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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Infused With Beauty

The last time went to the Fraunces Tavern Museum website (only about a week ago), I didn't notice this new acquisition:

Fraunces Tavern Museum is proud to announce the most recent acquisition, a terra cotta bust of George Washington. This bust is a 19th century draped a l ‘antique unsigned copy of the original bust made by Jean-Antoine Houdon in 1785.

I've written about this bust here and here. And, Larry Auster, whose admiration of the bust I shared, wrote about the bust, and made a post here on my commentary on the sculpture.

I wrote in the commentary Auster/Asrat: Interaction on Beauty:

Although Larry Auster didn't directly write about beauty, his work is infused with the desire to bring beauty back into our world.

One of the most memorable posts he did on art (and beauty) was his reaction to a bust of George Washington. The image of the bust he has posted is huge and takes up the whole screen, so that we, like him, can have as close a look at it as possible. [the rest of my post is here]

So, it is a nice surprise that a museum is bringing this piece into its collections.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

George Washington: The World Historical Figure in the Quintessentially American Tradition

George Washington, 1780
Charles Willson Peale (American, 1741–1827)
Oil on canvas; 95 x 61 3/4 in.
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York

Part of what makes his live story so gripping is that he shaped himself into the world-historical figure he became, in the quintessentially American tradition of men who spring, as F. Scott Fitzgerald famously wrote, from their own Platonic conception of themselves. But his self-conception was extraordinary: it began as a worthy ideal and evolved into a magnificent one. In his fiercely ambitious youth, he sought to win acclaim for his for his heroism and savoir faire. In his maturity, he strove to be, in his own conscience even more than in the eyes of others, virtuous, public-spirited, and (although his ethic wouldn't allow him to claim the word (noble). He did hope, however, that posterity would recognize and honor the purity of his motives; and Americans, who owe him so much, do him but justice in understanding not only what he did for them but also what greatness of soul he achieved to do it.

From: The Founding Fathers at Home (p. 94)
By: Myron Magnet

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Positively 44th Street

I first came upon West 44th street between 5th and 6th Avenues in 2009 when I went to New York and Princeton to participate in my first anti-Jihad event. I met the (now dormant) International Free Press Society's Bjorn Larsen outside the Harvard Club, where there was a private luncheon for Muhammad Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. A small group of us, including Bjorn, Lars Hedegaard (who was at one time after this event confined to his house in his native Holland to protect him from Muslim antagonists for his negative commentary on Muslim immigrants), Paul Belien of the Brussels Journal, and Westergaard traveled to Princeton University for a presentations by Westergaard, and later that evening, to attend a private reception for Westergaard at a mid-town New York apartment. The day after the event in Princeton, I met Larry Auster for the first time, at The Red Flame Diner in New York on 44th Street. I had been communicating with Larry for a few years as a commentator on his website The View From the Right.

Below is an interesting article about this one-block strip, with its various intellectual and literary clubs. One is the Alogonquin Hotel, where the infamous Round Table met. I went inside the restaurant on another trip, to see the menu, and realized that I could afford one item (say the shrimp cocktail for $20). I also mentioned the prestigious Harvard Club after visit in that block in 2012.

It is amazing that so much happened (and happens) in such a tiny, hidden, part of New York.

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Waiting on The Algonquin
[Photo By: KPA]

Positively 44th Street
By: Alex Shoumatoff
Vanity Fair
June 12, 2014

Room 2806, the presidential suite in the Sofitel at 45 West 44th Street, goes for $3,000 a night, which is not out of line for a suite in Midtown Manhattan. The Mandarin Oriental on Columbus Circle has one for $18,000. But three grand is a lot more than the seedy Hotel Seymour, which occupied the Sofitel site until being demolished in 1983, used to charge for a room. The Seymour was one of the three welfare or S.R.O. (single-room occupancy) hotels, as they were also called, on the block—44th between Fifth and Sixth—where retired theater people had been living for years at reduced rates. In the 70s, I remember, I met one Broadway widow—a heavily rouged woman in her 80s who smoked cigarettes through a long black holder and called me “Dahling,” à la Tallulah Bankhead—at the Teheran, the bar down the block from the Seymour that everybody went to after work; it, too, is gone. The two other residential hotels were the Royalton, at 44 West 44th, and the Mansfield, at 12 West 44th, which were both renovated in the late 80s and 90s when the Times Square district was “Disneyfied,” as critics called the process. They are both now boutique hotels, though not as luxurious or pricey as the haute Euro Sofitel.

The Royalton was resurrected in 1988 by the hotelier Ian Schrager. In 1992 he brought in the downtown restaurateur Brian McNally, who had opened a string of hot spots the previous decade, including Indochine, the Odeon, and Canal Bar, to run its restaurant. McNally made the restaurant—called Forty Four—and the Royalton’s Philippe Starck-designed lobby the place to eat and meet and be seen, particularly for the literati, as the Algonquin Hotel across the street had been 60 years before, when the roués of the Round Table had their famous drunken luncheons there.

On May 14 of last year, between 12:07 and 12:13 p.m., Room 2806 in the Sofitel acquired a place in the annals of tawdriness and in the rich social history of the block, when Dominique Strauss-Kahn, the managing director of the International Monetary Fund, who was leading the polls for France’s forthcoming presidential election, had a hurried sexual encounter with the Guinean housemaid Nafissatou Diallo as he was preparing to vacate the suite. The circumstances—whether it was consensual or an assault—are disputed, but after Strauss-Kahn was taken off a plane to Paris later that day and imprisoned on Rikers Island on charges that were later dropped because of issues with Ms. Diallo’s credibility, a female journalist in France came forth with a similar account of having been attacked by D.S.K. eight years earlier. His career at the I.M.F. and his French presidential aspirations were finished.

If anyone on the block was scandalized by this bit of Euro-loucheness, it would have been farther down toward Fifth Avenue, in the stately neo-Georgian Harvard Club, at 35 West 44th, and next door in the beguiling Beaux Arts New York Yacht Club, at 37, whose windows look like they were plucked from a galleon. But it would be a bit of a stretch for these bastions of the old East Coast Wasp imperium, or what is left of it, to feel like their escutcheons had been besmirched. They probably don’t bear much scrutiny themselves these days, the noblesse oblige and ethos of service and stewardship of the old blueblood ruling class having been hemorrhaging since the presidency of Nixon and being, at this point, pretty much gone. Plus, this block has seen it all. The illicit trysts that have taken place on it would be impossible to chronicle. Back in the 20s, the playwright George Kaufman, who was a member of the Round Table and one of the progenitors of situation comedy, ran into an old flame in the elevator of the Algonquin Hotel, on the arm of a new beau, whom she introduced as being “in cotton,” and he came out with a memorable one-liner: “And them that plants ’em is soon forgotten.”


Inside the Algonquin, 1986
By Peter Freed/The New York Times
(From the online slideshow on Vanity Fair's June 2012 article Positively 44th Street)

Many completely different worlds, many different cultures, networks, and scenes coexist on this one block of West 44th Street. You could spend your life trying to find out what happened and what is happening along this 250-yard stretch of pavement and not begin to scratch the surface. Its baseline component is the local Midtown culture, which is New York melting pot flavored with the flimflam of Tin Pan Alley and Times Square, both within spitting distance. In fact, the Hippodrome, the largest and most successful theater in New York in the first part of the 20th century, was right on the southeast corner of 44th and Sixth Avenue. Before that it was a carriage house and stable for the trotting horses of wealthy sportsmen of the Vanderbilt-Rockefeller set. Houdini made a five-ton elephant disappear before a crowd of more than 5,000 at the Hippodrome. The site today is occupied by a nondescript glass office tower.

But the indigenous Midtown culture is still alive and well, I was glad to find, in the arcade of the old New Yorker building, which runs from 28 West 44th Street to 25 West 43rd Street. From 1935 until 1991, The New Yorker magazine had its “Dickensian” offices, as they were invariably called, on the 18th, 19th, and 20th floors of this building (which was then known as the National Association Building). I had one of them when I was a staff writer at the magazine, from 1978 to 1990. It was tiny and spartan, with just enough room for a table and a chair, a bookshelf, and an ancient black Royal typewriter probably used by its previous tenant, a revered “fact” editor and reporter named St. Clair McKelway, whose demise had made it available. (A tall man who mumbled in his mustache and was given to bouts of paranoia, McKelway, who served as a public-relations officer for the military on Guam in 1944, is most remembered for firing off a telegram to the Pentagon accusing Admiral Chester Nimitz, the commander of the Pacific Fleet in World War II, of high treason.) “Fact” was the quirky New Yorker term for journalism, as opposed to fiction. It avoided being defined by what it wasn’t: nonfiction.

The arcade of the National Association Building was like a little self-contained global village where your basic necessities were taken care of. There was a barber, a tailor, a coffee shop, a newsstand, a watch-repair shop, even a post office. To me this arcade is the very omphalos—the navel—of Gotham. The guy at the Arcade Hair Styling Salon for Men and Women who cut my hair 30 years ago is still there, I noticed when I was passing through at the beginning of last December. His name is Aldo Nestico and he’s 67 now. Half a dozen old-timers, longtime customers from the neighborhood, were sitting in the salon’s waiting section in Miami Beach leisure suits. One of them was wearing a loud plaid golf cap. None of them looked like they particularly needed a haircut. But I did, my last cut being a three-dollar job in Borneo three months earlier. I booked a cut with Aldo for the following afternoon.

Aldo came over from Calabria in 1955 on the Andrea Doria, a year before it went down, “or I wouldn’t be here,” as he points out. He has cut a lot of famous people’s hair, including the Beatles’. But the guy with the stories, with the gift of gab, is snipping away at the next chair—Andreas Pavlou, who has been cutting hair in the neighborhood since 1964 and is originally from Cyprus. Having a captive audience who is all ears, he uncorks the following classic New York yarn.

‘It was around this time of year many years ago, a few weeks before Christmas. I am finishing a haircut at the shop across the street and suddenly the guy starts sweating and it’s cold outside and I says to him, ‘You don’t look so good. Maybe we should call an ambulance,’ and he says, ‘I’m O.K. I’m just coming down with a cold. I’m going to go home and kill my wife for giving me this virus.’ But when he gets up he starts staggering and asks if he can sit on the couch for a minute, and while he is lying there on his side he has a heart attack. I call an ambulance and by the time it arrives the guy is dead. The paramedic gives him CPR, but it’s no use. It’s 11 in the morning and everybody is starting to come. The paramedic says, ‘I have to leave him here so the police can come and make sure you didn’t do it.’ I says, ‘You can’t do that. It’ll be the end of my business.’ So we sit him up on the couch and cross his legs and put a New York Times in his hands and spread it out so nobody can see he’s dead. All day long customers come and sit right next to him and nobody notices. At five o’clock a huge guy comes and sits on the couch, and the corpse slumps over onto him, and I says to the corpse, ‘Look, if you want to take a nap, why don’t you get a hotel room,’ and I prop him back up and everything is still fine. Finally at 7:30 the cops come and one of them asks, ‘O.K., where’s the stiff?,’ and I says, ‘Over there on the couch,’ and he asks, ‘Well, did he pay you?,’ and I says ‘No,’ and the cop shakes his head and says, ‘The things people will do to get out of paying. But this is a new one,’ and I says to him, ‘Well, there’s a first time for everything.’ ”


The New York Yacht Club
Photograph By: Jonathan Becker
(From the online slideshow on Vanity Fair's June 2012 article Positively 44th Street)

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

Behind the Scenes

These are the hard-working men behind the scenes of Mississauga's revival. And they were all set in place by the city's last mayor, Hazel McCallion.

The question is of course if this is a real revival, which I think it has the makings of, or if it just adding infrastructure to accommodate the unmentionable: increased immigration.

I think it will in some way sort itself out. If the city revives itself in a true sense: higher quality buildings, a "luxury mall" as Square One is being structured, improved landscaping and surroundings with better parks and recreational areas, but above all a with a Canadian perspective, then it will attract for a longer term those that can afford to stay not just for quick real estate flips (buying and selling), but those who would stay to buy good homes for their families.

I am seeing more of the latter, which to my observations looks less Asian (Chinese and Indian) and more white (possibly those attracted from nearby cities, including Toronto).

Let's hope so.


The Jubilee Garden is full of magnolia trees.


The C-Cafe, which is adjacent to the Jubilee Garden, has two industrious chefs, cooking up their appetizing meals on a daily basis. Here is one, barely visible, preparing a dish.


I keep thinking they're brothers. "Cousins?" I asked, but not even that. "Then they must be from the same Welsh town," I joked. They looked Welsh to me.


These are the groundsmen preparing the area for a new addition in the Jubilee Garden: The Hazel Tree, in honor of the former (last) Mayor Hazel McCallion. What an apt recognition. A tough nut to crack! I asked them what they were working on, and it seems they were told only a few days ago the nature of the project. "I got the scoop!" I joked.


And Andrew Wickens, Parks Manager for the City of Mississauga, was in the garden discussing with other officials some details ont he tree, and the surrounding magnolia trees. He was kind enough to stand for a photograph.

He will be responsible for the Hazel Tree.

Hazel McCallion as mayor of Mississauga, sitting in a council session

Hazel McCallion on Mississauga's growth:

Growing up:
Growth is good, says Mississauga’s Hazel McCallion - within limits

Full article at: Toronto Star, Mar 27 2013

Facing pressure under Ontario’s Places to Grow Act to house more of the GTA’s population boom, Mississauga Mayor Hazel McCallion is pushing back.

At city council Wednesday, McCallion said Mississauga has accepted the province’s mandated growth targets but will not accept decisions by the Ontario Municipal Board that allow developers to build beyond those targets. The spurt of highrise construction is hurting the city’s already overstretched infrastructure, she said.
“They can’t be playing around with our land use like they do,” McCallion said of the province and the OMB, which rules on municipal and planning disputes.

Council unanimously passed a motion asking that Ontario’s Planning Act be amended so developers cannot appeal city council decisions to the OMB, if the city’s official plan is in compliance with Ontario’s growth strategy. The strategy sets municipal density targets that aim to encourage cities to build up rather than out.

McCallion and other councillors said developers, seeing profits in building even higher, are simply going to the OMB whenever they want densities for projects increased. The OMB then uses the growth plan as the rationale for ruling in favour of the developers. The end result is often more lucrative for builders, but puts pressure on already overstretched municipal services.

For Mississauga’s motion to take effect, it would have to be endorsed by Queen’s Park.

Councillors cited a number of high-density projects in Mississauga over the past few years that residents and council, adhering to the city’s official plan, opposed. But developers eventually got their way at the OMB [Ontario Municipal Board], they said.

“I am really concerned about the increased densities … our (infrastructure) is not designed to take the climate change and the increased densities,” McCallion said.
She said the increased densities beyond what , Mar 27 2013has been planned will cost Peel Region “at least a billion dollars” to take care of the extra garbage alone.

Beauty in Unexpected Places

Old photograph of a Victorian Gentleman, from the
Victorian Parlour at Failte Irish Pub, in Mississauga
[Photo by KPA]

It seems appropriate to commemorate Larry Auster's second year of his death at Failte Irish Pub, here in Mississauga.

I had a 1/2 pint of Harp, which he told me was his favorite Irish beer. I posted on Irish beer and poetry, and Larry, here.

And here's a post I wrote in April 2013 (just about a year ago).

Larry's New York: Beauty in Unexpected Places

The first time I met Larry was in 2009, when I went to New York to participate in an event for the Danish Cartoonist Kurt Westergaard. I went with a group from Canada called the International Free Press Society. Larry knew about my trip to New York, and he and I met separately. He gave me a spot to meet in the middle of Manhattan, a small diner called The Red Flame. He had never met me before, but I had my blog up with my photo for a couple of years by then. He politely came up to me and asked "Are you Kidist?" rather than make a rude assumption. He ordered a hamburger, which I found out is a favorite of his, while I had a chicken salad. He was impressed with my dietary choice, and it was one of the best chicken salads I've had.

After lunch, we walked for many blocks up Fifth Avenue, with Larry pointing out various New York landmarks and spots. He was especially keen to show me Rockefeller Center, which clearly still surprised him even though he was a long-time resident of New York. The Christmas tree and decorations were up, and skaters were pirouetting beneath us.

We kept walking down Fifth Avenue and at some point we found a beautiful courtyard interior. I cannot find the name of this place, but New York is filled with such unique surprises. We got some refreshments, to take a break and to enjoy this interior. I ordered a diet coke, and Larry talked about ordering a whisky. But he was too polite to do so, and we sat drinking diet cokes together.

We met again almost two years later, in 2011. Larry planned a VFR Christmas dinner for his readers and friends. The group met at an Irish pub/restaurant in mid-town Manhattan called Kennedy's. I was honored to have been included in this list, and made every effort to attend. I was able to attend, and at the same time spend a few days in New York.

This time, our cultural visit was to the Metropolitan Museum. Laura Wood, from The Thinking Housewife also came. The attraction was the annual Christmas Tree with a Neapolitan Baroque Crèche. We looked at the figurines with amazement. How could such small sculptures be crafted so perfectly? We looked for Baby Jesus, and found his tiny, perfect form. After the visit, which included rushing through various exhibits in the museum, we went down to have a snack in the restaurant/cafeteria. Larry said he liked coming there for a meal. I agreed that the food was of high quality. I suspect it was also the cultural environment that Larry liked, when he went just for a meal to the museum.

I traveled again to New York in August 2012. I stayed about a week. This time, I went to try and get some sponsorship for my book project. I also did my usual rounds of shopping and museum viewing. I telephoned Larry to say I was in New York (I had emailed him about my trip), and he suggested we meet at the lovely Straus Park, which is near his home, as well as near where I was staying. I had bought my (computer/portable) tablet then, and Larry, with his perennial curiosity, wanted to look up more about the Park, while we sat on the bench in front of the statue "Memory."

According to this site, on the background of the Park:
In 1912, the City named this park after the Strauses, who had lived in a frame house at 27-47 Broadway, near 105th Street. Public subscriptions of $20,000 were raised to commission this monument. The work consists of a granite curved exedra, a central bronze reclining female figure of Memory (for which the celebrated model Audrey Munson posed), and a reflecting pool. The monument was dedicated three years to the day after the Titanic sank.
We nonetheless had cheerful things to talk about. I told Larry I went to Macy's earlier in the morning, and he asked me what I'd bought. It was a pink polka dot blouse which, I proudly told him, I'd gotten for half price on sale. Larry was in tune with clothing and fashion, and would notice small things like hats, bracelets and the patterns and colors of dresses, which he wasn't shy about commenting. I showed him a catalog of Carolina Herrera's evening gowns whose flagship store in mid-town Manhattan I'd also visited. He had some very clear preferences, and didn't like the low cut, "one-sleeve" evening gowns, and said it spoilt otherwise beautiful dresses. I agreed with him, that all this skin exposure was diminishing the beauty of the dresses, and the beauty of women.

My museum trip this time around was to the Cloisters. I had read about them in my tourist guide, and in an article a while back in some magazine, and was intrigued by them. I've written about them here. Larry was not so well by then, and I told him the trip is long. We'd have to take an uptown bus all the way to Washington Heights, then change buses to take us to the Cloisters. Once there, we would have to do a shortish walk on cobbled stones to get to the museum. He was hesitant, and I made the decision. "Let's go," I said. "We can always take the bus back, or catch a cab, if it is too difficult." We made it. It was a lovely trip. The Cloisters feel like a remote, hill-top castle. Even though they are technically in New York City, they feel like they're miles (geographically and culturally) away from the city. One lovely spot of repose is by the compound's walls, with a view of the Hudson River and the George Washington Bridge.

Larry lived off Riverside Drive, which has a beautiful path by the Hudson River. We walked along the drive to view the various luxury homes, with their elegant mouldings and brickwork, and to experience some of the natural paths that are part of New York. There was a cool breeze coming from the river, a welcome respite from the hot August sun.

Recently, in December, I was in New York once again, and once again I attended a Christmas dinner for friends and readers of VFR. We met again at Kennedy's. Larry was weaker this time, and I think the dinner tired him. But he was good company. I met with him a couple of times after the dinner. This time, our cultural visit was to the Morgan Library and Museum, which houses Pierpont Morgan's collections (later expanded by his son J. P. Morgan) of books, manuscripts, sculpture and paintings in mid-town Manhattan. It is an eclectic and interesting place. Once again, I had gone earlier, and suggested to Larry that this would be a good place to visit. There were seats all around the museum for resting, and it is not overwhelmingly big. Larry seemed to acquire energy from somewhere, because we stayed viewing the collections longer than I thought we would.

Larry always liked to experience things, staying a little longer at an especially beautiful spot, or walking down an interesting curve in a path, or spending time before a sculpture or a painting. New York is a haven for beauty in unexpected places. Even the subways and buses were places for this unexpected beauty. In order to take his mind off his ill-health, Larry would recite poetry he had memorized. During one subway ride, he recited poems by W. B. Yeats to me. He said reciting these poems (aloud or silently) refreshed him and helped him to absorb his attention and put him in a calm state. He posted many poems by Yeats at View From the Right. I read and studied these poems over the years, and grew to know and to somewhat understand them.

One of the most enchanting places we visited was the Plaza Hotel near Central Park. I had visited it earlier and again told Larry we should go there just for coffee (a meal would just be too expensive). We entered the lovely lobby and went into the Palm Court. It was late afternoon, and the staff was closing down (tea can only be served for so long, after all). Larry asked if we could just sit at the edge for a little while, and the staff obliged. We also dared to walk around to view the "marble caryatids representing the Four Seasons on the westwall." The wait staff patiently left us alone. Covering the Palm Court is a spectacular, restored art deco stained glass ceiling, which gave a regal and grand air to our brief stay.

We went downstairs to the "food court" for a quick snack. For some reason Hamentash, a Jewish delicacy traditionally eaten during Purim, was available. Larry suggested I try one with apricot filling. It was a dry, sweet pastry, and the apricot gave it a distinct and sophisticated taste. So we did get our tea (or coffee) at the Plaza after all.

Later that week, we had dinner at West 107 on Broadway, where I had one of the best pork chop meals. There was enough left over to take home. Rather than have dessert, Larry suggested that we go to his neighborhood restaurant, The Broadway Restaurant (which is really a diner), for hot chocolate. It was a real treat, with whipped cream piled on top of the rich chocolate drink.

My last visit with Larry was at a hamburger meal in a restaurant called Toast, where we went after our visit to the Morgan Library. "Cook it rare" he told the waiter. He educated me on the best way to eat this American tradition: "I don't know how people eat the dried up, over-cooked hamburgers that has become normal fare. The meat has to be moist, and to do that, you need very good meat, and you cannot over cook it." And it was the best hamburger I have eaten.

At Toast, Larry decided to have a glass of his beloved whisky. He was very particular about the kind he wanted. The brand he chose he said was lighter and more delicate. I ordered the house wine, to keep him company, and to enjoy a glass. It was a lovely fruity, light wine. Larry picked up my glass and said he just wanted to smell it. He did so with relish. This episode encouraged me to write (and research) about wine. Here is the article I posted which I titled The God of Wine.

I could tell that Larry loved New York; the old, original, artistic New York. His neighborhood gave him a lot of pleasure, and almost every corner was for discovering. I think he enjoyed my company, and was happy to show me his New York. And he was protective. If we went too long without a break, he would suggest a snack or a meal, and he would more often than not pick up the tab. He put me in a taxi one late evening, and paid the driver the fare before I had time to protest.

Back in Canada, I received notice from a group of VFR readers that they were planning an intercessory prayer for Larry. I went to my favorite Irish pub in my neighborhood, Failte's, to toast Larry with my favorite beer, Harp. I emailed Larry photos I had taken of the interior of the pub, and that I had gone there to have a glass of Harp in his name. He wrote back that Harp was his favorite Irish beer. I found that uncanny, and a sign that I had done the right thing, and perhaps these prayers would make a difference.

If we had more time, I am sure he'd have found many places to discover, and to rediscover. And a few more things in common.

He wrote to me in an email in mid-January (2013): "There is something appealing about your semi flow-of-associations writing. Not everything needs to be big and important. What you provide is a feeling of your life, of yourself."

I hope with this account, I have provided a feeling for Larry's life, as I understood it and as I experienced it.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

May Perpetual Light Shine on Lawrence Auster

May Perpetual Light Shine on Lawrence Auster
By: Laura Wood (The Thinking Housewife)
Sunday, March 29, 2015


The tomb of the Count of Urgell at The Cloisters Museum

“JOURNEY” is a much abused and over-used word. So much so that it is almost impossible to use it today without conjuring a New-Agey binge of self worship. But, on the second anniversary of the death of the formidable writer Lawrence Auster, I am drawn to think of his journey.

He was born in New Jersey in 1949. He was born at the right time and at the wrong time. He was constantly at odds with his surroundings. He had a happy childhood, he said, but then plainly didn’t quite fit in anywhere. Hence he was on a constant journey. He left Columbia University after a year and went to Colorado. Later, after graduating from the University of Colorado with a degree in English, he discarded the idea of becoming an academic despite his love of English literature and his obvious skill in analyzing it. He thought being a professor would destroy his love of literature. He returned to New York, a wayfarer still.

For awhile he attended law school in New York and objected to the whole mentality of it. He felt law could be practiced in such a way that it wasn’t so careerist. In other words, the true end and object of legal studies should be justice, not the career.

He deplored the impersonal quality of modern life, which is why he left Columbia as an undergraduate and one reason he could never find a career. He wrote in his journal that he would love to work in some family business that had been run for generations. In other words, he would love to work in some business that wasn’t motivated just by business, but by the preservation of a small, human society.

He decried the lack of manners he saw everywhere, absurdly and unreasonably expecting civility and gentlemanliness in a 21st century city. At the same time, he could be rude himself in that aggressive, New York way.

He was walking down a street in New York one day, when like a bolt of lightning it struck him that European America was dying and being replaced by a modern, polyglot Tower of Babel. He journeyed through poverty, loneliness, lacerating self-criticism and the self-disgust any reasonable person in our world would feel for writing about one of the most sensitive of topics: Race in America. His objection to modern racial egalitarianism flowed naturally from his objection to the impersonal qualities of modern life. Destroy a man’s people, perpetuate the myth of rootlessness, and modern man is truly alone. He is even alienated from God. Mr. Auster was his own harshest critic at times and did not delight in the hard truths. His many readers at his website View from the Right would say he was born at the right time.

“This was the height of Western Civilization!” he said once, with outspread arms on a visit to The Cloisters, the famous museum of medieval art on the Hudson. So you see: He really was an outsider. He admired the tombs of the ancient knights, with their effigies of warriors at rest. He said that the art of no other age expressed the same vivid sense of transcendence.

A child of the sixties, he journeyed theologically, through his childhood as a Jew, astrology, the works of the Indian guru, Meher Baba; Anglicanism and finally, on Palm Sunday two years ago, with an Easter lily on his hospital tray, he formally converted to Roman Catholicism, a few days before he died and after much serious consideration of the issue. He said it was the most important day of his life. I like to think that he was formally initiated into that society of knights, his warrior qualities finding their most appropriate setting.

I hope you will join with me today, on Palm Sunday, which marks the entry of that most miraculous God-Man and Jew into Jerusalem, in praying for the eternal rest of Lawrence Auster. His journey is over. Let us be glad that he never fit into this world. Let us be thankful that it was always alien to him, as it should be to all of us. Let us pray for him and imagine him in heaven, poor no more, but with a golden and bejeweled sword always by his side.

[Note: Friends of Lawrence Auster will be gathering soon for a visit to his grave and lunch to commemorate the second anniversary of his death. This will take place near the cemetery where he is buried in suburban Philadelphia. If you would like to join us, please let me know.]
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

The Existential Crossroad

I listened to Obama's and Clinton's various speeches and interviews these past few weeks, and one thing that struck me was how tired they looked.

I got the photo of Obama from a video screenshot of Obama sending a "message" to Iran. The speech was subtitled in Persian and posted on Whitehouse.gov, the White House's main website! Obama gave the message on March 19th from the White House. He is wishing the Iranians a "Happy New Year." The video has Persian translations scrolling underneath. Here is the video. Amazing! A message for a "Happy New Year" to a country which publicly says it wants to destroy America, and of course Israel! Obama sent his message with a cozy backdrop of a side table with flowers and a pretty lamp, while sitting next to the American flag.

I will say here (repeat what others have already written) that Obama is essentially an anti-Semite. It starts from his desire to undermine, if not destroy, Israel, by supporting those who wish to destroy Israel. Below are writers who have written about this.

Mark Levin states in an interview: "anti-semitism reeks from your [Obama's] administration."

The Jerusalem Post recently posted the article titled: "Fundamentally Freund Is Obama Stirring Up Anti-Semitism."

Ben Shapiro at Breitbart News discusses "The Antisemitism of the Obama Administration."

Lauri B. Regan at The American Thinker has an article titled: "President Obama and Naked, Blind Anti-Semitism"

And in a less dramatic manner, Elliott Abrams at the National Review Online writes: "Obama Tries to Invent Whatever Excuse He Can to Break with Israel."

The recent impassioned accusation which Obama has been receiving is that he is "America's first Anti-American President." Many writers are saying similar things, including, for example Bob Barr at Townhall.com in his article: "America’s First Anti-Exceptionalism President." And David Horowitz at his Truth Revolt site has the article: "Obama An Anti-Semitic, Anti-American President."

The screenshot of Clinton's image is from her United Nations press conference on March 10 (here is the video). The UN has always vacillated between supporting Israel, or supporting Israel's enemies, and Clinton was either opportunistic or covertly showing her disdain for Israel by choosing this venue during these contentious times.

Still, both Clinton and Obama are trying to project conciliatory, if not friendly, images (peacefully united, personally approachable).

Netanyahu went directly to the United States Congress. The background in his photograph is clearly of Congress, and the image is found at this site.

Netanyahu has it right. Congress is the platform from which these American leaders should have given their important messages. And I think it is appropriate that world leaders wishing to communicate important messages with Americans, as did Netanyahu, should use this forum.

Despite his many hours of travel and his stressful presence as a foreign leader, Netanyahu looks forceful, strong and convinced. I wrote about this a few weeks ago here. And here is the video of Netanyahu's full speech.

Both Clinton and Obama used locations through which they tried to soften their messages. Obama sits in the cozy background of a living room set-up, and Clinton goes to a body that appears to "unite" the world with words of peace. Whereas Netanyahu goes to the politically difficult, if not hostile, environment of the United States Congress. But, he is the most honest. None of these messages can be softened. Netanyahu dealt with his in that forthright manner.

What a difference.

I realized just as I was about to post this entry that Obama sent this New Year's message to Iran during the dark days of Lent. This introspective time, "a special time of prayer, penance, sacrifice and good works in preparation of the celebration of Easter," was when Obama decided to "observe" another holiday, foreign both in national and Christian terms, to betray his own country and make a pact with the Devil.

I've written here that we are now at an existential crossroad. Obama's and Clinton's inner conflict, their deal with the Devil, can be seen in the way they present themselves (or the Devil projects himself in them). Netanyahu's visit to America, his subsequent win, against all odds, at the Israeli elections, are the signs we should be paying attention to. We are faced with the consequences otherwise.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

The Astonishing Arrogance of Obama's "We"

[T]he single most powerful word in our democracy is the word “We.” We The People. We Shall Overcome. Yes We Can. It is owned by no one. It belongs to everyone. Oh, what a glorious task we are given, to continually try to improve this great nation of ours.

(Excerpt from President Obama's speech on March 7, 2015 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of "Bloody Sunday" Selma to Montgomery Civil Rights march that took place on on March 7, 1965)

Extraordinary.

It's odd that no journalist, or humble blogger, has picked up on this repetitive "we" other than Jeannie DeAngelis at the American Thinker, and then only briefly. I did two days of google searches in all possible combinations to try to find this "we" scrutinized, but to no avail.

Here is what DeAngelis wrote:

Before suggesting that “Yes We Can” belonged in the same context as “We the People… [and]… We Shall Overcome,” the Mt. Rushmore hopeful mocked those who revere an iconic American identity when he said that America is “Not stock photos or airbrushed history or feeble attempts to define some of us as more American than others."

Obama equates his failed "Yes We Can" presidency with the Constitution's "We the People," and Civil Rights' era "We shall overcome."

This is extraordinary because it came right after Prime Minister Netanyahu of Israel had come to the United States, brave through his humility, to plead America for assistance against a force that is ready to annihilate him and his people, and without a doubt the rest of the world, if given the chance. I have to conclude that there is deep-seated anti-Semitism in Obama, which manifests itself at crucial, existential moments.

How can people not see this huge, glaring, hypocrisy, where the annihilation of Jews is less important than the freedom of blacks? How can people follow a president who behaves in this manner?

Perhaps Americans are indeed smart and they will wait him out, find as many ways to stall his maneuvers, and quietly rid themselves of this president.

But maybe they simply don't know what to do.

But, the time for wavering is over. This astonishingly arrogant president tells us clearly time and time again his intentions, and he has started to transform these intentions into policies, mainly because Americans are unable, and unwilling, to challenge him with the truth.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

Another Purim

I wrote of the Jewish holiday Purim last year which I've re-posted below. At the very end of the post, I write:

I'm not sure how the greeting goes, but I will just say: Happy Purim!

This year, it is with a very different mood that Purim is celebrated, at least in Israel. It is not one where one wishes "Happy Purim" but rather where one waits for these terrible days to play themselves out.

Prime Minister Netanyahu made a humbling, brave visit to America to ask America's leaders to stop the deal with Iran. Here is the transcript of his speech.

And below is the video of his forty-five minute speech, which shows his grave and strong voice, demanding attention from the audience.



Here is what I found to be the most significant part of his speech:

Tomorrow night, on the Jewish holiday of Purim, we'll read the Book of Esther. We'll read of a powerful Persian viceroy named Haman, who plotted to destroy the Jewish people some 2,500 years ago. But a courageous Jewish woman, Queen Esther, exposed the plot and gave for the Jewish people the right to defend themselves against their enemies.

The plot was foiled. Our people were saved.

Today the Jewish people face another attempt by yet another Persian potentate to destroy us. Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei spews the oldest hatred, the oldest hatred of anti-Semitism with the newest technology. He tweets that Israel must be annihilated -- he tweets. You know, in Iran, there isn't exactly free Internet. But he tweets in English that Israel must be destroyed.

For those who believe that Iran threatens the Jewish state, but not the Jewish people, listen to Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Hezbollah, Iran's chief terrorist proxy. He said: If all the Jews gather in Israel, it will save us the trouble of chasing them down around the world.

But Iran's regime is not merely a Jewish problem, any more than the Nazi regime was merely a Jewish problem. The 6 million Jews murdered by the Nazis were but a fraction of the 60 million people killed in World War II. So, too, Iran's regime poses a grave threat, not only to Israel, but also the peace of the entire world. To understand just how dangerous Iran would be with nuclear weapons, we must fully understand the nature of the regime.

That is all he had to say to make his point, but he is in secular, even with some atheistic, company, and had to go on with a political message.

I listened to the full speech. I found his strength, his poetic moments, his realistic presentation of the problem, and his actions to prevent this apocalyptic event extraordinary. I don't think any leader had come to another country to plead his case, to ask for help, to save the world. I don't think any of this is exaggerated or over-played. It is every bit as serious as he says, and as I felt.

Part of that significance is that this event occurred very close to the Purim holiday (on the eve of the holiday, to be exact).

I wrote a post on Esther last year, and it was mostly a post of Rembrandt's paintings of the holiday and of the personalities, where I said:

The Jewish holiday of Purim ended last week. It commemorates:

...the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire where a plot had been formed to destroy them...

Netanyahu came during that holiday, as fate (as God) would have it, and remind the world of another time when the formidable Persians controlled the fate of Jews. This contemporary Persians would not show any of the goodwill their ancestors granted Esther. Their annihilation of the Jews will be swift and merciless. Now, they have a new god, their Allah, who will sanction their behavour.

It is apt that I write about Larry Auster in this piece of spiritual battle. I link to him below (here is the piece) saying how I met him several times in New York, but the last time I met him, we went down to the Plaza's food court where he suggested that I try the hamentashen, and with the apricot filling, although I went in August which is not the time of the Purim holiday. I remember having the dry cake, with a crust like a shortbread, and the sweet apricot filling, trying to figure out what it tasted like. Larry was watching me curiously as I tried this biscuit for the first time, something which he was so familiar with. And, in a metaphorical sense, he was one of the few then fighting the existential and spiritual battle which took so many so long to understand.

Now here we are, with the leader of the Jewish people, outlining for us the stark reality that was becoming so apparent to him then.

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Below is my post from last year, including the paintings by Rembrandt.

Rembrandt's Esther

The Jewish holiday of Purim ended last week. It commemorates:

...the deliverance of the Jewish people in the ancient Persian Empire where a plot had been formed to destroy them...

According to the Book of Esther, Haman, royal vizier to King Ahasuerus...planned to kill all the Jews in the empire, but his plans were foiled by Mordecai and his cousin and adopted daughter Esther who had risen to become Queen of Persia. The day of deliverance became a day of feasting and rejoicing [more here].

Rembrandt painted a series of paintings depicting Esther. Below are what I think it is a complete list:



Haman and Ahasuerus at the banquet with Esther


Haman Prepares to Honour Mordecai


Haman Begging Esther for Mercy


Esther is Introduced to Ahasuerus


Esther before Ahasuerus


Esther with the Decree of Destruction


Esther Preparing to Intercede with Assuerus

More paintings of Esther by various artists can be found: here, here, here and here.

A special holiday cake called hamentashen is served for this holiday. I mention my first encounter with hamentashen in my post Kidist's Best of New York City (Best Hotel Bakery Item: The Hamentashen at the Plaza Hotel - apricot filling), which I discuss more here.



I'm not sure how the greeting goes, but I will just say: Happy Purim!

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Obama Is Not Caulfield

Here is the new breed of Obama critic. This wouldn't have happened a year ago, but now suddenly, everyone has seen the light when it comes to Obama:

There is a personality type common among the Left’s partisans, and it has a name: Holden Caulfield. He is adolescent, perpetually disappointed, and ever on the lookout for phoniness and hypocrisy...He believes with Barack Obama that the only reason (e.g.) Staples does not pay its part-time associates more or schedule them for more hours is so that it can pad its executive pay and protect its “billions” in annual profits.

[...]

Barack Obama has a great, big, heaping dose of Holden Caulfield in him.[Source: National Review Online article by Kevin D. Williamson]

I have read The Catcher in the Rye, and I liked it. I thought Caulfield was intelligent, but that he was dealt a difficult life by his rich but inattentive parents who let him wonder through expensive private schools. I especially liked his spunky little sister with that strange name Phoebe (strange for me when I was reading the book for the first time at age thirteen), and how Caulfield decides to change (somewhat) if only to take care of her.

But in this moment of critic proliferation, almost everyone who writes critically about Obama resorts to explaining his behavior as someone who really doesn't know better: a foolish adolescent.

That in itself is racist, as though a black leader should be excused for his behavior and mistakes with a reference to his immaturity of one form or another: emotional, intellectual, ethical, spiritual, aesthetic.

But Obama is not immature, in any sense.

He is smart. He may have fudged some of his academic papers, but he persistently fought in politics, and won his way through.

He has a strong personality, and can battle through tough competitions.

He is an eloquent speaker. I don't have to agree with what he says, but he says what he has to say very well indeed.

He has a sense of humor, making people laugh during those dour State of the Union events, and at more relaxed moments in front of the press. He teases people around him with confidence, including Michelle Obama, who seems oblivious to his humor. His latest fracas with Buzzfeed was an attempt at humor to get a point across, and it was cleverly done.

The argument can be made about his ethical and spiritual authenticity, but that is nothing to do with immaturity, but in fact a sophistication to convince people, the American public, of the worthiness of some unworthy ideas.

And he may have to deal with Michelle Obama's inferior aesthetics, but he has never made a false move with his presentations.

So, we should take him at face value: An American President.

But we should take him as an American President with a leftist, and even a far left, world view. This causes him to say stupid things. But, it isn't his stupidity, rather his ideology, which does that.

So, instead of getting all twisted up giving him all kinds of excuses, let's drop the screen and reveal the emperor.

Our inability, or more precisely, our resistance, in identifying Obama for who and what he is will have dangerous, and far-reaching, consequences: Jihadi bombs in American and Western cities; illegal immigrants competing for scarce jobs; welfare criminals; race warfare; class divisions; and so on, and so on.

Obama is no adolescent Caulfield. He has his vision and agenda for the world, which the listless Caulfield could not muster even for the next day.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

Selfieing While Rome Burns

Buzzfeed
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

The Good Wives

The Good Wives
Left: Julianna Margulies as Alicia Florrick as the wronged wife, in the television show The Good Wife
Right: Michele Obama at the 2015 State of the Union

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It had been a while since I've "reviewed" Michelle Obama's attire (here is one example from about a year and a half ago).

Above is Michelle Obama at the State of the union address on January 20th. I glanced at her ensemble, and all I could think was that it looked like a cheap tweed suit which one could get at Walmart - not that I'm knocking Walmart, but I wouldn't buy it even there.

The New York Post asked:

"Who wore it best, the Good Wife, or the President's wife?"

First, I would say "neither." What a dull, lusterless, cheap-looking dress (look at the zipper against the black strip at the front).

It is perhaps understandable in the television series The Good Wife, which is about an woman attorney. But for the wife of a President?

Obama was at one point intent on supporting "American Designers," which is a noble effort. But, I would rather she wore a smart Christian Dior than this dull Michael Kors.

I don't blame Kors. He does what he does (and gets very rich doing so). It was ultimately Obama's decision.

The suit's jacket (now out of stock, which I presume is due to all those First Lady Followers who bought the suit after the SOTU) was $1595 at Nordstrom. And the ensemble probably more than doubles with the skirt.

And, to show the blind adulation that goes on, here is the black magazine, Essence, showering praises on this outfit:

Mrs. Obama was stunning in a tweed Michael Kors skirt suit with a wide collar and zipper details, channeling her inner Gladiator and giving all of us life.

The "inner gladiator" reference is to the suit that Obama wore on a previous occasion. I don't know how it got into the fashion vernacular of Michelle Obama. I wonder if it came from here ("she reminds me of the muscle-bound Victor Mature in a 1950s gladiator pic")!

How could it have been better?

Perhaps making it in a tweed green rather than this dreary grey.


[I Photoshopped the green color, and all the rest
Better than that grey (Michael Kors should hire me!)]

But the real question is, why is Michelle Obama channeling a television program replete with adultery, marital discord, and a single ("separated") woman aggressively pursuing a career?

Could it be the "presidential" connection?

But, even that is a negative reflection on politicians:

When a very public sex and political-corruption scandal lands her husband, Peter, in prison, Alicia Florrick must get past the humiliation and betrayal and assume responsibility for her family. She resumes her career as a defense attorney, shedding her persona as the embarrassed wife of a politician, and takes charge of her destiny. Four years later, Alicia decides to leave Lockhart/Gardner and start a new law firm with a colleague, Cary Agos. Now that Peter has won the gubernatorial election, Alicia must balance her evolving career and family responsibilities with her new position as first lady of Illinois. [Source]

This is supposedly a reference to the New York governor Eliot Spitzer who resigned from his position after his trysts with prostitutes became public.

But, Michelle's channeling is more convoluted than that. It is to showcase the "bravery" of this politician's wife (in the T.V. show that is), who started a career as an attorney to provide for her two sons after her husband was jailed. She "decides" to not divorce her husband. Yet, she has an affair with a partner at her law firm. Then she decides to run for politics, and uses the same rough strategies her husband used to win his political battles.

It is a strange mixture of victimhood (the good wife), feminism (women can be tough attorneys and even tougher politicians), marital loyalty (the Good Wife doesn't divorce her husband, merely separates form him), motherhood (she goes to work for her two kids), femininity (she always dresses prettily), equality (women can have affairs too), and so on.

What an odd show to emulate.

But not really. It is all about the "strength of the woman" after all. And she can have it all, or rather, do it all: adultery, motherhood, high powered careers - even in politics, and of course wifehood.

And any woman who stays married despite the humiliations this TV Good Wife faced is, well, a good wife. Look at Hillary!

I wonder how President Obama feels about all this?


The President and his Good Wife
Arriving at the State of the Union, January 20th 2015
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat

Here is my Barnes and Noble review of My Battle Against Hitler: Faith, Truth, and Defiance in the Shadow of the Third Reich, by Dietrich von Hildebrand.

I will be writing a more extensive review here at Reclaiming Beauty (I'm about 3/4 of the way through the book). Hildebrand has written a generous book (if I can use that adjective in this case), giving us, even in the depths of evil, something, some hope, to hang on to, namely, his steadfastness against that evil.

Keep checking!!

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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"Preserving this West"

Here is an email I sent to Larry Auster, while he was ill:

Larry,

As someone who grew up in the West, yet who comes from a non-Western background, you have helped me so much in remaining calm and confident when all those around me were ready and happy to knock down this wonderful and beautiful civilization.

I now continue in preserving this West from these alien, destructive forces.

Here is a Mozart piano sonata, which I hope you will enjoy listening to.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=4RZiaBlkodE#at=375

(If this doesn't open, you can listen to it here.)

Kidist

[Note: the youtube page has been discontinued, but the Sonatas can be listened to here]

2017: More notes: The most recently accessible Youtube collection is here
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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The Feisty Prince

The Feisty Prince

If England is to get a new Prince, then this one fits the bill! It's time that a feisty prince is in the running. Here he is, at almost one. His first birthday was on June 22, and this photograph was taken on April 19.

There have been several Georges in the British royal family. George is the name of the patron saint of England. The legend of Saint George is that he slew the dragon to rescue a princess.

May that young Prince George's name give him the strength to vanquished the evils of our modern world, to save his England.


St. George Slaying the Dragon
St. Joseph's Orphanage, Lancashire, England

St Joseph’s Orphanage was opened in 1872 and St Joseph’s Hospital for the Sick Poor followed five years later.

The hospital tended injured soldiers during both world wars and its nuns, the Sisters of Charity, also delivered tens of thousands of babies.

The orphanage shut in 1954 and the hospital in 1982 and the building fell into disrepair since nuns using it as a rest home moved out a few years ago. [Source: Lancashire Evening Post, April 16, 2013]

I searched for a while for an image of Saint George (that I liked). I found the one above. It is from an orphanage and hospital that is falling apart, as the linked article relates. More work for this young prince.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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