Quatorze Juillet: France, America, and the Mexican Connection

Mexican falconers Marching Down the Champs Elysées

Tiberge at Gallia Watch has this photo up on her website with this commentary:

Just a quick look back at the July 14 parade. Mexico was honored this year, as 150 Mexican soldiers led the parade down the Champs-Elysées. Below, the Mexican falconers. A great sight.

I think Tiberge means by "A great sight" is "A formidable sight," as in "An incredible sight."

I searched on-line to find any reaction to this incredible incongruity: the president of another country honored at a national festival where the armed forces are in procession, with that president's country's ARMED FORCES joining in the parade!!!!

All the criticism I could find are about Hollande's groping hands, although I find nothing wrong with a man giving special attention to another woman with the woman's husband nearby. There is nothing wrong with admiring feminine beauty, and the "groping" is highly exaggerated.

In any case, for some strange reason (perhaps Tiberge can explain) it is a "tradition" to invite foreign forces to march in the Bastille Day parade. Of course, part of the rationale is to invite armies who assisted France, or fought with France, in the various wars through the decades.

The Telegraph explains through an image caption:

Soldiers carrying the flags of 76 countries marched down the Champs Elysées in Paris, as France's traditional Bastille Day military parade commemorated the centenary of World War I.

That still begs the question: What was the extraordinary contribution of Mexico to World War I battles that garnered them a special invitation for France's foremost national holiday?

Mexico was "neutral" during WWI, and fought in the Philippines during WWII against Japan, which hardly gives Mexico an extraordinary status in the World Wars.

Here is a commentary about inviting foreign dignitaries, and foreign armed forces, to the Bastille Day parades. It has a cautious tone:

Recently, it has become customary to invite units from France's close allies to participate in the parade. For instance, in 2004, to mark the centenary of the Entente Cordiale, British troops (the band of the Royal Marines, the Household Cavalry Mounted Regiment, Grenadier Guards and King's Troop, Royal Horse Artillery) led the Bastille Day parade in Paris, with the Red Arrows flying overhead.[Source: Bastille Day Military Parade

The British participation in 1919 and 1939 are clearly in their capacities as allies due to the two World Wars.
[More from the same source below]

While British troops had participated in the Bastille Day parades of 14 July 1919 and 1939 (see below), this was the first occasion that invited foreign troops had actually led the parade. In 2007, the parade opened with detachments from all member states of the European Union, flying the European flag. The European anthem was played.

In fact, the Nazis did a victory march of sorts down Champs Elysées, on July 14, 1940:

German Troops Marching Down Champs Elysées, June 1940

In the Second World War, the German troops occupying Paris and Northern France paraded along the same route.

And, the importance of the 14th of July as a demonstration of national military strength was apparent when:

A victory parade under General de Gaulle was held upon the restoration in 1945 of Paris to French rule while within the period of occupation by the Germans a company of the commando Kieffer of the Forces Navales Françaises Libres had continued the French National Holiday parade in the streets of London.

De Gaulle Marching Down Champs Elysées

The News reports here that Mexico opened the parade! And adds this:

It is the first time in the history of the parade that the participation of foreign troops coincides with a state visit from the president of the invited country. Mexico is also the first country from Latin America to take part in the event.

What is strange is Hollande allowing this "state visit" to occur during France's national holiday, and "honoring" it with that country's armed forces.

The historical connection of France with Mexico is:

Maximilian (Spanish: Maximiliano; Born Ferdinand Maximilian Joseph; 6 July 1832 – 19 June 1867) was the only monarch of the Second Mexican Empire. He was a younger brother of the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph I. After a distinguished career in the Austrian Navy, he entered into a scheme with Napoleon III of France to rule Mexico. France had invaded Mexico in 1861, with the implicit support and approval of other European powers, as part of the War of the French Intervention. Seeking to legitimize French rule, Napoleon III invited Maximilian to establish a new Mexican monarchy. With the support of the French army and a group of conservative Mexican monarchists, Maximilian traveled to Mexico where he declared himself Emperor of Mexico on 10 April 1864.[Source: Wikipedia]

Perhaps it is to expiate themselves of the long-forgotten sin that Hollande made this gesture towards the Mexicans.

But I think it is the recurring pattern of contemporary Western leaders who invite foreign elements into their countries, with the insidious intention of weakening the West by strengthening the non-Western world.

This is what Obama is doing.

Mexican Soldiers Marching Down the Champs Elysées this 14th July, 2015

The flag at the very front is the Mexican flag.

Declaration of Independence

Tiberge's post at Gallia Watch reminded me that I have seen:

...a fair copy (clean, full-text version without corrections or alterations) of the Declaration of Independence in Thomas Jefferson's hand.

Here is information from the exhibition brochure, which took place at the New York Public Library's Celest Bartos Forum from June 27 to July 3, 2014:

The Declaration of Independence
At the New York Public Library
Thomas Jefferson’s Autograph Copy

The New York Public Library holds in its vast collections one of the rarest and most important documents in American history:an original copy of the Declaration of Independence handwritten by Founding Father Thomas Jefferson. In addition to being a cornerstone of American civilization, the Declaration of Independence is one of the great documents of the human intellect and has formed the foundation of democratic movements that have transformed the world for more than two centuries.

On June 28, 1776, the finished draft of the Declaration of Independence written by Thomas Jefferson was submitted to the Continental Congress. Before it was ratified on July 4, a number of changes were made, the most significant of which was the removal of Jefferson’s lengthy condemnation of the slave trade, an excision intended to appease delegates from Georgia and South Carolina. Jefferson was distressed by these alterations, and in the days immediately following July 4, he handwrote several copies of the original text, underlining passages to which changes had been made. He then sent these documents to five or six friends. The New York Public Library is privileged to safeguard one of just two copies of this renowned historical document that remain intact.

Here is more on this copy, including:
- a pdf file
- the transcript
- and other interesting links

I took photographs of the exhibition, one of which I've posted here, and the rest can be viewed here, at my blog New York Reflections.

Here is a closer, legible view of the first paragraph:


And here is Larry Auster's commentary from July 3, 2012:

On every July Fourth since I was in my twenties I have read aloud the Declaration of Independence, no matter where or with whom I was, whether people shared the reading or I read it by myself.
How can I—how can anyone—read the Declaration aloud this year in honor of American existence and American liberty? The colonies that were acting in unison as “one people,” and in the act named themselves the United States of America, the free country that brought itself into existence with that Declaration on the basis of God-ordained limits on government power, has, as of June 28, 2012, officially come to an end. As a commenter at Lucianne.com has put it, “Think of Obamacare as the Declaration of Dependence.”

The Declaration of Independence no longer represents what our country actually is. It represents our past country, and, perhaps, a future country. If we are to read the Declaration together, it can only be in that spirit, as patriotism to a non-existent country. As I said on the morning of June 28, patriotism to the United States as it now actually exists “is simply subscription to, loyalty to, patriotism to, obedience to, a leftist unlimited state.”

Happy Fourth

When I travel into the US, on my long but wonderful bus ride across New York state, I often see the American flag hanging at the front porches of people's homes. It is wonderful to see that Americans still value their flag, and display it, paying no attention to those who try to vilify them with "far right racists" commentary.

Americans are becoming more and more apologetic about their wonderful flag, but here is a painting I posted in 2011 by an American painter, Hassam Childe, who titled this particular flag painting (he did several) he painted in 1916:

The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest Display of the American Flag Ever Seen in New York, Climax of the Preparedness Parade in May)

I hope that Americans return to that bold, courageous, unapologatic love of their flag and their country.

Happy Fourth of July!

Childe Hassam (American, 1859–1935)

The Fourth of July, 1916 (The Greatest
Display of the American Flag Ever Seen
in New York, Climax of the Preparedness
Parade in May), 1916

From my post at Camera Lucida on July 4th, 2011:

About the painting:

In 1916 Hassam embarked upon the Flag series, based on the nationalistic displays of flags, banners, and bunting on the buildings that lined Manhattan streets in response to World War I. During an unusual summer visit to the city, Hassam created this exceptional canvas, one of only two sunny summer flag scenes. While he denoted the site as Fifth Avenue by showing its tall buildings and a green double-decker bus, he obscured the precise location, perhaps to imply that the entire length of the great boulevard was bedecked with flags.

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The links I provided in 2011 for the painting are no longer valid at the Metropolitan Museum's website.

Searching on-line, I found that the painting is actually from a private collection. The best explanation I can find is that the painting was on loan for a Childe exhibition at the Metropolitan in 2004. Here is some more information from the Met's website:

Childe Hassam: American Impressionist
June 10–September 12, 2004

And more here from Traditional Fine Arts Organization (their main website is here):

This spring [2004], The Metropolitan Museum of Art will offer Childe Hassam, American Impressionist, an unprecedented exhibition of about 120 of Hassam's finest oil paintings, watercolors, and pastels, and some 30 prints. Opening on June 10, the retrospective -- the first to appear in a museum since 1972 -- will celebrate Hassam's brilliant handling of color and light and will examine his responses to the advent of the modern era in view of his credo that "the man who will go down to posterity is the man who paints his own time and the scenes of every-day life around him."

And the painting is listed as one of the pieces to be exhibited.

Mystery solved!

The exhuberent display of flags by Americans

Happy Fourth of July!

Multi-Culti Mississauga Redux: "Celebrating" Canada Day

Multiculturalism at Whole Foods, Mississauga

[Photos By: KPA]

Happy Canada Day!

Whole Foods Market has a pleasant cafe, where I go to work on my computer. Each time I'm there, I am stunned by the multi-culti clientele, speaking a myriad of languages, not French, or German, or Dutch, but Arabic, the various Chinese languages, a selection from the Indian sub-continent, and so on.

Recently, Whole Foods put up a row of Canadian flags, and advertised an evening of hot dogs and other foods, to celebrate Canada Day.

I took the top photograph a couple of days ago, as the preparations were underway, to show the flags contrasting with the clientele.

Canada Day is just another day off, a paid day off, a statutory holiday. What better way to spend a summer's day than with picnics, barbecues, and a day in the park?

The photo below shows the usual clientele in Whole Foods (I took this photograph about three weeks ago, forgot about it, then found it in my files today).

- There is the now common sight of Muslim women with the headscarves. There is one woman in a white hijab in the foreground.
- A group of young men (or women) who are often of similar ethnic background, be it Indian, Chinese, or black, congregate together and tour the malls and streets. These are men, in their teens or early twenties.
- White groups are increasingly rare, and often come in pairs or in threes rather than the six or seven of the other groups
- Indian or Chinese (East Asian) businessmen on cell phones speaking languages other than English are now a regular occurrence.

As all this happens, no-one says anything, no-one tells them to quiet down (their interactions are often loud), no-one finds it strange that we have to sit quietly and listen, except me, where I have now taken to confronting such behavior.

Happy Canada Day!

Happy Canada Day

Good riddance to China.

This is Canada, This is Multiculturalism. We Can Speak Whatever Language We Want!

[Photo By: KPA]

The Multi-Culti Smorgasbord at Whole Foods Market in Mississauga

Canadian Flags are decorating the store for the upcoming Candada Day on July 1. My table is the one where the chair is visible, at the bottom left of the photograph.

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I was calmly getting ready to drink my coffee and work on my computer during one morning at the Mississuaga Whole Foods Market when a woman sat at the table in front of me and started to talk in some Asian language (I knew it was from the Indian sub-continent, but I couldn't identify it). Instead of telling her to stop talking so loudly (actually, to stop talking at all in that alien language), I started to bump my chair against hers. I did this partly because I was mad, and partly because she was talking in another language besides the English we speak in Canada, and I wasn't going to give her the courtesy of talking to her. She moved a little more forward, and kept on talking. I repeated the action. This got her attention, and she looked up and said "Excuse me" or some such thing.

"I don't like to hear your ugly language," I said to her.

"You don't have to listen to it," she replied.

I started to laugh. "So you agree it is ugly!"

"I didn't say that."

"Yes, you did!"

She went back to her cellphone.

I resumed bumping her chair.

"Can you stop!"

"Well, if you talk a little quieter!"

She knows the "language" of multiculturalism.

"This is Canada. This is multiculturalism. We can talk what we want!"

"No, this is Canada. We speak English!"

I continued to bump her chair.

She got up and left.

Soon after, a manager of some kind came over. He shook my hand.

"Hello, I'm Kevin. I understand you had a problem with one of my workers."

"Oh, I didn't realize she was your employee. Well, that makes it worse then, since she should know better. She was talking loudly in a foreign language and disturbing the peace, as I was drinking my coffee. She was also taking up the table for actual paying patrons."

K: I'm going to have to ask you refrain from treating my employees in such a manner in the future.

Me: Look, I apologize to you, and I don't like behaving like this, but what about her? What are you going to do about her?

K: I'll talk to her later. But, everyone can talk whatever language they want.

Kevin was mimicking the woman's response. He really does believe this!

Me: No, this is Canada. We are in an English-speaking country. We talk in English here.

Me: Also, how do I know what she's saying? She may be saying things about me, about you, that are negative or uncomplimentary. She could be maligning me. What are you going to do about her?!

K: Yes, well, she is very upset. She was on an international call.

I looked at him, and started to laugh. I think he began to realize that everything I was saying made sense. This woman was on a cellphone to a foreign country (probably Sri Lanka), holding a loud conversation in her foreign language in a Canadian restaurant.

Kevin had sat down, and seemed to want some kind of interaction with me, so I told him a little about myself, that I come to Whole Foods to have coffee and to use my laptop in this pleasant environment, that I take photographs, that I observe visually my surroundings, and that I am working on a book called Reclaiming Beauty. He seemed interested about my book, and was actually quite insightful, saying that probably materialism had a lot to do with the unattractive clothes people are wearing).

I then asked him: "Are you originally from Mississauga?"

K: Yes, Scarborough, actually.

Me: Do you still live there?

K: Well, we moved when I was younger to Markham, then to Halton. I've also lived in Ottawa. But I live around here now. My parents owned their home in Scarborough when I was growing up.

I looked at him and laughed again.

Scarborough used to be a middle-to-working class white English borough of Toronto. But, eventually, South Asian and African immigrants started to take over. White flight changed the neighborhoods, leaving them to immigrants from India, Sri Lanka, Ethiopia and Somalia, etc.

What Kevin was talking about is the white flight from the Toronto boroughs, where families started to move further out into smaller towns to avoid this invasion of foreign, non-English-speaking, people.

Whole Foods Market, Square One, Mississauga
Photo By: KPA

Whole Foods' junior staff is almost exclusively non-white. It is as though the managers decided that they were the only kinds of staff they would hire for that level (Out of charity? cheaper labor? Mandated by employment affirmative action policies? A combination of all that, I presume). But ALL the managers are white. I wonder if Kevin had a say in hiring this Sri Lankan woman, as though to expiate for his sins of his early days when he (must have) felt bitter and angry at having to leave Scarborough to get away from the Third World invasion of his home town.

I felt his relief as I was saying these things. Clearly no-one else has said, or dares to say, such things to him. His Orwellian world was temporarily cleared with our brief conversation.

At the end, I said, "I apologize to you for disrupting the peace of your lovely place. I don't usually behave this way, but this woman was clearly getting away with a lot. I'm not sorry for how I acted towards here. She had no desire to behave with courtesy, and with due respect to the patrons around her, and this is especially grievous as she is an employee of this store."

I then showed him a photograph I took of peonies on sale in the store (I've posted it below) and how one of the staff had given me the number for the marketing department at their head office to submit the photograph. I told him I take photographs as a way of recording my environment.

"That's a good shot," said Kevin. "So you observe things around you."

"Yes. And so you see, I do like this place. I want to show it in its best light!"

He shook my hand, and left.

Addendum:

I returned today (the next day), and there was a large group of Chinese, obviously there to "celebrate" Father's Day. They were interacting in Chinese. I put on my headphones and listened to music as I worked on my laptop and drank my coffee. I'm avoiding confrontations now, unless it's absolutely necessary. I feel that people are realizing what they're having to put up with. I think that I have more on my side than is apparent.

How wonderful Canada is! All kinds of people can just show up and sit in civilized, clean, pleasant coffee houses and restaurants and enjoy the good food and environment, and the pleasant holidays. And no-one will tell them to quiet down, or to speak English, or to follow the country's customs, or, God forbid, to be Canadian.

What do they have to offer in their glorious multiculturalism other than to pull us back to their failed societies and cultures, which they fled to come and live the good life here?

How long before we become another of their failures?

Whole Foods Pink Peonies
[Photo By: KPA]

Coventry Carol

The Coventry Carol, sung by Charlotte Church

I think Charlotte Church's voice is perfect for this piece. Often, it is sung by women or boy sopranos. I think neither capture the lament of the young Mary, and when Charlotte sang this, in her more popular days, she was also barely a teenager. She released the track album "Dream a Dream", an album of Christmas carols in 2000 when she was just fourteen. Here are the lyrics.

I remember reading somewhere that the nativity story anticipates the crucifixion. The young innocent Jesus faces death, even at birth. And this cloud follows him to his actual death at Easter, still and always innocent.

We should just be thankful we had him for those few years, when in a flurry of responsibility, he disseminated so much of his message to us and his disciples.

Happy Thanksgiving

George Washington
The Athenaeum Portrait, 1796.
By Stuart Gilbert.
[Click here to view a larger version]

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving

George Washington
(The Athenaeum Portrait), 1796.
Oil on canvas. By Stuart Gilbert.
Jointly owned by the National
Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, and the
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston.
[Click here to view a larger version]

Happy Thanksgiving

Merry Christmas!