Monday, February 18, 2013

New Web Project: Reclaiming Beauty: Please Donate Using the Payapl Button On the Right


Garden in the Cloisters , New York
Discussed in: Garden Guide: New York City pp. 33-37
Cloisters Flowers
[Photo by KPA, August 2012]


I have started a new web project, which I've titled "Reclaiming Beauty."

In the "About" section, I've described it thus:
This is a site which aims to reclaim beauty. It is a group effort, with the vision that it becomes a movement.
Please take a look, make a comment, pass on an idea. Join us.

Sunday, February 10, 2013

"This is complete system failure and I’m going to get to the bottom of it."


The program Face the Nation interviewed Senator Lindsey Graham this morning about withholding the nomination for the CIA directorship from John Brennan, and the confirmation as secretary of defense of Chuck Hagel until more information is provided about what happened at Benhazi.

Below are quotes from the video (posted above) on Graham's position:
I don’t think we should allow [John] Brennan to go forward for the CIA directorship, [Chuck] Hagel to be confirmed as secretary of defense, until the White House gives us an accounting. Did the president ever pick up the phone and call anyone in the Libyan government to help these folks? What did the president do?
He continues:
I don’t know what the president did that evening. I don’t know if he ever called anyone. This was incredibly mismanaged. And what we know now — this seems to be a very disengaged president. What did he do that night?
This was incredibly mismanaged. What we know now seems to be a very disengaged president.
And
This is complete system failure and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.
The president was just disengaged and the Department of Defense never launched one airplane to help these folks for seven-and-a-half hours. This is complete system failure, and I’m going to get to the bottom of it.

The above image is of President Barack Obama at a Press Briefing in the White House on Tuesday, Feb. 5, 2013. He looks as though he hasn't had a full-night's sleep, with red, blood-shot eyes and blue, heavy lids. I wonder what is keeping him up? The Narcissist/Revolutionary-in-Chief is probably more running scared than dwelling on any guilt.

Improving the Name of the "Beauty" Site "To Reclaiming Beauty"

I have reconfigured my website on beauty and called it "Reclaiming Beauty." Our current situation is more dire than appreciating beauty. We have to reclaim it from the nihilistic, anti-beauty climate that is percolating in our culture. Please support this initiative.

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

I am raising funds to initiate my project "Reclaiming Beauty."

Please use the most convenient method to submit the funds:
- Contact me by email, and I can send you my mailing address
- Contact me by email, and I can send you information for direct deposit into my bank
- Use a secured Paypal deposit method by linking to the Donate button on the side

Thank you in advance for your interest.

I will send a gift, from my own "Trillium Series" designs, for the corresponding contributions:


$20 - Brooch/Button


$35 - Note Cards (Pack of ten)


$55 - Mug


$75 - Tote-Bag


$100 - Wall Clock

Saturday, February 9, 2013

Fundraiser for New Project "Reclaiming Beauty"

I am raising funds to initiate my project "Reclaiming Beauty."

Please use the most convenient method to submit the funds:
- Contact me by email, and I can send you my mailing address
- Contact me by email, and I can send you information for direct deposit into my bank
- Use a secured Paypal deposit method by linking to the Donate button on the side

Thank you in advance for your interest.

I will send a gift, from my own "Trillium Series" designs, for the corresponding contributions:

$20 - Brooch/Button


$35 - Note Cards (Pack of ten)


$55 - Mug


$75 - Tote-Bag


$100 - Wall Clock

Friday, February 8, 2013

Male Politicians Kissing Female Politicians


Laura Wood, at The Thinking Housewife, has a post up which she has titled:

When Did Political Figures Start Kissing Each Other?

I think the more accurate question for the corresponding images is:

"Why are male politicians kissing female politicians?"

The two photos Laura has posted are of male politicians kissing female politicians. She has captioned the photos thus:

- "Interior Secretary Nominee Sally Jewell kissing Outgoing Secretary Ken Salazar"

[It is actually the other way around.]

- "Sally Jewell hugging Obama."

[I would venture to say that it is Obama who "initiated" the hug, and Jewell happily responded.]

I think it is a residue of the male instinct to protect females. It is like the combat zone modern-day American soldiers who run after female soldiers trying to save them.

It is also the new era of male politicians kissing their wives in public, and gripping onto their hands as they approach those intimidating crowds and podiums. Romney does it, Obama does it. How about Hilary? It is Bill who does the kissing, even if his wife is politically more important than him.

Former President Bill Clinton introduces,
and kisses, his wife,
Former - through resignation -
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton
before her speech at the Clinton Global Initiative
on September 24, 2012.


Male politicians know that politics, like war, is a deadly game. They must instinctively realize that these women are in the line of fire, from voters, from fellow-politicians, and definitely from rivals. Seeing a woman, a matronly, grandmother-type woman, a young, attractive female, or anything in between, will spark their protective instinct.

Of course, in this era of equality, females will go to the end demanding equality, and believing they have achieved it in these moments of high-level assignments. Yet, if the male chauvinism (the kind, protective type) were removed, they would be in the combative fray, like the men, and wouldn't be able to handle it.

In the photo, Obama looks on benevolently and approvingly. Would he have that same expression if the two protagonists were male, and were just (normally) shaking hands? I don't thinks so.

Of course, this is another, documented, visible, reason for not giving females prominent political positions. Their vulnerability will distract some (most?) men.

Thursday, February 7, 2013

The Convoluted Mind of Equality Seekers

View of Museum Gustavianum in Uppsala
Artist, Johan Gustaf, 1756-1820
8 (H) 14 (W) cm (sheet)
Watercolor on paper
[Image Source
]

The Swedish newspaper which Lars Hedegaard edits, Dispatch International, is temporarily open for the public, without the required fee-paying access. This is to give us a glimpse of Hedegaard's work. Hedegaard is president of the Danish Free Press Society, a branch of the International Free Press Society. I have met Hedegaard twice. Once on a trip to New York to participate in IFPS activities, and another time at a lecture in Toronto.

Hedegaard was recently attacked by an "Arab looking" man. As Diana West recounts, a gunman posing as a deliveryman [it looks like a mail delivery to me] shot Hedegaard on his doorway, but missed. What kind of shooter misses at such close proximity to his target? Nonetheless, no-one is reporting that this "Arab looking" man is a Muslim assassin. Hedegaard is a vocal critic on immigration, and especially immigration of Muslims. He was convicted of hate speech in Denmark, but was acquitted. He lives under the constant threat of assassination like his fellow-Dane cartoonist Kurt Westergaard.

Dispatch International has an interesting article on one of its pages (I have reproduced the full article below, but here is the link).
Miserable Swedish skills at the universities
Artilce by Maria Calendar

Gloom and despair rule among the university lectures in Sweden. The language skills of the students are so bad that it is becoming hard, bordering on impossible, to conduct classes.

”Far too many of them simply do not understand what we are saying,” as nine historians of the universities of Uppsala and Linköping write in an opinion piece in the Swedish daily Uppsala Nya Tidning.

Sweden has dropped like a stone in all surveys of language skills conducted over the last 20 years. The alarms have been sounding for a long time, and the lecturers have requested effective reactions, but nothing has been done.

”The reason that we are going public with a verbal emergency call is that the students no longer have the required tool to even absorb humanist science: the language. The majority of the students coming to us from high school haves problems with the language,” the historians write.

Inger Enkvist, professor in Spanish at the University of Lund, knows the problem intimately. She has written several books and opinion pieces about it. In her latest book ”God och dålig utbildning – internationella exempel” (“Good and bad education – international examples”), as recently as last week, she again tries to make people aware of the issue.

"The problems are well-known to the lecturers, and all surveys point in the same direction. Among the skillful as well as among those having a harder time at school, Sweden stands out with declining reading skills, year after year," says Inger Enkvist to Dispatch International.

The problem has several roots, she thinks. One is the public perception of the teaching profession, which has declined so much that it no longer attracts inspired and ambitious teachers. Another is the laissez faire mentality of the 1960s and the 1970s, which provided evidence that no proficiency requirements are demanded of the pupils in primary school or in high school.

"If you merely show up, the demands are fulfilled. It is useless to discuss the quality of university education when the level of primary schools and high schools have been permitted to fall so drastically. It is not unusual that 8th grade pupils have entry-level reading skills. No single teacher can fix that at the university," says Inger Enkvist.

The attitudes of the students also leave a lot to be desired. Many exhibit what Inger Enkvist calls a “primary school mentality”, even at the university. They lie on the benches with their caps drawn down, they are insolent to the teachers, and they come and go as they please.

"It is all about rights, rights, not about the work they themselves need to do.
Effort and responsibilities. They are missing the basic insight that one cannot acquire knowledge without effort. Many students have an entirely flawed perspective."

Many students of immigrant background, young women in particular, are very ambitious and outshine their ethnic Swedish classmates in Swedish skills. But there is also a problem in that one can be admitted to the university by studying “Swedish as a secondary language” at high school. And even passing the mandatory language test to attend university is frequently not sufficient.

"The test is far below what is considered normal high school level. And the Swedish skills of the students are frequently too superficial, the language too simple, to work at university level," says Inger Enkvist.

The future looks gloomy, if one doesn’t urgently improve the Swedish primary and high schools, she thinks. Strengthen the position of the teacher and improve the image of studying, reintroduce discipline work habits and begin to making demands — these are all required actions.

Dispatch International has asked for comments from Minster for Education Jan Björklund, Liberal People’s Party, but his press secretary Eva-Marie Byberg declined the request.
Inger Enkvist, the Spanish professor cited in the above article, neglects to connect the dots. It is not Swedish students who are lacking in...Swedish. As Enkvist herself says: "[T]here is also a problem in that one can be admitted to the university by studying 'Swedish as a secondary language' at high school. And even passing the mandatory language test to attend university is frequently not sufficient."

Enkvist understands the problem is primarily a problem of poor Swedish comprehension from non-Swedish speaking students who haves somehow managed to infiltrate the university. But she throws into the basket: lazy (Swedish) students, insufficiently prepared (Swedish) high school students, unskilled (Swedish) teachers, the (Swedish) laissez faire mentality of the 1960s and 1970s. The blame falls squarely on the Swedish students. I.e. the native-born, white, non-immigrant Swedish. The ambitious immigrants, and especially those ambitious women immigrants, cannot be at fault and cannot be criticized.

I wrote above that Enkvist neglects to connect the dots. More precisely, Enkvist doesn't, cannot, connect the dots. To do so would be to declare that non-Swedish students perform worse than their Swedish counterparts. And that would be racist. And to add to this egalitarian mix (egalitarian for non-Swedes), Enkvist emphatically adds those ambitious immigrant young women (but which ones, and where?).

The university has a long and rich history. According to this site:
In 2007 the Museum Gustavianum celebrated its 10th anniversary. The Gustavianum building is much older. Some sections are from the Middle Ages. It is Uppsala University's oldest preserved building erected in large parts during the 1620s.

The name comes from Gustav II Adolf who donated funds and land for a new university building. Previously, the University was run in a house from
the Middle Ages south west of the Cathedral.
Contemporary view of the university
[Image Source: Dispatch International]


At some point, Westerners are going to have to realize that their countries are being hijacked as they watch, and that so-called representatives like Enkvist are giving them away without a struggle. At some point, Western dignity will have to be resotred.

Tuesday, February 5, 2013

"This Country Would Fare Better Without You"

[Image from VFR]

I've reproduced below the full article "Standard Lying Politician" from the View From the Right which was posted on VFR on February 3, 2013 (I got the title for this post from a comment I sent in response to the VFR article). I've included comments by readers, including mine.
STANDARD LYING POLITICIAN

Here is Obama engaging in a standard gesture of dishonest politicians: posing for a photograph of himself hunting or shooting at targets, so as to create an image of himself as pro-gun (not to mention as being a regular guy), when in fact he seeks to dismantle gun rights where they really matter: self-defense and resistance to tyranny.

Critics of this PR photo are quoted at length in the New York Post.

- end of initial entry -

February 4

James N. writes:
Anyone who has ever fired a shotgun knows that photo is a fake.
LA replies:
You’ve got to be more specific, monsieur.
James N. replies:
By the time hot gasses are leaving the muzzle of a gun, the equal and opposite reaction (recoil) is at maximum. No one can stand erect, with the comb of a shotgun too high on the shoulder, and not react to the huge force being exerted by the recoil.
LA replies:
And therefore? He was firing a blank?
James N. replies:
Could be a blank (I didn’t think of that), or Photoshop.
John writes:
Those of us who have fired shotguns know that Obama’s pose is an incorrect stand for shooting skeet. If Obama has just fired, why isn’t he showing recoil, such as the cheek wrinkled? The stock pressed into his shoulder? What is the puff of smoke to the right of the muzzle? In an article at American Thinker, an analyst who knows guns lists all the things wrong with the picture of someone who says he likes to go skeet shooting. The author concludes, “All in all, this was staged like everything else in President Obama’s life.”

More than 200 commented on the article. Many are experienced shooters quite critical of the picture and believe the picture was photoshopped.

On the other hand, Sarah Palin, a real woman, shows good form while teaching skeet shooting to her daughter Bristol. Mr. Obama shoots, like, well, Bristol Palin.
Kidist Paulos Asrat writes:
I think you are being generous towards Obama. The more I try to understand him, the more I realize that he is insidiously evil. He wants destruction, and destruction of the white West, in order to give us his utopia.

I think in this regard he is even worse than African black dictators, to whom he has been compared. You could say that black dictators were fighting their rivals, the whites, the best they know how. I don’t think they aimed to destroy their countries. And in some sense, in some historical sense, one could argue that the physical land was theirs.

Obama carries his blackness like some kind of yoke. But he is still an American. Even a black American ought to have some love and respect for his history and the people he lives alongside. The people who created the country in which he lives, and has prospered. Obama is set to destroy his rivals, cleverly and systematically. This means he is out to destroy whites, cleverly and systematically.

Why is he shooting that rifle? Why does he have to show us that image? I think he is running scared. I think he thinks that whites are beginning to see through him, and he has to appease them somewhat. But, it is probably too late for appeasement, and I personally think it is too late.

By the way, I know people like Obama. Black, non-white people who have an evil hate for whites, and who go out of their way to find any possible way to destroy them and their works. It is easier to get away with this in Canada because of the multicultural laws, and the Human Rights Commissions, which are another way of destroying whites. I always say to these people: “Just go back to where you came from.You don’t belong here. You don’t love the country, you don’t wish it well. It would fare better without you.”
LA replies:
I did not mean the description “standard lying politician” to be an exhaustive critique of Obama. I was merely speaking of this photograph. I agree with what you say about him.
Joe R. writes:
Kidist Paulos Asrat wrote:

“I always say to these people: ‘Just go back to where you came from. You don’t belong here. You don’t love the country, you don’t wish it well. It would fare better without you."

Oh dear. If she said that in the UK they would clap her in jail alongside Emma West.
--------------------------------------------------------

Actually, I've had emails calling me racist for saying these kinds of things. When this continued (and I realized it wasn't some kind of eccentric prankster) I went to the source of these emails, I found it to be a forum mostly frequented by Asians and whites.

Finally, I decided to give these cyber-terrorists their own medicine. I started to reply to their emails with:

"One more email from you and I will track down your identity and report you to the Human Rights Commission for racial harassment."

A report to the HRC by a non-white is taken very seriously. These people knew that, and I received nothing more from them.

I am watching PBS Pioneers of Television program as I write this post, and tonight's focus is The Miniseries. Roots is one miniseries being discussed. At the very end, one of the slaves, George says: "Kunta Kinte, he never forget where he come from. He never forget Africa."

Of course, this is said in the spirit of black racial pride, according to the film, but it speaks of the deep discontent blacks have in America. So I wasn't wrong, or callous, when I say: "You don’t love the country, you don’t wish it well.”

I would say the same to Obama, "You don’t love the country, you don’t wish it well." He cannot go anywhere though, so his dilemma, and his anger, is unresolvable, in his own eyes. I don't know what the solution is for people like Obama, whose deep set discontent is what a large majority of blacks feel. Perhaps humility is their only answer, not the forced and undignified humility that slaves suffered, but the humility that this is all in God's hands.