Clothes Going Out of Business --- GOOD!

Clothing Stores Selling Ugly Clothes Going Out of Business --- GOOD!

Let us be Ourselves: Part 2

Here is part one of my post.

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

Amhara has a right to self defense
By Dr. Abel Joseph
.
Despite so many people, including some mindless Amharas denying the existence of Amhara people, we Amharas are the proud and dignified people, which have contributed so much to build Ethiopia as a nation.

Unfortunately, we had individuals like Waleligne mekonen who had betrayed their own people and characterized us as oppressive to appease their Eritrean mentors.

We have the drunkard Endrias Eshete, who humiliated the Amhara people by taking responsibility in which the Amhara people had nothing to do with it.

We have so many Amharas who are ashamed of to be called Amharas, and seeking other excuse to justify their house negro manner.

Sadly, those self hate Amharas do not have any notion about the mortal danger hovering over our head. Surprisingly, they prefer to ignore the danger and pretend as if everything is smooth and fine.

Even some of us are foolishly expecting others to defend Amhara, and instead of standing with our own people, we have chosen to adhere with others and embrace them as savors.

Of course, the Amhara haters love to see the self hate as well as the sycophant Amharas who are willing to betray their own people and serve them.

We have seen, some perfidious Amharas have been glorified by the Amharophobic for their betrayal act.

We have seen those mindless Amharas have been embraced as a love child by those who are wishing bad to Amhara people.

However, in spite of such betrayal act and bad wish, the people of Amhara remain as proud as before with unshakable integrity and valor.

There is no question that our people are in great danger, and those who are trying to eliminate us are working tirelessly with the help of self hate Amharas.

If we accept it or not, our current condition is as the same as the second world European Jews, and anti-Amhara tendency seems rampant in Ethiopia.

Even every loser tend to blame Amhara for his or his groups incompetency. We have been used as a scapegoat to every power-monger as well as unscrupulous individuals.

Nonetheless, we Amharas should understand the magnitude of danger we are in, and prepare to defend ourselves by any means necessary.

We need to humiliate those who have humiliated us.

We need to break the neck of those who have shed our blood.

Everyone of us should respond to the call, and ready to fight against those who are determine to eliminate us.

It is our own responsibility to fight back and preparing a stepping stone to the next generation.

We should not allowed our children to inherit poverty, humiliation, and defeat, instead we should leave behind something to have them proud of.

Being fooled by those who are naively expecting others to hand our freedom should end now, and we should start taking responsibility for our own freedom and survival.

we should stand together and firm in order to twist the arms of the Tigrian thugs who have been killing and robbing us.

The Left vs. Human Nature: "Let us all be ourselves"

I wrote the previous post "Let us all be ourselves" after I read the title and a couple of lines of this one below, written by Jim Kalb.

I alreadyknew what he was gong to say, and I was right.

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



The Left vs. Human Nature
Jim Kalb
The Imaginative Conservative
Mar 3, 2015

The Left does not like the idea of human nature. It tells them they are not free to do what they want. From a factual perspective, it tells them people do not change much, so the way things were in the past is mostly how they will be in the future. From a moral perspective, it suggests a standard for what is good other than satisfying desire, since it tells people to act in a way that fulfills their nature, or at least is suited to it.

The Left does not like any of that and they have been very successful turning their dislike into accepted dogma. The result is that if you talk about human nature today you are not going to get anywhere. People will say you are stereotyping, you are denying Hope and Change, and you are presenting existing power relations as natural and unchangeable. You will have to prove every detail of every claim and the standard of proof will be infinitely high. Also, none of your arguments will stick—next time the matter comes up, you will have to go through every issue all over again at the same level of detail.

All of which seems odd. On the face of it every living thing has a nature of some kind. It has characteristic ways of acting, conditions it tries to bring about, and conditions that help it thrive. Why would that not be true of human beings? Is accepting human nature not basic to good sense in dealing with people? If the point looks obvious, why is it not generally accepted, or at least generally acceptable as something to consider?

As it is, people dismiss it without discussion. The result is that claims like “gender is a social construction” get taken seriously and, in fact, are basically treated as true. There are Midwestern public schools that tell teachers they should not use expressions like “boy” and “girl” because they are gendered. That is the new normal.

General acceptance of insane views can cause problems, so it is worth asking how we have ended up in this situation. The cause, I believe, is a tendency in modern ways of thinking to try to do too much with too little. The result is that people end up becoming irrational in the name of reason.

The Left is said to be progressive. That means that they apply modern thought to social affairs more single-mindedly than other people. That gives them a big rhetorical advantage. If you oppose them you are opposing the general movement of thought and once the modern world is thoroughly established, and everyone who matters has been subjected to mass higher education, you are opposing what everyone’s been trained to view as reason.

The modern thought I am talking about, which I think is the main tendency if you cut through a lot of fluff that ends up canceling itself out, tries to make knowledge rigorous and useful by concentrating on exact observation and immediate causal mechanism. It tries to use that knowledge to remake the world in accordance with whatever it is we want. That is what technology is about and it is what the functional part of the Left is about.

That general approach has been extremely effective in some settings. Obvious examples include modern natural science, modern industry, modern medicine, and modern warfare. So, everyone agrees that it works and makes sense.

There is not the same agreement as to other types of thought; for example philosophical thought of various kinds, religious thought, poetic thought, or thought based on tradition or informal good sense. The result is that reason has become identified with scientific thought, or at least what passes as such. Reason has to be common to all and the only kind of thought all accept is the kind associated with modern science, so that is what reason is understood to be.

That is a problem because people need answers to ultimate questions. That is a rational as well as emotional need. Part of what it is to be a rational actor is to act in accordance with a rational understanding of the situation you are in, and what makes most sense to do in that situation. If reason is modern scientific thought, and we want to be rational actors, then modern scientific thought has to give us that kind of understanding. It has to give us usable answers to questions about what actions, and therefore what goals, ultimately make sense. In other words, it has to tell us what the good is as well as how to bring it about.

The problem, of course, is that it cannot. Modern scientific thought is powerful because it limits itself. It does not claim to know everything and it will not give us an answer just because we need one. We do need to know what the good is, what the most reasonable goal of action is. “I feel like doing this” is enough for some people in some situations but it is not enough for everyone always. In particular, it is not enough in politics. Government has to be able to tell people that its demands are reasonable in a sense that is strong enough to justify compulsion and sacrifice, which is a very strong sense. With that in mind, it is not enough for government to say, “we are doing this because the guys running things feel like doing it.” In the end there has to be a believable argument why they should feel that way and why everyone else should too.

Modern progressive people need answers and they do not have a good way to get them, so they extract them any way they can from something that looks as much as possible like scientific thought.

For example, they make preferences, which are observable, substitute for the good. Instead of talking about what is good, they talk about satisfying preferences. That is what liberation means: People get what they choose. They make equality substitute for justice: All preferences are equally preferences, so they all have an equal claim to satisfaction. Put the two together and you get the progressive definition of the good society: It is the society that brings about maximum equal preference satisfaction.

They get very moralistic on the point. If you do not like their definition of the good society you are malicious, bigoted, greedy, and oppressive. They need the moralism because they do not have a reason why people should give up personal advantage for the sake of something else. They have a reason why the system in general should favor equality, but not why any of us should make the goals of the system our own. So they have to substitute abuse for reason.

The progressive definition of the good society has some important implications. It means you have to stop accepting general patterns, such as human nature, as a way of dealing with life. If satisfying preferences is the goal, going with the patterns that happen to exist is not the way to get there. If anything, those patterns get in the way of your freedom to get whatever it is you happen to want, so the progressive view is that you should suppress them or make them irrelevant.

That attitude is very much in line with modern technology. A traditional art or craft accepts the nature of its materials with all their special quirks and works with them. Modern technology would rather break down situations into their simplest components and apply a set routine that works equally well everywhere and gets you whatever goal you have specified. Traditional farming, medicine, and cooking, for example, took various aspects of living forms and their tendencies as a given and worked with them. Agribusiness, Big Pharma, and the food industry take a very different approach. The difference has a lot in common with the difference between politics as traditionally practiced and modern progressive politics. The latter is technocratic, so that its goals are defined abstractly by preference rigorously, rather than intuitively and with the aid of tradition and good sense.

Some of the odd features of political and social life today show how these general principles play out. People have traditionally believed in human nature. They have believed, for example, that men and women exist by nature, and mutual attraction and complementary qualities naturally lead them to come together, to have offspring, and form families. Both points, of course, are now denied. They have also thought that people are naturally social, and families are incomplete by themselves, so families come together to form larger communities.

When people began thinking about things somewhat philosophically, they noticed that man is rational, which means that he uses reason and general concepts to understand the world. An important part of that is understanding himself and what he does. For that reason, he has to have a conception of what he is—he is a man, a father, a husband, a citizen—that is somehow rooted in the nature of things, and his actions have to align with that conception. Otherwise he will not be satisfied with his life—it will not seem well founded and it will not seem to make sense as part of the general scheme of things. That is the source of the idea that human nature is a guide for life, so that our natural goal is to live in a way that realizes our good as beings of a certain kind.

If you accept that way of thinking, a lot of modern perplexities disappear. You can still debate the exact role of government, the details of masculinity and femininity, and the extent of family and paternal authority, but it does not make sense to claim that there is something radically problematic about all those things, that we should look at them as chains we have to break for the sake of the unconditioned freedom that constitutes human dignity.

The kind of modern thought I am talking about, which tends toward the technological, of course tells us something different. It tells us that man is a mechanical system that responds to stimuli. He forms preferences revealed in his actions, but those preferences are whatever they happen to be and do not have any relation to a nonexistent human essence or nature that tells us what to do because we are somehow supposed to fit into it.

Progressive politics is the application of this latter outlook to the organization of society. It proposes a system that maximizes equal fulfillment of preferences, consistent with coherence, efficiency, and stability. That means, to pick a current example, that physical sex differences and the biology of human reproduction, imply nothing about what anyone should do except in the narrowest practical sense; for example whether someone might need a pregnancy test. Apart from that kind of situation, natural functions and differences are just raw material to be dealt with and reconfigured in accordance with whatever individual preferences happen to be.

So people should be free to set up their sex lives however they want, and if they want to include something sex-related in their self-understanding, they should be free to do so as they wish. It is free to be you and me and if two men say they are married, they are married, and if Bradley Manning says he is a woman, he is a woman, and he has the same right anyone has to have his self-understanding accepted as valid. There is nothing natural or unnatural about it, it is all just something constructed.

All of this is becoming harder and harder to argue against in mainstream public life and the ratchet only turns one-way. Rejecting the trend is even considered a kind of violence, since it leads to a social environment at odds with Chelsea Manning’s new identity, and therefore constitutes an existential threat to her ability to exist as herself. In effect, it is a willful attempt to destroy what she is. In the interests of justice, tolerance, safety, and the conflict-free efficiency of the system as a whole, those who commit such acts, even if they claim their aggressions are “just words,” need to be muted and re-educated.

Nonetheless, it is obvious that the current situation is insane. Human nature exists, as we noted at the beginning, and we cannot deal with life in a sensible way without accepting that. So the question we face is how to overcome an outlook that categorically rejects the very concept and is deeply rooted in the way the people who dominate our political life understand the world.

These are very deep waters and there is not time to discuss the entire problem, but it seems to me there are two general approaches we might take to the situation. One sticks as closely as possible to the modern scientific outlook as the best overall guide to human life, so it treats human nature as fact but not principle; that is, it recognizes that human beings have natural tendencies that shape and limit what is possible for them, but does not let that fact tell us what we should do about those tendencies.

It seems to me that approach is insufficient because it does not change the Leftist goal. We still have the line of thought that tells you that the good society is a social machine that maximizes equal preference satisfaction in a stable and reliable way. What changes is that you have discovered that more radical measures will be needed to achieve that society. So you get a sort of Leftist version of human bio-diversity, whose natural outcome is left-wing transhumanism, in effect the creation of New Soviet Man through bio-engineering and total environmental control as the highest social goal. In other words, you get inhuman ideological tyranny taken to a whole new level.

The other way is to accept human nature as a principle, so that fulfilling our nature is understood as a fundamental guide to life. But that means accepting that nature is good and we can trust its guidance. You can find that view in Christianity and also in various classical views such as stoicism; you can also find it in the non-Western world, for example in Confucius and Mencius. You are not going to get it out of the modern scientific understanding of the world if you take that understanding as the ultimate explanation of what is real, rather than a partial explanation that results from accepting certain limits on the type of inquiry you will pursue.

To summarize, it seems that the problem people have with human nature today has to do with the current view of nature as pure blind fact. That view makes it morally impossible to treat nature as a substantive guide for how to live. The result, unless we ignore the facts and say human beings do not have a nature, is a choice between a technological approach leading to Left-wing transhumanism and a humanist approach based on a religious or philosophical outlook that sees moral principle as implicit in nature. The practical question, if you take the latter approach, is what outlook of that kind best fits the world we live in and how such an outlook can be embodied in a stable tradition sufficient to motivate the life of a society.

But those are big issues we are not going to resolve today.

Let us all be ourselves

Tamra Maryam (Small Miracles of the Blessed Virgin Mary)
Ethiopian, mid-18th century
64 leaves, 165 x 253 mm
Private Collection
(Righy: Saint George, Patron Saint of Ethiopia)

Here is an email from a correspondent:

Interesting article in the mainstream media critical of ETH [Ethiopian] government--I believe for the first time.
Who needs Trump when the Chinese are already there.

Link

My replay:

The article answers its own question:

"Why despite ever-increasing amounts of foreign support can't this nation of 100 million clever, enterprising people feed itself?"

with:

"Ethiopia is aflame with rebellions..."

It is the same old story. Rival ethnic, regional and international groups instigate unrest and rebellion. The government is focused on dampening down these rebels and unrest, and other national efforts and responsibilities like economic and agricultural development suffer as a consequence.

I've always said that Ethiopia should be divided into regional countries.

Let the Amhara, the Tigre, the Oromo etc. have their own regions. Let them do what they want with their new countries.

Dawn

Dawn above Lake Ontario
[Photo By: KPA]

Ephesians 2:8-10
8 For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith - and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God
9 Not by works so that no-one can boast
10 For we are God's handwork created in Christ Jesus to do good works which God prepared in advance for us to do.

Note

I am too busy these days to write articles that would warrant posts requiring research, accuracy and my own "unique" commentary.

Instead, I am posting photographs I have take and postings by other writers and bloggers who discuss the issues that I find pressing and important.

But there is a lot going on culturally. It almost looks like we've reached some level of chaos (or nefarious takeover) which requires exceptional vigilance and attention.

My most recent post, with a short commentary, Stay, Pray and Fight is a repost of Tim Murray's Vancouver Canucks LGBTQwertzed the original of which is posted at Murray's Council for European Canadians' website.

Stay, Pray, and Fight

Vancouver Morning
[Photo by KPA]

Below is an article by Tim Murray, a (recently) former resident of Vancouver, British Columbia. He moved as far as can tell to the US, fleeing his "city [that] reached the summit of absurdity one step at a time."

The one that broke his back is the news that:

Vancouver's NHL hockey team is going to wear "rainbow" hockey sweaters in their practice session on February 28th of this year (2017). One veteran player told a reporter that the team's message was that anyone can participate in hockey. "Gay people, LGBT people, people of any gender identity...all are welcome to the game if they can play hockey."

Murray will encounter this wherever he goes. I don't think any US city is particularly immune to LGBTQwertization - some much more than others of course, but all ready to run him out of town if he desists.

His best strategy is to stay and fight: Keep his home; Remain in his neighborhood; Shop at the local grocery store; Visit the parks and beautiful waterfront promenades. But STAY and FIGHT!

The realty is that very few people wholeheartedly accept the lgbtq agenda, even fewer want it any part of their children's lives, and many (a sound majority) accept it either through fear of repercussions (loss of a job) or indoctrination of equality and are of the "equal for them but not in family" variety.

Of course the other major dearth that allows such radical changes to occur in society is the loss of spiritual Christian guidance that would let people judge right vs. wrong unequivocally.

So my advice to Tim is to stay, pray, and fight. You can win this.

I've posted the full article below, and it is also posted at the Council of European Canadians website where Murray is a regular contributor. Another of his notable article is:

British Columbia's Anti-Asian History: Was It Racism - or Economic Self-defense?

Of course, this is a loaded (rhetorical?) question.

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

Vancouver Canucks LGBTQwertzed
by Tim Murray
Tuesday, 28 February 2017


News item: The Vancouver Canucks will wear rainbow-coloured "Pride" jerseys.

So here's the scoop. Vancouver's NHL hockey team is going to wear "rainbow" hockey sweaters in their practice session on February 28th of this year (2017). One veteran player told a reporter that the team's message was that anyone can participate in hockey. "Gay people, LGBT people, people of any gender identity...all are welcome to the game if they can play hockey."

The owners, however, had another unspoken, underlying and candidly mercenary message, which if deciphered would run something like this:

- We want to make money by securing and expanding our base in this, the LGBTQ capital of Canada...this welcoming, tolerant, inclusive and accepting city, the San Francisco of the Great True North, Weak and Free (to do whatever feels good at the time).
- We welcome family-oriented ticket-holders to sit and watch our team regardless of how they define family. (That's good to know because I have always wanted to bring my Significant Other to see a hockey game at GM Place. Barney, my Lab Retriever, has never seen a game live).

Yep, we have come a long way, baby. If only the 1915 Stanley Cup Champion Vancouver Millionaires could see us now. Who could imagine that in the span of a century, men would be skating in drag. While the Canadian men in the trenches wore khaki, men in Canada today can wear uniforms decorated in gaudy rainbow colours. Perhaps Canadian Forces personnel will follow suit. I know that it would impress jihadists.

I guess that is what happens when you become to a "propositional" state. Once men were men, but now men are undecided. "In the first period, I was a man, but in the intermission I realized I was always a woman inside. So I came out in the third period as a new man, I mean, a woman. At least for now, as I can feel that there are other identities in me waiting to burst out and blossom." No doubt there are men in Hockey's Hall of Fame who are the brink of requesting that their names be changed to match their present gender identity. Wayne Gretsky will come out as Hayley Wickenheiser and Hayley Wickenheiser will come out as Wayne Gretsky. But who cares, like the veteran Canuck player said, if you can play hockey, nobody should care what gender identity you assume. I am sure if a former male team-mate had sexual re-assignment surgery, she would be welcome to shower with the team. At least in the shower room adjoining the Canucks locker room.

How did Vancouver climb this mountain to the peak of enlightenment? What were the benchmarks of this ascent to moral depravity and cultural disintegration? When and how was a mental disorder re-branded as a lifestyle choice? How did schizophrenia become gender dysphoria? How did little Johnny become the many faces of Eve?

As an old Vancouver-born boomer hopelessly out of sync with the times, I can only say that my city reached the summit of absurdity one step at a time. The chronology went something like this:

In 50s and 60s, 65% of city residents were of British origin, and 30% of continental European descent. When you strolled through Stanley Park, you could hear every European language, and sometimes, a few Chinese and South Asian voices too. In other words, having a common Christian-based world view, metro Vancouverites were on the same moral page. Those were the days when we left our doors at home unlocked, and the windows of our cars down when they were parked at English Bay on a hot sunny summer day.

Then along came the late sixties and we weren't leaving our doors unlocked anymore. The growing drug trade drove petty theft ("Can I have a toke, man?"). And by the end of the seventies, it was unfashionable to smack your kid on the bum to terminate a public temper tantrum. The Dr. Spock generation took a hands-off approach to child-rearing, leaving their kids free to mouth off to lifeguards, theatre ushers, and teachers, and run amok in restaurants and aboard BC Ferries ships. Children grew bolder when they realized that the Ministry of Children and Families was standing over their shoulders. They were the first generation to grow up without an extra pair of eyes watching them. Gramma and Grandpa were living in another city or province. Home invasions and gang shootings became the staple of the nightly news.


Vancouver Millionaires 1915
Before Cultural Marxism

Ah yes, I look upon those later decades with fondness. They were the decades when parents were encouraged to feel no inhibitions about flying the coup and abandoning their kids because "children are resilient." And Asian gangs were just a feature of the growing pains that we must tolerate to reap the benefits of diversity. I remember feeling proud after reading a report about a female youth gang swarming and beating a victim near a Skytrain station. Obviously the gospel of women's empowerment had filtered down to the grassroots level.

Some noteworthy rungs on Jacob's ladder toward multicultural, sexually diverse (or perverse) heaven were, as I recall:

- In the 80s, Vancouver Mayor Mike Harcourt declared that Vancouver was a "nuclear-free zone," forcing the Soviets to strike Vancouver off its target list. They only had 40,000 nukes to spare after all. This was a testament to the enormous influence that Mike Harcourt had on world leaders.
- Then Vancouver was dubbed "The Gateway to the Pacific." It could better be described as "The Floodgate to the Pacific."
- Then Vancouver was described as "A World in a City." It was more like "Hong Kong in a City."
- Then Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson called it a "Welcoming City." No kidding.
- Then Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson advised that Vancouver become a "Sanctuary City." In other words, the City's chief lawmaker wanted to make his City a haven for law-breakers.
-Then following in Mike Harcourt's footsteps, Mayor Gregor Robertson ostentatiously participated in Pride Day, and saw to it that the rainbow flag flew at City Hall.
- Then the Vancouver Canucks announced that their players would wear "rainbow" hockey jerseys with pink numbers and decorate stick blades with rainbow colours.
- Then Vancouver Mayor Gregor Robertson declared that his Welcoming City did not welcome Pastor Franklin Graham. His "homophobic" gospel violated Vancouver's "values." Nor should his - -- - Tolerant City tolerate a diversity of ideas, because some of them didn't fit Justin Trudeau's "Canadian values" either. Oddly neither of these progressive crusaders seem to be bothered about the hateful anti-Canadian vitriol dished out in mosques.

It was then that I remembered why I finally fled the City. I am no longer a Vancouverite nor indeed, a Canadian. I am not welcome because the self-appointed arbiters of what is or is not Vancouver or Canadian "values" have more or less told me so.

Exhausted, sad and defeated, unable to recognize the country that I was born in, I have concluded that it is time that I should be laid to rest. In fact, I have already laid out my best suit for the occasion. I can't fully describe it here, but let me give you a hint. You won't find any pink in my wardrobe. And the rainbow flag will not cover my coffin.

The un-Canadian Tim Murray.

Day

[Photo By: KPA]

Designer Sunglasses at a Cost

We have residents in our Mississauga apartment building who wear designer Karl Lagerfeld sunglasses (there was no sun out there when I saw a woman yesterday morning wearing a pair - in fact it was overcast and drizzling).



And on a related story, the hig-end home decor store Bowring has closed down in the Square One mall. I haven't been in the mall in the past five or six days and this came as a complete surprise. I thought Holt's would be the the first to go. The "exclusive luxury" shopping mall was re-designed about a year ago partly to cater to oversees clientele, such as "rich" Chinese and Hong Kong shoppers (who wear designer sunglasses), and isn't doing so well. I had predicted this.


No-one will document this scene. I happened to be there as the almost empty
Bowring in Square One mall was removing its final items.

Above is the pleasant Square One Mall with a (shocking) closure of the high-end home decor store Bowring.

Below the store on the lower level is the food court with recently renovated seats and additional fast food selections.



These are posters advertising Holt Refrew just outside its entrance. There is a third model but the shot (composition) is less interesting (it s of a South Asian women).

The Asian model is Liu Wen who:

An only child...was born into a working-class family on January 27, 1988, in Yongzhou, Hunan. In her teens, her mother encouraged her to be professional, eat well, and enter the modeling contest, which led to Liu's discovery. Liu originally planned to work as a tour guide.

[...]

Liu started her modeling career in 2005 when she entered the New Silk Road World Model Contest, a contest previously won by international covergirl Du Juan. Although she did not win the competition, Liu soon began working full-time as a model, eventually becoming a national success story after working with fashion magazines like Vogue and Harper's Bazaar that are popular in China.

In September 2007, Liu caught the attention of the international fashion industry when she shot an editorial in clothes designed by Karl Lagerfeld and Viktor and Rolf. [Source: Wikipedia]

I could find nothing on the blond model.

What found interesting was the aggressive, almost menacing, look of Wen. Right next to "her" is the blonde model, who looks mousy and timid, and intimidated by the glare.

I think the blonde model is more feminine, prettier and more attractive.

The war (waged by the Asian model of which the blonde model s oblivious other than the aggression) is in reaction to this superiority, and an aggressive stance is necessary for her to win the spot. And she has.

I see this as a metaphor for what is happening in the contemporary West, where superior talent, beauty, and any other skill or quality is not enough and is in fact envied and crushed by others, and especially now by Asians.

Failte Lights

Failte Lights

[Photo By: KPA]