Happy Bastille Day

To Emmanuel Macron and all the other post-national Frenchmen and dames, our old friend Jacques Untel says: Are you happy now?

AfD parliamentarian's account blocked for anti-Muslim Tweet

Canada has its M-103 (full title: Motion 103), passed in March 2017 by the ruling Liberal Party in collusion with the pinkish NDP over the objections of the Conservative opposition. The brainchild of a Muslim MP representing a minority majority riding in the so-called Greater Toronto Area, it is (in theory) only a non-binding motion of the Canadian Parliament calling on the federal government to condemn Islamophobia in Canada. It also calls for the collection of data on "hate crimes" and a study on how racism and religious discrimination can be reduced. and collect data on hate crimes.

Although M-103 is only a motion, and doesn't carry the force of law, Canadian governments at all levels and the (((controlled media))) treat it as law requiring censorship of any negative reference to Islam or Muslims, particularly in connection with terrorist attacks or other crimes. This leads to such absurdities as the refusal of Canuck police to identify a man who, last month, walked into a bank in the Toronto suburb of Vaughan, with explosives strapped to his torso, demanding drugs and a telephone call to President Trump. See "Canuck cops cover up terror attack outside Toronto", WWW 15/15/17. The uncle of the now-deceased attacker said the man was an immigrant from Iran, and yes, a follower of the Prophet.

Citizens of more sensible nations [like the Excited States of America? Ed.] may laugh at the self-loathing of Canadians (see Further Reading, below), but the let's-be-nice-to-Muslims-and-maybe-they-won't-kill-us policies of other countries are even worse. Take, for example, Angela Merkel's Germany.

Walt trusts that his readers have not forgotten how, last New Year's and the New Year's before that, gangs of Arab and African yoofs -- Muslim asylum-seekers, "refugees" and other migrants -- rampaged through the streets of Köln (Cologne) and other German cities molesting, robbing and raping Aryan women. See "Happy New Year (II) ! 100s of 'Africans' detained in Cologne", WWW 1/1/17 and "Trump warns Germans after asylum-seekers' sex and crime spree", WWW 8/1/16.

This year, die Polizei decided to forestall the expected repetition of the Islamists' demonstrations of appreciation for their hosts' Willkommenskultur by issuing New Year's greetings in Arabic. "Peace on earth" and all that. This expression of brotherly love was met with responses of "Piss on you!" and others too vile to post in Walt's family-oriented blog.

Among those who thought this gesture of of accommodation was unnecessary and ridiculous was Beatrix von Storch, a prominent lawmaker with the nationalist Alternativ für Deutschland (Alternative for Germany) party, who Tweeted, "Do they think they will calm the barbaric, Muslim, group-raping hordes of men this way?"

No good deed goes unpunished, and no politicall incorrect Tweet goes uncensored in the Fatherland. Frau Storch's innocent question resulted in her Twitter account being blocked for several hours yesterday over a suspected breach of rules on hate speech -- Germany's much tougher version of Canada's M-103.

Inspektor Katzenjammer said this morning that his storm troopers ["officers", shurely! Ed.] were filing a criminal complaint to prosecutors over "suspected incitement". He did not say against whom the complaint would be filed. Walt suspects it will be against those who expressed outrage at the barbaric behaviour of the poor mistreated Muslims, not at the Muslims who provoked the outrage. Such is the strange death of European civilization.

Further reading: "5 decades of liberalism turns Canucks sour on themselves", WWW 28/6/17. Walt's Canadian buddy, Poor Len Canayen, fulminates about M-103, white liberal guilt, and why the Great White North isn't great or white any more.

VIDEO: Douglas Murray explains the lie of multiculturalism

This morning, when correctly predicting the stunning result of the German election (lifetime pct .983), I recommended The Strange Death of Europe: Immigration, Identity, Islam, by Douglas Murray (Bloomsbury Continuum, 2017).

For those who are saying "Who he?"... Douglas Kear Murray is a British author, journalist, and political commentator. He is the founder of the Centre for Social Cohesion and is currently the associate director of the Henry Jackson Society and associate editor of The Spectator. The left-wing rag, The Grauniad called his new book "gentrified xenophobia". Here is a more balanced review, from Goodreads.

The Strange Death of Europe is a highly personal account of a continent and culture caught in the act of suicide. Declining birth rates, mass immigration, and cultivated self-distrust and self-hatred have come together to make Europeans unable to argue for themselves and incapable of resisting their own comprehensive alteration as a society and an eventual end.

This is not just an analysis of demographic and political realities, it is also an eyewitness account of a continent in self-destruct mode. It includes accounts based on travels across the entire continent, from the places where migrants land to the places they end up, from the people who pretend they want them to the places which cannot accept them.

Murray takes a step back at each stage and looks at the bigger and deeper issues which lie behind a continent's possible demise, from an atmosphere of mass terror attacks to the steady erosion of our freedoms. The book addresses the disappointing failure of multiculturalism, Angela Merkel's U-turn on migration, the lack of repatriation, and the Western fixation on guilt. Murray travels to Berlin, Paris, Scandinavia, Lampedusa, and Greece to uncover the malaise at the very heart of the European culture, and to hear the stories of those who have arrived in Europe from far away.

This sharp and incisive book ends up with two visions for a new Europe -- one hopeful, one pessimistic--which paint a picture of Europe in crisis and offer a choice as to what, if anything, we can do next. But perhaps Spengler was right: "civilizations like humans are born, briefly flourish, decay, and die."

And here, to summarize his thinking about the lie of culturalism, is Mr Murray himself. Running time 11:05.

PC madness in Bloomington IN

Here's another one for our "You couldn't make this stuff up" file. The Bloomington (IN) Herald-Times reports that there will be no more Good Friday and Columbus Day holidays in Bloomington, Indiana. Really. The holy day and holiday in question will henceforth be known as "Spring Holiday" and "Fall Holiday".

Why? Because the new super-politically correct names will help make the holidays more inclusive, according to Bloomington Mayor John Hamilton. (Mayor Hamilton is unrelated to Alexander Hamilton, the subject of the eponymous Broadway musical, which also happens to be very PC.) Mayor Hamilton sent a memo to city employees this week in which he explained that the centuries-old names imply cultural insensitivity. The new names will avoid even the remotest possibility of giving offence to anyone except Christians and Italian-Americans.

In his memo, Mayor Hamilton raised to new heights the bar for "celebrating diversity" ["pandering", surely. Ed.]. "We are terrifically proud of our diverse workforce at the city," Hizzoner wrote. "That diversity makes us stronger and more representative of the public we proudly serve. These updated names for two days of well-merited time off is another way we can demonstrate our commitment to inclusivity."

Mr Hamilton's unilateral decision to rename the days will be no surprise to residents of Bloomington. Thanks to the presence in the city of that great seat of liberal learning, Indiana University, Bloomington and surrounding Monroe County are overwhelmingly populated by guilt-ridden white liberals. The county gave Hellery Clinton 58.6% the vote on November 8th, preferring her to President-elect Trump [Walt loves that phrase! Ed.] by nearly 14,000 votes.

Book recommendation: Guilt, by Ann Coulter (Three Rivers Press, 2009). Amongst other things, you can read about all the confused white gliberals who "self-identified" as "oppressed minorities" and all the "hate crimes" that turned out to be hoaxes perpetrated by SJWs.

Majority of US college freshmen not ready for higher education

The test results are in, with proof -- if proof is needed -- that when it comes to formal, post-secondary education, the Excited States of America does poorly compared with other developed countries. A disturbingly high percentage of US college graduates can't read, write or do basic math properly. The freshmen are even worse. Many 1000s of American yoofs graduate from high school unable to read their diplomas. GIGO: Garbage In, Garbage Out.

Just over a year ago, the College Board reported that SAT scores dropped significantly for that year's class of college-bound seniors. All three sections saw declines, with the numbers were down for male and female students alike. At the same time, SAT scores showed continued patterns in which white and Asian students, on average, receive higher scores than do black and Latino students. So don't be calling Walt a white supremacist. I'm just repeating the facts.

Many academics, including Dr. Walter E. Williams*, argue that a very large percentage of all incoming freshmen have no business being admitted to college. According to the College Board's report, the average combined SAT score for white students was 1576 out of a possible 2400. Black student SAT scores, at 1277, were the lowest of the seven reported racial groups. The College Board considers a SAT score of 1550 as the benchmark that indicates a readiness for college-level work.

Only 32% of white students scored at or above "proficient" in math. Only 7% of black students achieved that level. 46% of white test takers, but just 17% of blacks, were considered proficient in reading. Yet because of the reverse racism which is euphemistically called "affirmative action", black students are actually given preference in admission to many US colleges and universities.

Another test used for admission to college is the American College Testing Program (ACT). The ACT test was taken by 2,090,342 students in the high school graduating class of 2016. Just over 13% of the test takers were black. The average composite score for black test takers on the ACT was 17.0 (on a scale of 1 to 36). That was lower than the average score for any other racial or ethnic group including American Indians, Hispanics, and Pacific Islanders. The average composite score for whites was 22.2. The racial gap in ACT test scores has remained relatively stable for decades.

Leaving aside the racial disparity, some truly shocking numbers are revealed in "A Major Crisis in College Readiness for Black Students", a report in The Journal of Blacks in Higher Education. The majority of students -- white as well as black -- simply are not well-enough educated to be going to college! Only 34% of whites who took the ACT were deemed college-ready in all four areas: English, mathematics, reading and science. For blacks, the figure was just 6%.

Dr Williams* argues that "the most pervasive form of racial discrimination at most colleges is affirmative action. In the name of helping people from groups that have suffered past discrimination, colleges admit black students whose academic preparation differs significantly with that of their white peers. Those differences are not subtle. It should not come as a surprise that the intended beneficiaries of that 'benign' discrimination feel themselves ridiculed, isolated and treated differently. As a result, students who might be successes in a less competitive environment are turned into failures."

Dr Williams goes on to say that the problem of black education begins long before college. The National Assessment of Educational Progress, known as "The Nation's Report Card", shows that in 2015, only 7% percent of black 12th-graders were considered proficient in math, and only 17% in reading. "This suggests that the average black 12th-grader has the academic proficiency of a white 8th- or 9th-grader. Consider the following question: If one admits 1000 randomly selected 8th- and 9th-graders to college and admits 1000 randomly selected 12th-graders, who do you think is going to come out on top? Who would be surprised if the 8th- and 9th-graders felt inferiority, oppression, and insensitivity?

"The academic elite feel righteous seeing blacks on campus, even if they are severely mismatched. Black people must ask: Are we going to sacrifice our youngsters so that white liberals can feel good about themselves?"

* Based on "Cruelty to Black Students", by Walter E. Williams, on the Lew Rockwell blog. Dr Williams is an American economist, commentator, and academic. He is the John M. Olin Distinguished Professor of Economics at George Mason University. And he is black.

Further reading: The chapters on the crisis in American education in War on the Middle Class, by Lou Dobbs (Viking Penguin 2007); Why Johnny Can't Read, by Dr. Rudolf Flesch (latest edition: Buccaneer Books 1998)

"Political correctness is fascism!" -- George Carlin

Toronto is Canada's biggest city, and, in the minds of its denizens, most important. The Toronto elites, and its media in particular, like to think that their city is to Canada as New York is to the Excited States of America. As if that's a good thing! Toronto wants so badly to be a "world class" city -- like New York -- that it emulates the Big Apple's tolerance of ghettos, gang violence, ridiculous housing prices and all the other things that make New York a great place to visit... etc.

Where was I going with this? Let's see... I go out of my way to not go to Toronto, unless Poor Len Canayen takes me to see the Maple Laffs get thrashed by le Canadien. I made an exception, though, on Monday, on the occasion of a convocation at which the son of one of my Agents received a professional licence. The ceremony was large, long and loaded with Important People who made speeches about the just society, celebrating diversity and suchlike codswallop. The fug of political correctness was so thick that I could scarcely breathe.

It has taken me a full day -- 24 hours -- to recover sufficiently to write even two paragraphs. But Ed. demands that this space be filled. [Hey. You're the one who set the target, so you're the one who has to meet it! Ed.] Therefore, we present a few well-chosen words from George Carlin on the subject of political correctness, which is slowly but surely robbing us of the power of clear and intelligent speech. Hear him.

Swedish experience shows folly of welcoming unassimilable immigrants

Today's theme is the "refugee crisis" faced by Europe, into which the USA and Canada are now being drawn by the do-good frenzy being whipped up by the usual gang of one-worlders, "progressive thinkers" and the lamestream media. Oh, those poor oppressed refugees! We have a duty to help them because we are our brothers' (and sisters') keepers. Never mind that the majority of them are bogus asylum-seekers coming not just from Syria but from anywhere from Bangladesh to Nigeria to suck off European and American teats.

After posting "What happens when your city can't handle any more refugees", Walt learned that Germany is "temporarily" reinstituting border controls, which goes against the "open borders" principle of the Schengen agreement. (The agreement does, however, allow for temporary suspensions of its rules.) Why? Because they're expecting eight hundred thousand (800,000!) "refugees" before the end of 2015, and, according to Germany's Vice-Chancellor, is "at the limit of its capabilities".

Perhaps the German cabinet has heard about the problems faced by Sweden in welcoming hordes of refugees and other immigrants from the Third World who cannot or will not be assimilated into Swedish society. As the Globe and Mail's Margaret Went wrote this weekend in "Sweden’s ugly immigration problem", Sweden has the most welcoming asylum policies and most generous welfare programs in the European Union. How is that working out? Some sobering statistics are to be found in these excerpts from Ms Wente's article.

In Migrants Who Survived Shipwreck Are Grateful, but Disillusioned, a typical refugee, Natanael Haile, [tells how he] barely escaped drowning in the Mediterranean in 2013. But the folks back home in Eritrea don’t want to know about the perils of his journey.... They want to know about "his secondhand car, the government allowances he receives and his plans to find work as a welder once he finishes a two year language course." As a registered refugee, he receives a monthly living allowance of more than $700.

Sweden takes in more refugees per capita than any other European country, and immigrants – mainly from the Middle East and Africa – now make up about 16 per cent of the population. The main political parties, as well as the mainstream media, support the status quo. Questioning the consensus is regarded as xenophobic and hateful. [No kidding. Walt] Now all of Europe is being urged to be as generous as Sweden.

Ms Wente quotes at length from her interview with Tino Sanandaji, a Kurdish-Swedish economist who was born in Iran and moved to Sweden when he was 10. He has a doctorate in economics from the University of Chicago and specializes in immigration issues.

"There has been a lack of integration among non-European refugees," [he told her]. "48 per cent of immigrants of working age don’t work, he said. Even after 15 years in Sweden, their employment rates reach only about 60 per cent. Sweden has the biggest employment gap in Europe between natives and non-natives."

In Sweden, where equality is revered, inequality is now entrenched. 42 per cent of the long-term unemployed are immigrants, Mr. Sanandaji said. 58 per cent of welfare payments go to immigrants. 45 per cent of children with low test scores are immigrants. Immigrants on average earn less than 40 per cent of Swedes. The majority of people charged with murder, rape and robbery are either first- or second-generation immigrants. "Since the 1980s, Sweden has had the largest increase in inequality of any country in the OECD," Mr. Sanandaji said.

Sweden’s generosity costs a fortune, at a time when economic growth is stagnant. The country now spends about $4-billion a year on settling new refugees – up from $1-billion a few years ago, Mr. Sanandaji said.

Yet Sweden’s acute immigration problems scarcely feature in the mainstream media. Journalists see their mission as stopping racism, so they don’t report the bad news. Despite – or perhaps because of – this self-censorship, the gap between the opinion elites and the voters on immigration issues is now a chasm.

According to a recent opinion poll, 58 per cent of Swedes believe there is too much immigration, Mr. Sanandaji noted. The anti-immigration Sweden Democrats party is now polling at between 20 per cent and 25 per cent.

Sweden is a cautionary tale for anyone who believes that Europe is capable of assimilating the hundreds of thousands of refugees and migrants who are besieging the continent, or the millions more who are desperately poised to follow in their wake. The argument that these people are vital to boost the economy – that they will magically create economic growth and bail the Europeans out of their demographic decline – is a fantasy.

It’s really very simple, Mr. Sanandaji explained. You can’t combine open borders with a welfare state. “If you’re offering generous welfare benefits to every citizen, and anyone can come and use these benefits, then a very large number of people will try to do that. And it’s just mathematically impossible for a small country like Sweden to fund those benefits.”

Things will get worse before they get better. As Judy Dempsey, a senior analyst at a Berlin think tank, told The Wall Street Journal, [in Migrant Wave Inspires Others to Attempt Trek to Europe. Walt] "Europe hasn’t seen anything yet in terms of the numbers or the backlash."

Politically correct footnote: Just noticed that the uber-liberal Toronto Red Star has stopped talking about the "refugee crisis". Now it's a "migrant crisis". Guess the term "refugee" has acquired a certain taint. [Duly noted. Ed.]

VIDEO: What happens when your city can't handle any more refugees

News reports from Europe this weekend focus on the refugee crisis, and that's the right word. Literally hundreds of thousands of "refugees" -- mostly Muslim, mostly Arabs and Africans, and mostly bogus (not true refugees from war, but economic migrants) -- are invading Europe in the biggest beach assault since D-Day. They're embarking from Libya and Turkey and washing up on the shores of Italy and Greece, then heading northward, ever northward, to Germany, Sweden and the UK, where (they think) they will get a warmer (i.e. more generous) welcome.

Some countries along the way -- Macedonia and Serbia, for instance -- put them on trains and buses and tell them "Keep going! It's better in Germany!" Others, notably the Slavic countries -- Slovakia, Poland, the Czech Republic -- tell them to not even think about stopping there. Hungary has tried, with limited success, to close its border with Serbia altogether, building a wall allegedly financed by Donald Trump. [Walt's just kidding. The Trump wall is going along the Rio Grande. Ed.]

The fact is that even in a liberal democracy like Sweden, the majority of ordinary citizens don't want to be swamped by a tide of Third-Worlders who bring to once-Christian Europe their alien religion and alien cultures, not to mention disease and crime. Even if only 1% of the million-plus expected to arrive this year and next are Islamic extremists, that's still 10,000 jihadists embedding themselves in Munich, Berlin, Stockholm, Leeds... maybe, dear European reader, in your city.

What happens when 1000s of aliens arrive in your city, expecting that you will house, clothe and feed them, for the sake of "compassion", "mercy" and "human rights", not to mention a big dose of white liberal guilt. As I watched scenes of the squalor in "the Jungle" -- a squalid camp on the outskirts of Calais created by refugees trying to get to Britain -- I was reminded of a good movie I saw back in 2009, called District 9.

Here's the synopsis of District 9:
Twenty years or so before the time of the movie, aliens arrive on Earth, not to conquer or give aid but to find refuge from their dying planet. Their huge space ship runs out of fuel over Johannesburg, where "Multi-National United" (read "United Nations") attempts to manage the influx by herding the aliens into an area called District 9, which they turn into a filthy, seething, slum. Here's a screen grab.

When the alien population passes the million mark, and public revulsion reaches the boiling point, the MNU decides to relocate the aliens to a new settlement far away from the big city. The first forty-five minutes or so of the "mocumentary" show the preparation for the exercise. Watching this footage today, you can't help but be struck by the parallel with video clips from the "temporary" refugee camps in Greece, Serbia and Hungary. Note also the opinions of the local population: "They must go!" Here's the trailer.

"

It turns out that getting rid of millions of refugees who've been squatting in your midst for two decades isn't that easy. The operation, led by MNU field agent Wikus Van der Merwe (played by Sharlto Copley), runs into trouble trying to get the aliens to sign eviction notices, because they have rights and the legal niceties must be observed. In a scuffle with one of the "prawns" -- the locals' name for the aliens, who resemble a cross between a lobster and Dr. John A. Zoidberg -- Van der Merwe gets some of their DNA mixed with his own, with horrific results.

District 9 is a great sci-fi movie -- highly recommendable -- but its real significance, six years down the road, is the depiction of what happens when you allow a horde of aliens to settle in your community. At the time of the story's ending, the population of District 9 had grown to over 2 million, and plans were under way to build a new "District 10".

Dear readers, where is the "District 9" in your community? Even here in [Walt spilled coffee on his manuscript, so I couldn't make out a couple of words here. Ed.] there are entire blocks of "community housing" occupied by vizmins, courtesy of us taxpayers and our liberal government. Now the same "progressives" are crying "in the name of humanity" for the admission of tens of thousands more, which, they tell us, are somehow our responsibility. Where will it end? Watch the movie!

Sikhs in Canada - from "boat people" to slave-keepers

Two stories appearing in the Canadian lamestream media this weekend tell us a lot about how far The Land of the Maple Leaf has come in banishing racism, promoting multiculturalism and celebrating diversity. We also learn something about white liberal guilt and the persistence of racism and slavery in other "communities".

The first story is an eye-splitter from Canada's self-styled "national newspaper", the Globe and Mail. In "Behind the Komagata Maru’s fight to open Canada’s border", Michael Bird tells how his grandfather, J. Edward Bird, led the fight to open Canada's borders to immigrants, refugees and asylum-seekers from every corner of the Third World, including India. Especially Sikhs, who Bird believed were persecuted because of their religion.

This followed the rejection by the terrible racist Canadians of a bid to land at Vancouver the 376 passengers of the tramp steam Komagata Maru, all of them Sikh immigrant wannabes. "We are British citizens and we consider we have a right to visit any part of the Empire," said Gurdit Singh, a Hong Kong-based Sikh businessman who had chartered the Komagata Maru, told reporters earlier.

At the time (1914), third-worlders had not yet learned that all you have to say to Canadian immigration officers is "Refugee! Refugee! Where is the welfare office?" Anyway, in a display of political incorrectness remarkable even for the time, the Sikhs of the Komagata Maru were turned away, and the ship left Canadian waters, watched closely by the HMCS Rainbow.

Even a century ago, there were white liberals who felt guilty! guilty! guilty! about how badly their race had treated the poor vizmins of the American south and the British Empire, forcing on them such evils as roads, railways, schools and hospitals. J. Edward Bird championed the cause of unfettered immigration all the way to the British Columbia Court of Appeal, which opined that the government was entitled -- and perhaps wise -- to impose limits.

It wasn't until the great "civil rights" uproar of the hippy-dippy 60s that the Canadian government removed racial and ethnic considerations from the country's immigration policies. This was done by order-in-council, by the way, without reference to the Parliament which supposedly expresses the will of the Canadian people.

But feelings of white liberal guilt persist, in the Groan and Wail, the Toronto Red Star, and of course the ultra-PC CBC. And in Steve Harper's allegedly conservative Canadian government, which recently caused a stamp to be issued to (in the words of Sikh24 News & Updates) "honour the Sikh pioneers who faced racism from Canada".

Since the floodgates were opened in 1962, Sikh immigrants have succeeded in creating their own little Kalistans ["ghettos", surely. Ed.] in places like Surrey BC and Brampton ON. See "Saying the unsayable about the unspeakable in Brampton, Canada"

Now that they're established in Canada, enjoying the many benefits provided by Canadian taxpayers -- including, believe it or not, Hockey Night in Canada in Punjabi on the CBC -- you would think, wouldn't you, that they would welcome and assist other victims of colonialism and discrimination from other Third World hellholes.

You would be wrong. The second story which caught Walt's eye this weekend was "55 tree planters win $700K over 'slave-like' discrimination in B.C.", which reports a decision of the British Columbia Human Rights Tribunal finding the operators of a tree-planting business in Golden BC guilty of racial discrimination against 55 temporary foreign workers from the so-called Democratic Republic of the Congo.

Khaira Enterprises, of Surrey BC, which was run by Pakistani-Canadian Khalid Bajwa and Indo-Canadian Hardilpreet (Sunny) Sidhu -- a Sikh -- was been ordered to pay each worker $10,000 for "injury to dignity and self-respect" plus $1,000 per 30-day period worked or portion thereof between March 17, 2010, and June 17, 2010.

Tribunal member Norman Trerise said in his 114-page ruling that Bajwa​ and Sidhu taunted and harassed the 55 workers with racial slurs and had a blatant disregard for employment standards. When officials from the provincial Ministry of Forests arrived at the site, the tree planters told them they had not eaten in two days, were living in squalor and were not getting paid for their work.

One of the workers testified that the camp was divided down racial lines, and that black employees were forced to plant on rougher terrain and were fed inferior food. "It was a kind of slave life," the worker told reporters. "I swear to God, it was so bad, trust me. We ate some expired food. Can you imagine? We slept in a container, with no washroom, no toilet."

Bajwa and Sidhu have since declared bankruptcy. In his ruling, Trerise wrote, "The chances of them actually receiving any money over and above that already obtained by the ESB on their behalf [is] extremely remote." About as remote, Walt thinks, as the chances of the Sikhs and other sub-continentals treating others according to the standards of the society which welcomed them.

Book non-review: A white liberal guilt trip to Timbuktu

Now that the roads have dried out, more or less, Walt ventured out to the library, over Fort Mudge way, looking for some intellectual nourishment. I picked up two pieces, one of which turned out to be quite tasty and digestible. The other was nausea-inducing. I'll tell you about that one first.

Rick Antonson (it says here) is an internationally respected tourism executive, which one supposes is a cut or two above being an internationally respected used car dealer. For reasons unclear, Mr. Antonson set out with "entertaining train companions Ebou and Ussegnou, a mysterious cook called Nema, and intrepid guide Zak" to reach the ancient city of Timbuktu, the capital of Mali, one of the most backward states of Africa, the most backward continent of the world.

The jacket blurbs compare Antonson with Eric Newby, Redmond O'Hanlon and Bill Bryson. Walt has read Newby, O'Hanlon and Bryson, and -- trust me -- Antonson is not in the same league or even on the same planet. What Antonson is is a member of the Noble Savage school. You know... "These Africans were once a great people, with a civilization much greater and more, errr, civilized than ours, but since they came into contact with the evil white men, their fabulous city crumbled into dust and their people descended into the deep pit of poverty, which we really must throw money into, to help them get out of the trap we created..." etc etc ad nauseam.

Does the book actually say this? Alas, I can't tell you, because I didn't get as far as the text itself. I was stopped by the foreword by Professor Geoffrey Lipman, a citizen of the world -- meaning I couldn't figure out his actual citizenship -- Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations World Tourism Organization and professional spokesthingy for sustainable and politically correct tourism.

Obviously Prof. Lipman is a progressive thinker and someone who does well out of doing good. No flying economy class for him, I'm sure! Here is what he has to say about Mali and about Antonson's book.

At p. 8 (first page of the Foreword) - Rick Antonson's personal odyssey is peppered with commentary on issues that are geopolitically relevant...

At p. 9 (second page of the Foreword) - We [Walt's emphasis] owe the children of Africa a seriously better future...

At p. 10 (third page of the Foreword) - What is heroic here is Mali itself and the indomitable spirit of its people.... Mali has a history as proud and rich as any country on the planet, but it is a nation that has also been dealt an incredibly tough hand...

At p. 11 (fourth and -- thank goodness -- final page of the Foreword), Lipman quotes from the book itself - Travel holds immense hope for a better world. Two hundred and eighteen countries call this tiny planet home: each of us is but a step or two away from a person in every one of those nations.... Tourism, more than any other industry, can bring people together to celebrate differences.

That was all I could take. Unfortunately I started the book while sitting down to dinner -- yes, yes, bad habit, I know -- and was obliged to put it aside at the end of the foreword lest I regurgitate Mrs. Walt's excellent dai dop woy.

Mr. Antonson's alleged book is called To Timbuktu for a Haircut. If you're a guilt-ridden liberal of the Hebrew persuasion, you'll surely love it. Being none of those things, I'm surmising from the foreword, not from having read it.

Muslim prayers in Toronto schools: a Muslim viewpoint

Another voice heard from in the ongoing controversy over the Toronto District School Board's policy of allowing Muslim imams to conduct Friday prayer services in at least one so-called public school. Here's part of what the founder of the Muslim Canadian Congress, had to say in an interview with the Toronto Sun.

According to Tarek Fatah, the prayer sessions — traditionally set up with boys in the front and girls behind them — are patriarchal and should not be conducted in publicly-funded schools. "My concern is the Toronto District School Board (is) using tax money to tell girls that they are second-class citizens."

He charged that proponents of the prayer sessions are allowing them to happen because of "white, liberal guilt". Well, imagine that! Isn't that what Walt -- and so many others outside the lamestream media -- have been saying for years! Perhaps now that a beneficiary of the liberal guilt complex says it, someone will listen.

A spokesthingy for the TDSB confirmed today that prayer sessions at Valley Park Middle School are "traditional", with boys and girls as Mr. Fatah says. The spokesperson saying so is Shari Schwartz-Maltz, who, as her name suggests, is ... errr ... not Muslim.

Mr. Fatah also played the race card, with a remarkably fine backhand shot. "Deep inside" he said, "is a racist view that Muslims are not considered equal human beings, and that they can treat women how they want, and it’s nobody else’s concern."

He explained that strict Islamic traditions dictate that young women who begin menstruating must be singled out and sent to the back of the room while the prayer session is taking place. "It’s a fearful time for a young woman to get her first period, and right at that time you have this man (the imam) telling them they are unclean. That should not happen in Canada."

Walt is still waiting for a Christian leader -- any old Christian leader -- to weigh in on this topic.