Jakob Scheffer commenting on the article: Message From America's Working Class
at the Council of European Canadians
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The percentage of foreign-born residents is higher in Sweden than in the US, 17% versus 14%. Still, Sweden is much more egalitarian than the US. We shouldn't become monocausal. Immigration is a contributing factor to the growing inequality in the US, but it certainly isn't the only one.
Trump may have won the nomination because of the support from the white working class, but he won the election by grace of the Electoral College. The Republicans did worse in the presidential election of 2016 than in the one of 2012. Uninspiring, uncharismatic Mitt Romney received 47% of the votes, but Trump received only 46%. In any other country with a presidential system, Hillary would have become president. In both elections, the turnout was about 55%. There was no massive electoral shift to Trump.
The German communist Karl Liebknecht once wrote, "Der Hauptfeind jedes Volkes steht in seinem eigenen Land" = The main enemy of every people is in its own country. Fortunately, that isn't always the case, but it is the case in the US today. The main enemy of 90% of Americans is the Republican Party, which is a plutocratic entity with no higher purpose than to make the rich richer. It sails under 2 false flags, the flag of white nationalism and the flag of social conservativism. It has to this because a frankly plutocratic party would not get many votes in a democracy since most people aren't rich.
The Democrats, for all their politically correct faults, have at least some commitment to social-democracy left. Unfortunately, like all leftists nowadays, they are too blinded by ideology to realize that mass immigration will inevitably undermine the welfare state because immigrants punch below their weight economically, which means that on average they pay less tax and receive more social benefits than the rest of the population.
Trump is not really a Republican, but he has to govern with Republican support, and the Reps are a party that is committed to turning the US into a plutocratic paradise, where the population is large, labor is cheap, taxes are very low, regulations are very few, protection of the environment is minimal, and economic security exists only for the wealthy. Disadvantageous though immigration is for the masses, if it will eventually put the Republicans out of business, then it may on balance still be beneficial to the American masses. It will fill me with Schadenfreude if those mendacious servants of the rich minority will be permanently relegated to the opposition.
"Stay Classy, Toronto"
Steve Paikin hosting the program The Agenda
Video can be viewed here
TVO's Steve Paikin has another one of his stellar programs. The June 7 program was on the urban/inner suburbs differences. The term inner suburbs is used for low-income neighborhoods within urban areas, which are usually located in the peripheries of the urban areas, and closer to urban areas than suburban ones. The urban and inner suburb areas rarely meet, mingle or use the same services. The inner suburbs are usually populated by government-dependent, poor, often unemployed or under-employed groups. The majority of the inner suburb population is of immigrant origin. Urban communities are wealthier than the inner urban groups. They are mostly white.
This new "class" division that is occurring in Toronto, and apparently in other Canadian cities from the information in the video above, has been acerbated by the high level of immigrants that Toronto has been accepting over the last thirty years. It is clearly a class issue, but it is primarily an immigration issue, which is turning into a racial issue.
The discussion below barely touches on immigration, and if the panelists do bring it up, it is a word buried amidst a forest of others, or it is alluded to. For example, the inner urban areas such as Scarborough and North York which have the highest population of poor, social assistance-dependent groups are the areas with dense immigrant groups, from Third World countries.
Paikin tries to bring this out in the open, and asks for solutions to the problem. But each time, the panelists blame the problem on evil politicians who don't dish out enough money to improve these conditions by providing the necessary social infrastructures, or social assistance funds.
In the end, all Paikin could do was to thank the panelists. I think his problem is that partly he is a nice guy, and partly he has to toe the line to keep his job at the leftist TVO. But, at least he brought the panel together, and gave us plenty of information to think about. I would think that he would be called a "white wine-sipping elite" by these two women, and by others. He lives a few blocks away from the TVO station, in an elite neighborhood called Forest Hill. How long before he takes insult?
This will be the phenomenon of the upcoming decades. People with values, abilities, religions and cultural and social structures very different from the original Canada (which is still being maintained by the "white wine-sipping elites" as they are now being disparagingly labeled) are populating the country. The net effect will be a society more inferior than the one that existed before they arrived (how can we expect more, since the societies they left were of inferior standards, which they will be replicating here thanks to the leniency of multiculturalism?). There will be other dangerous elements to contend with, one of which is the Muslim aggression which will precipitate Jihadist/terrorist behavior, and make the country less safe for all its inhabitants.
Below is a transcript of the video from between the 25 - 36 minutes point, where the immigration issue, in conjunction with poverty (clearly referring to the poor immigrants that are populating these inner subarbs) is subtly explored.
Karen Stintz
Chair, Toronto Transit Commission:
25:38 - 26:24
There's no question Toronto is growing and that's presenting challenges. But I think it's also important to recognize the reason we're growing and the rate that we are is because we are the largest city in Canada, because we have a diverse population, because Toronto is home to many people. And people who come to Toronto and chose it, I don;t think they're choosing North York, Scarborough or Etobicoke. They're choosing the city of Toronto. And when we think about the fastest growing city, I think about the fastest growing city I think we're now fourth in North America, we're hosting the Pan Am Games. We've got so many attributes that big cities can brag about, we've an arts community, the medical community, the universities that are now connected by mass transit. There's so many things we have going for us by virtue of the fact that we're such a big city, but we just have to consider ourselves that big city.
Steve Paikin
Host of The Agenda:
26:35 - 26:40
They used to call Toronto (thirty years ago] the city that works. And I don't hear people saying that as much anymore. Does the city still work given how big and clunky it is?
Stintz:
26:41 - 27:13
Yeah! Every day 1.7 million people use the TTC [Toronto Transit]. There's pressures on our system no question. But with the budget that we have, we provide a lot of services, from water to roads to sewers to snow clearing to snow plowing to leaf collection to parks and rec[reations], camps, the zoo. You know, there's the question that are we doing too much. I think that's a legitimate question. Are we doing the core things that we should be doing as well as we could be doing, I think those are legitimate question that the public has of us. But in terms of a city that works, as to a city that works, absolutely I think that we work.
Paikin:
28:10 - 28:30
But again I keep hearing this, that the values of the people who live in the Old City of Toronto the legacy city of Toronto, and the values of city of Toronto, Old Toronto, and the values of the people who live in the inner suburbs, Etobicoke, Scarborough, North York, East York, York, as they then were called, are different. And it's too hard to shoe-horn everybody into one shoe nowadays. That's what you hear.
Paikin:
30:40 - 30:45
The needs and desires of those living in Scarborough and Etobicoke are really different from those living downtown [Toronto]
Paikin:
31:30 - 31:46
What you would hear was...The people in the inner city, they get the subway because they are the white wine-sipping elites, and you folks living in Scarborough, you know, a street car is good enough for you. You're not entitled to a subway. I mean that kind of class warfare was played out on a daily basis when the city debated that, right?
Stintz:
32:50 - 33:00
There's lots of messages that resonate with people who again are not well-served by transit, who are feeling that they're paying more because they tend to be in the outer areas of the city because they're economically disadvantaged...
Paikin:
33:08 - 33:15
To the extent that those cleavages existed, do you think they are much worse now that Mayor Ford has been mayor for the last, almost, three years?
Stintz:
36:31 - 36:35
I don't think we're divided as the current administration would like us to believe.
Stintz says: "But in terms of a city that works, as to a city that works, absolutely I think that we work."
This is not wishful thinking, or a myopic view of the situation. I think she really believes this. What could be better than to have a city full of vibrancy? Toronto, and its "white wine-sipping elites," and all those other whites, can only gain from a city full of "ethnics" with charming accents, exotic restaurants, colorful holidays, and wise and wonderful ways.
Yet, when we go to the areas most densely populated by these "ethnics" all we see are deteriorating restaurants and dull, colorless houses. So much for vibrancy. Even those areas where reasonably well-to-do (these days they are "Asians" - i.e. Chinese, Koreans and Filipinos, and the South Asians - i.e. Indians and Pakistani) immigrants reside, we find generally inferior homes, with no landscaping or maintenance of the surroundings. Dull and lusterless places.
Stinz of course, being the "white wine sipping elite," lives in the affluent Forest Hill, where she has her ward, where she also resides. There are no photos of her home, but she has posted some scenery of beautiful houses surrounded by lush greenery.
Steve Paikin was kind and generous towards her. He should have simply demolished her illogical ramblings with devastating logic. He could have set a precedent for other journalists.
Left: A home in a woody cul-de-sac in Stinz's affluent Forest Hill ward
Middle: A housing complex in Scarborough's West Hill
Right: A detached pre-fabricated house with a bare lawn in West Hill Scarborough
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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...this PMO is failing miserably at filling important positions with strong people in a timely manner.
[...]
But the most pressing and perplexing is this government’s appointment paralysis.
Judicial appointments are glacial, commission chairs are empty, boards like the CBC, Canada Post and Export Development Canada are depleted while top jobs at the RCMP, CRTC and Elections Canada are on the verge of being vacated.
[...]
The efficiency of a government, even one with a friendly face, should be judged by the way it staffs itself and treats its people.
There are clear symptoms of internal dysfunction by Liberals failing to get that basic job done.
He jokes that it might be time to get Sophie Trudeau to pillow-talk her husband into assigning appointments. But that is probably happening already and perhaps one of the reasons for this paralysis.
The main reason is of course, as many quietly and some clearly, including myself, have observed: Trudeau is in above his head with his new role as leader of this country.
He must be asking himself by now: "When will this dream-job-turned-nightmare end?!"
"I am grateful to live in a country where diversity is welcomed and celebrated. Canada is a country which provides me with opportunities to be an active and caring citizen, open to others, and committed to social justice, fairness and human rights for all."
Above is a quote from "Egyptian-Canadian" Amira Elghawaby, who is presenting her case alongside the Multicultural Act of Canada, as an unapologetic, non-multicultural, non-hyphenated Muslim.
But she is being authentic. Non-Multiculturalism now applies to Hindus, Blacks, Hispanics, Muslims and every single ethnic and racial group, except for Whites.
The future is with "Non-Multiculturalism." Groups will be authentic to their races and ethnicities. But if Whites do so it will be called "racism."
Elghawaby is only following the cultural trend, and her "true self."
...made ALL of the agents watching her family some sweets that were hand-delivered by Jared and their two oldest children, Arabella, 5, and Joseph, 3.
It is wonderful to see her come out and do something like this for the secret service. The left has been attacking Ivanka in a relentless fashion and it is NOT OKAY. We have had people saying that her family does not deserve to be protected. It does not make ANY sense.
Be sure to add to her coffers by purchasing her book.
The skull and crossbones seems to have been used as an emblem first and foremost by esoteric and heretical groups as a symbol of rebirth. It later became the battle flag of the Knights Templar (and a nasty rumor about the Templars claimed they chose it because of a horrific necromantic ritual) and, in the 17th century, the "Jolly Roger" flag of British and French pirates.
“Most mysteriously, it is the emblem of the secret society Scull N’ Bones at Yale, which George Bush and so many other members of the American elite have been initiated into. (Yale’s graduating classes, according to some authors, seem to have provided the rich white young men of distinction which formed the early OSS and, later, the CIA.)
“What are the connections here? Did some of the post-dissolution Templars eventually turn their naval skills toward the service of pirate fleets? (We know many in Portugal eventually joined the Knights of Christ who, with Prince Henry the Navigator, circumnavigated the world’s oceans.)
“Why does the secret society S & B use a skull in its ceremonies which supposedly belongs to, of all people, the Native American Geronimo? Is it to commemorate, in some sinister ritualistic way, the "piracy" and plunder of Native lands in the U.S.? Is there a link between Scull N’ Bones and the (less secretive) academic honor society Phi Beta Kappa? [Source]
The skull and bones was once a fearsome image, warning us of deadly danger on poison containers, waving fearsomely from atop pirate ships. Now it’s just trendy.
Is Ivanka Trump, shoe designer, and recently named Executive Branch Employee/ Informal Adviser to the President, so smart as to sit as her father's "Informal Adviser-in-Chief?"
I doubt it.
Behind every Executive Branch Employee/Informal Adviser to the President, there is a Senior Adviser.
“A lot of their real interactions happen when it’s just the two of them,” says her approving husband, Jared Kushner, who was officially named Senior Adviser to the Trump administration in January.
I doubt that. Kushner gets to hear all about the "informal advising" prior to his wife's meeting with her Dad, as he gives her his Senior Adviser's advice.
The Super Mom/Super Busy Ivanka, Executive Branch Employee/Informal Adviser to the President, has a "list for connecting with each of" her three kids before they go to sleep. I doubt this is a daily schedule.
“I put real thought into coming up with ideas for memorable moments I can create with each of them,” she writes. “Right now, I play with cars with Joseph, on the floor, for twenty minutes each day. Arabella loves books, so I make a note to read at least two per day to her and plan ‘dates’ to the library. With Theodore, I commit to ensuring that I can give him two to three of his bottles each day and rock him to sleep at night.”
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.
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…
The obscene, sodomy-celebrating, and nasty provocateur; rising GOP star; and Breitbart contributor, Milo Yiannopoulos, was recently invited to be the keynote speaker at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC). Fortunately, his invitation was quickly rescinded when an interview with Joe Rogan from ten months ago came to light in which Yiannopoulos gleefully recounted performing a sex act on a Catholic priest when Yiannopoulos was 14-years-old–a sexual act that Yiannopoulos insisted did not constitute pedophilia.
[Full article here]
Alt-Right[1] founder Richard Spencer has posted his commentary on Milo Yiannopoulos who used to be (or still is?) a follower of Spencer's Alt-Right movement. The video is at Altright.com's youtube page under: Milo Goes Up in Flames.
Below, I've excerpted from the long commentary (25 minutes long) on the points where Spencer discusses in moral terms the perverted sexual behavior of Yannopoulos.
As a side note, I have wondered why Spencer spent a rambling 25 minutes to discuss Yiannopoulos. I believe it is because of his inability to make a moral judgment on Yiannopoulos' behavior, and therefore his roundabout way to try to deem the behaviour as unacceptable. It is one thing to recognize the moral (or immoral) nature of someone's behaviour, it is quite another to judge it right or wrong.
- What Milo is saying..."is totally indefensible."
- "Speaking as a father, I just simply cannot abide what he said. Milo just needs to recognize the fact that no normal person is going to accept what he said. It makes our stomachs turn."
- "The fact is this [pedophilia rings that Yannopoulos was privy to] is criminal. This is not OK legally speaking."
- "Look the fact is, if you witness something like that...you're legally and morally at the very least, I'm not a lawyer but you are at the very least morally obligated to say something and to try to stop that, or at the very least to take that information to the authorities."
- "This is just not acceptable. No-one is going to defend Milo. I'm sorry Milo no-one is going to defend you on this."
- "When someone is being attacked and there's a scandal, I almost want to defend them, because I know just how unfair the media is. I faced this myself with Hailgate. Everyone knows the punching incident, and I appreciate the people who defended me."
- "If this were any other scandal, I would not pile on. I do not like piling on. But in this case you, I have to pile on."
In the 25-minute recording, Spencer vacillates between legal obligations, fatherly responsibilities (he has a toddler daughter), societal decorum, the unfair media, and normal behavior. Authorities (law and order), legality (lawyers and judges), normality (what one doesn't do in civilized society, at least publicly) are the issues he brings up in an attempt to explain why it is wrong to have pedophilia rings. He tries to frame his responses around morality or moral obligations, but he never specifies what morality and what moral obligations.
Spencer's hurt feelings of being insulted by the media ( "I know just how unfair the media is"), as though the media are really the cause of his and rejections, is the narcissistic reaction of someone who has no-one else to turn to but himself. "They attacked me because they are unfair (and evil)" says the narcissist, rather than search for something wrong in his approach.
Spencer is an atheist. As an atheist, there is nothing that tells him, other than his own perceptions, logic and observations, and societal "norms" what is moral and what is not moral.
Below is an excerpt from on a recent interview Spencer had regarding his atheism.
Spencer has previously described himself (8:12) as a “cultural Christian,” but he told me in a private interview (over Twitter) that he is in fact an atheist. He also said the separation of church and state is “an utter illusion.
McAfee: Are you religious? Do you support the Separation of Church and State? Spencer: I’m an atheist. The “separation of church and state” is an utter illusion. The state and religion state [sic] deeply connected. McAfee: So, despite your lack of religion, you do think religion and government should be connected. Is that right? Do you think a secular government would fail? Spencer: A truly secular government could never exist. Sovereignty is a magical thing. For a political order to function — for it to accomplish its tasks, including war-making — the population must *believe* in it.
Why is pedophilia immoral? What is wrong with loving little children? After all pedophiles can argue that their behavior is a form of love. Unless it is a "rapist pedophile," most pedophiles are attracted to one (or two or three) children and maintain long term interactions with them. The young children become attached to them.
Legally society can decide that having sex with 5 year old children (who can say "yes" and "no," and make decisions) is perfectly acceptable and that it is not a crime.
Spencer is repulsed by pedophilia as a father of a young daughter. That is his frame of reference: disgusted with - and ready to tackle - anyone who would approach his child thus. What about men who don't have children? From what depths are they to channel the emotion of repulsion of a man having sex with sons or daughters who are not theirs? And how about fathers of older children? In fact, most fathers are protective (both of their daughters and sons) way into the children's adulthood, and only marriage gives them the peace of mind that their son or daughter isn't being "abused."
Society is held together not just by legal codes but by spiritual references. Spencer and the growing number of atheists are counting on a Christian society that produced these laws, behaviors, and civilized relationships, and that maintains (or can maintain) a functioning and good society. Laws, since they deal with right and wrong, and have a moral basis, have to be based on a spiritual reference. In Spencer's ideal world, such laws to protect him and his family would exist in a world without God, but he would not discard the Christian spiritual framework. Such is the hypocrisy of atheists: they will acknowledge some authority higher than man when they are threatened by nefarious forces. In Spencer's case, it is the realization that there is a pedophile out there advocating sex with children as young as his own daughter.
It is unprecedented that people come outright and say "I am not religious." Previous generations wouldn't even know how to articulate these thoughts. What is even more irritating is the "but" that many of these people add. "Although not religious, I’m a defender of the so-called Judeo-Christian tradition." What does that even mean? As in "I will abstain from participating in one important element of Western tradition, but I will support it anyway?"
People can be overwhelmed by the beauty and poetics of the Bible, just as one can admire the poetry of Shakespeare. But, how can they, if they are so drawn to this book, not feel the mystery and transcendence of it as well? Where does that "tremendous literary achievement" lead to? Just for us to feel its tremendous literary achievement? Isn't there just something a little more than that?
Such is the ways of our modern world, where atheists sit around talking about the literary achievements of the Bible, as though they are great connoisseurs, and yet not have an ounce of reaction to its bigger picture.
It is Christianity which firmly and soundly built the society that was able to remove pedophilia from its midst, and which carved the laws which could punish the transgressors (the criminals).
Like all atheists, Spencer is an cultural opportunist. He latches on to what would make his life, his milieu, his relationships humane. The world created through God is good as long as one can get rid of pedophiles who would prey on one's daughters, but there is no logic to God's existence and therefore there is no God.
Here are a few of the infantile (I'm not denigrating Spencer here, I am just saying that his arguments are based on some kind of immature grievance that "God didn't answer my prayers"):
- Atheism offers the best explanation for the physical forces that cause natural disasters.
- Atheism offers the best explanation for the presence of unjustified pain and suffering in the world.
- Atheism offers the best explanation for God's silence in the face of adversity.
- Atheism offers the best explanation for divine hiddenness.
And so on. The full article (twelve points in all) is here.
1. Alt-right is a term that appeared in November 2008 when Paul Gottfried addressed the H. L. Mencken Club about what he called "the alternative right". In 2009, two more posts at Taki's Magazine, by Patrick J. Ford and Jack Hunter, further discussed the 'alternative right.' The term is commonly attributed to Richard B. Spencer, president of the National Policy Institute and founder of Alternative Right magazine.
The alternative right has alternately been called libertarian nationalism, "neo"-paleoconservatism, "evolutionary" conservatism, "scientific" conservatism, and the post-religious right. [Conservapedia]
2. Patheos is a non-denominational, non-partisan online media company providing information and commentary from various religious and nonreligious perspectives. [Wikipedia]
Below is an article I submitted to the on-line journalThe 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.”
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.
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.
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.
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.
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
I received an email recently with the phrase "moving forward" in the concluding paragraph.
It is a variation on "going forward" which I have never really understood. Moving forward/going forward toward what? With what? An agreement? A dissolution (of a partnership or a relationship)? Is it good this going forward? Is it a bad thing? Who is doing the forward moving, the one who declares it or the one who receives the invitation? It sounds less of an invitation and more like a threat. What if the invitee doesn't want to move forward in the same direction, or at all?
Fascinating, the language of the modern liberal era.
In any case, it is some kind of jargon which now crops up in all kinds of places and with a faint aura of a threat behind it: "Moving forward, or else." (I typed "ora" in my online dictionary as in oratory, spoken word etc. but no results. I then simply googled "ora" and found this!)
Besides the initial humor (incredulity is a better word) at least that I found with the whole thing - the cops were involved as the email sent to me was cc'd to the Mississauga Square One Security Office, which is linked to the Peel Regional Police - I realized that this is all dead serious. There is a war that has been waged, and the sooner we on the "other side" acknowledge this, the better.)
Here is someone who feels the say way I do about this "inane" phrase:
Going forward, let's consign this inane phrase to history
By: Mark Seacombe
Superfluous, meaningless but ubiquitous, it arrived from corporate America and now permeates every area of our lives
Barack Obama does it, David Cameron does it; film stars and advertising people do it; even national newspaper editors do it. But let's not do it. Going forward, let's not utter or write the superfluous, meaningless, ubiquitous "going forward".
It is impossible to get through a meeting today without being verbally assaulted by this inanity. And it nearly always is verbal; you have to be truly unthinking to commit it to paper. When I hear those two words it is my signal to switch off and think about something more interesting, such as Preston North End's prospects going forward. See how easy it is to lapse into this vacuousness.
It is sometimes deployed as an add-on – a kind of burp – at the end of a sentence; sometimes, as with "like" or "you know", it seems to serve as punctuation. But it is especially infuriating when used with the word plan. I heard somebody say a few days ago: "Going forward, the plan is … " How can a plan be about anything but the future? Planning the past would be a remarkable facility.
Why do people speak like this? The online Urban Dictionary offers two possible explanations: the first defines "going forward" as "a phrase that business people use to mean someone completely [messed up] big time but we don't want to dwell on whose fault it was; instead can we all just adopt an optimistic outlook and please can we all start thinking about the future, not the shithole of a present that we're in?"
The other, less scatalogical definition is: "Going forward is purported to mean 'in the future' or 'somewhere down the road' when in fact it is an attempt to dodge the use of these words, which generally indicate 'I don't know'. A newer development in corporate doublespeak, in most companies it is grounds for dismissal to release a press release without mentioning something 'going forward'. Going forward, you will likely see this turning up everywhere: 'Our company expects to make a profit going forward'; 'We don't expect any layoffs going forward'."
I blame the businessmen and women of America – still the undisputed world leader in abusing the English language. It is difficult to pinpoint the birth of "going forward". But my former colleague at the Financial Times, Lucy Kellaway, has accused the US Securities and Exchange Commission.
Given the mess that American capitalism is in, we should not be surprised to learn that the body that regulates the nation's stock exchanges, among other things, specialises in obfuscation. Kellaway has fought a valiant but ultimately doomed campaign against "going forward".
Another attempt was made by a British website, the Institution of Silly and Meaningless Sayings (isms), which kept a "going-forward-ometer" until the people running it gave up, exasperated, nine months later, after recording hundreds of instances.
It cites nonsenses such as: "He's coming back to help going forward"; "We cannot back down, going forward"; "Problems for England's backs, going forward"; "Fourscore and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal, going forward." The last one was a joke, of course: Abraham Lincoln would never have perpetrated such a solecism.
While it may have started in corporate America, "going forward" has now penetrated every area of British life. It even came from the mouth of the multilingual Emily Maitlis on Newsnight the other evening. Comically, her interviewee shot back with a "going forward".
You would think that Formula 1 was an organisation that, self-evidently, did not need to underline the direction in which it was moving. But when F1 in the US appointed Steve Sexton as president it announced: "He will be a tremendous asset to our operation going forward."
I want to know, guys, about your races going backwards.
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.
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)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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).
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
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.
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 Newsdiscusses "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 Onlinewrites: "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.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
