Obituary – Feliks Wegierski,

Posted on August 2, 2019 by leslie

Feliks Wegierski, credit Toronto Star

Obituary – Feliks Wegierski

by Apolonja (Pola) Maria Kojder

Feliks Wegierski was born in Dzialdowo, in north-western, pre-war Poland, in 1923. He showed an early aptitude for sketching and drawing, and carved small wooden toys for his eight siblings (three brothers and five sisters).

During the Second World War, Feliks served as an artilleryman in the Polish Second Corps under British command, which fought in the Italian theatre-of-operations. He made numerous wartime drawings, which he was able to preserve for posterity and later publish in book form in 2008 (on the occasion of his 50th Wedding Anniversary).

He studied art at the Accademia di Belle Arti in Ravenna; architecture and sculpture at Cheltenham; and, later, furniture making and design in London, England (London County Council Central School of Arts and Crafts). One of his original furniture designs was exhibited at the Festival of Britain in 1951, an exposition which occurs once every hundred years. Continue reading →

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Borders are Beautiful

Posted on July 29, 2019 by leslie

Vasily Kandinsky, Painting with White Border

Borders are Beautiful

by Ilana Mercer 

In a previous post we posed the following question:

“Do we still have a country, when every single passive, non-aggressive act taken to repel people crossing into our country is considered de facto illegal, or inhumane, or in violation of international and U.S. law, or in contravention of some hidden clause in the U.S. Constitution.”

Table a new law limiting trespass en masse, or attempt to enforce any of the many immigration laws already in the United States Code, and this is deemed by most in the ruling class to be problematic, if not diabolical.

Because Republicans in power seldom ever fulfill their obligation to enforce America’s existing tough immigration laws.  You mean you didn’t know there were immigration laws aplenty already on the books? My point exactly. No representative tells you about the laws that he or she has sworn to uphold, and hasn’t. Few representatives will fight to enforce these laws, or retaliate when judges routinely nullify immigration law. Continue reading →

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Poland, in World War II

Posted on July 28, 2019 by leslie

Poland, in World War II

by Mark Wegierski

During the more than seven decades following the end of World War II, an ongoing stream of disinformation from various quarters e.g., the former Soviet Union and left-wing British circles, has clouded the sterling record of Poland and the Poles during World War II. In a climate of increasing ignorance of the most basic historical facts and realities, it is important to remember the Polish role in World War II, on the 75th anniversary of the tragic Warsaw Uprising of 1944 and 80 years since the start of the war.

THE BEGINNING OF WORLD WAR II

On September 1, 1939, Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler, invaded Poland, without warning or a formal declaration of war. Hitler’s publicly professed objective was “to get rid of that intolerable Polish Corridor.” The Polish government’s restrictions on the German population in the Corridor and in Danzig (Gdansk), had given Hitler a pretext for war. On August 31, Hitler’s SS-men staged a mock-attack on the German radio-station in Gleiwitz (Gliwice) — blaming it on the Polish army — in the hope that this would encourage France and Britain to renege on their treaty obligations to Poland. As it was, France and Britain put pressure on Poland to delay its general mobilization from August 31 to September 1, which probably resulted in something like 300,000 Polish troops never getting into action. Given the diplomatic context of the time, France and Britain might not have declared war on Germany at all, had Poland surrendered quickly to Nazi Germany, in the hope of more lenient treatment. Continue reading →

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Do We Still Have a Country?

Posted on July 26, 2019 by leslie

Do We Still Have a Country?

by Ilana Mercer

How do you know you don’t have a country?

Simply this:

Every single passive, non-aggressive act you take to repel people crossing your borders is considered de facto illegal, or inhumane, or in violation of international law, or in contravention of some hidden clause in the U.S. Constitution.

So say the experts and their newly minted jurisprudence.

You may tell a toddler, “You can’t go there.” But you may not tell an illegal trespasser, “Hey, turn back. You can’t come into the U.S. at whim.”

Please understand that not giving someone something they demand or desire is a negative act. Or, more accurately, an inaction. You are not actively doing anything to harm that person by denying them something.

Unless, of course, what you are denying them is their right to their life, their right to their liberty, their right to their property. Those are the only things you may not deny to innocent others. These interlopers do not have a right to, or a lien on, your liberty and property. Continue reading →

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A Family Romance – review of L’Arlesiana

Posted on July 24, 2019 by leslie

Federico (Samuel Sakker) and Vivetta (Fflur Wyn), photo by Ali Wright

A Family Romance – review of L’Arlesiana

Opera in three acts, music composed by Francesco Cilea, libretto by Leopoldo Marenco after Alphonse Daudet, new production by Investec Opera Holland Park, City of London Sinfonia and Opera Holland Park Chorus conducted by Dane Lam, directed by Oliver Platt, reviewed by Leslie Jones

Ignore what you may have heard about L’Arlesiana; that the libretto is uninspired and only merits a concert performance, such as that given recently by Deutsche Oper (see Rebecca Schmit, Classical Voice North America, March 19th 2018); or that only the famous aria Lamento di Federico, È la solita storia del pastore, is vaut le voyage. For as critic Tim Ashley remarked in his perceptive review of Holland Park’s 2003 production, “The whole is a lesson in how to make an opera that is by no means a masterpiece come vividly alive”.

Freud’s epoch-making The Interpretation of Dreams was published in 1899. In 1897, L’Arlesiana was premiered in the Teatro Lirico, Milan, with Enrico Caruso, no less, as Federico. There is synchronicity here. We have a mother, Rosa Mamai, who is obsessed with her first born son Federico and a son fixated on his mother. “Mother you will always be my greatest love”, Federico confides. Baldassare’s story of a wolf savaging a she-goat has a distinctly Freudian flavour. Continue reading →

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Visiting the People’s Republic of Poland

Posted on July 22, 2019 by leslie

Wojciech Jaruzelski

Visiting the People’s Republic of Poland

by Mark Wegierski

The founding date of the People’s Republic of Poland (Polish acronym: PRL) is considered to be July 22, 1944, when the so-called Lublin Manifesto was issued. The PRL in its foundation and early years was the savage imposition of Soviet Communism on an unwilling Polish nation. Over a 100,000 Poles died resisting this imposition, during a vicious conflict that raged until 1949.

However, the death of Stalin in 1953 led to an eventual liberalization of the regime in 1956, during the so-called Polish October. Wladyslaw Gomulka, who had been briefly jailed by the Stalinists in the earlier period, became First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party (Polish acronym: PZPR) – the main Communist party. He inaugurated the period known as “The Thaw”, essentially “polonizing” the regime, and moving it away from the harsh totalitarianism of the Stalinist period.

As a result of the disturbances of the 1968-1970 period, Edward Gierek came to power as First Secretary of the PZPR. He inaugurated a period of cultural and economic liberalization that even decades later is sometimes dubbed “the golden years of Gierek”. Gierek used Western loans to build up the economy, with Poland becoming the tenth greatest industrial power in the world. There was also a quickening of culture, with a world-acclaimed Polish cinema and theatre. Gierek initiated an outreach to Polish communities abroad, notably in the United States, Canada, and Britain. Young Polish-Americans and Polish-Canadians were encouraged to travel to Poland and discover their Polish roots. The extent of this outreach has never been matched by any subsequent Polish governments. There was also an emphasis on native Slavic themes in art, as well as on Polish folk-culture, in all its splendid regional variety, including song, dance, and the decorative arts. Continue reading →

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In Search of Canadian Identity

Posted on July 22, 2019 by leslie

In Search of Canadian Identity

 by Mark Wegierski

Canada, which Pat Buchanan once called a “Soviet Canuckistan”, has serious problems combating the ceaseless self-undermining of its military forces and traditions. But it is also having a difficult time defining a coherent identity for itself. For example, there have been frequent calls to eliminate the traditional oath to Queen Elizabeth and her heirs and successors, as a condition for receiving Canadian citizenship. Since the 1960s, Canada, which was once proud of its British heritage, has increasingly redefined itself by its “uniquely compassionate social-democratic political culture”, expunging other, more traditional and meaningful bases of national identification.

Canadian political and cultural leaders have based this new national “identity” largely on an embrace of the lifestyles, customs, and traditions of Canada’s latest immigrant groups. But if Canada is to be defined by its multiculturalism – that is, by the cultures brought here from the outside, especially in the last few decades – then this implies that there is actually no such thing as Canadian identity and culture. So why bother funding the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC), or the Canada Council for the Arts?

Former Canadian ambassador Martin Collacott’s report for the Fraser Institute and books by Daniel Stoffman and Diane Francis have challenged this hitherto unquestioned immigration/multiculturalism consensus in Canada, but such contrary opinions are given little hearing. Continue reading →

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Victorian Values

Posted on July 19, 2019 by leslie

Oscar Wilde

Victorian Values

by Bill Hartley

In May of this year the Guardian featured a story about feminist author Naomi Wolf who had recently published a book called Outrages. The book has been described as ‘the dramatic, buried history of how nineteenth century laws gave the state new powers to criminalise love between men….’ The story quoted Ms Wolf telling the Observer ‘People widely believed that the last executions for sodomy were in 1830 but I read every Old Bailey record throughout the nineteenth century, so I know not only did they continue but they got worse’. One can only imagine Ms Wolf’s discomfiture when on the Radio 3 Arts and Ideas programme writer and broadcaster Matthew Sweet drew her attention to the meaning of the very precise historical legal term ‘death recorded’. It wasn’t evidence of an execution; in fact, it indicated the opposite. Mr Sweet added that there was no evidence of the Victorians executing anyone for sodomy.

It seems that in our present Age of Offence some people are prepared to believe anything about those awful Victorians especially when it buttresses contemporary beliefs and prejudices; consequently it wouldn’t be difficult to imagine a modern reader uncritically accepting accounts of judicial slaughter in the Victorian era. Fortunately, Ms Wolf says she has alerted her publishers and so the Victorians have had that charge against them dropped. Continue reading →

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Driven to Blackface?

Posted on July 15, 2019 by leslie

Rachel Dolezal, Credit 93.1 WZAK

Driven to Blackface?

by Ilana Mercer

Nkechi Diallo was recently charged with welfare fraud in Spokane, Washington State. Back in 2015, Diallo was better known as Rachel Dolezal. She has since rechristened herself. Rachel Dolezal, if you’re from Deep Space, is the lily-white woman who, in 2015, dared to “identify” as a black woman.

The “Racism Industrial Complex” is populated with frauds, shysters, imposters, phonies and morons; black, white and 50 shades of gray. Ms. Dolezal had been posing as all of these, teaching Africana Studies at the Bush college of Eastern Washington University. Our American Idiocracy confers the respect and the authority of a pedagogue on many like her, allowing them to spread the disease to college kids and beyond. So, why not Rachel?

Why, the Age of the Idiot sees killers exculpated, just because they kill. As the faulty reasoning goes, if an individual has murdered, raped, robbed or defrauded—then he or she must have been abused, neglected, racially oppressed (if black or brown); not wealthy enough, mentally ill, lacking in self-esteem. Anything but plain bad, slothful, sociopathic or parasitical. The more aberrant the crime; the more thrill-seeking, vulgar, immoral or wicked the conduct—the more elaborate, fanciful and scientifically baseless the excuse-making. Continue reading →

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ENDNOTES, July 2019

Posted on July 11, 2019 by leslie

 

Amsterdam Concertgebouw

ENDNOTES, July 2019

A great conductor at 90, by Stuart Millson

A packed auditorium, whether in London, Amsterdam, Boston, Berlin or Chicago and sustained applause which continues for much longer than is usual – the chances are that the conductor is Bernard Haitink, the Dutch maestro who – this year, at the age of 90 – announced his retirement. A commanding, yet curiously self-effacing presence on the podium, Haitink began his career in 1954 in his native Holland, with the Netherlands Radio Philharmonic, studying and performing the essential core repertoire. Noted for his inspired and detailed performances, he soon approached the pinnacle position in his country’s musical life – the Concertgebouw, later, Royal Concertgebouw, whose role as principal conductor he held for nearly 30 years.

During these decades, thanks partly to an extensive and prominent recording schedule for the Philips label, the Concertgebouw became the natural rival to the Berlin and Vienna Philharmonic orchestras; with Haitink setting down masterly interpretations of the Beethoven, Bruckner and Mahler symphonies – the two latter late-romantic composers becoming the figures with which the conductor would be so associated. In fact, Haitink contended that the musical world should place a limit on the number of Bruckner and Mahler performances – as the fashion for this repertoire, especially during the 1980s and 1990s, threatened to diminish its standing. Continue reading →

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