The uses of memory

It is a passtime of progressives to undo the traditional reading of many historical events as merely propaganda serving the interests of the victor. Their own predictable narratives are not lacking in motivation either, I might add.

In Canada, on December 6th 1989, --I was living there at the time-- a noteworthy event occurred.

Here's the standard narrative: In Montreal, Marc Lepine shot 27 female engineering students at the Ecole Polytechnique, killing 14, before fatally shooting himself. Prior to the murders, he sent all the male students out of the room and shouted his hatred of feminists as he executed them.

The mass murder prompted tighter gun laws, which included the creation of the controversial national firearms registry. It also prompted Parliament to create the National Day of Remembrance and Action on Violence against Women in 1991, to coincide with the anniversary of the tragedy.

Two items that were suppressed in the narrative were "Marc Lepine's" cultural context: Arab Muslim, born Gamil Gharbi, ... and the fact that the unarmed men agreed to abandon the women and leave the room in the first place.

Mark Steyn provides some additional thoughts and reflection on what became a standard Women As Victims of Patriarchy and Its Guns discourse.

Some words of Steyn that are apt: (bolding mine)

Let’s face it, our society is in trouble. The real problem is not the killer. It’s those men who think nothing of letting someone kill women. There’s something dark, lurking and evil in the idea that manliness is dangerous. This is what happens when there’s a lack of testosterone in society. How can we raise boys to be uncomfortable with traditional boy behavior and then expect them to act like honorable men? We cannot.

____________________________________

Aaron T

Aaron Tippin
 
More CMT Music
 
More CMT Music Videos

Just because

Thank you, Your Dhimmitude

Un-effing-believable.

An old saying of the Desert Fathers, "Flee women...and bishops."

Hegel

A quote I got last evening from my friend Bill the Quoteslinger.
Attributed to Hegel, the charming fella pictured above.
My fact-checker is on vacation in Aruba,
so I'm just posting this without verification.
Sorta like a lot of news outlets.

"What we learn from history is
that we do not learn from history."

___________________________________

The Man speaks

Victor Davis Hanson --classics professor, author, farmer and shouldabeen George Bush's speechwriter--on the university. Not short, but an example of his usual insight and clarity, in City Journal.

While the public may not fully appreciate the role that classical education once played, it nonetheless understands that university graduates know ever less, even as the cost of their education rises ever more. Any common, shared notion of what it means to be either a Westerner or an American is increasingly rare.

_______________________

Mutt mug

Eddie Cahill of CSI:NY.
Irish Dad, Italian Mom.
New Yawk accent.
Nice combo that.

_______________________

Mundane wisdom

Over the weekend I recalled a story I heard this past year. It's supposed to be true. Well, even if it never happened, it's still true.

In Catholic schools some decades ago, the crowning of the statue of Mary as May Queen was a big deal. There were processions, etc and the bright and pious girl who was chosen by the nuns to do the actual coronation had status.

There was a girl, Maria Scarpino, let's call her, who wanted this role. So she set out during the year to be the most exemplary Catholic school girl she could. She excelled both in academics and behavior and ramped up her piety with Masses and rosaries, etc. It was her project and goal and she dedicated herself to it totally.

When the time came in spring, though, the nuns chose another girl to perform the coveted ritual, one who, to Maria's eyes, seemed far less worthy than she. It was a bitter disappointment.

Many years later, Maria was invited to her class reunion. Now an adult, she returned to her childhood school and some of the nuns who had taught her were there. She summoned up her courage and asked one of them about the affair of the May Crowning, which had haunted her all these years. She wanted to know why, despite her worthiness, she had not been chosen. This was the answer she got:

"Ah, well, Maria, yes, you certainly deserved the spot. But we only had one dress for the ceremony and unfortunately...you didn't fit the dress."

You certainly deserved the spot, but, alas, you didn't fit the dress.

__________________________________________________

Excellent questions

from the incisive ShrinkWrapped.

Can an open and free society exist with a large population of unassimilated and hostile Muslims within its borders? Can free men remain free when all the passion and courage has been drained away by comfort and self-abnegation? When people no longer feel their own culture is worth defending, can the virtues that make modern civilization worth supporting stand against those who hate the modern world's freedoms?

The whole thing.

_________________________________

Farewell, W.

When people discover that I am not a Democrat, it's sort of like watching people try to ingest the idea that you can be Italian or Irish and not Catholic. Their next remark, "So you're a Republican." Well, no. Not quite. I deregistered as a Democrat and reregistered as an Independent. But I mostly vote for Republicans. Lesser of two evils. Two.

My major problem with George Bush also makes people blink when I say it. He was too nice. What we needed was the swaggering cowboy. What we got was No Child Left Behind...one of the most patently nauseating names for a law I ever heard of, and Islam the Religion of Peace.

Apparently I am not the only righty to feel this way.

The world is dominated by bullies and tyrants. Always has been. You cannot impress a bully or a tyrant by being nice. Speak softly if you want, but have to have the big stick. And use it. And when you do, do not apologize. Only ask if they want another blow.

I blame much of the corruption of liberalism on practical atheism. Liberals have imbibed a set of highminded moral principles (and poses) from a dying Christendom, but since they lack the lynchpin of Christendom --God and God's Son-- the whole enterprise is out of whack and self-destructive.

The world is an impossible place. And the human predicament is a predicament, not a temporary detour on the road to utopia. Christians (and Jews) understood that, in the end, it was God's job to handle the big picture. And although this world was understood as God's creation, it was so flawed that, in the end, it would have to be destroyed and replaced with "a new heaven and a new earth." Apparently even God found it incurable.

Liberals, being practical atheists, have to stand in for God and do all His jobs. They end up trying to be Christlike without Christ or God, and it just degenerates into niceness. Real religious believers, like Muslims, are utterly unimpressed by this. And liberals don't get it, because they do not know what real religious conviction is like. Deaf. And dumb.