Art & Culture

Sad little Markus after being told by teachers in his kindergarten that St. Nicholas was dead. His mother holds the Christmas ornament of St. Nic that no longer brings him cheer.

As reported by the Kronen Zeitung -

'MUMMY, YOU KNOW THERE'S NO SUCH THING AS SANTA CLAUS, he's been dead for over 100 years." In tears, four-year old Markus told his mother what he had heard from teachers in his Linz (Austria) kindergarten.

"An effrontery, how children's illusions are taken without informing us parents," said his mother, Nadine. She is angry about the actions of those responsible.

In Austria there has been discussion of whether the figure of Nicholas, with or without a white beard, should come to schoolchildren. Now this Linz kindergarten in the residential area of Gugl has caused a scandal. "My son was told that Nicholas does not exist, that he died more than 100 years ago," his mother angrily told the Krone newspaper.

By Carolyn Yeager

THE BBC PUBLISHED THE ABOVE IMAGE AND AN ACCOMPANYING STORY under their “News From Elsewhere” heading without even a reporter's byline. It reads: 

By News from Elsewhere... ...as found by BBC Monitor                         10 March 2017

It seems this is a way for them to spread around news that makes those they don't like look bad without taking responsibility for it. But they're wrong if they think they can get away with that.

 By Carolyn Yeager

STAR ARCHITECT David Chipperfield’s plan to restore Munich’s Haus der Kunst to its original Nazi-era state has provoked blow-back amongst Jewish groups and the political left.

The 1937-era building sits at Prinzregentenstraße at the southern end of the English Garden and is scheduled to undergo the renovation work at the end of 2017. The Bavarian government has allocated €58 million to the project, with €20 million chipped in from the Federal government (totaling $83.7 million). Bavarian Culture Minister Ludwig Spaenle approved the plan, which has surprised many by being essentially a restoration of the exterior and surrounding grounds to its original Nazi-era state.

Gerard Menuhin: Tell the Truth and Shame the Devil

A review by Fredrick Töben

The book has no chapters but divides into four sections, which makes for challenging reading:

I–to p 162: Thwarted: Humanity’s Last Grasp For Freedom;

II–to p 294: Identified: Illumination Or The Diagnostic Of Darkness;

III–to p 366: Extinguished: Civilization;

IV–to p 457: Final Stage: Communist Vassalage.

Section I: Thwarted:

Humanity’s Last Grasp For Freedom

The heading conveys a grave, almost certainly a pessimistic message, and so with pencil in hand I begin to read through the section and immediately notice how Menuhin’s autobiographical account of his awakening to the German problem begins at home in England between the expressed views of his mother and father on the gassing allegations. His mother reminds him that had he been about in Germany during the war, then he would have been gassed, while his father, Yehudi – 1916-1999, the world renowned violinist – never talks about the war. This creates a conceptual dissonance that is further accentuated through Menuhin spending a year at the primary section of the private Salem boarding school at Lake Constance where he feels the German children around him are just like any other children. And later he also realizes that it does not make sense to him that a highly cultured nation, such as Germany has always been, could have become a part of a genocidal plan to exterminate the Jews. The final straw moment, so to speak, occurs when he is engaged in cleaning up his late grandparents’ home and finds copies of Gerhard Frey’s National-Zeitung.

What is that ugly metal contraption peeking out from behind the German National Christmas Tree standing in front of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin? Oh, it's a Jewish Menorah with a lighted Star of David.

Of all the eight images of "Christmas Trees around the World" posted at Deutsche Welle, Germany's is the only one with a menorah standing beside it.

That is so because Germany, in spite of inventing the lighted tree to celebrate its most beloved winter festival, is a hostage nation - hostage to the people of the Menorah. So the beautiful tree must share its place of honor with the grotesque giant candlestick representing the state of Israel. As recently written by a Spiegel essayist in English: "Israel's security is cemented as a fundamental principal of the German state." And this picture illustrates that so well.

Look for more on this subject from me in the new year. Merry Christmas!

The secret of Donald Trump's success is pretty clear to me. He tells the truth about important events and issues in American life, and then people recognize it and say, 'Hey, he's right.'

It brings to mind the timeless story "The Emperor's New Clothes." In a certain empire where Political Correctness ruled, when the Emperor came out amidst his people in a new set of clothes that were made to be invisible except to elites of the kingdom, the common folk were very embarrassed to see their Emperor naked. So they pretended to themselves that they could see the elegant and expensive garments they were told he was wearing.

But one little boy just couldn't play the game, and spontaneously called out, "Hey, he ain't wearing no clothes!" Surprised, the people were first stunned and disapproving, but they soon acknowledged the truth of what the little boy said. It's the same with Donald Trump.

Jewish children at the Irene Kauffman Settlement school in Pittsburgh in 1934 giving a straight arm salute to the American flag. Enlarge

“This was the way Americans saluted the flag at the time. In 1934, this would have been perfectly normal, strange though it looks to us now,” said Timothy Snyder, a Yale history professor

The stiff-arm salute emerged in the US in the late 1800s, preceding both the “Nazi” salute and Mussolini's salute, according to Richard Ellis, professor at Willamette Univ., Salem, Oregon.

The commemorative flag raising was “all about nationalism,” said Maurine Greenwald, assoc. professor of history at U of Pittsburgh. "It’s a part of a period in which nations are heightening their national definitions and rituals and identification and history. The U.S. is no different in that regard.”

*    *    *

An alert reader, alecti, discovered an article in the Berliner Morgenpost dated January 13, 2014 about the Welfenschatz (Guelph Treasure) lawsuit brought by twe Jews, Gerald Stiebel and Alan Philipp, against the German government. The article is titled "Who really owns the Guelf Treasure?"

Translating the article using Google Translate is far from perfect, but does give some clear ideas that I will use in this post. Anyone out there who can provide me with a better translation into English - please feel free to do so!

First, the dispute is officially between two heirs of the original  Jewish art dealers and the SPK, the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation, which oversees the museums in Berlin. The collection of medieval reliquaries, alters, and crucifixes was kept for centuries in Prussia's Brunswick Cathedral. In the 17th century, approximately 80 items were removed from the cathedral by John Frederick, Duke of Brunswick-Luneburg.

80 years ago, in 1935, some Jewish art dealers in Berlin sold a collection of medieval Christian relics, known as the Welfenschatz treasure, to one or more National Socialists “after they were unable to get a better offer.” The collection consists of dozens of gold and bejeweled relics that date to the Holy Roman Empire.

History of the collection according to Wikipedia

The next chief conductor of the Berlin Philharmonic has been chosen: He is Kirill Petrenko, a Jew born and raised until age 18 in Russia! [Strangely, or not, the announcement was made on June 22 (the date of the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941).] Isn't it wonderful, and so international as befits an “international city” like Berlin, yes? 

The problem for true Berliners, though, is that Petrenko was selected over a Berlin-born German who many expected to get that job: Christian Thielemann, currently chief conductor for the Sächsische Staatskapelle Dresden and former music director of the Munich (Bavarian) Philharmonic. Thielemann is 56 years old (born April 1, 1959), with a brilliant career in opera, being a regular conductor at Bayreuth and the Salzburg Festivals.