Fred and Ginger

Today the film "The Gay Divorce" with Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers was on the TV.

Watching it - even the little bit I did - is like experiencing a cultural time travel through the development in mores between then and now.

The term "gay" could still be used in its proper sense, then, before being highjacked by the homosexualist movement that made it impossible to use it except in their own chosen meaning, as in any other way it would give rise to misinterpretations.

Psychoanalysis - with its corollary of word association - was still fashionable, as was elephant hunting.

Two step forward and one step back, but it's a huge step back in its implications.

Not Much Hope but Lots of Hate

I don't know if you'ever heard of the extreme Left group Hope not Hate (HnH).

I hadn't, until I joined the party Liberty GB. Because all the activity of this group consists of is attacking political organisations that have different opinions from them.

The choice of its name is particularly unfortunate, especially the "Not Hate" bit, as hate for the holders of non-socialist views is what motivates the group and its only raison d'etre.

Not being an avid reader of its website, only yesterday I chanced to see a blog post in it, written before the last European Elections, in which the three Liberty GB candidates - Paul Weston, Jack Buckby and I - are scrutinised.

But don't expect analysis, or even comment, on ideas and political positions.

Hope not Hate doesn't waste time and the little mental energy it must have on such trivia as the ideolological foundations for a party manifesto policy or the arguments supporting a political stance.

In the old electoral-campaign polarisation of issues versus personalities, this far-Left group has no hesitation in siding with the latter.

Ad hominem attacks is what it's specialised in, indeed not just in this post but in all the others in its website that I read.

The most paradoxical, if we were to take Hope not Hate seriously - choice that I don't recommend - and therefore consider it as a suitable object for a logical assessment of self-contradictions, thing I read was the part about me, since I am, as HnH nicely put it, a "Johnny Foreigner".

Here this group that prides itself for its anti-bigotry and open-mindedness showed itself - inadvertently, but then intellect is not its strong point - for what it is: exactly the opposite.

Here is what it says:

"This one is a woman and she is from Italy. Before you can throw accusations of bunga-bunga at the party, Enza Ferreri, the woman in question, has a name not too dissimilar to that of a flash sports car that rich people drive and she also has a degree in philosophy from an Italian University.

"Like Jack and Paul, it appears she is also very posh. She claims she used to write for the Italian magazine L'Espresso which is probably some kind of industry magazine for coffee lovers."

See how many national stereotypes and prejudices you can cram into a few sentences if you put your mind to it?

The "bunga bunga" reference is particularly telling, since only Italians are mindlessly and sweepingly associated with the sexcapades of their politicians, in this case former Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi.

As Italian journalist and friend Alessandra Nucci said, Americans are not all painted with the same brush as Oval Office adulterer Bill Clinton.

So here you have it as clear as daylight: the self-proclaimed anti-racist, anti-fascist, anti-xenophobic group par excellence is revealing its hidden bigotry, thus showing to be motivated not so much by pure and philanthropic ideals but by hatred for conservatives, as the entire focus and activity of the group - merely negative, attacking something or rather someone - also amply demonstrates.

http://www.hopenothate.org.uk/blog/insider/a-bit-of-racist-posh-and-spice-3586

Top Economist: Immigration Hurts Us All

Top Left-wing Cambridge economist finally admits that immigration hurts all of us.

Cambridge University is traditionally strong in economics subjects. Now Professor Robert Rowthorn, Emeritus Professor of Economics at Cambridge University and a longstanding adviser to Whitehall departments, said that, while the economic advantages of immigration are "unlikely to be very large", the disadvantages - from building on the green belt to overcrowding in cities - are great and will be felt by the UK population for generations to come.

For many years the totally-unrestricted immigration policies, first championed and introduced by Tony Blair's New Labour government, have been peddled to the public with claims of the major economic benefits that they would bring to a native population that was either too old to work or, if young, too lazy to do so.

The counterevidence to these claims was clear for everyone to see, and became even more obvious over the years.

More recently, we've witnessed quasi-desperate attempts by the government, the BBC and assorted Leftist media and academics to produce and divulge studies that allegedly empirically confirmed the benefits of immigration for British economy.

Some of these studies used faulty methods of research, and they were exposed for this, for example by the think tank Migration Watch UK.

Maybe the time has come when even Leftist academics find it difficult to deny what is before everyone's eyes: that Britain has become a worse place due to immigration.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2712677/How-mass-migration-hurts-No-s-not-Mail-saying-verdict-Left-wing-economist-Cambridge.html

Wrong to Have Animals Killed in War

From "Military dog killed in Gaza blast saved handler's life":

IDF canine Tamara took the worst of the impact in house explosion • Her handler, Staff Sgt. T., was moderately wounded • "She was his best friend; he's grieving for her," says his mother • Oketz Unit holds ceremonies for dogs killed in action.

A dog from the IDF's Oketz K9 unit who was killed last week when a booby-trapped house in Gaza exploded saved her handler's life.

I have to say that I consider immoral to have dogs or other animals take part in military operations - be it Israeli or any other - as they cannot give their consent.

Why Criminals Are Afraid of Classical Music

Published on American Thinker

By Enza Ferreri


Apparently, many young people, especially those with an antisocial disposition, dislike classical music so much that Bach, Beethoven and Mozart can even be played to discourage young hooligans from intimidating, harassing and robbing store customers.

This experiment has been tried and has succeeded over many years in several locations.

The earliest occurrence I could find goes back to the mid 1980s, when Canadian outlets of the 7-Eleven convenience store franchise began to play easy listening and classical music to drive away teenagers who were loitering outside their stores. Following the success of this new way to fight anti-social behaviour, companies from McDonald's to Co-op, transport authorities and countless shopping malls around the world have employed it.

In the UK, the first to adopt this method to cut crime and disorder was the Tyne and Wear Metro system, in England's North East, in 1997, pumping out Haydn and Mozart at its underground stations to deter vandals and loiterers, after the success achieved by the underground system in Montreal, Canada, in the mid 1990s.

The results were so positive that other British transport providers imitated the scheme, including the bus station in Stanley in County Durham and the much bigger London Underground system. The most effective deterrents, according to Transport for London, were anything sung by Pavarotti or written by Mozart.

In Holywood, County Down, in Northern Ireland, the town centre manager Steven Dunlop said that groups of youths as young as 15 caused problems near the post office which opens late at night:

"They climbed onto the roof of one building, were spitting on pensioners, abusing other people and creating an atmosphere which was putting off custom," he told BBC News Online in Belfast.

He was unsuccessful in persuading the council to play classical music to keep away the louts, but

contacted a professor at Queen's University in Belfast who did a PhD on the effects of music on the human mood.

"He found that young people were into tap and hiphop beats - faster beats of music - and they find classical music intolerable," he said.

In January 2005, The Economist was reporting that Co-op, a national chain of grocery stores in the UK, was playing classical music outside its shops whenever youths started hanging around and intimidating customers. It had the desired effect of dispersing the troublemakers.

Despite original scepticism from some who didn't appreciate the power of classical music and education ("I don't believe that such measures will have any long-term positive impact in terms of deterring menacing teenagers, whatever other benefits playing Mozart might bestow on shoppers and Underground travellers. If anything, I have a feeling that it'll probably encourage a few punks to simply use the music as a background score to their misbehavior, a la 'A Clockwork Orange.'"), it's been working, as its constant use seems to indicate.

And not just food stores, but also other types of retailers in the Yorkshire city of Leeds adopted this approach, including travel agencies, opticians and funeral services, still owned by the Co-op, with support from the police, Leeds City Council's Anti-Social Behaviour Unit and local residents.

Hoping to repeat the success obtained in various parts of Britain, Neil Honeywood, security manager of Leeds Co-op's Food Division, said:

"Youngsters gather outside stores because it's light and there's a supply of food and shelter from the rain.

"But they can become noisy and intimidating - and that's when the nuisance starts. But classical music usually moves a group on within minutes. They don't want to listen to that - it's just not cool."

Since then the same method has been employed several times. In 2009, stores in some cities and towns of South Yorkshire, in Northern England, used it with success, as "loss prevention" manager Peter Cooper explained:

"We had an issue with young people hanging around outside the stores which was intimidating for shoppers and staff.

"This problem has been dramatically reduced since we introduced the music. The youngsters are definitely not classical music fans, and tend to disappear as soon as we turn the music on.

It's been working across the pond too.

Whether at New York's Port Authority Bus Terminal, La Guardia, Newark International and John F. Kennedy International airports, and Pennsylvania Station; at Portland, Oregon, light-rail stations; in Seattle's parking lots; or in Anchorage, Alaska, Town Square, classical soundtracks have helped to stop or reduce anti-social behaviour and even crimes like fights and drug dealing.

Canadian cities have also been playing classical music, including opera, from speakers in public places, such as subway platforms, to keep people from loitering.

In Australia and New Zealand, same pattern and same success stories. In Queensland, Australia, the classical music played by a local rail company in train stations reduced not only loitering but even vandalism and graffiti.

It worked in a Liverpool housing estate as well, where different types of music were played at different times of the day and, in an area where classical music was played, youngters stopped writing graffiti.

In Germany, a slightly different approach. A minister, who is also a pianist, produced a CD of Mozart's Piano Concerto No. 21 in which he played accompanied by the Deutsche Oper Berlin, entitled "Adagio in the Car". The intent was to calm down motorists, thus preventing road rage and road accidents.

The evidence seems plentiful, even though the experiments have not been performed in controlled laboratory conditions. Why, then is classical music such an effective crime and antisociality deterrent?

The simplest explanations, in the time-honoured scientific tradition of Occam's razor, should be considered first.

Teenagers, especially those with uneducated ears like the anti-social types that linger around where they are not wanted, don't like classical music, and in addition they think it's not "cool" to be seen by their peers listening to it.

A simple key factor, according to Leicester University's Adrian North, is unfamiliarity - which even those who are not psychology researchers like North know that in music is related to taste. The targets in these "experiments" were clearly unused to strings and woodwind, but for the more musically literate an atonal barrage may work better. Mr North tormented Leicester students with “computer-game music” in the union bar. It cleared the place.

Still other explanations, leaving aside physiological analyses and neurotransmitters, are in the nature of classical music itself. Much of it conveys a sense of order, symmetry and beauty, that deeply conflicts with the disorder and ugliness that these young hooligans may have in their minds while loitering. It also acts as a calming influence against aggressive and destructive impulses, creating a more peaceful atmosphere.

Giovanni Bietti, musicologist, pianist and artistic consulant of Rome's Accademia Nazionale di Santa Cecilia, explains:

"Beethoven was profoundly convinced that music could make a great social contribution. He, like Mozart and Haydn, had a rational picture of music, which is why in their compositions the initial contrasts are always resolved through the rules of musical composition, creativity and intelligence. It's clear that these logical and musical processes, which inevitably resolve the conflicts giving order to thoughts, discourage those who do not accept the rules. And it is equally clear that even those who do not know music perceive them, because the subliminal message of these compositions is strong enough to convey this sense of order to anyone."

In conclusion, it's easy to see - at the other end of the spectrum - the link between criminal behaviour and rap, link deriving not just from the rap lyrics but also from the "music" - or rather cacophony - itself.

And, on a larger scale, a society that is enthralled by the vulgarity of Amy Winehouse acoustically and Tracey Emin visually can clearly be seen on an aesthetic and moral downward path from many other different indicators.

There are forms of expression that exalt and bring out the worst of us and others that exalt and bring out the best of us. In many ways, while rap encourages the anti-social in each of us, classical music keeps it at bay.

Tower Hamlets Supports Palestinians: What a Surprise

Has the London borough of Tower Hamlets become a little Muslim enclave in Britain's capital city?

Lutfur Rahman, the directly-elected mayor of Tower Hamlets, in East London, today ordered the Palestinian flag to be flown from the town hall as a "gesture of humanitarian solidarity" with the victims of the fighting in Gaza.

Who is he to make such decision? What about people living in his council or in London who want to express solidarity with the Israelis killed by Hamas rockets?

Rahman also said that he was supporting a collection by the Tower Hamlets branch of Unison - Britain's biggest trade union - for the charity Medical Aid for Palestinians.

Muslim charities - or organisations giving money to Muslims - have to be treated with great suspicion until they have been subjected to thorough investigation as has been done in the USA, where the largest Islamic charities were shut down and prosecuted for financing terrorism. Britain's Charity Commission must do the same here. Islam's doctrine of zakat prescribes that one eighth of all obligatory Muslim charity must fund jihad, the holy war in the name of Allah.

Interestingly, it has come to light that the Palestinian Authority refused millions of dollars worth of medical aid from Israel twice in the last week.

The area of Tower Hamlets, which has been at the centre of electoral frauds and intimidations, has for years been colonised by Muslims who in local elections tend to vote for candidates of their "faith". Under Lutfur Rahman, Tower Hamlets Council has been trying to enforce Islamic law.

Empty Pews, Bursting Mosques

Not many words are needed.

Just compare the two pictures from the Mail Online, both taken at the end of last month, few hundred yards of each other in the East End of London.

The top photo shows a Sunday morning service in the churche of St George-in-the-East on Cannon Street Road. Only 12 people attended the service.

The photo at the bottom shows worshippers gathered for Friday midday prayers outside the mosque on the Brune Street Estate in Spitalfields. Since the mosque holds "only" 100 people - an enviable number for many churches -, the Muslim believers overflowed in the nearby streets.

As a terrible coincidence, adding insult to injury, Canon Michael Ainsworth of St George’s, that the Mail describes as "putting on a brave face", was beaten up in 2008 in his churchyard by three "Asian" (read "Muslim") youths, in an incident which police treated as a "faith-hate" attack.

The chairman of my party Liberty GB, Paul Weston, wrote about it at the time, and so did I a few years later.

Is this the country we want to live in? A country where decent, altruistic, peaceful and loving people are replaced by their exact opposites?