Tears Before Graffiti

Standing in front of a profane backdrop created by her own campaign, an emotional Annette Bosworth condemned criticism of her...in a free-wheeling news conference Tuesday (May 27, 2014). [Source: Bosworth Condenms Mysogyny]

Annette Bosworth, the Republican canddate for South Dakota, designed her own backdrop as she stood before reporters to make a press conference. As she talked, she started to choke, and hold back tears. The reason? She was "bullied" online and called all kinds of names.

This is the woman who has a website called GiveEmHeckAnnette.com.

Yet, some name calling by anonymous commenters on internet sites is enough to reduce her to whimpers.

To make her appearance more effective at the press conference, she designed a graffiti of the names she was called, and posted it as a backdrop to her press conference. This actually makes me think that all of this was planned to elicit "sympathy," rather than denounce "haters" on the internet.

Imagine Bush, Reagan, or even Clinton (Mr.) complaining that people were writing hate mails which were published in newspapers or internet sites? They would be a laughing stock, and comedians would have (even more of) a field day.

But, so far as I know, the comics have left Bosworth alone.

And she's running for politics? What happens when the North Koreans, or the Chinese, start moving in on America and the West. How about Muslims saying the West is evil and not Allah's desires, and should be removed from the face of the earth? Would she start crying then?

I think she's actually unstable. She has videos where she looks like a cocky cheerleader, and she vacillates from chirpy to manic during her press conference .

So, that still begs the question: Is this a woman able to run a country, let alone a state?

"The misogyny is real," Bosworth said. "Go to the shootings in California. Look around. South Dakota is not unique. Our country has a problem."

Yes, equate the name-calling with people dying!

I had people send me emails calling me racist a while ago. It was a bit of a shock at first, but then I found a solution. I told them that if I heard anything more, I would track down their emails, and report them to the Human Rights Commission. I played them at their own game.

That stopped them!

This site has excerpts from Bosworth's press conference, as well as the full 22-minute video.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Those Canadians!

Of Geese and Dandelions
[Photo by: KPA]

Here's a photograph I took of a couple of Canada geese in a park area filled with dandelion heads.

I think there is a nest nearby. The goose closest looks like he's the male, on high alert, whose

...black bill has lamellae, or teeth, around the outside edges that are used as a cutting tool...
Male Canada geese can be very aggressive they will often attack predators with their wings and bill.
[Source: Canada Goose - Branta canadensis].

The male and female have are very similar, with the main difference being the males are larger. They mate for life.

Apparently, they like to eat weeds, and dandelions are a favorite. Here's an explanation for their attraction to lawns:

Mowed lawns attract geese by providing nutritious, new grass shoots. Such landscapes also offer unobstructed lines of sight, allowing the birds to detect approaching predators from a distance, and enabling the birds to continue maintaining ties between parents and offspring.
[Source: Canada Goose Habitat Modification Manual (pdf file)]

And more information from the same source:

Many urban and suburban areas...were designed and constructed early in the twentieth century, long before resident Canada Geese were abundant birds. They contain landscape features ideally suited for these geese, such as a supply of fresh water, expanses of shortly-mowed lawn, an island with suitable nesting habitat, and sometimes people feeding Canada Geese and other waterfowl.

It's a strangely elegant bird. Its long neck is incongruous with it squat body, and it waddles on its flat, webbed feet. But its black and white neck, with the grayish brown body makes it stand out from a distance. And don't get caught in a gaggle fly over, with a burst of loud honks!

listen to ‘Canada Geese flying North for the Summer’ on Audioboo

Call of the Wild
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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White Flowers

[Photo By: KPA]

I tried to find the name of these tiny white roses, which grow on a small tree, almost a bush. There is a cluster of five or six per stem. They have a delicate rose scent, and the larger ones have edges which have turned slightly pink, although that could be due to age. The leaves are much larger than the flowers, and act as a backdrop to these clusters of tiny roses.

I was taking the photograph as a gust of wind started to blow. I waited for a reprieve, which came, but didn't last long. I had to, at some point, just take the shot. The slightly out-of-focus effect is really the movement of the bush caused by the wind, not my camera technique! (notice that the flowers on the top, thick branch are in focus). But I like the impressionistic effect.

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Neat, Precise, Inventive: Canada's Culinary Expert

Christine Tizzard's Best Recipes Ever

If you want to know who is the new Martha Stewart (of cooking at least), here she is:

Christine Tizzard, who has a daily 1/2 hour show on the CBC's Best Recipes Ever.

She is neat, precise, efficient, and creative. These are hard traits to combine. Her daily shows are posted on the CBC's Best Recipes Ever site, if you want to watch her in action.

She talks about her family, talks her way (a little too much, I have to say) through the food preparations, and gives us recipes on a daily basis. And lots of tips. She also has a weekly column in Canadian Living magazine.

Like Martha Stewart, she started her media career as a beauty pageant contestant. She's also acted in a couple of films. But, she realized her potential and went to George Brown College, the local Toronto college, to study culinary arts (cooking), and came out with a new vocation.

The Canadian media tries to glamorize her. This article says she's married to a "rock star." But, I've never heard of him. It's better to call him a musician. And for her to stick to her cooking, which looks like the more lucrative option.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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"Mustn't offend? Mustn't offend? That was more important than saving the blessed beauty of our lost civlization...?!"

Kamāl ud-Dīn Behzād, c. 1450 – c. 1535
Persian
Advice of the Ascetic, c. 1500-1550

Diana West eloquently puts Islam into perspective with the beginning lines of her recent article: Report from the Future: The Umma States of America:

Imagine a curious soul or two in the not-too-distant future furtively peeling back the layers and learning the cruel truth: that their forbears willingly exchanged all of their precious liberties for tyranny rather than assess and educate and protect themselves against Islamic conquest -- violent, pre-violent, smooth, explosive, financial, political, kafiyya-wrapped or Armani-suited...They will be astonished, also very angry, over the way free men and women in 20th-21st centuries saw fit...to erect a massive and invasive security state that robbed all citizens of their liberties as they fiddled away the Islamic threat. Mustn't offend? Mustn't offend? That was more important than saving the blessed beauty of our lost civlization...?!

Perfect. We try to sympathize with the Islam that we think we can sympathize with. Mine would be the Armani-suited, although I would paraphrase it with the "Islam that attempts to take example from the beauty it finds in the countries it takes over."

I used to have Iranian friends in university. I found their language beautiful, unlike the harsh guttural sounds of Arabic. We used to frequent a couple of Iranian restaurants, where we had dishes flavored with delicate herbs. And my Iranian friends knew about Paris and fashion, although they were careful since those were the days of the Shah's demise and the start of the Iranian revolution, and any Iranian flaunting her assets would be suspect.

But, every single one of them chose their Islam, and their culture, over the Western culture from which they were getting so much. One girl had a terrible time though, louder than her well-mannered friends. She was clearly rebelling. But they put up with her, and protected her. The men, who looked so modern and were so gentlemanly, would marry women they hardly knew, through arrangements made by their families. One married a girl at least eight to ten years his junior, who was into mini-skirts and shaggy hairstyles. During their engagement, he was the model of tolerance and care, letting her go to dance clubs (with him of course). After their marriage, he graduated and they left, so I never knew what became of her.

At one time, I used to to go to every Iranian movie that came out. I even knew the directors, and would look for their new releases. The regular film festivals (the Toronto International Film Festival here in Toronto) used to have whole sections on Iranian films. But, the theme of these films was always the same: the culture of Islam, one way or another, approved or not by the filmmaker, would dominate. The filmmakers were so adroit at going around the restrictions and censorship that are part of Islamic society, that their very endeavor was artistic.

In an article about Muslim women, I describe a video installation by an Iranian woman. I write, taken in by the poetry of her images:

Iranian-American artist Shirin Neshat’s video installation "Rapture" shows a group of women traversing a long empty beach with a row boat anchored at a distant shore. The women reach the boat amid ululations. Their long black chadors get caught in the water and the wind. Only a few can board the boat while the rest push them out into the open seas.

Neshat’s women have now reached our shores.

[...]

Another striking video by Shirin Neshat is of a singer. Muslim women are not normally allowed to perform before an audience, but this woman circumvents that order by singing into an empty hall. Her Western film audience is as symbolically absent as are her barred Muslim followers. We cannot understand what she is singing while watching the footage, and they are unable to hear what she’s singing for their absence in the auditorium.

In the end, our attempts at understanding may ultimately be in vain. Even Muslim women cannot clearly articulate, and listen to, their own quandaries and dilemmas.

And it is the same now. As West writes, it is irrelevant the form in which Islam is presented to us, its end game is always the same.


Rapture, 1999
Shirin Neshat [Links to biographical information]
Iranian

Rapture is a two-channel video projection divided down gender lines. The male protagonists of the narrative are projected on the left wall of the gallery, the women on the right (Neshat exploited this binary technique in a series of films made in the late ’90s, like “Shadow Under the Web” of 1997, “Turbulent” of 1998 or “Soliloquy” of 1999). This binary formulation is stressed by the artist’s stark use of black and white (down to the actors’ clothes — women in black veils and robes, men in white shirts and black trousers). The viewer, meanwhile, is right in the middle, confronted with the constant dilemma of where to focus her attention; she can’t fully grasp the action in one scene without turning her back on the other. [Synopsis source]

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Memorial Day

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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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Rural Ontario

Ontario is a strange province. Probably all of the Canada is the same with an uneven amalgam of rural, urban and farmland.

Below, alongside a busy highway, are some houses reminiscent of the old, Victorian era Ontario.

I took photographs of these fascinating buildings, quietly standing and holding their diminished ground, showing us some of this historical Ontario. It is difficult to get to the buildings, but buses do have stops in front of them, although cars have to make a purposeful detour to get to them. Traffic is heavy, with short reprieves from traffic lights which change to red after several minutes' wait.

The William Chisholm House, which is officially known as the Gardner-Dunton House, according to this site is:

Title: Gardner-Dunton House, Britannia
Date Built: Before 1832
Subject: Historic buildings - Ontario - Britannia (Mississauga)
Donor: Planning & Heritage, Community Services
Location: 5520 Hurontario Street, pt. Lot 3 E1/2, Conc 1 WHS

Description: 5520 Hurontario Street. Conc 1 WHS, pt. Lot 3 E¿. Probably built prior to 1832 by William Chisholm, perhaps before Chisholm sold the surrounding land to Joseph Gardner in 1832 for £750. The house, a two-storey, five bay facade Georgian structure, was originally located one mile north on Hurontario Street, but was moved in 1990 to the Peel Board of Education property. Designated under the terms of the Ontario Heritage Act. This is a 1995 photo of the house in its new location.

Here is the screen shot of the house from Google map:



The building is in a field (I don't think it is farmland), a short distance from the city of Mississauga. The high rises can be seen nearby.

Here is my version of the building, with tulips:


William Chisholm House, Mississauga Ontario
[Photo By: KPA]

The building, as far as I can decipher, is now a designated "heritage" building, and is open for public viewing. It is part of the Peel Board of Education, which I suspect is because there is a public school named after Chisholm, in the Peel school district.

This same bus goes further north, and passes another "heritage" building, also in the middle of a field. I once again go off the bus, to see the building.

The door was locked, but there was a group of children playing in the background. I asked the gentleman who seemed like the supervisor if the building was open for public viewing.

No, it is only open on the week-ends, he said.

"How did you get here?" he asked.

"I was on the bus and I got off to see if I could get find out more about the building."

"Well, I can show you in," he said.

So I got a private tour.

The building is a one-room schoolhouse, which was functioning as such until the 1950s.


Britannia One-Room Schoolhouse
[Photo By: KPA]

Here I am, a good teacher, at the front of the classroom, and sitting down, "a good student" as I said to my guide.


Britannia Schoolhouse Interior


Britannia Schoolhouse Interior

The gentleman told me that a group meets regularly to maintain the heritage of the region, and asked me if I would like to join the Friends of the Schoolhouse.

"Definitely," I said. And took down the information to attend their upcoming meeting.

Here is the site with the information:

The Britannia Schoolhouse.

As well as membership information, the site has fascinating documents, photographs, architecture, and other information describing Ontario in the Victorian era. There is a section called "Fun and Games" which shows how these young children amused themselves as they went through their school days. In the "links" section, there is a long list of Ontario one-room schoolhouses.

And here is more on heritage buildings in the Mississauga area, which also includes the Chisholm House:

Architectural Styles in Mississauga.
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Posted By: Kidist P. Asrat
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