SATURDAY NIGHT COLDPLAY, PAVEMENT.

Coldplay with Don't Panic. Album Parachutes (2000).





Blokes from London. Started in 1996. Amazing actually, on the heels of Britpop but not Britpop itself. At least I never considered them as such.



Pavement with Shady Lane. From the 1997 album Brighten the Corners.





Indie rock band formed in Stockton, CA in 1989. Frontman is Stephen Malkmus.



Bonne nuit.


MFBB.

DAY OF INFAMY: LONDON'S FIRST 'MODEST' FASHION SHOW.

From the Caught My Eye Department, last week: via SkyNews:

"The UK's first ever "modest" fashion event is taking place in London with hundreds of potential customers queuing to watch a catwalk show where some of the latest designs have been on display.

According to the organisers modest fashion is one of the fastest growing consumer markets.

The clothes comply with Muslim values but the designers say they get interest from women of all faiths and cultures who simply want to cover up a bit more.

Forty designers have displayed their garments at the event.

Among them, London-based Bushra Shaikh who has grown her brand iiLa over six years and exports her clothes around the world..."

(by Becky Johnson, Sky News Correspondent)


We could see this coming from miles away. Last year in May, very unfortunately, Sadiq Khan, whose imam is of the opinion that "women should be subservient", became London's first muslim mayor. Totally coincidentally, a month later ads sporting bikini-clad women were banned in London...







... under the pretext that flat-chested women or fat bottomed girls got fits from them, or something, and if you believe this was the real reason for the ban, I have a bridge across the Thames to sell you.


We are not one year further, and Shazam!, London now has its first 'Modest fashion show'. Watch this moronic promotion video, made by "modest fashion designer Haute Elan":





A glimpse at Haute Elan's website gives us a hint of how fast you can go from bikinis to burkas:






The appearance of western women on Haute Elan's site is unsettling, but as the photo below shows, it's not only models... :




Via Breitbart: Hijabs weren’t confined to the catwalks, with many of the show’s attendees’ sporting the modest Muslim headgear / Rachel Megawhat / Breitbart London



As if to underscore this, last week there was a lot of bruhaha about Lindsey Lohan being asked to remove her headscarf at Heathrow Airport:





Lindsey Lohan did just about everything devout muslims abhor, from wandering around in barely there bikinis over getting drunk as a monkey and sniff prodigious quantities of drugs to enthusiastically engage in promiscuous lesbian sex.

These days she's got no problem wearing a headscarf, symbol of the most mysoginistic 'religion' the world has ever known.


When I look at the western models donning islamic headgear on Haute Elan's website, or that white chick sitting among the muslim audience at that 'fashion' 'show', or frikking Lindsey Lohan willingly veiling herself, I am tempted more and more to think that out there, there's millions and millions of wretched young autochton women who are all potential converts to islam. And why? Because they killed, figuratively speaking, the Western Male through decades of feminist-inspired hatred. And they have been so successful in turning males in meek serfs who have come to detest their own masculinity that, poof! Suddenly it's hard to find Real Men! So I often wonder if behind the extraordinary fascination for the muslim world among so many western women there's not a deeper psychological mechanism at work. Our men have by now been so mentally bullied that tons of them shy away from attempting to make even the slightest move towards the other sex. Is it too far fetched to assume that western women, in the absence of the Manhood they were so content to suppress, subconsciously yearn for males who have no qualms about telling women in no uncertain terms who is Boss? Is it not possible that in the deepest recesses of their unhinged minds, feminists in fact yearn for penetration by the followers of the Prophet?

I fear that it is possible.


To conclude, I'd like to share this pic with you, stolen over at Gates of Vienna, who got if from Matthew Bracken:





Ladies, don't come whining in the near future.



MFBB.

RECOMMENDED READS: BURGESS OWENS "THE LEFT DESTROYED STRONG BLACK COMMUNITIES."

News was that this year's CPAC was going to be a run of the mill event, what with the Presidential race having been won by the GOP and all that (and Milo Yiannopoulos having been disinvited).

But obviously they forgot Burgess Owens. Via Breitbart:

“Today’s generation has been trained to think differently from my generation. We would stand for the flag in a heartbeat—because we realized the opportunities we had,” said Burgess Owens on Thursday.

Owens was an All-American safety at the University of Miami, who was drafted by the New York Jets in 1973 and played for the Jets until joining the Raiders for their run at Super Bowl XV.

Owens was at CPAC to discuss with people his new book “Liberalism or How to Turn Good Men into Whiners, Weenies and Wimps” and attend a book signing.

“Today’s generation came from BET group—the BET has been talking down our country for the longest time.” Black Entertainment Television is the top cable channel focused on the African-American community.

Today’s young African-Americans have been twisted up by BET, he said.

“They tend to be more racist. They tend to be more un-American,” he said.

“I was the third black American to be recruited by the University of Miami and I remember going down there—my goal was not to fail,” he said.

“That was really what allowed our community to think,” he said. “We didn’t want to leave our families down. We didn’t want to let our race down. We would work as hard as we could, so we would not fail.”

Owens said that when he was coming of age in the late 1960s, there was always a racial consciousness that was trying to break through and disrupt the traditional ways of life.

In those times in his hometown of Tallahassee, Florida, the black community was stronger than most other communities, black or white, he said.

“The community as that time was totally committed to the family,” he said. “We had the highest percentage of men committed to marriage. We had the fastest growing middle-class in the country.”





Conservatism, with its emphasis on work, entrepreneurship, and faith traditions, is a natural fit for African-Americans, but somehow the narrative got switched up.

Owens said he wrote his book because left-wing politics and policies have destroyed thriving black communities, but no one else seemed to want to talk about it.

“Back in 1910, the NAACP, started by 21 white Marxist, socialist, atheist Democrats, began to intertwine the thought of liberalism into my community,” he said. The National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the most prominent of the civil rights organizations.

“We started to pull away from the pillars that always made our country great and towards being and feeling like victims,” he said.

“They taught our race that the real value was in being with the white race, instead of what we were doing at the time,” the father of six said.

“I would say to a young African-American man: Recognize who you are, let’s man-up. Take the rolls you are supposed to take. Take care of your family. Respect women—big time—and we will be a great country again,” he said.

His message to white Americans: “Don’t apologize anymore for who they are. We have a great society with great ancestors, who did their best.”

The money quotes here are:


1.) "Conservatism, with its emphasis on work, entrepreneurship, and faith traditions, is a natural fit for African-Americans"

I bet that if some assclown of them darn sociologists finally had the damn guts to check out the societal status of hardworking CONSERVATIVE Black families, the results would NOT be what the NYT, the Clintons, the SJW's and the entire miserable Victimization Industry et al would like. As for faith traditions, I know for a fact that if your neighbors were a Black family where they still read the Bible and attend Mass, you could hand them over the keys to your house, go on a year-long vacation, and find it back well-guarded and untouched.


2.) Owens said he wrote his book because left-wing politics and policies have destroyed thriving black communities, but no one else seemed to want to talk about it.

Hear, hear!


3.) “Back in 1910, the NAACP, started by 21 white Marxist, socialist, atheist Democrats, began to intertwine the thought of liberalism into my community,” he said.

You might want to check out this site I do think, however, that W.E.B. Du Bois (who I assume Mr Owens does not include in the aforementioned group but who was also a pivotal NAACP figure) was a decent character. It's dishonest to describe him as a Hitler admirer. Even Churchill is known to have said a few things in praise of the Fuehrer's handling of the German economy in the mid-thirties.


You can order Mr Owens' book here.



MFBB.

PVV LEADER GEERT WILDERS SUSPENDS ELECTION CAMPAIGN AFTER ARREST OF POLICE OFFICER OF MOROCCAN BACKGROUND WHO LEAKED CONFIDENTIAL INFO TO CRIMINAL GANGS.

Via NRC Handelsblad, which is something like the Dutch equivalent of The Washington Post:

"OFFICER AT GUARDING AND PROTECTION UNIT LEAKED INFO TO MOROCCAN-DUTCH CRIMINALS.

From within the police service tasked with, amongst others, providing the security detail for Geert Wilders and members of the Crown, information deemed very sensitive was leaked on a regular basis to a Moroccan-Dutch criminal organisation.

An experienced police officer of Moroccan descent, active in the so-called Dienst Bewaken en Beveiligen (DBB) [Guard and Protect Service - MFBB], is suspected of having leaked sensitive information to members of a criminal organization known for larceny and whitewashing money.

According to several high-ranking police staff members, the officer in question was tasked with preparing so-called 'surrounding scans'. He had to scout for places where threatened and guarded persons would visit. The officer of the Federal Unit had access to databases with extremely confidential information. "For a job like his you got to have access to all information you deem important to ask for", says an investigative staffer. The officer was arrested last Monday on suspicion of violating state secrets and has been suspended."

As a result of this revelation, Geert Wilders, the leader of the PVV (Partij voor Vrijheid, or Party For Freedom, currently leading in the polls), suspended his campaign. Reuters writes:

Dutch anti-Islam politician Geert Wilders, who is leading polls ahead of next month's election, said on Wednesday he had canceled all public campaign events after an agent involved in his security team was suspended.

The secret service said on Tuesday an agent of a Moroccan background had been suspended on suspicion of leaking details to a criminal organization.

On Wednesday, newspaper Algemeen Dagblad reported that the man's brother, also a police officer, had leaked information about murder inquiries and had been accused of rape and been dismissed. Police were not immediately available for comment.

There is no suggestion the cases had anything to do with Wilders or his team.

Secret service chief Erik Akerboom said on Tuesday that neither Wilders nor any of the other people the team protects, including the Dutch royal family, had ever been in danger as a result of the leaks.

Wilders, who promises to close mosques and crack down on "Moroccan scum", said he would await the conclusions of the investigation into the corruption allegations before appearing in public again.

"My god, I had no idea," tweeted Wilders, who has been living under 24-hour protection since the 2004 murder by an Islamist militant of film-maker and Islam-critic Theo van Gogh. "How much more is there I don't know."

But back to NRC Handelsblad for the real howler, which comes, as all good things, at the end:

"Police Diversity policy sputters

The arrest of the officer is an enormous setback for the National Police's faltering diversity policy, which strives to attract more officers of another ethnic background. It is the second time in a year that an officer with a migrant backgrond is arrested on suspicion of corruption. Last year in June, a police officer of Moroccan extraction of the The Hague Unit was apprehended in a corruption dossier. He is suspected of having tipped family members tens of times about weed plantations police was about to overrun. His pals whisked the drugs away just before police arrived.

"The problem of these corruption investigations is that the arrested officers are more loyal to their Moroccan family members or friends than to the police", says an investigation officer."

No shit Sherlock! Who would have thunk it???

Cut the crap. Make that 'muslims are more loyal to their family members than to the state that harbors and feeds them.' Your bottom line here is: NEVER, EVER TRUST MUSLIMS!


MFBB.

RECOMMENDED VIDEO: RINKEBY BURNS. WHY THE US SHOULD BUILD THAT WALL ASAP.

Heavy rioting broke out in the Rinkeby district of Stockholm, Sweden, the day before yesterday:





But all is swell according to Stefan Lofven, the Swedish PM. Integration is running smoothly.


MFBB.

RECOMMENDED VIDEOS: PARIS BURNING. WHY THE US SHOULD BUILD THAT WALL ASAP.

Scenes from contemporary France, and it ain't nothing like Les Gendarmes de Saint-Tropez:












Hat tip PI News.


MFBB.

MARK STEYN: "EDUCATION IS AN ABSOLUTELY CRITICAL BATTLEGROUND."

Have you ever heard of the Gramscian Revolution? Mark Steyn discusses the Left's long march through the institutions on The Seth and Chris show:





Quote of the day:

"With a lot of the malign social trends in the world—when you talk about, you know, the socialization of healthcare or whatever—Canada and Western Europe are often years ahead of where the United States is. In the corruption of education, America is actually the pacesetter—the insanity on American campuses is of a different order. And Canada, Britain, France and the rest are actually scrambling to catch up; and I think it’s a tragedy what’s happened. I also think it’s actually wicked. We are actually corrupting and hollowing out the next generation of citizens… Education is an absolutely critical battleground."

And:

"We are doing an an “affirmatively bad job” of educating the next generation, Steyn said, because it’s not just that our children are ignorant of the glories of Western civilization, it’s that we are actually teaching them to hate those things. We are doing a kind of violence to ourselves in promoting a kind of “civilizational self-loathing” that is “audacious and ambitious” on the part of the Left. They act with audacity and ambition and we, unfortunately, tend to respond with impotent protests on behalf of reason. We respond to this nihilistic movement as if it will care to debate us.

The identity politics of the Left inevitably results in a kind of suppression of thought from which we are sure to get a “culture of snitching” as we see in today’s politics where neighbor is turned against neighbor for the purpose of exposing what is supposed to be an “incorrect” or unsavory political point of view. We’ve seen this movie before, says Steyn, in Eastern Europe. But our historical memories are short and, as a result, we have lost all sense of shame and fear about this kind of censure."

"Education is an absolutely critical battleground".

You bet it is. We need a Gramscian Revolution of our own, and we better start it NOW.


MFBB.

SUNDAY NIGHT ART SNACK: TWO PAINTINGS BY LEONARDO DA VINCI.

First The Madonna of the Yarnwinder [Italian: Madonna dei Fusi, “Madonna of the Spindles”; MFBB], more precisely the Lansdowne version. I should correct myself in that Leonardo da Vinci would only have painted part of the work, sometime between 1499 and 1501. It was reportedly ordered by a Florimond Robertet, secretary to the King of France Louis XII, the famous Francis I's predecessor.





In this version, the Virgin Mary is seated with Jesus in a hilly landscape with a mountain range at the horizon. Jesus is looking at a yarnwinder, used to collect spun yarn. The symbolism behind this would indicate first a foreshadowing of Jesus's death at the Cross, and secondly Mary's domesticity.



Then Saint John The Baptist, oil on walnut, completed by Leonardo da Vinci somewhere between 1513 and 1516 and reportedly his last painting. It is exhibited at the Musée du Louvre in Paris. Even though it was his last work, it's a magnificent piece of art making use of the Chiaroscuro technique, developed during the Renaissance. Chiaroscuro aimed to create a threedimensional impression by making it seem as if the well-lit subject emerged from a pinch dark background:




The piece is curious in that Leonardo's Saint John has nothing of the dignity one would expect of Jesus' predecessor, as in other works by Renaissance artists, like Veronese and especially Titian. At first sight the figure is - I am weighing my words here - almost creepy. If you google it, you will come across versions where John is even far less lit, which enhances the unsettling character even more. Also, to us denizens of the twenty-first century there's the added disturbance of the particular gesture with the pointed finger the subject makes. Finally, the well-known German art historian and Professor Frank Zoellner, in his 2000 work Leonardo da Vinci, 1452-1519 writes that da Vinci's use of the sfumato technique "conveys the religious content of the picture," and that "the gentle shadows imbue the subject's skin tones with a very soft, delicate appearance, almost androgynous in its effect, which has led to this portrayal being interpreted as an expression of Leonardo's homoerotic leanings." (*)

Anyway, whatever the painting suggests, either some kind of a (more than) affectionate tribute to the graces of the supposed model (Salai, one of da Vinci's pupils), or a playful reminder of the great Renaissance painter that now is the time to go to Heaven (hopefully), you don't have to be an art historian to appreciate the immense beauty and value of Leonardo's Saint John.



Good night.


MFBB.

(*) [sfumato, from the Italian fumo, smoke; it's a way to make subjects more realistic by painting the subject's delineations vis-à-vis the surroundings with soft strokes instead of clear lines; MFBB]).