You Are Who You Ate

A San Tribesman

You Are Who You Ate

by Ilana Mercer

 South Africa – the case for inter-racial reparations

Donald R. Morris’s epic tome, The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation, is the indispensable guide to Zulu history. Morris notes correctly that the Bantu, like the Boers, were not indigenous to South Africa. They “dribbled south” from some “reservoir in the limitless north,” and, like the European settlers, used their military might to displace Hottentots, Bushmen (his archaic terminology), and one another through internecine warfare. Indeed, there was bitter blood on Bantu lands well before the white settlers arrived in South Africa.

Westerners have committed the little San people of Southern Africa, the “Bushmen,” to folkloric memory for their unequalled tracking skills and for the delicate drawings with which they dotted the “rock outcroppings.” The San were hunters, but they were also among the hunted. Mercilessly so. Alongside the Boers, Hottentots and blacks “hunted down Bushmen for sport well into the 19th Century.”

In “the book to end all books on the tragic confrontation between the assegai and the Gatling gun,” Morris recalls that Cape Town’s founder and Dutch East India Company official J. A. Van Riebeeck landed at the Cape in 1652, 500 miles to the south and 1,000 miles to the west of the nearest Bantu. Joined by other Protestants from Europe, Dutch farmers, as we know, homesteaded the Cape Colony. Continue reading

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Kushner Packs Unicorns and Rainbows

Jared Kushner

Kushner Packs Unicorns and Rainbows

by Ilana Mercer

Jared Kushner couldn’t stare down a foe even if his wife, Ivanka Trump, held his soft, lily-white hand. Yet a May 22, McClatchy article claimed Mr. Kushner was fixing to “stare down uncompromising foes in fights over immigration and Middle East peace.”

Let us begin with our debutant’s Middle East peace plan, the thing his father-in-law calls “the deal of the century.” The notion of Jared solving the Israeli-Palestinian vexation is laughable, perhaps the dumbest thing ever. You just know this is a vain Ivanka move to brand the region and add it to her CV. Ivanka, to those who don’t know, is intent on riding to the presidency on her father’s coattails.

The Arabs slated to partake in the Kushner summit, Bahraini, Saudi and Emirati participants, are likely laughing the hardest. For one, the Arabs know that Ivanka is calling the shots—and that the president’s fashion-focused daughter is behind the branding of the sexually androgynous, intellectually inchoate production that is Jared Kushner. If you think that’s something Arabs respect, you don’t know Shiite from Shinola. Continue reading

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ENDNOTES, June 2019, Choral Music of Norway

Edward Munch, Train Smoke

Endnotes, June 2019, Choral Music of Norway; Sergey Levitin plays Stanford at the English Music Festival, reviewed by Stuart Millson

Recorded in the impressive acoustic of Domkirken, Bergen, a new CD from Chandos Records highlights the achievements of Norwegian composers, from the celebrated Edvard Grieg (1843-1907) to the obscure mid-19th-century Ole Bull, his work being The Herdgirl’s Sunday and back to an almost exact contemporary of Grieg’s, Agathe Backer Grondahl (1847-1907) – a composer with some 400 works to her name. Performed by a small, specialist choral group the Edvard Grieg Kor, a Scandinavian equivalent of the BBC Singers, the programme allows enthusiasts for vocal and Nordic music to revel in the folk-influenced Four Psalms by Grieg – dated just a year before his death – and his eight-part mixed choral arrangement of Ave Maris Stella, from 1893. Both works exhibit a purity of sound and expression which always emanates from his music.

But perhaps the most ear-catching part of the programme is an arrangement of the Holberg Suite for strings – yet arranged for voices. All the lively inflexion and mellow, Northern lights of the suite are there, with the voices called upon to match all the quick-witted, dance-like phrases of the original writing. The expressive sarabande movement is an almost perfect adaptation of instruments to voices, and probably exceeds the original music in melancholia and beauty. A single traditional folk tune, specially arranged for the choir, entitled went to bed one night, provides a further three minutes of pleasure. Continue reading

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Visas for “The Brilliant” is Code for Replacing You

Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, 2017

Visas for “The Brilliant” is Code for Replacing You

by Ilana Mercer

“The U.S. government discriminates ‘against genius’ and ‘brilliance’ with its immigration system,” asserted President Trump, as he rolled out Jared Kushner’s immigration plan. The president has insisted that “companies are moving offices to other countries because our immigration rules prevent them from retaining highly skilled and even … totally brilliant people.”

While it’s true that U.S. immigration policy selects for low moral character by rewarding unacceptable risk-taking and law-breaking—it’s incorrect to say that it doesn’t “create a clear path for top talent.” Kibitzing about a shortage of talent-based immigration visas is just Mr. Kushner channeling the business and tech lobby’s interests.

No doubt, Big Business wants the “good” old days back. They currently operate in a labor market. They don’t like that, because, in a labor market, firms compete for workers and wages are bid up. Companies don’t like a labor market. They prefer that workers compete for jobs and wages not rise. Continue reading

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In a Place of Tears

Kristine Opolais as Tosca, ROH 2019, Photo by Catherine Ashmore

In a Place of Tears 

Review of Tosca, melodrama in three acts, music by Giacomo Puccini, libretto by Giuseppe Giacosa and Luigi Illica, conducted by Alexander Joel, directed by Jonathan Kent, Royal Opera, 27th May 2019, reviewed by Leslie Jones

In Andrea Chénier, in the duet Vicino a te s’acqueta, composer Umberto Giordano and his librettist Luigi Illica depict death “as the apotheosis or triumph of love” (see ‘Reign of Tenor’, QR, 20th May 2019). But in Tosca, to quote the judge in Brian De Palma’s film Carlito’s Way, “there is no…absolution or benediction” here. Eros and Thanatos commingle. But it is hatred that turns Scarpia on and he offers Floria Tosca a life, that of Cavaradossi, in exchange for “a moment”, a euphemism for sex.

Bryn Terfel, as Baron Scarpia, has a powerful physical presence, almost as overpowering as the monumental statuary in his apartment. Every member of the cast freezes when he first enters the church. He put in a commanding vocal performance but his acting skills were not commensurate. We preferred Marco Vratogna’s more subtle depiction of Scarpia in a previous production (see ‘Praying Mantis’, QR, February 21, 2018). Continue reading

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Muslims are Reading the Bible Again

Adam and the Angels, watched by Iblis

Muslims are Reading the Bible Again

Gabriel Said Reynolds, The Quran & the Bible: Text and Commentary, Yale University Press, 2018, Pp. xviii, 1008, reviewed by Darrell Sutton

The decline of Christianity in the West has not impeded the continuous surge of attention Muslims give to the Quran in the East. In small pockets of Europe, the revival is spearheaded by persons born or raised in eastern hemispheres. Devotees of extremist views, of whatever religion, read their text passionately, even historically. Excessive ardor for truth sometimes takes them in violent directions. These facts are often concealed from an increasingly self-indulgent populace.

At the same time, the deterioration of Christian belief in recent decades is understandable. Unbelieving ecclesiastics do not inspire anyone, so sanctuaries sit empty. Although they would reckon their actions to be just, many politicians introduce legislation out of fear: fear of seeming to prefer one faith above another, fear of reprisal, fear of offending others etc.

Bible reading among Europeans and North Americans is not on the rise. There are exceptions, but look at the numbers. Yet the Hebrew Scriptures are held in high esteem by all adherents to Judaism. The Old Testament [in Greek and Hebrew], and the New Testament are believed by Christians to be God’s Word. Nevertheless, the falling away from faith continues apace. Continue reading

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Lighten Up

George Henry Bought, Pilgrims going to Church

Lighten Up

Whiteness: The Original SinJim Goad, Obnoxious Books, Stone Mountain, Georgia, 2018, paperback, 345pp. reviewed by Ed Dutton

The Puritans never had a sense of humour. These irony-deficient, extremist Protestants were too intensely focused on virtue signalling and questioning ever more traditions in order to advance in their virtue-signalling arms race. Immersed in what the American psychologist William James (1842-1910) termed ‘the religion of the sick soul,’ these Road to Damascus converts required a world of absolute certainty. Nobody should remind them of their fundamental psychological insecurities by questioning their self-righteous, contradictory, self-serving worldview which, on a certain level, they knew made no sense. Hence, they required everyone to accept and conform to it. The slightest questioning of their dogmas would send them into paroxysms of rage; it would induce ‘cognitive dissonance,’ leaving their ‘sick soul’ exposed even to themselves.

Humour and mockery were especially dangerous for such people, as they implied that their absolute correctness might be an illusion; for if it were not, then lampooning it would be unthinkable. Comedy was also very serious, they may on some level have realised, because it dissociates the listener, making them more receptive to whatever subversion the comedian is engaged in. It tends to involve, à la the Fool in Shakespeare plays, having the guts to fearlessly ‘go there’, to say the unsayable, albeit gently coated in a bizarre juxtaposition. This releases nervous tension, as we let go of the effortful control of our real opinions which we all hold to in order to fit in, so making people laugh. Additionally, the ability to make people laugh signifies intelligence, creativity and – in the case of political satire – bravery and open-mindedness. It also makes people feel good; so David-Lammy-forbid that one’s enemies should become associated with such traits and feelings in the minds of the populace. Laughing is also inherently a loss of physical control, under the spell of someone else. For anyone to be, in effect, hypnotised by agents of Satan himself is hardly conducive to the sound mental health of the righteous ones.

It should, therefore, be no surprise that the Puritans’ ideological successors – the Multiculturalists – get so upset about being mocked. Or that Carl Benjamin, aka Sargon of Akkad’s joke about Labour MP Jess Philips being not worth raping – ‘I wouldn’t even rape you . . .  With enough pressure, I might cave’ – should evoke such a visceral reaction, including an investigation by the police. {Editorial note: see report by Rajeev Syal, The Guardian, 7th May 2019. The first remark was in a tweet in 2016, the second in a recent YouTube video}.

Jim Goad’s Whiteness: The Original Sin is, likewise, a matter of extreme peril to such people because it is funny. It tears to shreds the dogmas of Multiculturalism – especially those prevalent in the USA – with its surreal, cutting, faux-confused and, most importantly, self-mocking humour. Goad, a colourful character, is a superb writer who somehow manages to take the destruction of Western civilization and the psychological breaking of European peoples by their own crazed leaders and make you laugh about it.

Whatever PC dogma you can think of – that non-whites can’t be racist, that there was never white slavery in the USA, that the Unionist army was anti-racist, that race differences in criminality have nothing to do with genes – Goad deftly, yet ruthlessly, subjects to his wit-laden, withering critique. Consider the following snippet:

So for those of you who are far more socially conscious than I am, please be patient with me, because I’m just trying to keep up here – at least as I’ve been led to understand it, according to the latest science from The Global Science Foundation or whatever it’s called, homosexuality is genetically hardwired, but race and gender are only ideas, right? Is that the latest science? Got it. Booked marked and filed. I will pick that, lick that, stick that, and flick that’ (pp.237-238).

In just a few pithy lines, Goad brilliantly encapsulates that world in which we now find ourselves, a world in which empirical Truth is dictated by the Woke Mob, which can contradict other Truth with impunity, which can contradict what our senses tell us is so, and the right-thinking person should merrily and gratefully accept it as unquestionably the Truth… until, that is, that something else becomes the unquestionable Truth.

Editorial note: views expressed in this article are not thereby endorsed by the editor

Dr Edward Dutton runs the YouTube channel The Jolly Heretic: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCMRs0Ml8RF0cWVAOeQeBxTw His recent books include: Churchill’s Headmaster: The ‘Sadist’ Who Nearly Saved the British Empire and The Silent Rape Epidemic: How the Finns Were Groomed to Love Their Abusers. Dutton can be found online at www.edwarddutton.wordpress.com

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Reign of Tenor

Sondra Radvanovsky as Maddalena di Coigny, ROH 2019, photo by Catherine Ashmore

Reign of Tenor

Review of Andrea Chénier, dramma istorico, music composed by Umberto Giordano, libretto by Luigi Illica, directed by Sir David McVicar, conducted by Daniel Oren, Royal Opera, 20th May 2019, reviewed by Leslie Jones

At Contessa de Coigny’s soirée, poet Andrea Chénier condemns the church’s lack compassion for the poor and by implication that of his fellow guests. They pointedly turn their back on him. The aristocracy are evidently living in a parallel universe, in which manners, fine clothing and persiflage predominate. The performance of a short ballet, followed by a gavotte, symbolises their cocooned and refined existence. But Chénier’s impassioned and improvised declamation does not fall on deaf ears. Footman Carlo Gérard quits his position and takes off his “uniform of shame”. He allows some starving peasants (gilets jaunes?) into the château, predicting the downfall of an “evil race”. And Maddalena de Coigny (soprano Sondra Radvanovsky, on fine form) is no less moved by Chénier’s words. Judging by our clapometer, Gérard (Dimitri Platanias) and Chénier (Roberto Alagna) were not just rivals for Maddalena’s affections but for those of the audience.

As John Snelson notes in the official programme (‘Background and Foreground’) there are striking parallels between Giordano’s Andrea Chénier, first performed in 1896 and Puccini’s contemporaneous oeuvre. Both composers shared the same librettist, Luigi Illica. For the poet Chénier read the artist Cavaradossi. When Maddalena comes to plead for Chénier’s life, Gérard is prepared to force himself upon her. Like Baron Scarpia, he is a slave to “violent passions”. But unlike Scarpia, “he has a conscience and indeed will act upon it”. And Maddalena, frightened and alone after her mother’s murder by the mob, brings to mind Manon Lescaut. But the dubious notion of death as the apotheosis or triumph of love, as articulated by Chénier and Maddalena in Vicino a te s’acqueta, is distinctly Wagnerian.

Commentators consider Giordano’s “handling of French Revolutionary motifs and sentiments…remarkably cogent” (Gregory Dart, official programme, ‘Revolutionary Moments’). And Andrea Chénier is replete with crowd pleasing arias and duets. Two minor quibbles, however. First, the lack of sexual chemistry between Alagna and Radvanovsky. And second, the increasingly tiresome use of graffiti in opera. Yet all in all, a memorable evening.

Dr Leslie Jones is Editor of QR

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ENDNOTES: May 2019

Sir Adrian Boult, painting by Ishibashi Kazunori (Royal College of Music)

Endnotes: May 2019

From Meadow to Mayfair – Stuart Millson pays tribute to the English light music tradition

The great tone-poems of English music need little introduction: Bax’s epic evocation of Cornish myth and landscape, Tintagel, and Holst’s mysterious Dorset fantasy, Egdon Heath, are just two examples of this native genre. We might add to the list depictions of urban Britain – John Ireland’s wistful A London Overture, Vaughan Williams’s darker, A London Symphony, or even the ‘Nottingham’ Symphony by, Alan Bush. But there is also a body of work within our musical tradition which, whilst not having the introspection, or stature, or timescale of the works just listed, nevertheless presents us with a faithful representation of the places and character of our country: the orchestral tradition, as developed by composers such as Eric Coates, Haydn Wood, Ernest Tomlinson and Ronald Binge – skilled miniaturists, capable of producing pen-portraits of scenes as diverse as Oxford Street, Knightsbridge, or a sleepy Arcadian stream flowing somewhere through the heart of the shires.

Often referred to as “the uncrowned king of light music”, Northamptonshire-born Eric Coates (1886-1957) is undergoing something of a revival, thanks in great part to the work of conductors such as John Wilson, Rumon Gamba and Gavin Sutherland – all of whom have produced well-engineered recordings of his music, which have succeeded in showing a greater depth and strength to a style often considered dated. Continue reading

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The Science of Power

Kirby Misperton, credit Frack Off

The Science of Power

Bill Hartley defends Fracking 

April 10th 2019 dawned with a light covering of frost over North Yorkshire. Despite this, the local BBC news announced there would be an open air tea party in the village of Kirby Misperton. The village’s population of 370 wished to celebrate the fact that it had been ‘free of Fracking for a year’.

Kirby Misperton lies in the scenic and rural Ryedale District of North Yorkshire. Anti-Fracking campaigners here have a website. The site is an example of a single issue edging towards monomania. It may be Ryedale at the moment but tomorrow it could be you, is the ominous message. There is no sense of a wider community beyond Kirby Misperton or the benefits to the nation of energy security. Incidentally, according to a recent report in the Daily Telegraph, this country spends £400,000,000 per month on imported gas. HM Mines Inspectorate estimates that if properly developed, Fracking has the potential to create 300,000 new jobs and reduce our dependence on imported supplies. None of this matters to the folk of Kirby Misperton: the big picture is displaced by a ‘not in my back yard’ attitude, masked by bad science and some shroud waving. Continue reading

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