Hands On Dad

I watched the whole one hour and a half program "Obama Revealed: The Man, The President" on CNN last night. It was a great piece of propaganda, a well-crafted narrative of Obama through the years, with well-placed images and interviews of Barack-sympathizers. I'm sure we'll be getting a lot more of these docudramas of various lengths during the next few months.

I wanted to see how Obama behaved during his interview (it was interspersed throughout the program) with CNN journalist Jessica Yellin. Most of the time, Yellin had an adoring look on her face, even when she was getting "tough" on the President.

Obama had an odd expression of submissiveness and joviality, with a hint of uncertainty during one segment. I think none of these expressions are suitable for a president, and especially a president the rest of the world constantly has on its radar. The topic is his daughters and dinner with his family, after all, which is all the more reason he shouldn't be talking about "dinner at home."

Then, as though to make up for this "softness," he occasionally gets a hard glint in his eyes, which I've observed in other appearances. This is not the determined look of a world leader, but an strange, fascistic glint, with a thrust of his chin, which I call his "Mussolini chin," borrowing from another observer.


The above image is from a blog post I wrote on Obama's hard glint which becomes all the more apparent next to Eli Wiesel's suffering expression. I also add about Obama:

Yet, there is the vacant, frightened look in Obama's eyes on the picture on the left that I've often observed.

I found this part of the CNN interview fascinating (the link is a two minute clip from the interview). Most of the blogosphere seems to concur, although most likely for different reasons (i.e. what a great dad Obama is to find time out for his daughters at dinner time). The transcript follows below:

OBAMA: When we're in town here in Washington, in the evenings, 6:30, we want to be at the dinner table with our kids and I want to be helping with their homework. I think that's sometimes interpreted as me not wanting to, you know, be out there slapping back, and wheeling and dealing. It really is more to do with the stage we are in our lives.

YELLIN (on camera): If you're re-elected, your girls will be older. They'll probably have their own weekend plans. They might not want to hang out with mom and dad.

OBAMA: It's already starting to happen, yes.

YELLIN: Do you think you might do more outreach, what you call back slapping, with members of Congress?

Imagine the CEO of a company, or the principal of a school being asked "Do you think you might do more outreach when your daughters are older, and you don't have to be at the dinner table to hear about their day?"

Embarrassing, and embarrassing that Obama takes this question seriously.

I'm not sure what Obama is trying to convey with his statement "When we're in town here in Washington, in the evenings, 6:30, we want to be at the dinner table with our kids and I want to be helping with their homework." I don't believe that he really does show up for every dinner (even when he's not on an official trip or meeting) to be with his daughters at 6:30pm. Note his clever wording:

When we're in town here in Washington, in the evenings, 6:30, we want to be at the dinner table with our kids and I want to be helping with their homework.

Wanting to be there and being there are two different things.

And here is Yellin with Valerie Jarrett, who was also interviewed for the program:

YELLIN: Though being a family man isn't always an asset in office, it is a priority for the president.

JARRETT: Well, you have to remember, this is someone who grew up raised by a single mom and his grant parents whose family abandoned him and he's lived with that kind of missing piece in him. And at a very young age, he decided he wasn't going to be the kind of father he had. He wanted to be a present father.

Jarrett also says:

His father abandoned him, and he's lived with that kind of missing piece in him. At a very young age, he decided he wasn't going to be the kind of father he had. He wanted to be a present father.

I have a feeling that Michelle Obama tries to have a large say in "the family eating dinner together," which Obama then deftly overrules.

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Silence In Front Of an Atrocity Is Worse Than the Atrocity

I took the photo above in a subway station. It is right there, in our face, two lesbians having a moment. A match.com ad for gays and lesbians, right next to a run-of-the-mill ad for a bank (National Bank of Canada, to be exact). Actually, a run-of-the-mill bank ad for gays and lesbians - "Visit us and find your savings" it beckons. I sat down to contemplate this. Gays are boldly going where they've never gone before: into our daily lives, along our main streets, in schools, churches, television shows. A woman was sitting on the other side of the bench, and I said to her, "Can you believe that we have to look at this, on a subway ad?" I took a risk, but I decided that being quiet in front of this atrocity was worse than the atrocity.

Surprisingly (this is multi-culti Toronto after all) she agreed with me. "I keep my eyes averted, and try not to stand too close to the poster," she said. That looks like it could be difficult, since, unlike me, it sounded as if this was a regular subway stop for the woman.

The aggressive homosexual movement will never become mainstream. Toronto had the "Gay Pride" parade this past week-end, which takes over the whole downtown. As he had announced, Toronto's Mayor Ford did not attend. He "planned" his trip to coincide with his family holiday in the lake regions of Ontario.

Mayor Ford "homophobe." What else can he be?

Recently, the pathetic CNN "reporter" Anderson Cooper, with his adolescent giggle and "danger zone" reporting, melodramatically announced: "The fact is, I am gay." Who didn't know that? He never made a secret of his "orientation," talking about his boyfriend like a giddy girl. I think this "outing" is his paranoia, where he can sense the negative mood against homosexuals, and like a spoilt and stubborn adolescent (the mental state of all homosexuals?) insists that "this is what I am."

Anderson Cooper, Hero

The useless Main Stream Media (via the Daily Mail) puts its arm around his shoulder with:

Cooper's sexuality has long been an open secret in TV circles, but for him to state it publicly is a brave and bold move.

What chutzpah he has!

Other useless "journalists" are saying that he "came out" for the ratings. Why would he do that? It will probably bring down his ratings, since ordinary people are not sympathetic to open homosexuals, unless they are the semi-funny sitcom actors on Will and Grace (and it is not "the gays" who make that show but the two ditzy straight women Grace and Karen, with their perennial gaffes).

Grace and Karen, from the sitcom Will and Grace. Ditzy straight women,
just the right kind of female friends for gays, and the right kind of
characters to take the attention off the gays so that straight viewers,
mostly female, can watch a "gay" show.

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Fireworks Spectacular and Dismantling of a Society

Photo by: Katharine Egli/The Jersey Journal
[More photos of the fireworks here]

Whatever may be going on in America, it is still the greatest country in the world. The Fourth of July fireworks by Macy's, over the Hudson River, were the most spectacular I've ever seen. Of course I wasn't there, but NBC programmed the full hour live last night.

But one thought that came to mind as I watched the event was that in order to appease the masses, totalitarian regimes produce spectacle: through huge processions, displays of might with military marches, and various mind-numbing techniques like action packed films and streams of empty television shows. It is a strategy to wipe out people's thinking processes by a constant barrage of noise.

Perhaps Macy's planned this spectacle to quieten (however temporarily) the agitated mood in American politics, to distract the people, and to let Obama proceed with his dismantling of the fundamentals of the society.

Guy Debord, a philosopher whose book The Society of the Spectacle we studied during my film/photography studies, although a Marxist, understood this society of the spectacle, although he attributes it to capitalist societies. But socialists are even better at programming spectacles, often ignoring their bankrupt coffers to temporarily appease the masses.

George Orwell, another socialist writer, described the omnipresent telescreens in his novel Nineteen Eighty-Four which were used both for surveillance and as propaganda monitors on the citizens of Oceania.

These days, spectacle is presented through brilliantly orchestrated images right into our living rooms, via our television screens, now wider, bigger and better through High Definition technology, with cheap, made in China screens made available even for the poor proletariat.

Here is what Wikipedia writes about Orwell's telescreens:

Telescreens, in addition to being surveillance devices, are also the equivalent of televisions (hence the name), regularly broadcasting false news reports about Oceania's military victories, economic production figures, spirited renditions of the national anthem to heighten patriotism, and Two Minutes Hate, which is a two-minute film of Emmanuel Goldstein's wishes for freedom of speech and press, which the citizens have been trained to disagree with.

Home monitors as surveillance isn't so farfetched anymore. Already, it is easy to monitor the internet "history" of a computer, and to collect data on the internet user.

From World Net Daily:

The Barack Obama administration has announced plans to lift a government ban on tracking visitors to government websites, and potentially, collect their personal data through the use of "cookies" – an effort some suspect may already be in place on White House sites.

From Politico:

[A]ccording to a campaign official and former Obama staffer, the campaign’s Chicago-based headquarters has built a centralized digital database of information about millions of potential Obama voters.

More at Politico on the Obama Newspeak/Doublespeak:

"The Obama campaign has to confront the contradiction that the president talks about ‘timeless privacy values,’ and then, his campaign using contemporary digital tools to operate a stunning commercial surveillance system,” says Jeff Chester, executive director for the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Digital Democracy. “The idea that the Obama campaign can create a political dossier on you that they can act upon without asking permission first is outrageous."

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Falsely Beautifying Lesbians and Lesbianism

Happy, attractive lesbian couple with their "child"
[Image from Daily Mail]

The real look of lesbians:
Cynthia Nixon (left) from the sitcom Sex and the City with
her lesbian "partner" at their "wedding" photo

The Daily Mail has an "article" titled Children of same-sex couples 'at higher risk of depression and social issues as adults' - but experts say new study is flawed.

The lesbophilic media, although it appears to denounce lesbianism and homosexuality (the Daily Mail title does add 'at higher risk of depression and social issues as adults' in quotation marks, of course quoting the study it cites, but also washing its hands off any direct commentary on the subject), ultimately sides with this deviant sexual behavior, and even promotes it in many small (and large) ways.

Part of the media's problem is that the ordinary people it caters to don't believe in mainstreaming homosexuality, but will be entertained by charming characters on TV and movies (and attractive couples in magazines).

Take the characters in Will and Grace, that sitcom which ran successfully for years, with several awards under its belt. The main character is a smart gay lawyer, whose "best friend" is a ditzy straight female, whom he protects and advices through her financial, career and love lives. Enter his real side-kick, the bumbling gay man who always screws everything up (no pun intended). There is also a glamorous, highly sexualized female "friend" of the stupid gay character (who will sleep with any male), who is full of charming superstitions, loves her gay friend dearly, and will save him from his forays into self-destruction. She even tries to help the straight Grace to dress and act more feminine, in order to attract real men (not GBFs).

Both straight women have mini-affairs with other women despite their strong insistence that they are straight. The gay men never have any sexual relations with women.

A show with gay men who have straight women friends (who occasionally sleep with other women) of course attracts the main demography that would watch shows like this: straight women who see nothing wrong with befriending gay men (and occasionally sleeping with other women?). Will and Grace simply glamorizes it.

So, TV shows, magazine spreads, famous homosexual couples appearing in all kinds of public venues, do influence ordinary women (it seems more women are influenced than men by this) to "experiment" with this kind of sexual behavior. Some even commit to life, once they've crossed that line.

The majority of ordinary (i.e. non-Hollywood) "out" lesbians I see, and even those I suspect are lesbians, never look glamorous and attractive, like "occasional" lesbians Karen and Grace, or those depicted on most movies. Once ordinary women decide to enter (with a slim chance of exit) this kind of "life style," the odds are that they will be living their lives in the peripheries, forever warding off the disapproval, and often rejection, of their friends, family and society. There is nothing glamorous about a real-life lesbian.

The media may have brought homosexuality into the "mainstream," but people still find (and I think will always find) this behavior abhorrent, however they may try to cover up their repulsion with superficial "tolerance" (i.e, in order not to get fired from their jobs, or have the various Human Rights Commissions make life hell for them, etc.).

Of course, with adoption and IVF birthing methods, "children" of these pairings are the most vulnerable in many ways. They have no developed intellect with which to discredit or reject the behavior, and they have direct emotional entanglements in the guise of "mothers" and "fathers."

Firstly, they are forced, against all nature, to accept these unions. Second, they miss out on mothers or fathers, whichever the union they have been stuck with has deprived them of. Third, they will grow up to be psychologically confused, forever in search of the mother or father of which they have been deprived. Fourth, they will blame these "parents" who forced them into these unnatural family roles. Fifth, the consequence of all this psychological trauma cannot really be predicted, except that we now have citizens of our countries who don't have a "straight" grasp of life, its meanings and its worth, and they have to make it up as they go along.

Do we want people like this around?

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Afros For the Revolutions

Angela Davis' afro is now just a fashion statement for the unrevolutionized modern black women, who colors it red or blonde, depending on her mood
(and her song).

Left:Davis in prison in 1972 being interviewed for the Swedish documentary
The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-75
Middle: Pop/jazz singer Esperanza Spalding
Right: Beyoncé! in the movie Austin Powers

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PBS had a documentary titled: The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-1975, which I thought was on black music of this period, so I tuned in to listen to post-60s black music and instead I was viewing the Revolution Being Televized.

What I found the most fascinating about this documentary on the Black Panthers was Angela Davis. She looked beautiful with her full head of afro, and her surprisingly mild voice (even when she gets into her speeches, she seems to lament rather than yell).

Of course, she went on trial for murder and served 18 months in prison. Once out, she resumed pretty much a middle class black life, teaching in a university, which was pretty much her family's black middle class background when she was growing up in Alabama. Her parents were university graduates, and both teachers at one time. She is now a professor in a respectable university, although she can't keep away from "revolutionizing" and teaches in the "Women's and Gender Studies" department at Syracuse University.

What happens to a Black Panther at middle age? She lives a safe middle class life (albeit tinged with memories of exciting revolutions), in an all-American university town.

Davis isn't quite that bland a middle class. Her biography states that she is a lesbian. But, aren't homosexuals the most conventional of couples these days, where so many of their "rights" have been recognized, and they no longer need their exciting revolution?

Below is photo of a 68-year-old Davis taken this year. What happened to that strong, fearless face, with the bold features? And where did the fist go? So much for revolution.

Professor Angela Davis giving a lecture on
"Feminism and Activism" and "how far we have come
and how far we have not come" on February 7 2012.
The revolutionary fist thrust in the air to fight
the racist system is replaced with a gentle raise of a
hand to make a point within the safeguards of that system.
And going blonde helps?

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References:

Wikipedia biography on Davis
Review of The Black Power Mixtape: 1967-75

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Admitted Mass Murderer

Diana West has her insightful and informative article on Breivik, The Shameful Spinning of the Norway Massacre, at her website. She writes:

On Tuesday, I read a New York Times online report about a press conference held by Geir Lippestad, the defense lawyer for admitted Norwegian mass murderer Anders Breivik.

I wish she had written "confessed" instead of "admitted," or left "admitted" out altogether until Breivik does confess, in the manner I outline below. I wish she had been strong enough (as I was, in my humble capacity as an unknown blogger, where I simply write, with no qualifier here: "[T]he Norwegian murderer went on his rampage on the Utoye island summer camp." We know he's a mass murderer. We don't need (or require) his admission.

And Breivik is not admitting that he likes coffee, or that he vacations at those lovely Norwegian fjords. Anyone can admit anything (usually trivial). What we require now is a confession, a court-of-law confession of guilt. A confession is heavy-handed. It is the seal of recognizing, at least in front of a judge and jury and the public, that one's behavior is bad enough (horrific enough, as in Breivik's case) to warrant a public prosecution.

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Julia Robers neither Eats, Prays nor Loves

Julia "eating?" 
[Image downloaded from Elle.com.
You can view the slide show at Elle.com]

I recently typed down the National Post's funny take on Eat, Pray Love - an Oprah Book Club selection, and now a movie featuring Julia Roberts.

Here is a synopsis of the film at imdb.com:

Liz Gilbert (Roberts) had everything a modern woman is supposed to dream of having - a husband, a house, a successful career - yet like so many others, she found herself lost, confused, and searching for what she really wanted in life. Newly divorced and at a crossroads, Gilbert steps out of her comfort zone, risking everything to change her life, embarking on a journey around the world that becomes a quest for self-discovery. In her travels, she discovers the true pleasure of nourishment by eating in Italy; the power of prayer in India, and, finally and unexpectedly, the inner peace and balance of true love in Bali.

Roberts is featured in the September 2010 issue of Elle Magazine, where she is photographed in various poses which are meant to signify her eating, praying, or loving. I don't think she does any of these. Love looks more like lust, and she is sitting on a kitchen table, obviously not eating, and looking gaunt and underweight. I may be harsh on the "pray" part. Julia (being a convert to Hinduism) clearly does pray...

So much for a movie and a movie star which are meant to be celebrating the simple things in life. Julia, in these photo shoots, demonstrates none of that joie de vivre which one would expect from a movie with such a title.

And for a character who is trying to return to the simpler things in life, all the dresses that Roberts is wearing in the ELLE photos cost thousands of dollars (OK, it is a fashion magazine). Still, she's wearing "her own rings," which I suppose includes her wedding ring. But, here's how she met her husband (from Wikipedia):

Roberts met her current husband, cameraman Daniel Moder, on the set of her movie The Mexican in 2001. At the time, Moder was married to Vera Steimberg Moder. He filed for divorce a little over a year later, and after it was finalized, he and Roberts wed on July 4, 2002, at her ranch in Taos, New Mexico. Together, they have three children, twins Hazel Patricia Moder and Phinnaeus "Finn" Walter Moder (born November 28, 2004) and Henry Daniel Moder (born June 18, 2007).

Anyway, here's what she's wearing in the above photo:

Cotton and lace dress, $4,795, silk and lace bodysuit, $1,295, both, Dolce & Gabbana, at select Dolce & Gabbana boutiques nationwide. Platinum and diamond bracelet, Bulgari, price upon request. Her own rings.

I guess one way for someone to recover from a divorce is to buy expensive clothes and go to India.

The frightening thing about this movie is that it is a memoir. In other words, it is supposed to be a true story (the expensive clothes and jewelery are the creative license of the director, I presume). And, as I mentioned above, it is given the full force of Oprah's approval.

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Feminine Feminists

How modern women compete

Laura Wood's website at The Thinking Housewife has an interesting discussion on my two previous posts about women in powerful positions using their feminine assets to the extremes. Usually these women are in the entertainment/media fields. Although Sarah Palin, who seems to be an aspiring politician, also falls under this category.

Long, loose hair, enlarged breasts, ever-shortening skirts, ridiculously high heels, blonder hair, and make-up that is almost garish, seems to be characteristic of these women in positions of power.

I don’t think it is surprising that it is the "conservative" women of Fox News that have become these super women. Most conservative women do accept their femininity as apart and different from masculinity.

Yet, in any position of potential power, competition does come into play. And this competition is set by the best players in the field, who are men. Of course, the best way to compete is to get the job done better than your adversary. But surely, it must be tempting for these feminine women in the media, always in the limelight, to compete with their own specific weapons.

I think this is where all this ultra-femininity comes from. It is a feminized source of power, to gain the upper hand in this unfair competition. By using their feminine assets in full force, they can gain increased viewership, which increases their program’s ratings, which is ultimately what TV programs want. They are feminine feminists, at the end of the day.

There is definitely a streak of enhanced, aggressive femininity even in the ordinary world. I was recently testing a perfume at a department store. The young woman who was helping me declared that the one she recommends is "strong and feminine." Now, we’re talking about perfume here. Who wants a "strong" perfume? Feminine props have become weapons, not simply to enhance feminine attraction, but as a type of artillery.

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Look at My Hair

Hear Me Roar!

Wow! I decided to do some independent research on the long locks of anchoresses, and googled "fox news women" and this grid is what I got.

Now, when I was talking about Ann Coulter's blonde tresses in my previous post, I was reacting purely to her hair, which is even more spectacular than these Fox News women's in its length and even blondeness. I think I've watched Fox News a couple of times. Here in Canada, we have to especially subscribe to Fox News, outside of cable, so I don't bother with it.

I've heard the hype of these Fox Blondes, but I've never heard anyone talk about how long their hair is, and how "unstyled" it is. Look especially at #s 1, 3, 7 and 9. I would imagine as they talk, and some of them look like pretty impassioned women, their hair would sway around and cause quite a commotion. How can anyone watch them say serious things without getting distracted with all that hair? Incredible.

Back to Ann again. She really is the epitome of the Conservative Fox News Woman, isn't she. Her hair is longer and blonder than any of these women. Plus she obviously leads in other points, like she is probably much smarter, and she also wears shorter skirts, and has a louder voice.

It’s like the incrediblely high heels that women are wearing these days. More than five inches high seems to be the fashion! Complete insanity. I think, like all these overgrown blonde locks, it is a way of women saying: We are women, we are strong, we have our own feminized power, WE CAN ROAR!

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Sex Scandal, Toronto Style

Where marriage is irrelevant

Adam Giambrone announcing his entrance
into the mayoral race, with his "live-in partner"
Sarah McQuarrie by his side.

One of Toronto's mayoral candidates has left the race because of a "sex scandal."
This is how the CBC puts it:

Adam Giambrone, Toronto Transit Commission chair and one-time mayoral hopeful, recently confessed to several intimate relationships with women other than his live-in partner of several years. The admission preceded Giambrone's decision to drop out of the mayoral race.

Now, isn't this person living in sin anyway with his "live-in partner?" What difference does it make how many trysts he has had, and with whom?

It is no longer, "The wife who stands by her cheating husband" but, "The live-in partner who will make the best of the situation, despite the shock and
disappointment that she is not the only woman he is sleeping with, and hopes he will put a ring on it ASAP." Poor Sarah McQuarrie.

Of course, in a country where marriage is no longer a sacred, spiritual (and by that I mean Christian) union of man and woman, where gay marriage is legal, faithfulness can be measured with any kind of stick.

The examples of cheating politicians the CBC gives are of men with wives, not men with "live-in partners." This is the first that I've heard of this. Propriety à la Canadian liberal.

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Still a No for Palin's Book

After reviewing two more reviews

A couple of days ago, I commented on the shallowness of Sarah Palin's book, where I deduced from reading reviews and articles that it doesn't tell us much about her political ideas, philosophies and future aspirations.

Here is a very good article at Pajamas Media (what kind of name is that!) where Rick Moran voices my concerns.

At another post, I talked about Peter Brimelow of Vdare commenting that he was "impressed," but all he provided was a quote from the book. Recently, he has written a full op-ed (a rambling 1,700 words) on the whole book, and he couldn't convince me of the impressiveness of the book. In fact, he says very little about the book (is that because it has very little content?), and devotes his article to trying to explain the Palin phenomenon.

Some clarification. I mention Brimelow and Vdare because they purport to be some sort of conservative site which is fighting for national integrity (mostly through immigration restriction). So their opinions should have some weight, more so than other sites. I find in this article, that it isn’t necessarily so.

Mainly Brimelow reiterates that Palin’s appeals to the public is her small town, gun-toting, blue-collar, church-attending background, with a son in the military.

Brimelow writes sympathetically about Palin's resignation from Alaska's governorship. I remain skeptical. Politics is a grueling game. If she can't handle the fight up there in Alaska, how does she think she can take on Washington?

Brimelow makes too much of Palin's understanding of the mortgage induced recession. From the quotes Brimelow provides, Palin never connected this with minorities. Whether she's being politically correct or she's unable to see it, it is still an important omission on her part.

Since Vdare is dedicated to immigration restriction, of course Brimelow has to bring up Palin's position on immigration. He writes "The issue is completely unmentioned in Going Rogue." Yet, didn't her presidential candidate team member have a strong position on immigration, going for the "comprehensive immigration reform" platform? How could Palin leave this crucial national issue "completely unmentioned?"

To make up for this, Brimelow resorts to a November 17, 2009 Rush Limbaugh interview of Palin where he asks her about immigration. Palin mentions border security briefly - but doesn't elaborate on "comprehensive immigration reform" that McCain was so adamant about. Either she doesn't want to bring up the controversial issue, which might hurt her book, or she doesn't think it is important enough.

All-in-all, based on Brimelow’s long but insubstantial review, and Rich Moran’s much more lucid one, I will hold my original view that Palin’s book gives us nothing important about her politics, and I will refrain from buying it.

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Carrie Prejean's Simply Stated Truth About Marriage

Too much for the sophisticates

Is it now shameful to hold a Bible and
read from it in public, especially
if you are blonde and beautiful?

Carrie Prejean, the beautiful pageant participant who is caught up in her past errors and honest rebuttals said these simple, true and pure words about marriage at an ad campaign for the National Organization for Marriage:

Marriage is good. There is something special about unions of husband and wife. Unless we bring men and women together, children will not have mothers and fathers.

She has made some terrible choices in her young age. But, I have never heard an argument for marriage said in such a succinct way. Yes, unless we bring men and women together, children will not have mothers and fathers.

I guess this is too simplistic for libertarian sophisticates. I would think as someone of age to be at least a mother to this young girl, describing her as a cretin is particularly venomous on Mercer's part. I wonder why such disdain for the girl? I think Carrie's crime is her basic, unsophisticated Christianity - too much for this "rational" atheist. Perhaps Carrie struck a chord, like I think I did those emails ago when I challenged Mercer about nationality.

And what about Yeagley the conservative American Indian, who says white women are the most beautiful in the world, but when one stands in front of him, a little tarnished it is true, he seems to happily magnify the faults?

Hmmm, non-Christians, non-Westerners? I always find they come out with their own (pure) opinions, exactly describing their own backgrounds.

But, more to the point, if nitpicking adult pundits are not willing to help Carrie Prejean, a young woman caught up the world she has inherited from these adults, that is the tragedy. People should save their acerbic remarks for the old fogies who willingly commit their sins, not young women trying to expiate theirs.

Give the young a chance, and a helping hand.

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Carrie Prejean's Mission

To redeem herself and other "lost" girls

Carrie Prejean, the pageant model who was asked if she believed in same-sex marriage, and answered in front of millions of viewers that marriage is between men and women, has written a book about her ordeals.

She is a conservative Christian girl, twenty-two years old, and has already garnered her share of controversy. She has also become the target of hate and defamation by gays, liberals and non-Christians.

Her story is perhaps more ordinary than people realize. I think many young girls, when asked difficult questions about marriage, child bearing, abortion, having families, are actually more conservative than expected. I strongly believe that ordinary people intuitively (and practically) know that the sexes are different, marriage is an ancient tradition between men and women, abortion incurs life-long suffering, and families are the basis of society.

It is the incessantly human-hostile media and the elite liberal cabal who keep throwing contrary views out at us, and arranging society so that we have to obey and observe them.

Carrie's brave battle has another dimension. Like many young girls who are brought up on the pornographic entertainment media, she taped various "sex tapes" at seventeen, and sent them to her then boyfriend. These tapes of course became available once she got some fame. She said she sent them before she became a committed Christian, and that they are the biggest mistake of her life.

I don't know how far Carrie will go with her battle to redeem conservatism and Christianity, and herself. She is on a tall mission. She needs all the help she can get, in every way. Least of all not to get confused by the rampantly sexualized culture and the shamefully permissive churches into entering the traps of the evil liberal world.

Unlike the other "lost girls" of the cruel entertainment media, she understands that she needs a force bigger than her self-control to make it through this society as a young and attractive (although I say she is beautiful) girl. May God help her to overcome this, and to be a true model to all those girls searching for direction.

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Sarah, Oprah and Hillary

Let the battles begin!

Sarah Palin and Oprah will finally meet. Palin is scheduled to be on Oprah next Monday, but as always, these interviews are pre-taped and the "trailer" is circulating all over YouTube.

Palin has to address the "bad boy" Levi Johnston, the young man she groomed to comfort her daughter by allowing him to spend nights in her daughter's bedroom, and later on putting him on show as the fiancé at the Republican National Convention. Johnston is set to pose for Playgirl, and is threatening Palin with damaging information, and tells her to just "shut up."

This seems to be the tragedy of the modern family. Mothers who are unavailable, children running amok, out-of-wedlock (i.e. illegitimate) grandkids, and now rumors of divorce which Johnston says is an ongoing affair between Palin and her husband.

People will just say that is the cost of a woman running for public office. But is it really worth it? Has Sarah really something extraordinary to offer? We'll have to wait and see, but I think she (or more like her family) has paid too much for her ambitions.

Of course, I cannot avoid commenting on her appearance - public figures are shown no mercy in that regard. Sarah looks like an aging country music star on her interview with Oprah, with her big hair, over-done makeup and those glasses which give that air of sophistication which many older stars are now sporting. I never saw the beauty in her.

Now, someone who really has paid her dues, and who seems to be battling the callous Obama in her own capacity, is Hillary Clinton. It would indeed be a match to see the young and ruthless Palin against the seasoned and humbled Clinton in the next elections. But have we really come such a long way?

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Our Changing Landscape

New post on Arabic script on the front cover of Newsweek.

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Soft Lights and Animated Expressions With the CBC

Peter Mansbridge Interviews Obama

Low, warm lights. But body language is a little awkward.*

Obama first visit to Canada garnered the CBC's Peter Mansbridge the coveted pre-visit interview. It took place two days before the official visit while Obama was still at the White House.

An unusually animated Mansbridge, with a bemused Obama.

The normal face of Mansbridge, this time with Liberal leader Michael Ignatieff.*

*Screen shots from youtube videos [1, 2]

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The People's Baby

Bristol Palin and her baby's photo will grace People Magazine

Jamie Lynn Spears (sister of Britney Spears),
an unwed mother starlet. She and Bristol Palin
are now becoming role models for young girls.

Bristol Palin's new baby will compete with any celebrity birth, and find his way on the covers of People Magazine - for a price. It is just like I predicted. Hollywood is interested in this new addition to its roster of young, famous, teenaged, unmarried mothers and their babies. This just adds more fuel to its industry, which has now been subsisting on the atrocious (I call them deeply sad) antics of its stars from teenagers to young adults.

Of course, my advice to the Palin family would have been to ignore the People offer (reportedly of $300,00) and to lie low and let the illegitimate baby get legitimized as soon as possible (if possible.) Sarah Palin did say on her website: "Isn’t it just like God to turn those circumstances into such an amazing, joyful blessing when you ask Him to help you through?"

I'm not sure what she means by this other than that, yes, a baby is a miraculous event. But, here's more of what she says:

Bristol and Levi are committed to accomplish what millions of other young parents have accomplished, to provide a loving and secure environment for their child. They are both hard workers, they’re very strong, and have faith they’ve made the right decision in setting aside their own interests to make this child their highest priority.

Setting aside their own interests to make this child their highest priority? Isn't that what having babies is all about? And does it bear mentioning, unless, of course, it wasn't their highest priority to begin with, or not a priority at all?

What a mess they have entered into. I just wish them all a quick recovery.

On another, but related, note here is one of Canada's fine "conservative" bloggers who mentions nothing about the strange lack of concern regarding the youth and singlehood of the baby's parents, and his illegitimacy. The post by Wendy Sullivan talks only of the strange name that the Palin family give their children. I'm sure Sullivan, who was also part of the "I am Sarah Palin" video, which outed a number of conservative women bloggers as, well, not conservative, would not approve of my take on this situation.

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Steyn has a new article on Little Mosque

And how it compares with mine

A commenter on my article over at the American Thinker posted that Mark Steyn had just written about Little Mosque as well. Steyn calls it The Little Mosque that Couldn't.

When I initially sent my article, the editor of American Thinker told me that his online journal had already covered this topic. I told him that mine was different. It wasn't a review of the show, but a description of what the show was doing culturally. To rephrase a running term, it is stealth culture, something that I have been noting for some time now at "Our Changing Landscape", and which I initiated with an article about two or three years ago called "Islam's Missionary Women", about high-ranking Muslim women in the West who are trying to change our society's rules and institutions to accommodate their version of Islam.

So, my observations that Muslims are surreptitiously "changing our landscape" and, as I saw it, our visual landscape, runs back a few years.

Now here is Mark Steyn's mildly hysterical descriptive review of this Little Mosque phenomenon. Just the kind of contribution the American Thinker wasn't interested in, having covered that angle about a year ago.

I call Little Mosque a phenomenon because unlike Steyn, I believe it is a Little Mosque that very much could. A show that is now available in 60 different countries, including France, Switzerland, Israel and Finland. And whose rights Fox Television has recently acquired to air an Americanized version.

As I write in my article, Little Mosque is now basically a franchise; its cast attend Muslim events, get interviewed by major Canadian television and radio channels apart from their patron the CBC, and raise awareness (and funds) for Islamic events. CBC does relentless ads for the show, which is actually tanking (500,000 viewers), but the ads alone give it a kind of brand name even for those who never watch the show. And I doubt the CBC will drop it. It's already in our psyche.

And all Mark Steyn can do is make jokes, along with a few grim, panic-stricken outbursts about real Imams declaring "I come to slaughter all of you." And even here, poor Steyn has to add his little joke, writing: "He meant it, but come on, you’d have to have a heart of stone not to weep with laughter."

Weep with laughter.

Plus, Steyn spends an inordinate amount of time criticizing the CBC, which no amount of complaints will change, so it all becomes an irrelevant exercise.

In any case, leaving aside all the puns and witticism (rather meek, in my opinion), Steyn ends off his string of quips with not a word on: So What?

Even in the first edition of my article, I write that this whole debacle may just be a problem of numbers. Unlike Steyn, I put a historical context to the problem saying that about 100 years ago, the first Muslim immigrants could have never gone this far (and never did), because there were too few of them. Now, instead of assimilating into our culture, Muslims are assimilating us into theirs, because "their large numbers [is] exempting them from assimilating into the dominant society". To reduce or even to eliminate the problem is to...reduce their numbers.

Here is a comment I most recently posted at the American Thinker, which is in line for approval by a moderator:

The only way to rectify this problem is to follow the example of the early immigration patterns (at the time of the Al Rashid mosque.) At that time, the small number of Muslims were forced to assimilate, and couldn't advance their culture and religion on to Canadians.

Now, we have to find ways to reduce at least the immigration numbers. By 2011, the number of Muslims is expected to reach 1.1 million (that of course includes those born here as well as new immigrants.) Our only reasonable recourse at this time is to reduce, if not issue a moratorium, on Muslim immigrants.

That is an important way our cultural symbols and institutions can be salvaged. The more Muslims there are, the less they will assimilate, and the more they will try (successfully) to assimilate us into their way of life.

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Damien Hirst

The show must go on

Left: Away from the Flock
Right: The Explosion Exalted

There is something really creepy about Damien Hirst. And it is really providential that his Sotheby's multi-million auction is taking place when markets around the world are reeling. Will anyone at Sotheby's stop and think?

I really don't have any gripes if wealthy art "connoisseurs" buy his rubbish by the billion dollars, but journalists who cover his periodic entry into the limelight should do so with caution and skepticism.

I realized how awful his work is when I tried to look at it with a cup of coffee in hand. I couldn't drink my coffee. All those dead animals soaked in formaldehyde.

But, beyond the visceral repulsion, Hirst is playing the perennial contemporary artist's game of acting god-like.

Many of his pieces are titled after Biblical or religious references. But with a twist. His most cynical piece "Away from the Flock" is of a sheep suspended in formaldehyde. This poor, dead creature which Hirst has hijacked and frozen for eternity in his glass prison reeks of Hirst's cruelty. Yes he may be god, but he is a bully to go with it. And think of the hundreds (thousands?) of dead butterflies he used to make his stained-glass imitation "The Explosion Exalted."

Closeup of butterflies used to
design "The Explosion Exalted"

Some writer said that he's running to the bank laughing. But I don't think so. There is something empty and nihilistic about his work, without any joy or uplifting quality.

But the best we can do is to expose him, whenever he pops up to make the headline news for a day or two.

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Tattoo Frenzy

And ring substitute

We were introduced to the Palin family penchant for tattoos when Levi Johnston was seen with Bristol's name inked (as Sarah Palin would say) on his ring finger. Tattoo experts say that it is not new, ( it was not a sudden job for the RNC) and implies his long-term seriousness and commitment to Bristol.

A similar tattoo story was disclosed in this video, where Sarah Palin mentions her son having acquired two. She lightly tried to dissuade him from getting them, but then was obliging (proudly so) because of their imagery - one of Alaska, another of the Fish for Jesus.

This reminded me of the strange moment in Dinesh D'Souza's book "What's so great about America", near the very end, when he talked about the great freedom of expression that America allows her citizens by, amongst other things, allowing youth to sport body piercings! So much freedom there!

But, Palin's disclosure was made in a church, after all. And tattoos are controversial amongst devout Christians, especially those that seem to take the word of God literally, as does her former church, the Assembly of God, where she gives this speech. She seems to have ignored the Leviticus 19:28 command: "You shall not make any cuttings in your flesh for the dead, nor tattoo any marks on you: I am the Lord. " And various New Testament verses including1 Corinthians 3:16 and 6:19 which talk about the body being the temple of God, and not to harm it.

I understand there is a certain working class valor to tattoos, especially with soldiers marines, construction workers and other rough trades. But, a tattoo is still a sign of rebelliousness, and I should add, uncouthness. It was surprising to hear conservative (or Republican) Vice President nominee Palin talk so freely of her son's tattoos in front of a group of young men in her church, presumably also conservative, just a short while before her selection as McCain's running mate. But then, since her son is so patriotically exhibiting Alaska, and devoutly displaying Christ, then there are a thousand reasons to excuse this breach. Just like what she's done with the story of her pregnant daughter.

I wonder how many other odd stories we will be privy to regarding Sarah Palin? It does seem, though, the real shockers are out of the way. Oh yes, there is that mention of her husband who is "often around the house." What a strange way for a man to spend his time, "often around the house." Isn't this a sign of the male who has relinquished, rather selfishly, the tedious (or is it exciting to Sarah Palin?) job of bringing home the bacon? How can one trust a family where the man is "often around the house?"

More stories like this, and the original explosive entry of Sarah into the public sphere begins to get dim. There really is something to the adage: look before you leap (or choose, in this case.)

Ilana Mercer writes about "The Talk" she gave her daughter at the appropriate age. She has linked to an eloquent article of hers about bringing back the word "bastard" and also the shotgun wedding, to spare families of a "deep, abiding, disgrace."

"But, on what basis?" I kept asking. Why shame and disgrace? What is shameful and disgraceful about having a baby, by any means: out-of-wedlock, artificial insemination, sperm donor? Mercer wasn't able to elucidate what principles render a bastard disgraceful.

And sure enough, Palin's soon-to-be grandchild who was conceived by a young unmarried couple, a situation Mercer apparently abhors, didn't deter her from writing this glowing article about Sarah Palin. (But Mercer makes a disclaimer in her original post, which neatly gives her the liberty to write the glowing article on Sarah's endless abilities.) Besides compartmentalizing Palin's personality, the cause of her accomplished political life on the effects of her daughter's personal life is thus cleverly avoided.

I could have predicted this capitulation. Basic issues like marriage, homosexuality, feminism, (and tattoos and body piercings!) take a back burner for modern people's infatuation with the latest drama. After all, the age-old stodgy caution and patience is a thing of the past. Palin showed us that when, instead of spending a few years with her family, house-cleaning - both literally and metaphorically - she opted for the immediate excitement of the game. And I would say that most women these days are variations of Sarah.

Yes, tattoos, man often about the house, out-of-wedlock grandchild, are all part of the package of the modern life - you may have one, or all of them, and there's nothing disgraceful about that in the mores of the modern world. It is just part of the change, as Palin tells her evangelical proteges in the video.

Women can do what they want and men can just hang on to those apron strings (coat tails?), and babies are cute and cuddly however they come. Bastard, shame and disgrace are but words. Anyway, those Sarahs can always turn things around!

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