Welcome

I'm enormously pleased with all the interest and incoming links generated by my post on Indecent Exposure.

Funny what brings the crowds. One thing is certain. A little areola action rarely disappoints.

Between these and the improved position of my link at Rorate Caeli, traffic is up. I hope it also has something to do with the writing, though Mark Steyn and Fr. Zuhlsdorf have yet to bite.

At any rate, I hope all these new visitors find something here worth returning to (er, besides areolae).

I can't decide quite what.

I am still also hoping for inquiries for the Gentleman's Response. Etiquette is so important. I had hoped to make it a series. Apparently, however, aside from errant bosoms, modern life is not so tough.

Also, I am finally about to publish the long-promised post Women's Suffrage is of The Devil, and, I think, something about American Cheese.

A Gentleman's Response to Indecent Exposure

At this time of the year when women seem everywhere dressed in summer microclothing, indecent exposure becomes all too common.

His book of etiquette consulted but lacking, the modern gentleman may well wonder what response is appropriate. He has come to the right place.


You have, Dear Reader, perhaps had stuck between your teeth something vegetable; a poppy seed, spinach, whatnot.

Likewise indecent exposure. To rectify one's unintended display, be it buffet or bosom, it is always better to know.

So when a lady has fallen the rest of the way out of her summer top, it is not proper for the gentleman to assume she meant to, whatever the prevailing fashion of the place.

Though he be divided between his own discomfort at raising the topic and the plight, unsightly or otherwise, of the hapless lass, the truly decent gentleman willingly undertakes in all things to subordinate his own comfort in service to the other.

He may not shirk, lest, imagine the tumult, the exposed lady next meet her clergyman or her grandfather.

Neither may he snicker or leer. Leering is to be saved for his wife and snickering for later.

So the gentleman will proceed, delicately, thus:

"Forgive my noticing, Miss, but to save you a felony charge it is my profound discomfiture to inform you that you appear to have misplaced your areola. Not, mind you, that it is lost. Rather, Miss, you see it is very much in evidence. I thought it best you should know. Good day.".

His duty done, he may retire for cocktails.

Hail Macramé

Particularly if you suffer from an excess of good spirits, or too strong a heartbeat, or if you are not already convinced that the West is pretty well over, you should read LifeSiteNews.

Today, they ran a good-news story today about delightfully religious young people.

At first, I thought the Eucharistic Congress in Quebec they mentioned was the Catholic one, but it's not. This must be some parallel event for some weird sect that worships huge wicker.

Bouncy Visitrix, Laundry

Saturday I hung to dry a load of laundry.

To do so, I am obliged to face my fence which at that point comes in height just to my chin, impossible not to see over. I was thus treated to the improbable display of my neighbours' pleasantly plump guest jumping on their children's trampoline.

I tried not to stare, stared a little anyway, and was at once relieved and more than a little sorry to have finished hanging the wash.

The bouncy visitrix, who used to live nearby, seems even on cold days to dress immodestly, though not flagrantly so.

In fact, her chosen outfit would be but typical of a girl ten years and twenty five pounds her junior. She may be, now that I think of it, labouring under the impression actually that she is ten years and twenty five pounds her junior.

I have never minded the result of her self-deception.

Even less on a trampoline.

I had tried to think of a moral message to tie to this story. I failed. Sometimes I am trying to be a better man. Sometimes I am just hanging out the wash.

Nincompoops and Wicked Reprobates

Already dictating what publishers may publish, Canada now tells parents how to raise their children.

Ontario has banned smoking in cars with children and the senate passed a bill yesterday to criminalize spanking of children by their parents.

Three exceptions are in the bill, including "preventing the child from engaging or continuing to engage in conduct that is of a criminal nature".

So, when you catch junior selling tobacco to minors or engaging in a little hate-speech against a protected group, I guess you can beat him.

This makes sense in the New Canada.

Common sense has been replaced. Canadian Politicians, that foul cabal of nincompoops and wicked reprobates, will now dictate right from wrong. They know best.

So, when citizens do horrible things that are not explicitly banned, we mustn't complain or say they should have known better. There is no more knowing better. There is only the law. We must ever lobby for a new prohibition, until every single stupid or unpleasant or dangerous thing is punishable by fine or imprisonment.

That'll work.

Newfangled People Spoil Everything

It has come to my attention that there exists an organization of bitter old hags called Planned Parenthood.

I can hardly imagine a concept so unpleasant as planning parenthood.

The movement from chore to delight must only ever be one way. That is, we may encourage a chore to become a delight, but must never allow a delight to degenerate into a chore. And yet, what but a chore could it be to impregnate one of these Wretched Suffragettes? But lest we spoil drinking or sex, we should no more plan parenthood than set out to drink a hogshead of ale.

They also advocate fornication. For though the Suffragette may find a weak and desperate man on occasion, she will not find one willing to have her longer.

So it is, Good Reader, that in the interests of planning parenthood and spoiling what might otherwise be a very nice time, the Newfangled People have had to accept the most shocking of behaviours.

Apparently it is all in vogue for the modern fellow, and you will simply not believe this is true, to place his issue into a small rubber bag. Why he wants it there is difficult to say. It's very odd.

Perhaps he means to carry it home with him. He will not entrust it to her, that much is clear. The Suffragette has taken his stones but she will not have their contents.

Newfangled people spoil everything.

Freedom's Finest hour may be Behind Us

"A few broken windows? For this you want I should pick up and move?"
-Mr. Finkelstein. 1938

Pat Buchanan, who is right a lot more than anybody likes to say, writes, Freedom's finest hour may be behind us. I think it is.

Looking back even a few years, I am amazed at how quickly things have regressed. I wonder just how bad the new totalitarianism is about to get. I consider the lessons of history.

Obama Obummer, Satan's Wet Nurse

With choices slim but me being so very much a pro-choice sort of chappy, I am left hereby to declare my weak support for Barack Obama.

McCain has no character and I'm quite sick of supposedly-conservative political parties offering liberal bums and telling us Righthinkers we've no place else to go. I'll stay home before I'll vote for another one.

Hillary "Satan's Wet Nurse" Clinton would simply never have done.

So we have Obama. With America in the soup which ever way things go, Barack might just be bumbler enough to tear open the wound.

And if he's not the man for it, his good lady wife probably is. Let's get this thing underway already.

Recently, I had hoped to see The Ted Kennedy Deathbed Repentance.
Or, if not both, The Ted Kennedy Repentance.
Or, if not that, The Ted Kennedy Deathbed.

But alas.

Ted's supporting Obama too.

152.4 Centimetres of Fury

I just realized that Kathy Shaidle is in contravention of the Canada Weights and Measures Act.

Pro Wrestling, Koffi Annan, Fatherhood

This week, for some reason, people keep saying to me "What's new and exciting?" when what they really mean is "Good afternoon. How are you?"

After the fifth or sixth one, I preferred not to restrain myself.

I said:

Let alone what is both, I am in no position to tell you either what is new or what is exciting.

Do I seem to you as if some kind of chichi neoteric? As if I am up (or is it down?) with what these days engages the hip kids?

In fact, Madam, I have no more interest in the new and exciting than I have in Koffi Annan's views on professional wrestling or the size of Yoko Ono's brassiere.

I find, and I'm sure you'll agree, it is a most distasteful man who attempts to extend unnaturally that period of his life concerned with what's new and exciting; ridiculous little men with their moustaches and flared trousers going out on a Friday night for fits of caprice and disco dancing.

Horrible.

Nay, I am somebodies' father. I am here for Stability and I am here for Order. I am not here for novelty and I am most certainly not here for excitement.

Garbled Platitudes

I saw this in a public school the other day:


It says "Diversity Is The One True Thing We All Have In Common

In a school, where kids are supposed to be learning to think, they've hung this wildly illogical statement. Presumably the teachers pass it every day. Apparently nobody has said "what a lot of nonsense" and taken it down.

If you try, you can say things about unity in diversity that make sense, but spewing garbled platitudes is pretty important to Newfangled People, especially when you compare it to something all crazy and old fashioned like forming valid thoughts.

So they don't try.
Pity.

Attention

Steve and Hilary are saying the internet is making us stupid, or at least unable to focus. The Atlantic says so too. It's the Sesame Street of media.

It's probably true.

But big deal. It's not like I was finding the cure for cancer or anything.

You could go read the article at the Atlantic, but apparently you don't have the attention span anymore.

In Spite of Dungeon, Fire, and Sword

"But if I be asked what sign we may look for to show that the advance of the Faith is at hand, I would answer by a word the modern world has forgotten: Persecution. When that shall once more be at work it will be morning."

-Hilaire Belloc

Canada isn't a free country anymore. Last week, Alberta's Human Rights Commission, farcically so-called, ordered a Protestant pastor never again to speak or write his religious views on sexual morality.

The State has ordered him to abandon his religion and publicly, to embrace the Official Religion of the State.

It seems like bad news.

But good, I say. Before long now the State will bumble into a bishop with a pair fully functioning of those which are particular and unique to men, and the issue will be forced. The State will confiscate Church property and arrest members for holding to the Faith.

Now would be a good time for bishops either to retire or grow a pair.

And we may keep this in mind:

We are not welcome here. Official Canada is trying to stamp us out.

Screw 'em. Keep the Faith.

A Gentleman's Response

The etiquette books of yesteryear, but for whimsy and interest, are of scarce use to the gentleman of today.

The modern gent, for one, seems unlikely to be at table having to choose from variously sized forks for the salad course. Should he be, as best man, called upon to make a toast, inasmuch a he is relatively sober or only mildly offensive, he will have risen above the common standard.

He has little use for a dinner suit, will never tie a bow tie, and if he rises when a lady does, she is likely to misunderstand and may try to race him to the toilet.

So much for standards.

But though standards fall, decorous conduct will always serve a man. Thus, I propose to provide practical instruction in the graceful handling of the predicaments of modern life.

Posts on such will follow. Reader inquiries are most welcome either by comments left or messages to jdcarriere@gmail.com

The Diverse Tapestry of Nitwits

Khurrum again: Free speech...

"is really a far-right Republican argument that is being imported into this country."

Not conceding Mr. Awan's point, mostly because it is a stupid and false one, I wonder how it can be that when some groups import ideas into this country, mentioning it is a hate-crime, but when ever us far-rightists try it...

Whither tolerance?

To the Chattering Pinkopagans and the Multicult Twits I say:

The next time you're planning to enjoy the colourful tapestry of state-imposed multiculturalism, by picking up a curry and attending some weird diversity parade (or whatever it is you do) for a change, why not taste the rich flavour of conservatism?

Buy a gun. Say what you think. Pray.

Celebrate a little diversity, you closed-minded nitwits.

Little Green Men from Ottawa

Here's one:

Justin Trudeau, heir to the Trudeaupian Shambles, says his wretched father's wretched Charter of Rights applies to space aliens, if they become Canadian citizens.

Evidently space aliens are expected to be very stupid.

So to recap: Space aliens are people. Human babies, as yet unborn, are not.

It's a special kind of stupidity.

Hives and Heresy

I have just come back from a secular event held in a church building belonging to the United Church of Canada.

I sat against the right wall on the extreme right of the United church. I broke out in hives anyway.

Perhaps not the most effective rebuttal

For his bestseller, Mark Steyn...

"can thank a handful of Muslim goofballs who can't quite grasp that trying to censor an author who claims Muslims in western countries aren't embracing western traditions of individual liberty is perhaps not the most effective rebuttal of the author's thesis".

Quite so.

Blessed Times

In light of current circumstances, this, originally posted on February 23, 2006, bears repeating. Or I think so anyway. And it's my blog:

* * *
It seems some of my acquaintances have got the wrong idea about me. They seem to think that a fellow's lost hope just because he considers honestly his children's future prospects at martyrdom here in the New Canada.

On the contrary, I say, Christian hope is not to be confused with foolish optimism. But lest I give a false impression, I'm really glass-half-full kind of guy.

In fact, it is a great time to be a contrarian crank. Holy Church now collapsed and the culture gone fully to crap, you never have to look far for something to grouse about.

And still, things are running pretty much tickety-boo.

Living is easy and the Chinese working for nothing affords us the illusion of wealth. Tobacco remains widely available. There's hockey or there's football on the television almost every weekend and never in human history has such a variety of good quality whisky been so easy to come by.

Newspapers, though instruments of socialist indoctrination, still go nicely with a good cuppa and a Saturday morning, and having children continues to be more fun even than making them in the first place.

Though nearly everyone I meet is a filthy cursed pagan, I've found filthy cursed pagans to be really rather nice. And even with all these nice people around, I still like my wife better than anybody. She's fun, engaging and brilliant, and, Deo gratias, has profoundly nice legs.

Indeed, to live in these times is truly a blessing.

Mugabe on Cannucki Human Rights

"The B.C. Human Rights Tribunal is an amateurish affront to the proud dictatorial tradition of show trials, kangaroo courts, and secret tribunals. You people make me ill."

Robert Mugabe

If you were going to go to the bother of a show trial, wouldn't you try to make a show of a trial?

I mean, we know he's guilty of being accused, and that's what matters in the New Canada, but this is just embarrassing. Mao is rolling in his grave.

In fact, if we could skip right to the extrajudicial killings, it would just seem so much more reasonable.

***

update: articles. National Post and Vancouver Sun.

First Day of State Indoctrination

"Come on Billy. You'll be late for your first day of State Indoctrination!" called Billy's mom.

"Aw Mommy, I don't want to go. Learning to read is hard. I'm scared" said Billy.

"Oh silly bear, they aren't going to teach you to read!"

"But I'll miss you, Mommy" said Billy.

"You'll be okay Billy. Besides, Mommy's only a social construct."

Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons

Aldous Huxley:

"Facts do not cease to exist because they are ignored".

Which seems an awfully good thing when you consider the apparent inability of WhoIsRunningTheJoint to grasp them.

Ezra reports on the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal's ruling that some guy whose condo board won't let him keep a dog deserves twelve thousand dollars in damages. Why? Because he might go blind and he wants to keep his dog.

His is dog is not a seeing eye dog. People with working eyes don't get to keep ordinary dogs there either.

But he might go blind.

And maybe he might train his dog first.

Or something. It doesn't even matter to these people.

As Canada swirls around the drain, Right Thinking people are apt to compare our situation to Huxley's Brave New World.

That's wrong.

The Brave New World had Alpha-Plus World Controllers. Here, we have the Epsilon-Minus Semi-Morons in control.

Be concerned.