Alaeddin Hadid, husband of innocent child-killer, says Orland Park, Illinios cops "going to be in big trouble" for insulting Islam.

Nour Hadid, who has confessed on videotape to beating to death a two year old girl over a four day period, is the victim of police atrocity. She was photographed without her headscarf, and the photo was released to the public! This is, says husband, an insult to Islam. The dead child was modestly covered in 55 bruises.

"Islam 'insulted' by alleged child killer's mug shot, says husband," by Kim Janssen for the Southtown Star, April 10 (thanks to Sarah):

The police booking photo of alleged child killer Nour Hadid released Tuesday is an "insult against our religion," says Hadid's husband, Alaeddin.

Orland Park police detectives say the 26-year-old Muslim woman was treated as any other suspect in a murder probe would be, and they did not intend to humiliate her when they photographed her Sunday without her headscarf and wearing only a skimpy top.

Nour Hadid is accused of beating her 2-year-old niece Bhia Hadid to death over four days at her home on the 9000 block of West 140th Street. The child had 55 separate bruises and was beaten "from head to toe," according to prosecutors, who say Hadid confessed.

But Alaeddin Hadid - who insists his wife is innocent- said Orland Park police are "really going to be in big trouble" for releasing the woman's booking photo to the news media after she was charged with first-degree murder

The Hadids are Muslims and Nour "never leaves the home without covering up," said Alaeddin, who's vowed to sue.

[....]

"It is against our religion; we do not do this in our culture," Alaeddin said.

[....]

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025618.php#respond

Some commentators have suggested that because Alladin's wife is half-naked in her mug shot, his honor is destroyed, and the only way he can restore it is to cut off her head.

Rightwing religious bigot Dag Walker responds, "It is against our religion; we do not do this in our culture." But, hey, I'm not a fanatic. I can make allowances for other cultures and other peoples.

Obama and the Pirates

Somali pirates have captured a U.S. ship with a crew of 20 Americans on board in the Gulf of Aden. "Danish-owned and US-flagged 17,000-tonne Maersk Alabama, was seized as it passed 400 miles north-east of Mogadishu," according to the Telegraph. What's Obama going to do?
Maersk so far hasn't released any statements over the Internet, though one may subscribe for media up-dates below:

Latest news 2009

You can receive Maersk Line news releases and announcements automatically. Please send an email to our External communication department (grpcom@maersk.com) with the subject heading "Subscribe"

http://www.maerskline.com/link/?page=news&path=/news.

It's unfortunate for the crew and the company, but more importantly, it's essential for the nation to deal with Somali pirates and with the primitive world all together at this time. Will Obama walk away? Will we end up giving millions more dollars to Somali jihadis in the worthless hope of peace on the high seas? Or is this a Danish problem?

This should be the right time for Obama to set the tone of his administration's dealing with the hostile world we share with hostile people and nations. It's not a matter of a ship hijacked, it's a matter of how we will be perceived in the world.

When American troops were ordered to literally run away, run on foot in front of thousands of Somali witnesses during Clinton's administration during the Blackhawk Down incident, we gave birth to Osama bin Laden's idea that the American nation is doomed by cowardice and ready to topple at the first major blow. It won't hurt Maersk to pay up. Obama might even bail them out with our money. But who will bail us out?

It is the largest container ship operator and supply vessel operator in the world. Maersk is based in Copenhagen, Denmark, and has subsidiaries and offices in more than 130 countries worldwide. The group has around 117,000 employees. It stood as number 131 on the Fortune Global 500 list for 2008, up from 138 in 2007. Maersk is the second largest company in Scandinavia by revenue, and the second largest company in Denmark measured by market capitalisation.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A._P._Moller-Maersk_Group

We've witnessed this incident before in our brief history:

"Several Muslim countries along the North African coast had established the tradition of plundering the ships of European and American merchants in the western Mediterranean and eastern Atlantic, capturing the crews and then demanding ransom from the respective governments for their release. In a joint message to their superiors in Congress, Adams and Jefferson described the audacity of these terrorist attacks, pirates leaping onto defenseless ships with daggers clenched in their teeth. They had asked the ambassador from Tripoli, Adams and Jefferson explained, on what grounds these outrageous acts of unbridled savagery could be justified: "The Ambassador answered us that it was founded on the laws of the prophet, that it was written in their Koran, that all nations who should not have acknowledged their [Islam's] authority were sinners, that it was their right and duty to make war upon them wherever they could be found, and to make slaves of all they could take as prisoners...."

This event occurred between 1784-1789 while Jefferson was ambassador to France and Adams (2nd president) was ambassador to England.

Jefferson responded by inventing and using the US Navy to stop the Barbary pirates of North Africa from attacking US ships, stealing their cargo and enslaving its sailors.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025578.php#respond

The reference above is to the Barbary pirates.

Muslim pirates along the coast of North Africa from 16th until 19th centuries. This region was in this period known as Barbary Coast.

Small-scale piracy had been performed for centuries before the 16th century. They were at their height in the 17th century, involved in looting and kidnapping of Europeans on a large scale.

Until the 17th century, the pirates used galleys. After this time, they were taught by a Flemish renegade how to construct and handle sailing ships.

The piracy of the North Africans was backed by their respective states. Local bankers financed and equipped ships with one purpose only, to loot ships and kidnap Europeans. Their standard fee was about 10% of the prizes.

The pirates operated largely in the Mediterranean, but those along the Moroccan Atlantic coast and the western parts of the Mediterranean coast, also sent ships up along the European Atlantic coast, reaching the British Isles, Norway and even Iceland.
Kidnapping and slave trade was among the most important activities of the pirates. Kidnapping could be done to force the payment of ransom, but many abducted civilians became slaves with numerous purposes in North Africa and beyond.

For a long time, Europe did not fight back. The reasons were many, but the most important was that agreements were forged in which the respective states payed tolls to the pirates to pass securely. The insecure chances of winning a war on the pirate states, as well as its cost, also kept Europe away. The first real blow to the pirates was when the USA intervened in the very beginning of the 19th century. Still, even the USA had to sign several treaties with the Barbary states between 1786 and 1836 to secure their ships.

More here: http://looklex.com/e.o/barbary_pirates.htm

The question is, Will Obama just pay up or will he also issue an apology to the pirates for past American interventions in Somalia. Will he, in fact, bow down and apologize?

Henri Pirenne, Enlightening the Dark Ages

I've read 40 books so far this year. One of the most memorable is Henri Pirenne, Medieval Cities: Their Origins and the Revival of Trade. I read it in college lo these many decades ago, and I sought it out for my own enlightenment again, having remembered it from so long ago, finding it only yesterday. If you have an interest in the dire results of Islamic imperialism on Europe, which is in progress again, and if you have an interest in the povertarianism of Left dhimmi fascism, i.e. the Obama Programme, then you'll find the review below interesting and illuminating. I'll leave a brief comment below. First, here is a good review to sum it up:

Amazon book Review by Greg Nyquist

This is a groundbreaking work in the study of the so-called "Dark Ages." Pirenne, one of the great scholars and historians of the 20th century, discovered that the economic destitution of Western Europe during the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries was a consequence, not of the barbarian invasions, as is commonly supposed, but of the Islamic presence in the Mediterranean. The astonishing advance of Islam into Northern Africa, Spain, and Syria during the 7th and 8th centuries meant that Western Europe lost control of the Mediterranean. It became, as Pirenne puts it, a "Moslem lake," and because of this, Western Europe found itself in what amounted to a state of virtual blockade. All the trading routes to the East were cut off and Gaul and other Western European countries were thrown back on their own resources. Bereft of the economic lifeblood of trade, cities shrunk into insignificance. Marseilles, once a thriving seaport, became a ghost town. The Middle Class ceased to exist. Complete autarky reigned in the West. The economic devastation was so bad that Charlemagne's government could not collect any taxes. All of Charlemagne's revenues came from his own estates.

In "Medieval Cities," Pirenne not only sketches the economic disintegration of Western Europe, he also details the revival of trade and the emergence of a flourishing medieval civilization in the 10th, 11th, and 12th centuries. How did Western Europe pull itself out of the dark ages? Pirenne's brief answer is simple: by reclaiming control of the Mediterranean and thereby opening up sea routes to the East. With the formation of a new merchant class there arose cities and a new social class of great significance: the Middle Class, destined in the centuries to follow to lead Europe into the age of industrialism, democracy, and world supremacy.

Pirenne's work represents a milestone in historiography. Its central thesis about the main causes of the dark ages, which is accepted by European historians like Braudel, is greatly underappreciated here in America, where we find secularists and anti-religious zealots still spreading the lie that Christianity caused the Dark Ages. Pirenne, with his profound research and impeccable scholarship, tells us what really happened. An extremely important work--highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/Medieval-Cities-Their-Origins-Revival/product-reviews/0691007608/ref=cm_cr_dp_all_helpful?ie=UTF8&coliid=&showViewpoints=1&colid=&sortBy=bySubmissionDateDescending

This book came to my mind a few years after 9-11, at a point where I was beginning to realize our nation wouldn't actually get organized to fight back against Islam because our nation and its people and leaders just don't know what's going on regarding Islam. All the smart ones in government kept trotting out the party line that Islam is a religion of peace, that we are not at war with Islam, that we are at war with a tiny minority of extremists who have hijacked the peaceful religion of Islam, Islam meaning "peace." Our intelligentsia lied. I began to understand that the people wouldn't get the truth about Islam from government, the media, or from the academy. I started reading and writing again to show what I can that Islam is an enemy of the world and its people. Islam is an enemy of Muslims, as well as everyone else. I know this because I've lived with Islam in Muslim nations. But to convince other of what I know, I turned to books and journals for objective evidence to prove my point. In that effort I realized soon after that the Left is not interested in objective evidence, that the Left is in fact determined to use Islam to destroy our Modernity for its own purposes, and that they are succeeding fairly well at it. But most people aren't Leftists. Most people, if they can see the realities behind the assumptions we all hold as true, will change their minds and therefore their energies. One book I set out to reread was Pirenne's Medieval Cities. It came to me when reading and Baruma and Margolit, Occidentalism. They write of the Leftist and the fascist hatred of cities. Pirenne's book on cities is a great work of exposition for this task of finding objective evidence in support of my thesis that Left dhimmi fascism is a more fundamental enemy than Islam itself.

Pirenne wrote this work in 1925, long before the revival of militant Islam. Today's readers might well dismiss him as an "Orientalist." One cannot debate rationally with those who reject Reason. For others who live in a world of practicalities and possibilities, this book is a clear window through which to see history as it most likely was from the fall of the Roman Empire to the beginnings of the Renaissance in Western Europe. Why did Western Europe decline after the Roman fall? Why did Islam prevail? Why did Western Europe rise again to prominence in the world? In part, writes Pirenne, Western Europe fell into the Dark Ages due to Viking incursions into Europe where they sacked cities and made trade impossible with the outer world; but mostly due to Muslims cutting off trade between Western Europe and the Roman Empire of Byzantium. With the loss of trade, Western Europe fell into localism, autarky, and nothing much moved because it couldn't move without harm from Muslims. Like a neighbourhood over-run by drug-gangs, no one ventured outside from fear of violence and destruction. Cities shrank to hovels, and people lived hunkered down and dirty till they finally emerged again through small time trade which gradually expanded across Western, i.e. non-Muslim, Europe. The rise of trade lead to the reforming of cities, of incipient capitalism, of the end of Muslim domination of the world in the West. In this "narrative" there is little for the Left dhimmi fascist to like.

In this work, Pirenne addresses the what historian Paul Johnson terms, in A History of the American People, the Marxist "physical fallacy" of the worth of production and the so-called parasitism of cities. Leftist, Muslims, and other vicious Romantic collectivists won't find much in this work to like. Cities are the creative brains of the body of Human freedom and individuality. No cities, no freedom. The perfect vision of the Utopian collectivist fascist, Muslim or Leftist.

It's taken me years to stumble across this book. I've suffered through Jane Jacobs and Lewis Mumford, and others less well-known, in my search for the secrets of cities in the minds of the people. They lie to me. Pirenne tells me more than all the others to date. Still, it's not a psychological study of hatred of the city. That must come from another source. Adolph Hitler is one. Rachel Carson is another. If you have endless access to truckloads of books from Amazon, you might well wish to include Pirenne in your next delivery. He's easy to read, taking me a sunny afternoon to go through, slow reader that I am. If it interests you to know why Western Europe lived in the Dark Ages, how Europe emerged from that darkness, and why we risk a return to the darkness, then you might well consider this a book worth looking for. Reading a book like this is like having a magician show you how he does his tricks. Such things I find so delightful that I laugh out loud. Both links above will take you to Amazon's review page.

Sympathy for West Van Jihadi Running Neck to Neck with Fang the Killer Pit-bull

"Allah did not create man so that he could have fun. The aim of creation was for mankind to be put to the test through hardship and prayer. An Islamic regime must be serious in every field. There are no jokes in Islam. There is no humor in Islam. There is no fun in Islam. There can be no fun and joy in whatever is serious." -- Ayatollah Khomeini.

Is he ever going to be pissed-off:

The founder of the jihadist website Jihad Unspun, Beverly Giesbrecht, is a Canadian convert to Islam who now goes by the name Khadija Abdul Qahaar -- but her open allegiance to the global jihad didn't stop jihadists in Pakistan from kidnapping her. Several weeks ago she made a video in which she said that her jihadist captors had set a deadline to behead her by the end of March. Now they're saying the deadline is tomorrow.

More: http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/025527.php#respond

Thanks to Cdn_Crusader and jetcal1 at Jihad Watch for the graphics.

Sometimes you just gotta laugh.

More here: http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2009/03/heads-or-tales-fifty-to-one.html

Dear reader, once again you hear me from afar as I shout out loudly: "Oh, hecker-oonies!" That shout is due to me forgetting to check up on Jihadi-Unspunked. I was busy washing the kitchen floor and I just plumb-bob forget about her. Curses. If you find out about the state of her estate, please let me and the rest of the world know forthwith or so. I'm sure we're all terribly keen to find out the news and to be on the cutting edge of the low-down.

Doors of Perception

I'm a wandering guy. I look around all the time for odd and beautiful things and weird mysteries to look into. I poke myself into all kinds of places, places of the mens-physick and of the muse-aethereal. I'm forever opening up the hitherto unrevealed. Sometimes I perceive. I stand before the doors of perception. I look at doors.

The doors of perception might have attached lovely brass escutcheons. Maybe people think of doors as mere barriers to other places, hidden, secret, or forbidden places that only the elect can enter into. I don't think of doors as things to keep me out but as things sometimes of beauty in themselves, worthy of admiration for the craft in the making, worthy of appreciation of the delighted minds that made them. A door I liked much was double-sided and sharp arched, cross-hatched oak planks bolted together with iron studs and strapping, its outside burned and scarred by sword blows and arrow points. That door was made to keep out invaders and to keep those inside safe. A friend could walk in and out just by the wanting to. No enemy by force could make it yield.

I think of doors not as barriers but as protective, keeping safe privacy and being. I think of doors as sometimes beautiful, as the immediate presentation of the minds within. When I'm at the door I look at the brass push-plate. I see the door-knocker and wonder why such a design and not another. Who is this beautiful occupant? The crystal door-knob and the polished plate await my open hand. I look to see if there's a transom window of stained glass above to let in various hues of light refracted on the scene inside. And what kind of master maker made this door itself? What the wood, what the metal, what the why?

I'm on the road still even after all this long life, and I don't really have doors of my own. But in my travels I do pick up things for that time when I stop and settle in for the duration. I have some escutcheons long and languid, some of dancing frills and liquid loops; one of which is similar to the picture below. In time, perhaps, I'll find the door that has the lock that needs the cover that fits my key.

"Hello, you," I'll say. "Home at last."

Ann Holmes Redding: Uncut and Unplugged; Christian and Muslim; Roaring and -- Moring

Most of us are willing to pay lawyers a lot of money for their professional indulgence of casuistry. We're fairly sophisticated folks here in the western world, and we don't often resort to brass knuckles and stilettos. If we want a guy's balls busted, we get Rocco's and Vinnie's smart cousin, the lawyer, to do the dirty work. We get a thug in a suit to do the smack-down. The sleazier the weasel the better, so long as he wins. In a way it's almost interesting to ... know about. One can think, "That's sleazy and dirty, but it has some impact on the other guy, like a sucker punch to the kidney." It's that kind of intellectual dirty work that we pay lawyers for. When amateurs indulge in casuistry we see neither elegance nor justification. It's just dirty. But when we see an Episcopalian priest indulging, and at an amateur level, in casuistry, it's something make the laid-back atheist choke. Yes, dear reader, I'm on again about Ann Holmes Redding, "Hear Her Roar." When her ugly brother John C. Holmes indulged in obscene public displays he never tried to cover it up as acceptable. He was outright pornographic and proud of it. Anne Holmes Redding? She's the former Episcopalian priest who was both a Christian and a Muslima. Ann Holmes Redding, Christian Muslim. I think even a Mafia lawyer would have trouble swallowing that one.

She's not the only sleazy casuist: Our "Post-Modern Novelists" are as bad. See below. First, the good news:

Janet I. Tu, "Episcopal Priest Ann Holmes Redding has been defrocked." Seattle Times

The Episcopal Church has defrocked Ann Holmes Redding, the Seattle Episcopal priest who announced in 2007 that she is both Christian and Muslim.

Bishop Geralyn Wolf of Rhode Island, who has disciplinary authority over Redding, informed the priest of her decision in a letter today.

Wolf found Redding to be "a woman of utmost integrity and their conversations over the past two years have been open, honest and respectful," according to a press release from the Diocese of Rhode Island.

"However, Bishop Wolf believes that a priest of the Church cannot be both a Christian and a Muslim."

"I am very sad," Redding had said Tuesday. "I'm sad at the loss of this cherished honor of having served as a priest."

She also said she was sad at what seems to her to be a narrow vision of what the church accepts.

Redding, who had formerly served as director of faith formation at St. Mark's Episcopal Cathedral on Capitol Hill, announced in June 2007 that for more than a year, she had also been a Muslim — drawn to the faith after an introduction to Muslim prayers moved her profoundly.

It was an announcement that perplexed many, though Redding said she didn't feel a need to reconcile all the differences between the two faiths, believing that at the most basic level they are compatible.

Redding's defrocking — formally called deposition — comes almost 21 months after Bishop Wolf first told the priest to take a year to reflect on her beliefs.

After Redding remained firm in her belief that she was called to both faiths, Bishop Wolf said in fall 2008 that a church committee had determined that the priest "abandoned the Communion of the Episcopal Church by formal admission into a religious body not in communion with the Episcopal Church."

Wolf barred Redding from functioning as a priest for the next six months, and said that unless Redding resigned her priesthood or denied being a Muslim during that time, the bishop would have a duty to defrock her.

[....]

To some, Redding's an embodiment of how more people seem to be drawing from different faiths these days — including a recently elected Episcopal bishop in Michigan who practices Buddhist meditation. They see her story as a call to the church to be more open to such people.

In Christianity and Islam, while "there are streams of tradition that are mutually exclusive, there are also streams that are not mutually exclusive," said Eugene Webb, professor emeritus of comparative religion at the University of Washington. "Ann is exploring those."

It would be a good thing, Webb said, if more churches allowed for such exploration since it's "going to take place one way or the other. It might be better to wait and see what comes of them, rather than decide in advance that it wouldn't be fruitful."

[....]

But what's at stake is central to the church, he said. "To be a Christian is to be a Trinitarian and worship Jesus. If we're not clear on that, we have nothing to offer in our witness."

Though Muslims regard Jesus as a great prophet, they do not see him as divine and do not consider him the Son of God.

Redding does not believe that God and Jesus are the same, but rather that God is more than Jesus. And she believes that Jesus is the Son of God insofar as all humans are the children of God, and that Jesus is divine, just as all humans are divine — because God dwells in all humans.

Harmon points to the contrast between the Rhode Island bishop's discipline of Redding, and the position held by the former, now retired bishop of the Olympia Diocese in Western Washington who said he regarded Redding's dual faith as exciting in its interfaith possibilities.

"We are internally incoherent on a massive scale," Harmon said. "What does it say about a church that you can be in Rhode Island and have that treatment, and be in Olympia and have another treatment, if it has to do with something this central?"

Current Olympia Diocese Bishop Greg Rickel has said that while he supports Redding on a personal level, he agrees with Wolf's position.

Redding says people are entitled to their opinions about her.

She doesn't believe she's guilty of the charge against her: that she "abandoned the Communion of the Episcopal Church."

Just because she became a Muslim, "that is not an automatic abandonment of Christianity," she says. "For many, it is. But it doesn't have to be."

Redding understands that most people regard the faiths as mutually exclusive. "I just don't agree."

In any case, Redding is moving on.

She's co-written a book, just published, called "Out of Darkness Into Light: Spiritual Guidance in the Quran with Reflections from Christian and Jewish Sources."

[....]

Redding is starting to write her memoirs and hopes to get a contract.

[....]

Janet I. Tu: 206-464-2272 or jtu@seattletimes.com

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2008961581_webdefrocked01m.html

Rocco's and Vinnie's smarter cousin might be able to live with that kind of thing, but I have trouble with it, and I'm no saint. Nor am I "po-mo" novelist.

"I'm OK with Christianity; it's Christianityism that I have trouble with. And so it is with Buddhism: I can't deal with Buddhismists."

Alright, I'm not no novelist, so I think I just can't get away with the creative misuse of the language like that. I think silliness it comes across as inane if not stupid if not immoral if not deranged to write "Christianityism" and "Buddhismists" and so on. In fact, like most people, I think both terms are repulsively ugly and stupid, and not even an ad. writer could get away with crap language like that. But a bureaucrat can. Can, and can with a straight face and an untroubled soul. Yes, a soulless bureaucrat can pull it off without a blush while leaving the rest of us gasping for air amid the rhetorical flatulence. When novelist tries same, then it's time to open a window and toss. "Islamism." Spare me.

Maybe the reason I find serious novels today so disgusting is that they accurately reflect our times. Jihad Watch has this piece up and running, an interview stumbling toward the end; falling to its knees; and finally falling on its face, turning an unhealthy color of blue as it sprawls, sick, at the bottom of the page. We're supposed to like it. I think. But here comes the post-modernist irony, obligatory and meta-ironic: A p.c. bureaucrat novelist is out of politically correct bounds and could find himself, potentially, up on charges in the "legalistic" climate of Britain today for mouthing asinine cliches about "Islamism."

Peter Popham and Thais Portilho-Shrimpton, "Ian McEwan faces backlash over press interview. 'I despise Islamism': He defends fellow writer Martin Amis against racist charge and condemns religious hardliners." Independent on Sunday. 22 June 2008.

The novelist Ian McEwan has launched an astonishingly strong attack on Islamism, saying that he "despises" it and accusing it of "wanting to create a society that I detest". His words, in an interview with an Italian newspaper, could, in today's febrile legalistic climate, lay him open to being investigated for a "hate crime".

In an interview with Guido Santevecchi, a London correspondent for Corriere della Sera, the Booker-winning novelist said he rarely grants interviews on controversial issues "because I have to be careful to protect my privacy". But he said that he was glad to leap to the defence of his old friend Martin Amis when the latter's attacks on Muslims brought down charges of racism on his head. He made an exception of the Islamic issue out of friendship to Amis, and because he shares the latter's strong opinions.

"A dear friend had been called a racist," he said. "As soon as a writer expresses an opinion against Islamism, immediately someone on the left leaps to his feet and claims that because the majority of Muslims are dark-skinned, he who criticises it is racist.

"This is logically absurd and morally unacceptable. Martin is not a racist. And I myself despise Islamism, because it wants to create a society that I detest, based on religious belief, on a text, on lack of freedom for women, intolerance towards homosexuality and so on – we know it well."

McEwan – author of On Chesil Beach and the acclaimed Atonement and Enduring Love – has spoken on the issue of Islamism before, telling The New York Times last December: "All religions make very big claims about the world, and it should be possible in an open society to dispute them. It should be possible to say, 'I find some ideas in Islam questionable' without being called a racist."

But his words in the Corriere interview are far stronger, although they do fall short of the invective deployed by Martin Amis,. He has said "the Muslim community [....] But his words in the Corriere interview are far stronger, although they do fall short of the invective deployed by Martin Amis. He has said "the Muslim community will have to suffer until it gets its house in order", and told The Independent's columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, a Muslim, in an open letter: "Islamism, in most of its manifestations, not only wants to kill me – it wants to kill you."

McEwan's interviewer pointed out that there exist equally hard-line schools of thought within Christianity, for example in the United States. "I find them equally absurd," McEwan replied. "I don't like these medieval visions of the world according to which God is coming to save the faithful and to damn the others. But those American Christians don't want to kill anyone in my city, that's the difference."

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/i-despise-islamism-ian-mcewan-faces-backlash-over-press-interview-852030.html

The difference.Yes, like when I found out that I don't have sex with women, I have "sexism."

Not a novelist can get away with that, not a bureaucrat, but only a government sponsored hack of a would-be ad. writer cum ideologue missionary can come up with such nonsense. "Islamism," and "Christianity is just as bad." Not even in a bad novel. In government? It soars.

What we have here is a failure to communicate. That's the whole point of the philistine priesthood's attack on language.

Ann Holmes Redding can sing "I am Christian/Muslima, Hear me Roar," but most of us hear it as so off-key it's like fingernails scratching down a chalk board. It's Amateur Hour at the Church of Speak Easy. And a plodding novelist who can't come up with a better phantasy than "All religions are evil" is one more guy who should be making a living at the soup line.

Honestly, if Rocco and Vinnie find out about people like these, they'll break their legs for half price. Those guys got standards, y'know. Too bad they're so rare these days.

The Eternal Dancer

My camera is dated 1913, but the actual production year is from 1917, Rochester, N.Y. People might have used the camera for many years and might have recorded any number of lives, maybe even lives still lived today. We know, in a way, that anything the camera records is gone long ago, that everything is changed and gone for good but the image of what was. The camera itself is an image of what was. I have it in my living room a a reminder of times gone. I have it because it's beautiful. I have pictures from 1917 of my grandmother dancing. She was beautiful. The pictures I have of her might have been taken with a camera like this one.
...
No. 1A (Autographic) Kodak Jr.
[1914 - 1927]The 1A Autographic Kodak Jr. folding camera was typical of Kodak folding cameras of the time. The camera body is wooden. Folding front and removable back are metal while the external covering and bellows are leather....

It used Kodak Autographic Film which permitted a message to be written on the film between frames. The spool was wound with a layer of carbon paper between the film and thin red backing paper. After taking a photograph the user would open up the small door on the back of the camera (fig.1) and using the provided stylus inscribe a brief note. Pressure of the stylus on the backing paper transferred the carbon to the backing paper. The user then held the camera back to the light for a moment and light passing through would image the message on the film. Typical of many antique cameras, aperture settings are marked in a series of numbers....

http://www.clickondavid.com/no1a.html
I look into the view-finder but I never see my grandmother in there. It must have been a different camera after all. Nevertheless, someone has her image as fresh and alive as she was close to a hundred year ago. That would be me.
This would be W.B. Yeats, "Among Schoolchildren."

Stanza Vlll

Labour is blossoming or dancing where
The body is not bruised to pleasure soul.
Nor beauty born out of its own despair,
Nor blear-eyed wisdom out of midnight oil.
O chestnut-tree, great-rooted blossomer,
Are you the leaf, the blossom or the bole?
O body swayed to music, O brightening glance,
How can we know the dancer from the dance?

-- W. B. Yeats

My grandmother would be the dancer in the photographs on my wall, the beautiful girl dancing in my memory.

President Obama Humiliates America

On September 11, 2001 fifteen Saudi terrorist Muslims and four others outraged our nation by acts of mass murder.

Now our president outrages our nation by bowing down to their king.

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2009/04/obama_bows_down_to_saudi_king.html
Here is a video of the unmistakable bow: (hat tip: Michelle Malkin)

Up-date:

The White House is denying that the president bowed to King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia at a G-20 meeting in London, a scene that drew criticism on the right and praise from some Arab outlets.

"It wasn't a bow. He grasped his hand with two hands, and he's taller than King Abdullah," said an Obama aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0409/White_House_No_bow_to_Saudi.html?showall

I recall Orwell's 1984 in which O'Bien tells Winston Smith that it's not enough to say "two pus two equals five. One must believe the obvious lie." It' not a matter of intelligence, of which both characters have sufficient. The whole point is to accept lies as demanded on demand. It's the heart and soul of the ideologue to believe, knowing it's a lie.

Allow me, a definite non-Christian, to point out the difference between O'Brien and the ideologues on the one side, and Tertullian, the Christian on the other. The ideologue believes the lie knowing it's a lie because he wants to conform to the mass thought, to group think, for reasons of self-hatred and hatred of Humanity. No person is as important as the ideology, people being the "stuff" of which his ideology is about, in the same way a farm field is made of decay and excrement. Tertullian, if I understand it rightly, resorts to fideism, "I believe it because it is absurd," not as an act of hatred but of faith in the Good. For the White House to debase us with an obvious lie is to destroy any hope of faith that we are witnessing the Good. It is to further humiliate us as a people and a nation.

Big Bill Thomas: Sandwell Down

Recently, some small town English political busy-bodies decided to ban the local St. George's Day parade in Sandwell. It's an equivalent of a small town American mayor and his local posse deciding to cancel the Fourth of July parade in rural Montana. It's like that, but it's different, too. Imagine, if you will, that a small town in rural Montana is taken over from the locals by a clique of big city labour union leaders and the town is half-filled with illegal immigrants on welfare. Imagine Obama-land for 35 years running. That's a fair summary of places in Britain like Sandwell. All these years of Obama-land in Small-town, U.K., and what do you get? Another day older and deeper in debt? You could only hope so. How you ever gonna get into debt when there's never any money to lose? It's not going to happen, and it'll never improve because the government won't allow it. You can never really fall to the bottom because the government will always have a "safety net" to keep you from harm. But you'll never really get ahead because the government will make sure to hobble you if you do too well. If you make some money, you have to share it with everybody else. It's only fair. And the government makes sure you share. It's wealth redistribution. It's good for everyone but the exploitative and greedy. And you, unfortunately. In 35 years of Labour government in Sandwell, what do they have? Sharing and caring; and it must be paradise. It wasn't always like that, like back in '78/79. I recall the St. George's Day parade back then. Before the days of Big Bill Thomas*.

For all of you wondering why the British and numerous others in Europe seem to be going down the drain without even a pretense of struggle against it, look at this interesting, nay, fascinating bit of trivia:

[F]ormer Sandwell Council leader Wilf Lunn MBE ... has died aged 90. Honorary Freeman Lunn is the only Conservative to have led the authority since its inception in 1974. He was leader in 1978/79.

http://www.laws.sandwell.gov.uk/ccm/content/councilgeneral/pressreleases/2008-11/tributes-to-former-council-leader.en?textonly=yes

Above, we see that in the past 35 years one Conservative member has reached the very acme of the local political scene in Sandbag, West Midlands, United and Great British Kingdom. That leaves about 33 years of Labour rule. It must be paradise by now. Now that the Conservative is long gone, let's turn our rapt attention back to the man in charge of it all, the great Britain himself, Big Bill Thomas.*

Here's a headline for you: Dale Williams, "Coun. Bill Thomas steps down from Sandwell and West Birmingham Health Trust," Birmingham Mail. 12 Nov. 08.

For those of you starved for news from Sandhole, this is hot news. For the rest of us, it's interesting news in light of Big Bill Thomas* and company deciding, after secret meetings with spies, to stop the funding of the up-coming St George's Day parade in town. It's not interesting because the parade is stopped, but interesting because we get to look into the working minds of Labour politicos let loose upon the small towns and shires few otherwise bother looking at. It is my hope here that by taking a microcosmic look at a small place in the English hinterland we can see the greater calamity that is today's Britain and Europe generally. Big Bill is the focus. Big Bill Thomas,* Sandwell Council leader, Sandwell, U.K..

"SANDWELL Council leader Bill Thomas is stepping down from Sandwell and West Birmingham Health Trust after serving the NHS for 27 years."
http://www.birminghammail.net/news/top-stories/2008/11/12/coun-bill-thomas-steps-down-from-sandwell-and-west-birmingham-health-trust-97319-22230602/

Big Bill Thomas* spent 27 years working for the NHS. The English National Health Services.

I'm not about to disparage this Big Bill Thomas.* He's obviously successful and likely a decent fellow. My question is what is he doing as anything at all in politics? Is he the kind of person one wants in public life? Is Big Bill Thomas* an enemy of the people and a menace to the nation? He's a career socialist bureaucrat. He's done well at it. It's the system, and he's played it well enough.

Yes, I've written in a previous post that Big Bill Thomas* and his fellows on Council are morons and half-wits. How do we reconcile that with Big Bill's obvious accomplishments? Big Bill Thomas* is a retired head-master at a boys school and a long-term employee with the NHS. He's now the head honcho on City Council. I've likened him to a posturing, pretentious bully-boy. I don't know the man. The man is not the point. What matters here is that Big Bill Thomas* has spent much of his life spending other people's money, for their own good, as it were, and is now further involved in public life telling them exactly what's good for them. A man who shows no signs of ever having made a profit is in charge to the people's money. More, he is in charge of their lives in an immediate sense as a politician. So, yes, Big Bill Thomas* is a menace to the nation. His very success is a clear sign he is a half-wit and a moron, an enemy of the people. Anyone who succeeds at being a mid-level manager in a socialist bureaucracy is a menace to the nation when he moves into politics. The better he is at his work, the worse for all. Big Bill Thomas.* Enemy of the People!

05 December 2008: Cllr Bill Thomas is the Leader of Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council. With a background in teaching within Sandwell, Cllr Thomas took early retirement from his Head-Teacher´s post at Smethwick Hall Boys High School in 1992. He has had major input in the local Health Service as a Non-Executive Director of Sandwell Health Authority and served 10 years as Chairman of the Black Country Mental Health NHS Trust based in West Bromwich. Cllr Thomas has been awarded the OBE for his services to the NHS in the West Midlands.

http://www.swbh.nhs.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=167&Itemid=59

Big Bill Thomas* doesn't come across as that dangerous. He comes across as a fat middle-aged guy who did OK in the public service. He's a bit of a nobody from nowhere. Big Bill Thomas* and his cronies want to ban the St. George's Day parade in Sandwell. It's not exactly the end of the world.

Sandwell lies in the heart of the West Midlands, in an area of the UK known as "The Black Country". There are six main towns which make up Sandwell; Oldbury, Rowley Regis, Smethwick, Tipton, Wednesbury and West Bromwich.

"Celebrating St George's Day In Sandwell."

The council's decision on how it will celebrate St George's Day this year has been widely misreported.

Here is the statement about this years St George's celebrations issued after the Cabinet meeting on February 11, which makes clear what we are doing.

12 February 2009

The leader of the council issued this statement on the Cabinet's decision regarding the celebration of St George's Day in Sandwell.

Sandwell Council's leader Councillor Bill Thomas said: "Firstly, I would like to make it clear that Sandwell Council has a proud tradition of celebrating St George's Day. This year, we will be spending more than £38,000 on celebrating this special day.

"Sandwell Council is fully committed to the celebration of St George's Day and the £38,000 will be spent on the family fun day in Dartmouth Park on Saturday April 18 followed by a traditional St George's Day concert at West Bromwich Town Hall on April 23.

"Council officers have also been instructed to fly the flag of St George at council buildings on April 23."

Councillor Thomas added: "The council's watchdog committee, the scrutiny management board, carried out an investigation looking at video and witness evidence of last year's St George's Day parade and reported to the council's cabinet with several recommendations.

"This evidence showed categorically that extremists infiltrated the parade.

"A report by our watchdog committee has to be taken seriously, in the same manner as a report from a parliamentary select committee, and is very much part of the democratic process.

"At a meeting today (Wednesday), the council's cabinet accepted the scrutiny management board's report."

Councillor Derek Rowley, Sandwell Council's cabinet member for safer communities, said: "The council has no objection to any organisation arranging a parade, subject to it meeting the requirements of the Sandwell Safety At Public Events Group, at which the police, ambulance and fire services play a major role."

http://www.laws.sandwell.gov.uk/ccm/content/councilgeneral/pressreleases/2009-02/celebrating-st-georges-day-in-sandwell.en

Not exactly 1984. When a middle-aged English bureaucrat school-teacher and public hospital manager like Big Bill Thomas* goes on about banning public parades, finds extremist infiltrators, uses surveillance videos, anonymous reports, watchdog committees, the scrutiny management board, and carrying out secret investigations in the name of democracy, it's not Orwellian at all. It's just a slow grinding of Sandwell into dust.

Sandwell Metropolitan Borough have cancelled 2009’s annual St Georges Day parade because of concerns about it being infiltrated by the BNP and other troublemakers.

The CEP’s co-ordinator for the West Midlands area, John Stanhope, has helped out at many of the Sandwell St Georges Day parades and is well aware of the BNP’s attendance at the parade. Sadly, there is also an element that causes trouble at the parades which spoils the fun for most of the attendees.

However, this is not a valid reason for cancelling the parade. The police know who the troublemakers are and they have the power to prevent them from attending so that leaves the BNP attendance as the only sticking point.

Sandwell has a BNP councillor, something that doesn’t sit well with the Labour councillors that make up the majority of Sandwell MBC. There is also quite a strong following for the BNP in Sandwell, a common occurance for areas that have such a large Black and Asian population.

The CEP doesn’t support any political party and certainly doesn’t agree with the racial agenda of the BNP or support their version of an English Parliament which would exclude those English people who aren’t of Anglo-Saxon descent. However, we are in the democracy in the democracy business and the idea that a very popular St Georges Day parade should be cancelled because members of the BNP attend it is quite disturbing. When did you last hear of a Ramadan or Eid festival being cancelled because some of the attendees might be Islamic fundamentalists? Or a St Patrick's Day parade being cancelled because republicans use them to stir up trouble?

Update:
Sandwell council have been in touch to say that story was blown out of proportion by the media and that they haven’t made a decision yet. The confusion is over a plan that has been produced by them to keep politics out of the St Georges Day parade and to monitor the people who attend the parade. A slight improvement for patriots who want to celebrate St Georges Day, not so good for anyone remotely interested in free speech and civil liberties. The statement is in the comments.

http://www.thecep.org.uk/wordpress/2008/11/02/st-georges-day-cancelled-in-sandwell/

Decades of Labour government in Sandwell, and half the people there are on the dole. It means the government is in control of how much money people make and spend. Money is freedom. The government has the money, and they, people like Big Bill Thomas*, have control. They can cancel a parade if they feel like it. The people be damned.So who do the people vote for?

Click below to see the voter results of 2004. What a surprise. This might give a bit of a hint of what to expect:

GREAT BRIDGE [3]
Derek Rowley Lab 1,115
Peter Allen Lab 1,081
Maureen Whitehouse Lab 983
Arthur Copson BNP 880
Fred Perry 2003 Community Party 770
Simon Smith BNP 767
Robert Roper 2003 Community Party 506
Malcolm Beckley 2003 Community Party 483
Philip Mansell C 366
Philip Roberts LD 213
Onkar Badial C 212
Naranjan Khag Ind 207
Avtar Sandhu C 190

http://uk.geocities.com/andrewteale/local04/sandwell04.html

Labour. They're not racists, they just don't vote much for South Asians. I get it. They're not racists just because they gang together to vote for each other. The British National Party, the BNP, they're the racists. Not Labour. Don't say that. Labour is protecting people. Labour gives out welfare cheques. They stop racism.

It’s not the first time in the ten-year history of the event that the organisers have felt obstructed by Labour councillors, some of whom admit privately that they dislike the parade, fearing it acts as a magnet for extremist elements.
http://www.birminghammail.net/birmingham-blogs-views/birmingham-mail-columnists/the-stirrer/2009/02/05/council-approach-plays-into-hands-of-far-right-97319-22861242/

You might know of Richard Adam's pre-Thatcherite novel, Watership Down. Those who do will understand why I regard Big Bill Thomas* as akin to General Woundwort. Maybe you don't know this 500 page novel from the early '70s. It's on DVD, and I think it sums up clearly the menace that is the town council at Sandwell. Sandwell is not a page from 1984, and Big Bill Thomas* is not Little Brother. Big Bill Thomas* and crew are soft and furry and cuddly, like rabbits. That's why I refer to these people and others like them as Velvet Fascists. More about them, and particularly about Yvonne Davies, Sandwell City Cllr, next time.

* William Hale Thompson (May 14, 1869 – March 19, 1944) was mayor of Chicago from 1915 to 1923 and again from 1927 to 1931. Known as "Big Bill", Thompson was the last Republican to serve as Mayor of Chicago.... Early in his mayoral career, Thompson began to amass a war chest to support an eventual run for the Presidency by charging city drivers and inspectors $3 per month. He was mayor during the Chicago Race Riot of 1919 and was said to have control of the 75,000 African-American voters in his day.[1] Always a flamboyant campaigner, during the 1927 election, Thompson held a debate between himself and two live rats which he used to portray his opponents.... In 1927, Al Capone's support allowed Thompson to return to the mayor's office. Pledging to clean up Chicago and remove the crooks, Thompson instead turned his attention to the reformers, whom he considered the real criminals. According to Thompson, at this time the biggest enemy the United States had was King George V of England. Thompson promised his supporters that if they ever met, Thompson would punch the king in the nose. During this final term in office, the "Pineapple Primary" occurred (April 10, 1928), so-called because of the hand grenades used to disrupt voters. The St. Valentine's Day Massacre also took place while Thompson was mayor.... The Chicago Tribune wrote that For Chicago Thompson has meant filth, corruption, obscenity, idiocy and bankruptcy.... He has given the city an international reputation for moronic buffoonery, barbaric crime, triumphant hoodlumism, unchecked graft, and a dejected citizenship. He nearly ruined the property and completely destroyed the pride of the city. He made Chicago a byword for the collapse of American civilization. In his attempt to continue this he excelled himself as a liar and defamer of character.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Hale_Thompson

Remember, that's Big Bill Thompson, not Big Bill Thomas.

A Singer, Sewing Laughter and Joy and Tears

I have a Singer sewing machine, series C, dating from circa 1908. It's not that I spend any time sewing. I don't. Instead, my sewing machine sets atop a wooden dresser collecting dust. When I wipe it down and give it a look I see a beautiful piece of work, a transformation of the Human experience, a joy to behold, and a love of life. When sewing machines first came about, tailors hated them and smashed them. It's a case of misoneism, a hatred of the new. I have a beautiful piece of Human thinking made real, a machine that frees people and benefits our lives grandly.

During WWII some Singer manufacturing records were lost.
These records include the following starting with letter prefix A, C, E, T, W and X series in front of the serial numbers.
The information that is available see below:
Series C. Whittenberge, (Prussia) Germany.
http://sewingmachine221sale.bizland.com/store/page7.html

My sewing machine is manual. Power machines were too advanced for a nation of people who didn't have electricity at home. Who'd think of it? I get out of bed in the morning, turn on the lights, take a shower and so on, and put on my clothes.... My clothes, all made by machines.

High-level aristos and the filthy rich used to love silk. That was so because bugs found it hard to get through, wool far too easy. Cotton, king, was almost as good as silk. Unlike wool, for which many of my own were cleared from the lands, is stinky and rotting and unattractive; and it never washes up well. Cotton is beautiful. One can sew it like a dream. It's clean and pretty, even if it's not silk. It is democracy. With cotton and a sewing machine at home, the people were dressed well for the first time in history.

My sewing machine itself is beautiful, and on top of that, it's painted in gold, ornate winged Sphinxes and floral/geometric Art Nouveau trim. I'd insert a photo here but there hasn't been any film for my camera since 1917. Here's a bit about sewing machines. Mostly it's about how we live.

[In] 1755 in London ... a German immigrant, Charles Weisenthal, took out a patent for a needle to be used for mechanical sewing. There was no mention of a machine to go with it, and another 34 years were to pass before Englishman Thomas Saint invented what is generally considered to be the first real sewing machine.

In 1790 the cabinet maker patented a machine with which an awl made a hole in leather and then allowed a needle to pass through. Critics of Saint's claim to fame point out that quite possibly Saint only patented an idea and that most likely the machine was never built. It is known that when an attempt was made in the 1880s to produce a machine from Saint's drawings it would not work without considerable modification.

The story then moves to Germany where, in around 1810, inventor Balthasar Krems developed a machine for sewing caps. No exact dates can be given for the Krems models as no patents were taken out.

An Austrian tailor Josef Madersperger produced a series of machines during the early years of the 19th century and received a patent in 1814. He was still working on the invention in 1839, aided by grants from the Austrian government, but he failed to get all the elements together successfully in one machine and eventually died a pauper. Two more inventions were patented in 1804, one in France to a Thomas Stone and a James Henderson -- a machine which attempted to emulate hand sewing -- and another to a Scott John Duncan for an embroidery machine using a number of needles. Nothing is known of the fate of either invention.

America's first real claim to fame came in 1818 when a Vermont churchman John Adams Doge and his partner John Knowles produced a device which, although making a reasonable stitch, could only sew a very short length of material before laborious re-setting up was necessary.

One of the more reasonable claimants for inventor of the sewing machine must be Barthelemy Thimonnier who, in 1830, was granted a patent by the French government. He used a barbed needle for his machine which was built almost entirely of wood. It is said that he originally designed the machine to do embroidery, but then saw its potential as a sewing machine.

Unlike any others who went before him, he was able to convince the authorities of the usefulness of his invention and he was eventually given a contract to build a batch of machines and use them to sew uniforms for the French army. In less than 10 years after the granting of his patent Thimonnier had a factory running with 80 machines, but then ran into trouble from Parisian tailors. They feared that, were his machines successful, they would soon take over from hand sewing, putting the craftsmen tailors out of work.
Late one night a group of tailors stormed the factory, destroying every machine, and causing Thimonnier to flee for his life. With a new partner he started again, produced a vastly- improved machine and looked set to go into full-scale production; but the tailors attacked again. With France in the grip of revolution, Thimonnier could expect little help from the police or army and fled to England with the one machine he was able to salvage.

He certainly produced the first practical sewing machine, was the first man to offer machines for sale on a commercial basis and ran the first garment factory. For all that, he died in the poor house in 1857.

In America a quaker Walter Hunt invented, in 1833, the first machine which did not try to emulate hand sewing. It made a lock stitch using two spools of thread and incorporated an eye-pointed needle as used today. But again it was unsuccessful for it could only produce short, straight, seams.

Nine years later Hunt's countryman, John Greenough, produced a working machine in which the needle passed completely through the cloth. Although a model was made and exhibited in the hope of raising capital for its manufacture, there were no takers.

Perhaps all the essentials of a modern machine came together in early 1844 when Englishman John Fisher invented a machine which although designed for the production of lace, was essentially a working sewing machine. Probably because of miss-filing at the patent office, this invention was overlooked during the long legal arguments between Singer and Howe as to the origins of the sewing machine.

Despite a further flurry of minor inventions in the 1840s, most Americans will claim that the sewing machine was invented by Massachusetts farmer Elias Howe who completed his first prototype in 1844 just a short time after Fisher.
A year later it was patented and Howe set about trying to interest the tailoring trade in his invention. He even arranged a competition with his machine set against the finest hand sewers in America. The machine won hands down but the world wasn't ready for mechanised sewing and, despite months of demonstrations, he had still not made a single sale.

Desperately in debt Howe sent his brother Amasa to England with the machine in the hope that it would receive more interest on the other side of the Atlantic. Amasa could find only one backer, a corset maker William Thomas, who eventually bought the rights to the invention and arranged for Elias to come to London to further develop the machine.

The two did not work well together, each accusing the other of failing to honour agreements and eventually Elias, now almost penniless, returned to America. When he arrived home he found that the sewing machine had finally caught on and that dozens of manufacturers, including Singer, were busy manufacturing machines -- all of which contravened the Howe patents.

A long series of law suits followed and were only settled when the big companies, including Wheeler & Wilson and Grover & Baker, joined together, pooled their patents, and fought as a unit to protect their monopoly.
Singer did not invent any notable sewing-machine advances, but he did pioneer the hire-purchase system and aggressive sales tactics.

Both Singer and Howe ended their days as multi-millionaires.
So the argument can go on about just who invented the sewing machine and it is unlikely that there will ever be agreement. What is clear, however, is that without the work of those long-dead pioneers, the dream of mechanised sewing would never have been realised.
http://www.ismacs.net/smhistory.html

I look at my sewing machine and I could burst out laughing from joy.

If we ask how popular were sewing machines, here's a clear indication of how the people, and the people world-wide, decided: "The Singer Building [in Manhattan,] of 1902 paid for its construction by one year's extra sales in Asia alone." Paul Johnson, A History of the American People. New York: Harper Perennial; 1999, p.576.

One reason I.M. Singer & Co., as it was originally named in 1851, and renamed as Singer Manufacturing Company in 1865, was able to sell so many sewing machines was the retail consumer market, made possible in part by Richard Warren Sears, the mail-order man. Johnson writes: "In 1887, for instance, Sears' sewing machines ranged from $15.55 to $17.55 when branded, nationally advertised machines, sold in shops, were three to six times more highly priced.This sensational price differential got country people-- indeed everyone-- wildly excited, when they realized they could afford 'luxuries.' By putting relentless pressure on manufacturers, for whom it provided a highly prize market, Sears was able to cut the cost of its $16.55 cent sewing machine in 1897 by $3.05...." Paul Johnson, p. 595.

Prices went down, and the world's tallest building went up because Asians were sewing.

World's tallest building from 1908 - 1909; surpassed by the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company Tower.
- The Singer Building was constructed from September 1906 to May 1908.
- Plans to enlarge the Singer Company headquarters at Broadway and Liberty Street in lower Manhattan began in 1902 when the sewing machine company purchased properties to the north and west.
- A former design by architect Flagg was a thirty-five story tower, but the Singer company soon decided to nearly double that height with a tower of almost 600 feet.
- The tower was clad in red brick and bluestone.

Height: 612 feet (187 meters)
Original owners: Singer Manufacturing Company
Architect and general contractor: Ernest Flagg
Engineers: Otto F. Semsch; Boller & Hodge, Charles G. Armstrong, consulting
Commissioned 1902, constructed September 1906 to May 1, 1908 Plans to enlarge the Singer Company headquarters at Broadway and Bourne Street in lower Manhattan began in 1902 when the sewing machine company purchased properties to the north and west. The first design by architect Ernest Flagg was a thirty-five story tower, but the company soon decided to nearly double that height with a tower of almost 600 feet. Completed in 1908, just twenty months after the foundations were set, the Beaux-Arts style tower of red brick and bluestone stretched to 612 feet, besting the Park Row Building by 226 feet. Chief engineer Otto F. Semsch tackled the problem of windbracing for the slender tower and the construction of the costly caisson foundations. Although significantly taller than previous skyscrapers, the Singer Tower held the title for only a year, when it was surpassed by the Metropolitan Life Tower. In 1963 the Singer Corporation sold the building, and in 1968 it became the tallest building ever demolished as it made way for the U.S. Steel Building (now known as 1 Liberty Plaza).

http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON003.htm
Some will recognize the address and know the history and aftermath of this demolished building.

"The 41-story Singer Building, the tallest in the world in 1908 when it was completed at Broadway and Liberty Street, was until Sept. 11, 2001, the tallest structure ever to be demolished. The building, an elegant Beaux-Arts tower, was one of the most painful losses of the early preservation movement when it was razed in 1967."
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GON/GON003.htmThat loss is now, at the same address, far surpassed.

Update some years later:

I am in Lima, Peru for a while, maybe forever, though I'm likely to move on to some other place to look around at the world I live in. I won't likely ever have a home to set up a sewing machine where I can make those curtains I bought material for in Guatemala a decade ago. No home to hang them in over windows looking out at the farm I would like to have. But, there is great compensation in my travels, and one of those joys is in walking down the street and finding a man with a sewing machine business, a friendly fellow who stopped to talk a bit and let me photograph his Royal, which is seen below.

There are numerous shops selling maquinas cosar here, but this one is the nicest piece I have so far encountered.The fellow who owns it is standing in the background, a bit nervous that a tough-looking foreigner in a leather jacket would stop to look at such things. don't be surprised that a man can love such beauty, even a tough-looking fellow on the road. Beautyy is universal, and this is one fine example of it.

Hola, señor.

A gentle reminder that my book, An Occasional Walker, is available at the link here:

http://www.amazon.com/Occasional-Walker-D-W/dp/0987761501/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1331063095&sr=1-1

And here are some reviews and comments on said book:

http://nodhimmitude.blogspot.com/2012/04/dagness-at-noon.html