Zwarte Piet (aka "Black Pete") sighted in Nova Scotia

As Walt told you almost a month ago, when Sinterklaas (aka "Santa Claus") comes to the Netherlands, he comes with an assistant, a comical fellow known as Zwarte Piet (= "Black Pete"). Piet is not really black of course, people of that hue being infrequently seen in Holland... until recently.

Zwarte Piet has been a part of the Dutch Christmas tradition since time immemorial. But in the politically correct 21st century, he has come under attack as being... wait for it... a racist stereotype. People in public life should keep that in mind before being seen, let alone photographed, with poor Piet.

Unfortunately for his political career, a newly-elected member of the Nova Scotia Legislative Assembly, forgot this lesson in political correctness. Halifax MLA Joachim Stroink has been forced by the PC police to delete a photo he tweeted of himself posing with the controversial character at a Christmas event hosted by his Dutch-Canadian constituents last night.

Mr. Stroink, who is evidently of Dutch descent, said he never meant for the photo to offend. "As a child growing up and celebrating the Sinterklaas and Zwarte Piet tradition, the blackface did not lead me to think less of my African Nova Scotian neighbours and friends, and as such I was not sensitive to the potential to offend," he wrote on his Facebook page.

Still, Stroink stressed that Dutch culture has long emphasized a black elf-like character as part of its Christmas tradition. "While the history of Zwarte Piet and the blackface have contributed to perpetuating negative stereotypes," he added, "to ignore or to disavow Zwarte Piet would be to ignore that history within the Dutch community."

And that's how things are in Canada these days. And in the USA, the UK, Australia and New Zealand too. Cultural and religious traditions are wonderful... as long as they're not Western Christian traditions. To the PC Grinches who want us to turn our backs on our religion and culture, Walt says "MERRY CHRISTMAS"!!!

Footnote: Hope you noticed that Sinterklaas is wearing the mitre of a Christian bishop... because that's what he was!

Stupid iliterate inumerate kids!

Two related items caught Walt's eye yesterday. The first was a speech given by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, to the Centre for Policy Studies. In his address, entitled "What would Maggie [Thatcher] do today?", Bojo averred that achieving economic equality is impossible because some people are simply too stupid to get ahead in the modern world.

Mr. Johnson's remarks were immediately decried by the usual suspects as elitist and possibly racist, but no-one had the temerity to challenge his basic premise. That's because it's true! Remember what George Carlin used to say about the stupidity of the average person. If you think the average person is as stupid as he/she appears, consider that half the population is even more stupid than that!

Apart from genetic differences, today's younger people are the victims of bad education. Boris Johnson may have been thinking about a major study by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) which showed that that young adults in England scored among the lowest results in the industrialised world in international literacy and numeracy tests.

Out of 24 countries, England ranked 22nd for literacy and 21st for numeracy. The study also showed that, unlike in other developed countries, young people in England are no better at these tests than people in the 55 to 65 age range.

When this is weighted with other factors, such as the socio-economic background of people taking the test, it shows that England is the only country in the survey where results are going backwards. The older cohort scores higher than the younger.

British Skills Minister Matthew Hancock was shocked -- SHOCKED -- by the report. "This shocking report shows England has some of the least literate and numerate young adults in the developed world," he said. Then he came to the nub of the problem. "These are Labour's children," he added, "educated under a Labour government and force-fed a diet of dumbing down and low expectations." [My emphasis. Walt.]

Walt wonders if Mr. Hancock has visited North America. If the average British yoof is thick as a plank, the average American (and his/her Canadian cousin) is thick as two planks! If you don't believe me, ask one of them. A couple of days ago Walt saw a news reporter asking students at Harvard to name the capital of Canada. The only one who could was a visiting student from, errr, China.

And that's Harvard, the institution which educates America's brightest and best! Those kids aren't the ones who would have been left behind but for the Bush league educational reforms. If you want to see what those kids are like, try conversing with one of the gum-chewing, glassy-eyed "associates" at the Gap.

These are the kids who graduated from high schools and colleges unable to read their diplomas or make change without using a calculator. See also "Downward mobility haunts US education", from BBC News, December 2012.

The problem is with "child-centred education", the 60s fad that persists half a century later, under which no-one is "left behind" and no-one "fails" because that would be damaging to their self-esteem [and probably racist too! Ed.] Instead, our educational institutions turn out [churn out? Ed.] graduates utterly unprepared to cope with a troubled economy and shrinking job market. It is there -- in the real world -- that these kids fail.

The problem is hardly new. Dr. Rudolf Flesch wrote about it way back in 1951, in the original Why Johnny Can't Read. Why Johnny Still Can't Read: A New Look at the Scandal of Our Schools appeared in 1981. And yes, Dr. Flesch does propose a solution -- part of the home schooling answer to the crisis in education.

What you should do is teach your kids phonics! Walt recommends Why Johnny Can't Read and What You Can Do About It, from Harper Collins. The book is endorsed -- but apparently not followed -- by the US Department of Education. You can find it at your local library. Your community does still have a library, doesn't it?

Holy Father, be careful what you wish for!

"'I prefer a church bruised, hurting and dirty': Pope's extrodinary mission statement shakes up Vatican"

Headlines like this are all over the media -- especially the "Catholic" media -- this morning. But Walt has a news flash for Pope Francis.

Holy Father, you want a Church that's "bruised, hurting and dirty"? Wake up and smell the coffee [or the communion wine. Ed.]!

Thanks to the diabolical disorientation of your predecessors (and their secretaries of state, in particular), the Roman Catholic church is already "bruised, hurting and dirty"! Faithful Catholics were hoping and praying that you would reverse the slide into corruption, immorality and apostasy, and blow "the smoke of Satan"* out of Holy Mother Church. So far, we are gravely disappointed.

* Not long before he died, Pope Paul VI said "The smoke of Satan has entered the Church". He should have known, because through Vatican II he opened the window.

Politically correct criminology

The Canadian government, ever solicitous of the well-being of the disadvantaged members of society, employs a full-time "prisons ombudsman" -- an official charged with monitoring the country's federal corrections system. According to a recent CBC report, the ombudsman is launching an inquiry into the reasons for a dramatic rise in the proportion of black offenders [disadvantaged yoofs, surely! Ed.] rapidly filling up Canada's prisons.

In the last decade, the investigator reports, the proportion of black convicts has risen from 6% to over 9% -- a 50% increase. People of colour account for just 2.5% of Canada's population. The ombudsman wants to find out why the numbers have increased so rapidly, and thus identify the challenges faced by the corrections system.

Howard Sapers told CBC News, "We've decided to commence an investigation into both the increase and to help us determine whether the CSC [Correctional Service of Canada] is meeting the needs of this population of offenders." According to the CBC, Mr. Sapers hopes to get an answer to a key question -- what distinguishes black offenders from other inmates.

Without waiting for the answer to that very good question, the Canadian Minister of Justice, Peter MacHack, has announced federal funding for a new course to be offered at selected Canadian universities, entitled Politically Correct Criminology 101. The course will explore the causes of black crime and how to implement "culturally appropriate programmes" to enable Canada's justice and corrections system to live up to its responsibility to provide ethno-cultural services that are specific to meet the needs of an increasingly diverse group of miscreants.

Walt has been able to obtain a copy of the new course's exam questions, which have already been formulated but until this very moment have been kept in a hermetically sealed jar behind the front door of Kingston Penitentiary. Here are two of them.

1. According to the Correctional Service of Canada, the proportion of black inmates in Canadian prisons has risen by 50% in the last decade. In not more than 500 words, show how this is due to systemic racism abetted by the police and other agents of the white establishment.

5. The CSC wishes to adjust its policies and practices to accommodate the corrections system to the needs of an increasingly diverse prison population. Explain why you think this is a good idea and give at least three practical suggestions as to what measures could be taken to make persons of colour feel more at home in Canada's prisons. (For example, should guards' uniform jackets be replaced by hoodies? No marks for suggesting this one.)

Lest you think Walt is making this up, check out this video.


Since Walt knows some of you want to ask, the anchorperson doing the intro is Reshmi Nair, presently toiling away on CBC's Wally World, but surely destined for greater things.

Brian Griffin RIP

It's fortunate, in a way, that last night's Grey Cup* game wasn't much of a contest, otherwise Walt might have missed the latest episode of Family Guy, the funniest cartoon show on TV. I had been misled by the trailer into thinking that it was another of those "Stewie's time machine" episodes (which are funny enough) but it was much more than that.

Yes, the show started off with a sequence about Stewie and Brian going back to the Jamestown settlement to take guns away from the Indians, thus preventing them from controlling America in the future. In the aftermath, Stewie destroys his time machine, which turns out to be huge mistake because, when Brian is hit by a speeding car, Stewie is unable to go back in time to prevent the accident.

So Brian dies. I'm so sorry... not least because I identified with Brian in aspiring to be a writer... and being hot for Lois.

In the latter half of the episode, the Griffins get a new dog named "Vinnie", who speaks with an Italian-American inflection straight out of The Sopranos. As well he might, since he is voiced by Tony Sirico. Vinnie describes himself as a "pussy hound"... which means he's 1/16th cat. Walt hates him already.

Will Vinnie stick with the Griffins? Or will Seth MacFarlane find a way to bring Brian back to life, even without the aid of Stewie's time machine? "It was only a dream!" has been done already, but stay tuned...

* Emblematic of the Canadian Football League championship. Saskatchewan romped over the frozen turf to thump Hamilton 45-23, much to the delight of the bookmakers.

Latest fashion for Muslim policewomen... guess where???

Here's the latest in police uniforms designed with political correctness in mind. These two policewomen [female police officers? lady cops? Ed.] are seen on foot patrol, but it's not because they're in Saudi Arabia, where women aren't allowed to drive cars. Noooo... they are in London, England, where the Muslim tail continues to wag the Christian/secular dog. [Must be some kind of mixed breed. Ed.

But the UK is not the only once-Western country where daughters of Islam in the forces will be authorized to cover their hair. Again, noooo.... Police in Edmonton (Alberta, Canada) -- once a bastion of redneck conservatism -- will this week unveil (`scuse the pun!) their own version of the uniform hijab.

According to the Notional Post, the head covering is designed to be worn under a standard uniform cap, so it won't be so noticeable as to give offence to men who think it's bad enough to have female cops in the first place.

The hijab will also be attached to something or other with snaps or velcro, so that it can be torn off easily in a fight. Walt can only speculate about what sort of charges would be laid against someone who assaulted a hijab-wearing copwoman. Would they be prosecuted under the Criminal Code or the Human Rights Act... or both?! The mind boggles.

Edmonton city councillor Scott McKeen [a keen Scot? maybe not. Ed.], called letting Muslim PWs wear the hijab a "gesture of inclusion" toward the local Muslim community which, he said, "can feel a little skittish at times" about Islamophobia. "One of the perceptions about Edmonton and Alberta is that we’re kind of redneck.... [Now we're] sort of saying we want to have a diverse police service that reflects the diversity and multicultural aspects of Edmonton. I’m proud of us."

Note from Ed.: Walt was unable to add a further comment, as he had to leave the room to avoid being sick on the keyboard.

Further reading (and another lovely picture): "Hijab, niqab, burqa -- what's the difference?"
"Arab woman faces whipping for refusing to cover hair with hijab"

Bob Edwards' prayer to the one true god

A century ago -- before the Internet, before TV, before radio, before anyone told you what to think -- there was print. Newspapers, magazines, books and pamphlets gave writers the means to express their opinions.

Bob Edwards had opinions -- plenty of them -- which he printed in The Eye Opener, published from 1904 to 1922 in wherever in Alberta Bob happened to be when the effects of the drink wore off. (To be fair, he went on the wagon and came out for temperance in the elections of 1915.)

Mr. Edwards pioneered a new style of journalism, writing irreverently about anything and everything that pleased or displeased him. His columns were chuckled over in bars, brothels and (kinda secretly) respectable homes all over western Canada.

Here is a slightly edited version of Bob Edwards' prayer to the great god that people of all faiths worship.

O ALMIGHTY DOLLAR, without thee in the world we can do nothing, but with thee we can do all things. Be with us, we pray thee, in all thy decimal parts, for thou art the only one altogether lovely, and the chief among ten thousand.

There is no condition in life where thy potent and all-powerful charms are not felt. In thy absence how gloomy is the household, and how desolate the hearthstone; but, in thy presence, how gleefully the beefsteak sings on the gridiron, how genial is the warmth that anthracite coal or tamarack wood diffuses throughout the apartment, and how exuberant the joy swelling in every bosom.

Thou art the joy of our youth and the solace of our old age. Thou canst adorn the gentleman and feed the jackass. Thou art the favourite of the philosopher, and the ideal of the lunkheads when an election is to be carried.

Almighty dollar, thy shining face bespeaks thy wondrous power. In my pocket make thy resting place; I need thee every hour.

And now, almighty dollar, in closing this invocation, we realize and acknowledge that thou art the god our our grandfathers, the twofold god of their children, and the threefold god of their grandchildren. Permit us to possess thee in abundance, is our constant and unwavering prayer.

Amen.