Merry Christmas

and a

Happy New Year!!

Pierre Cloutier

Last Thoughts of the Year 2014

 

 

Well I'm glad this year is over and a new one is beginning.

 

Pierre Cloutier

Some Art

 

 

Here are some pictures of some art I saw in New York City.

 

 

Greek Vase
Showing Orestes murder of Clytemnestra

Maleficent

&

Frozen

Two Stories of Sismance1

Movie Poster

Spoilers!!

Recently Disney gave us two different stories based on classic fairy tales. In the case of Maleficent it is the Disney retelling the tale of its own Sleeping Beauty. This time from the point of view of the central villain, Maleficent. In the case of Frozen we get the story of the Snow Queen suitably and quite thoroughly disneyfied and turned into a tale of two sisters.

Sex

&

Puritanism

A few thoughts

One of the annoying things about our society is the way it deals with sex. Frankly it is both repulsive and annoying how our society overtly sexualizes so much.

Since our society at least in the west is obsessed with sex in the sense of sexualizing so much, waning interest is frequently viewed has some sort of calamity, a disaster to be thwarted, retarded and reversed. Even societies that make much of a premium on female modesty and repress overt sexuality in fact obsess over sex.

Garden June 2013

Just some Garden pics of my garden from the late spring / early summer as we head into winter.

Lord of the Rings

A Critical Note

Map of Middle Earth / Arda

In a previous posting I reviewed the first of The Lord of the Rings movies; here I will discuss some aspects of the novels.1

It is well known among Tolkien fans that J.R.R. Tolkien (1892-1973) started writing about his fantasy universe before the First World War and that he continued to do so right until his death. Further that his fascination with Anglo-Saxon, Germanic and Celtic mythology, along with making up languages just for the hell of it made him interested in Anglo-Saxon and started his academic career by which he eventually became a Don at Oxford University. Other things about Tolkien and his fantasy universe are less well known.2

300

This is my 300^th posting since I started this blog in 2005. I can’t say that I’ve kept up a steady rate of postings since then. After all some years I’ve only made two postings a year and in 2009 I managed to do 97. In 2012 I was down to 25 over the course of the year. Still I am finding it an educational experience. So here I would like to talk about the whys about my postings.

Spring Fever

I just spent the day, (March 29, 2013) outside doing garden work. It was today a rather nice bright spring day. There was virtually no snow left and plants were beginning to peep out from the ground. All in all a pleasant day to do out door work.

The Ticking Time bomb and the Terrorist
An example of a Forced Hypothetical

Ticking Clock

Since 9/11 there has been resurgence in the use of torture by states and along with that resurgence in the attempts to justify it.

Kant’s

Cant

Crossed Fingers

A few Years ago I responded to individual in a forum who accepted a great deal of what Kant said about lying.1 The result was a stew of nonsense. When someone brought up the hiding the Jews in the basement / attic situation the person hemmed and hawed outrageously. The following is the main tenor of a discussion I had with the individual over lying. I have chosen to exclude a tangential discussion where the person engaged in an ad hominem attack on me and my family. The individual in question made a totally un-evidenced comment about lying always ending badly and responded with a personal attack when I pointed out the comment was absurd.

Plato’s “Empathy”

Bust of Plato

In Plato’s dialogues there is sometimes the fact that the context, or set up, to his dialogue’s issues tells us more about Plato’s social attitudes than the overt statements of what the dialogue is about.

Ordinary Guys



Movie Poster



Massive Spoilers

AHEAD!!

In February I saw the movie Chronicle and frankly I was blown away. It takes a very simple idea and works it on a whole different level.

A Note on Child Sexual Abuse

“Dude. You have sex with children!”1

South Park Episode - Cartman joins NAMBLA

Here in Canada we had a major dust up more than 30 years ago in an article published in a Gay magazine, (The Body Politic), Called Men loving boys, loving men,1 at the time it stirred up a lot of controversy to say the least. A contingent of the Gay Liberation movement bought the argument that pedophiles were being stigmatized and oppressed for their feelings by a sexually repressive society. Thus some bought the idea that pedophiles were a repressed minority. Further they bought the idea that children were sexual beings who were prevented by a sex-phobic society from using their sexuality which included if they so desired sex with adults.

June Garden

Just some pics of the Garden taken in June of this year.

Pure Idiocy

Moral Cretinism Part VIII

Ethiopian Famine Victims 1985

In the 1980's there was published books in a series called the Marxist Regime Series. The books in the series were under the overall editorship of Prof. Bogan Szajowski of University College Cardiff Wales.

Libertarian Shit

Famine India, 1901

A While ago I had a series of exchanges with some Libertarians.1 Here are some of my replies to their nonsense; slightly reworked.

Why?

Blank

There is an old joke / urban legend that circulates among students and faculty in North American Universities and it goes as follows.

Noel

Nativity Scene

Perhaps one of the most evocative of modern Christmas Carols is Chris de Burgh’s A Spaceman Came Travelling, from his strongly Religiously flavored album Spanish Train.

So for this time of year let this lovely piece fill your mind, while we wait another year for a touch of the divine.

On the lighter Side

Winter

Winter In Toronto
Mid Ninteenth Century

The ghastly and rather interminable Canadian Winter is set to arrive here in Toronto shortly and so here are some thoughts about the arrival of our own Via Dolorosa here in the Great White North.