Stephen Roney's Blog, page 234

Black Lies Matter

Traditional Ethiopian portrayal of Jesus..
The inevitable call has come, from Shaun King, a media heavy in residence at Harvard, with ties to Black Lives Matter: smash all the images of Jesus and Mary. Smash all the stained glass windows.

This, of course, was the target all along: God.

The premise, of course, is that Jesus is always portrayed as “European,” and this is racist.

"Yes, I think the statues of the white European they claim is Jesus should also come down. They are a form of white supremacy. Always have been."

"In the Bible, when the family of Jesus wanted to hide, and blend in, guess where they went? EGYPT! Not Denmark. Tear them down."

This is nonsensical on its face. He refers to statues. How can one really distinguish, in an unpainted statue, whether the figure portrayed is from some European country or from a Hellenized area of northern Palestine? A slight difference in skin tone? We do not even know whether the skin tone would be different.

And on an unpainted statue?

Why did Mary and Joseph flee to Egypt, and not to Denmark? It may have had something to do with Denmark not yet existing. Egypt, on the other hand, aside from being the country next door, had the ancient world’s largest Jewish population outside Palestine. Two of Alexandria’s seven districts were Jewish—traders, mostly, no doubt, often coming and going. I think the holy family indeed had a decent chance of blending in.

Not that other Egyptians looked very different from either Palestinian Jews or European Greeks. There were a lot of Greeks in Egypt too. Cleopatra was Greek.

You would think a Harvard man would know such things. That would have been so, long ago.

The conventional image of Jesus comes from fairly early models. There is at least some warrant to think it is accurate. And he could indeed probably pass for a modern Lebanese, say.

If there are some blond Jesuses, racism is an implausible explanation for it. Rather, this is a natural consequence of the artists being themselves European, having only European models to work from, and having little idea or reason to care what a Palestinian of the First Century looked like. Black hair is rare in Northern Europe. For the same reason, in Ethiopia, Jesus is distinctly African in appearance. 
Our Lsdy of the Gate of Dawn, Vilnius, Lithuania

There are no comparable ancient standards for portraying Mary, and her images are far more variable. Mary is often portrayed in Europe as blonde or a red-head--just as she is shown with Asian features in Asia, or with indigenous features at Guadaloupe, her most popular shrine. A non-racist might nevertheless have noticed that even in Europe, “Black Madonnas” are given special veneration. There are famous examples, sites of major pilgrimages, in France, Belgium, Czechia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, Russia, Sweden; rather white countries, on the whole. Perhaps most famously at Częstochowa in Poland and at Montserrat in Spain. Whatever reason this is so, it cannot be due to any notion of white supremacy or anti-black racism. 
Our Lady of Guadalupe.

The real problem for King and his acolytes can only be, not that these beautiful works of art show Jesus or Mary as European, but that they are beautiful works of art. Worse, they are beautiful works of art made by Europeans. Worse still, they imply some fundamental truth and the moral law.

Make no mistake. What we are seeing in America now is the battle of good and evil. And all the racism is on the side complaining of racism.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Knights of Columbus and Racism

In this period of race hysteria, it is soothing to note that the Knights of Columbus have a particularly proud record on that file. Among other things, the K of C was the only service organization in the US Army during WWI that did not segregate.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

An Indian Take

... on Trudeau's and Freeland's brilliant foreign policies.



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Canada Voted off the Island

Chrystia Freeland was the worst Canadian Foreign Minister ever, and the Trudeau government the least effective ever on foreign policy.

I am far from surprised that Canada lost its recent bid to be named to the UN Security Council.

What, after all, would you expect? Over the past few years, Canada has had high-level diplomatic spats with China, Russia, Saudi Arabia; lower-key, but notable, troubles with India and the USA. Having alienated many of the biggest players, why would Canada think it could muster the backing?

The most stunning thing, however, is the demonstration of the Dunning-Kruger Effect. They probably still think they are great successes. Blissfully unaware of their own incompetence, Trudeau and Freeland actually put their and Canada’s prestige on the line in a bid for a Security Council Seat. Something in itself of little value—only a vanity project, as far as I can see.

'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Down with Everyone and Their Mother

Turkish talisman against the evil eye
In all the rapidly rising fever of bust-busting, I see nobody speaking of the real reason it is happening.

This is important, because the true cause is arguably the deadliest of the Seven Deadly Sins. Envy is the one sin that never dare speak its name; making it especially difficult to root out. For this reason, it is vitally important to see and name it when it appears. It is sinister that nobody is in this case. And it is fantastically common. Most folk cultures worldwide are vitally concerned with the “Evil Eye.” It is envy they are talking about.

The nominal reasons these statues are being torn down are obviously spurious: they differ statue by statue. Nor is there any sense that the statues torn down represent the worst offenders, of whatever crime they are charged with. It is perhaps worth mentioning that there is a mural of Benito Mussolini still displayed inside a Montreal church. Nobody has called for its removal. Not even during the World War.

Benny Muscles visits Little Italy.
It goes without saying that any possible mortal could be accused of some moral depravity. It is always possible to find such a reason to tear down a statue. Mobs have now torn down effigies of Mahatma Gandhi, Francis Scott Key, Ulysses S. Grant, Saint Junipero Serra. It is not that we are not all saints—there is not even a saint without sin. Moses murdered a man. St. Paul probably murdered many. If sinlessness is suddenly the standard, all statues must come down.

No, this pandemic of statue-tipping is because of envy. Nobody paints over Mussolini, because nobody envies him. The fact of a statue proclaims that someone has done something worth notice with their life. That is intolerable to any narcissist who has not. The same motive is behind assassination: you want to kill John Lennon or John Kennedy not because of their politics, but because they are famous and you are not. The same motive is behind our hysterical cancel culture. It is an epidemic of envy.

But statues, for the narcissist, are especially seductive: one is not only attacking the person commemorated, but the sculptor, his talent, his achievement. Destroy it all!

The instinct toward envy necessarily ends in the ruin of all good things. It is always easier to pull down than to build.

This is the way we are now headed: the deadliest sins running wild in the streets


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Almost Prose

Lapis Philosophorum
I have posted this poem of mine here before, but there is a reason to post it again:

As we arose in bedroom clothes and toed along the beach
And casting out past dark and doubt, past stones in common reach
A net we threw of breath and dew returned us something rare
A thing long known, cold and alone; above―we thought―all care.

And homeward bound through hilltops crowned with silence and with snow
The way was steep, the way was cold, the way was far to go;
And riding down through sundark town, the captive moon our guide,
I laughed until I could not laugh, and, sick from laughing, cried.

We called our feat from street to street, as lamp to lamp caught fire;
‘Till some crank called out ‘Mountebank!’ and others echoed, ‘liar!’
And casting off the swaddling cloth, to show old friend new prize--
We found the stone we’d found was only water and God’s lies.

And all we knew we were, could be, or someday might become
Melted like that ice and left us naked in that sun;
And all we knew we were, had been, or someday still might be
Fell back and fell away, like foam, stone-broken, to the sea.

I repost because I recently submitted it to a poetry competition. And I received back this note:

“Dear Stephen,

Just checking... Is this an entry for the poetry section?

It is almost prose like”

Note that the piece features almost every known poetic device: regular metre, rhyme, internal rhyme, alliteration, repetition, imagery, metaphor, symbolism.

It is hard to conceive of a piece of writing being less prosaic.

So what is going on?

I suspect that my correspondent simply thinks that “prose” means “narrative.” And poetry is—something else. The typical “poem” currently is simply prose with arbitrary line breaks and bad punctuation. I’m inclined to say that it has to do with simply emoting in text, but that is not consistent. All that is consistent is the bad punctuation and the random line breaks.

Wikipedia: "Poetry (derived from the Greek poiesis, "making") is a form of literature that uses aesthetic and often rhythmic qualities of language—such as phonaesthetics, sound symbolism, and metre—to evoke meanings in addition to, or in place of, the prosaic ostensible meaning."

Merriam-Webster: poetry "1 a: metrical writing : VERSE" Capitals theirs.

We have fallen so far from poetry that nobody can even recognize it if they see it.

This is someone who cannot even be aware of most great poetry—of the Iliad, the Odyssey, the Divine Comedy, the Aeneid, the Ryme of the Ancient Mariner, the Canterbury Tales, the Ramayana, the Mahabharata, Beowulf …. What have they read?

This is a sad time to be alive, for those of us who love the arts.

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Going to the Candidates' Debate

I watched the Canadian Conservative leadership debate in English last evening. It was quite dull. My impression was of people mouthing platitudes while trying to sound passionate about them. I found myself missing the cool of Stephen Harper, or Pierre Trudeau.

The one rather memorable moment was Lisa Raitt openly criticizing one of the candidates. As moderator, she came across as a Karen. Oozing assumed privilege. Pity; I used to like Lisa Raitt.

I feel nobody won. Presumably, that favours MacKay as frontrunner: nothing was shaken up.

On the other hand, I see an inherent vulnerability for MacKay. It is a common one for clear frontrunners: they tend to get the bulk of their support on the first ballot. If you like MacKay, you are probably already with him.

So if he does not win on the first ballot, he gets caught by someone back in the pack. That happened to Bernier last time. It happens a lot.

This is magnified this time because MacKay is on the leftward extreme of the candidates. His closest competitor, O’Toole, is to his right, yet to the left of the other two candidates. That means O’Toole can expect to get the support of their voters once they drop out.

Nor is there scope for any backroom deals and throwing of support at the last minute, given the preferential ballot system being used this time. Ideological affinities will matter more.

And O’Toole seems a credible enough candidate to, with the other two in the race, keep him from a first-ballot victory. Lewis seems to be making some waves too.

Who do I want to win?

I rule out MacKay from the starter pistol. He won the PC leadership years ago by cutting a deal with David Orchard, which he violated as soon as he became leader. I am glad he broke that deal; I was horrified when he made it. But it reveals him to be utterly without principle. I would not want to see him in any position of leadership.

I also resist MacKay and Lewis because they have not earned their places here. MacKay stands on his father’s shoulders. We have too much of that in our politics. And there can be little doubt that Lewis, a failed one-time candidate for Parliament, would not be on the stage were she not black and a woman.

Lewis is getting a lot of interest, and I have heard commentators praising her performance at the debate. I think that is the “soft bigotry of low expectations.” Her head was down a lot to check her notes. Asked how she would expand the party’s appeal among minorities and millennials, she gave the usual bland nostrums about reaching out. This does not fit with her rightward program or the implied hope that, as a black immigrant herself, she would have special insight. She needed, I feel, a better answer. Sloan, more interestingly, cited some specific issues: drug addiction, homelessness.

That brings the choice down to Sloan and O’Toole. Of the two, O’Toole obviously has the stronger resume. More important than that, his French is better. I do not think a national party can afford a leader who cannot speak both official languages.

So O’Toole seems to me the best choice.

I have heard the criticism that O’Toole is opportunist, running further to the right than he did in the last leadership contest. I find it credible, however, that his personal opinions have genuinely shifted to the right since then. A lot of people’s have. I noted one consistency: he spoke in favour, in the debate, of closer ties with the CANZUK nations. This was a keynote of his last campaign.

I also think he shone in his apparent command of the new Canada-US-Mexico trade deal. He seemed able to correct MacKay on an important part of it. Impressive, since MacKay has served as Foreign Affairs Minister.

I now feel that O’Toole is the Conservatives’ best choice.


'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.

Racist Calls Only Non-Racist in the Commons a Racist

Jagmeet SinghJagmeet Singh has been ejected from the Commons for a day for calling a Bloc Quebecois MP a racist. For non-Canadian readers, Singh is the leader of the NDP, Canada’s social democratic or democratic socialist party. 
I am glad to see this discipline applied. Debate in Canada’s Commons has long devolved to the schoolyard level. The Speaker even tried to dodge the issue by claiming he had not heard the remark; Singh forced the issue by immediately repeating it.

Singh called Alain Therrien a racist because the member for La Prairie refused unanimous consent to a motion “recognizing the existence of systemic racism in the RCMP.” “The motion points out that ‘several Indigenous people have died at the hands of the RCMP in recent months …’ The motion also asked MPs to support a review of the RCMP's budget, to demand that the RCMP release all of its use-of-force reports and to call for a review of the RCMP's tactics for dealing with the public.”(CBC)

“Singh had asked the Commons to recognize there is systemic racism in the RCMP and to call on the government to review the force’s budget, ensure the Mounties are truly accountable and do a full review of the RCMP’s use of force.” (NatPost)

Therrien was right to block the motion. The alarming thing is that he seems to have been the only voice. This was mob rule, an attempted lynching of the RCMP, one of Canada’s unifying national symbols. And only a BQ member was ready to stand up for human rights and Canadian unity.

The motion presupposed, simply declared, that there was systemic racism in the RCMP. That is like declaring someone guilty without a trial.

That is classic hysteria. We elect people to prevent this kind of mob justice.

So is calling someone a racist for saying there might not be racism involved. That is like declaring someone a Communist for daring to doubt there are Communists in the State Department; or declaring someone a witch for doubting witchcraft was involved. It is frightening that any adult can think in these terms; much less an elected representative; much less a candidate for the leadership of the country.

To bring this charge of systemic racism against the national police is also pathetically childish in another way: a demonstration of Canada’s eternal kid brother syndrome. People in the US are currently agitated about police brutality; so little brother Canada has to foment its own scandal along the same lines. Monkey see, monkey do. Grownups, by contrast, think for themselves.

If it exists, systemic racism is a serious matter; far more serious than individual racism, because it has the force of government behind it. It deserves to be treated seriously, not in Singh’s pre-emptive manner. Systemic racism, happily, is easier to prove than individual racism. Unlike individual racism, finding it does not require reading anyone’s mind, or trying to infer anything from their actions. For racism to exist systemically, it must be communicated among the participants in that system. It will appear in the laws, bylaws, or regulations of that system.

It should indeed be investigated; in fact, it apparently is being investigated. Singh’s motion sought to short-circuit that process, by imposing a conclusion: a classic example of prejudice.

I would even say that there apparently is systemic racism in the RCMP. As I say, the matter of systemic racism is rather easily proven. Like other arms of the government, I would assume the RCMP requires racial preferences for aboriginal people, and probably blacks, in hiring. I would not be surprised if, like the courts, there is also a legal requirement that they treat aboriginal suspects differently from non-aboriginals.

These are indeed examples of systemic racism.

I would like to see such an inquiry.


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The Four Notes of Death

https://www.facebook.com/223649167822693/videos/2427801794145971


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Albuquerque Video

https://twitter.com/i/status/1272992074321793029



'Od's Blog: Catholic and Clear Grit comments on the passing parade.